Crime and Consequences

Judicial Confirmations: The LA Times has this editorial on confirmation of judicial nominees. Following the most recent confirmation, there are "10 pending nominations to appeals courts and 18 to district courts that should not be put on hold in hopes that a Democrat will be elected president in November."

Parent's Lawsuit: The Washington Post has this editorial on a suit against the city by the father of a 16-year-old girl allegedly killed by her mother. It seems the father wasn't too concerned about the girl while she was alive. "Paternity wasn't established until Brittany was 10; child support was spotty, and eventually all contact was lost. Mr. Penn is said not to have known how to find his daughter; apparently the idea of hiring a lawyer occurred to him only after her body was found."

Posted by CJLF Staff at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hillary Clinton has announced a crime plan. AP story here. Campaign blog post here.

I'm pleased to see that the crime issue is getting attention in the presidential race, and some of the elements in the plan are encouraging. Making prisoners work 40 hour weeks has long been needed. Unfortunately, it appears that Senator Clinton has bought into the myth that our prisons are chock full of drug "offenders" who are there merely for personal use as opposed to sale.

Conspicuously absent is any mention of the federal government's role in blocking the enforcement of Pennsylvania's death penalty and thereby denying its people the benefits of deterrence. What kinds of judges will you appoint to the Third Circuit and Pennsylvania District Courts, Sen. Clinton? Will your AG certify Pennsylvania under Chapter 154 of 28 U.S.C.? Of course, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court bears a large share of the blame, and there is nothing the feds can do about that, but the federal role is also significant. If you are going to talk about cutting the murder rate in half, you should address this issue.

Posted by Kent Scheidegger at 05:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The "redacted" version of Volume 4 of the Joint Appendix has now been filed with the Court, and it has been added to our Baze v. Rees document collection.

Posted by Kent Scheidegger at 05:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Urban Institute Report: Thanks to Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy a post on the Urban Institute's Report on treating drug offenders. The report is titled "To Treat or Not to Treat: Evidence on the Prospects of Expanding Treatment to Drug-Involved Offenders." The link to full the report can be found here.

Of course, given the Urban Institute's track record, see, e.g., here, everything they say must be taken with a heaping tablespoon of salt.

Possible Supreme Court Judge Appointments: Orin Kerr at Volokh Conspiracy also has this comment on Senator Barack Obama's recent comments on qualities he would look for in a Supreme Court Justice nominee.

Posted by Lauren Altdoerffer at 03:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Death Penalty Methods. AP writer Joe Milicia reported Tuesday that lethal injections are on hold nationally while the Supreme Court considers a challenge in the case from Kentucky. Dr. Mark Dershwitz testified in a hearing saying the process of execution in Ohio was not inhumane, while Dr. Mark Heath says the method is unfit to euthanize a dog. The major claim is that the inmate could suffer from too much pain if not enough anesthetic is administered or there are mistakes injecting the drugs.

Threat maker Found. After years of searching for the racially motivated threat maker, he has been identified. David Tuason, from Cleveland, is alleged to have targeted black men that dated white women. In one of his letters he threatened to blow up the U.S. Supreme Court. A Supreme Court Spokeswoman confirmed that Justice Clarence Thomas was one of Tuason’s victims. The one trait all had in common: they were black.

Virginia: New DUI law
Register-Herald News reporter Mannix Porterfield writes that a West Virginia new law has tougher penalties on drunken drivers. The law will require anyone with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .15 or higher to have mandatory jail time of two days to six months. Also, anyone with a BAC lower then .14 will have an alcohol ignition device installed in their car known as the Interlock. National MADD director Glynn Birch says, “The new law would “absolutely” lower the number of accidents involving drunken motorists.”

Arizona has the Nation’s toughest drunken driving law
According to the Arizona Republic, DUI first time offenders have an alcohol ignition device installed in their car for a year and when the offender is driving the device will require them to retest. It will cost the offender $75 a month to lease the device. In Arizona a DUI is having a BAC over .08.

Should Sex Offenders’ Home Be Marked?
Today on KPRC News in Houston, Rev. Gilda Black proposed a bill that would identify registered sex offenders by having curbs painted in front of their homes. According to the DPS registry, Black’s neighborhood is home to 32 sex offenders. Some of her neighbors feel that it will bring the value of their property down and it will make sex offenders subject to violence.

Is it right for a repeated sex offender to receive life in prison? Yes, according to this report by KVUE News in Texas. James Ray Ross was sentenced to life on Wednesday for his second conviction for the sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl more than six years ago. Prosecutors say, “He was prosecuted under a special statute for repeat sex offenders that sets an automatic life in prison for the second conviction of sexual abuse of a child.

Posted by CJLF Staff at 01:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sixth Amendment Cases Podcast: The Federalist Society has this podcast of comments by Tom Gede on two Sixth Amendment cases argued last month: Rothgery v. Gillespie County and Indiana v. Edwards. CJLF's brief in Edwards is here.

Federal Sentencing at SCOTUSblog: On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Irizarry v. United States, No. 06-7517, to decide whether the district court must provide notice to the parties if it is contemplating a departure from the Sentencing Guidelines when the basis for departure was not in the presentence report or the party's prehearing submission. The U.S. admits error, but argues such error is harmless.

Statistics on Federal Crime Convictions: Orin Kerr at Volokh Conspiracy has a post on the 72,000 people convicted for federal crimes in 2007. The post gives the breakdown of the defendants by race in the 95% or so cases where race was recorded.

Incarcerations Impact on Crime: Thanks to Douglas Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy for this post on a new publication from the Pew Public Safety Performance Project. The publication titled, “The Impact of Incarceration on Crime: Two National Experts Weigh In”, gives Dr. Alfred Blumstein's and Dr. James Q. Wilson's views on the degree to which increased incarceration deserves credit for the drop in crime across the nation.

Kennedy v. Louisiana: Corey Rayburg Yung at Sex Crimes reports that Sex Crimes will provide extensive coverage of next weeks arguments in Kennedy. The case that will weigh the constitutionality of the death penalty for child rape. More information can be found at Sex Crimes' Kennedy v. Louisiana Resource Page.

Posted by Lauren Altdoerffer at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SF Gun Ban: While the U. S. Supreme Court ponders D.C.'s gun ban in the Heller case, the California Supreme Court denied review to a Court of Appeal decision striking down San Francisco's. The basis was not the Second Amendment, though, but the more mundane issue of preemption. This is a matter of state law, not local ordinance. The AP story is here. The Court of Appeal opinion in Fiscal v. San Francisco, A115018 (1/9/2008), is here for the time being but will scroll off in a few weeks.

Airline Bomb Plot: Daniel Henninger has this column in the WSJ on the trial of would-be airline bombers in Britain, a reminder of the importance of being able to intercept terrorist communications.

CA District Attorneys and GOP legislators are introducing a package of bills which will speed up the enforcement of the death penalty. Sacramento Bee reporter Andy Furillo reports that, if adopted, the reforms will cut time time from sentencing to execution for most capital murderers in half. Proponents, which include victims groups, do not expect the Democrat-controlled legislature to pass the bills. They plan to put them before the voters as a ballot initiative in 2010.

Posted by CJLF Staff at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ninth Circuit News: Howard Bashman at How Appealing, reports on today's Ninth Circuit decision to reject rehearing an en banc decision that immunized from a criminal defendant from prosecution for false statements made to a probation officer preparing the defendant's presentence report.

Interesting Reads: Some interesting criminal procedure and criminal law articles are being published. Legal Theory Blog has this post on a new article by Carlton Larson entitled, The Revolutionary American Jury: A Case Study of the 1778-1779 Philadelphia Treason Trials. The article can be found here.

Jack Balkin has also blogged on some books he recently received at Balkinization. Balkin's thoughts on Steve Teles's, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement can be found here, and Balkin's comments on Statutory Default Rules: How To Interpret Unclear Legislation, Predictocracy: Market Mechanisms for Public and Private Decision Making, and Electronic Elections: The Perils and Promises of Digital Democracy can be found here .

And finally, Douglas A. Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy has this post on a seasonal read entitled "The Little Green Book of Golf Law."

Posted by Lauren Altdoerffer at 03:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Death Sentence Overturned. The Ohio Supreme Court overturned the death sentence of double murderer Clifton White as reported AP writer Andrew Welsh-Huggins. On Christmas Eve of 1995, White killed Deborah Thorpe and Julie Schrey. Prosecutors say he was angry over the break up with Schrey’s daughter. The Ohio Supreme Court agreed he should not be executed because he is mentally retarded. A lower court ruled he did not meet the U.S. Supreme Court’s three-prong test for mental retardation. Here’s the Court decision on this case.

Following up on a recent post Crime and Consequences: Race and Homicide, police have now linked the death of Jamiel Shaw Jr. to an illegal immigrant. Shaw’s family is challenging LAPD’s Special order 40, which limits officers from asking about the citizenship status of suspects. LA Times writers Andrew Blankstein and Richard Winton report that Pedro Espinoza had been released just hours earlier from county jail before killing Shaw. His crime is linked to a possible gang loyalty test.

Megan’s Law going International
CBS reports that Representative Chris Smith has expanded the federal ‘Megan’s Law’ by having a system that will notify government officials when a convicted sex offender has entered the United States or traveled abroad. Megan’s Law was adopted after the 1994 kidnapping, rape, and murder of seven-year-old, Megan Kanka of New Jersey.

Quadruple Murder Conviction Dismissed in Indiana
According to the AP story, in 1989 Jeffrey Pelley used a shotgun to kill his father, stepmother and two young stepsisters so he could attend his high school prom. Pelley was not charged until August 2002 and convicted in July 2006. The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled to dismiss the case with no retrial because he did not receive a speedy trial. A spokeswoman says, “The attorney general’s office plans to ask the state Supreme Court to take up the case.”

Posted by CJLF Staff at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

St. John Fisher college in Rochester, NY announced plans for the city's first law school.

Posted by Steven K. Erickson at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Walter Olson over at Overlawyered points out that when it comes to school bullies, sometimes the victim isn't so innocent:

Could there be another side of the story, you may wonder? Well, as a matter of fact, there is. To find it you need to consult the local paper, the Northwest Arkansas Times (Scott F. Davis and Dustin Tracy, "Who's the bully?: Police, school records raise questions about claims made by Fayetteville High student", Apr. 3)(via Childs). One may argue about whether Wolfe's own alleged exploits in victimizing other kids, as catalogued in the NWAT article, will or should affect the disposition of his family's legal claims. What seems beyond dispute is that the NYT's story would have been very different in the emotional reactions it evoked -- and much less effective in promoting the particular "cause" it was advancing -- had it included that other side of the story.

School bullying has received a lot of attention in the past few years since it was identified by many experts as "the cause" of school shootings. It has become an intellectual fad in some ways - and like most fads - encourages lazy thinking.

Posted by Steven K. Erickson at 07:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A crime involves four people: the mastermind, an "insider" who exploits his position of trust with the target, and two accomplices. The first two have prior convictions; the latter two have little or no records and cooperate with the police. So, knowing nothing more than this, who would you expect to get the more severe sentences, and who would you expect to receive the lesser sentences?

Quite obviously, to anyone who has been around the criminal justice system, the two accomplices are going to get the lighter sentences. And that is exactly what happened. Yet according to this story by Tom Opdyke in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the NAACP is screaming discrimination and calling for an investigation.

The case involved what appeared to be a bank robbery. Except it wasn't really robbery, because the "robbers" didn't really use force. The teller was in on the scheme. So it is theft.

The mastermind of the scheme, already in prison for drug trafficking, got 10 years. The insider teller got five. The accomplice with a minor prior got two, plus eight on probation. The accomplice who apparently has no record just got probation for 10 years. One might argue with the sentences, but nothing appears out of line with what normally happens in criminal cases.

However, the mastermind and the insider are black men, while the two accomplices are white women. So even though legitimate reasons for different sentences are apparent on the face of the case,

"When four people are involved in the same crime and those who happen to be Caucasian receive much less time than those who are African American, this reflects a problem in the justice system that must be addressed," [Edward] DuBose said at a news conference at the Cobb NAACP headquarters in Marietta.

Over at SL&P, Doug Berman says, "this case seems to me to be more about gender than about race...."

Um, how about being more about legitimate differences in role in the crime, prior record, and cooperation with authorities after the fact. For those who oppose rigidity in sentencing, aren't those the factors that should be considered? That is not to say that discrimination doesn't exist, but none appears in this case.

Meanwhile, one state to the south, the NAACP is livid that the law does not take into account accomplice status when it comes to the felony-murder rule. They pick up some partial support on this point from an unexpected source.

Posted by Kent Scheidegger at 01:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

From the AP in Tennessee:

State prosecutors say a death penalty study committee formed by the Legislature is unfairly stacked with too many members who oppose the punishment.

James "Wally" Kirby, executive director of the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference, has told legislators the committee's intent is to abolish capital punishment.

Committee members contend, however, their group was formed to review how the state carries out the death penalty and that they're not trying to ban it.

State lawmakers last year created the 16-member committee, which has looked at costs associated with the punishment, who is sentenced and the quality of the lawyers representing the accused.

A proposal to extend the panel's life will be taken up this week in the legislature. It would allow the committee to continue working past the one-year deadline before issuing its findings.

Previous post on Maryland is here.

Posted by Kent Scheidegger at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As American states struggle with how to deal with prison overcrowding and the attendant budget problems, this WSJ article by Gabriel Kahn gives us a splendid example from across the pond on how not to do it:

Less than two years ago, Italy's prison system faced a crisis: Built to hold 43,000 inmates, it was straining to contain more than 60,000.

So the government crafted an emergency plan. It swung open the prison doors and let more than a third of the inmates go free.

Within months, bank robberies jumped by 20%. Kidnappings and fraud also rose, as did computer crime, arson and purse-snatchings. The prison population, however, fell so much that for awhile Italy had more prison guards than prisoners to guard.

Many in Italy just love to preach at us about the death penalty and feel that they are just wonderfully morally superior for their understanding, forgiving attitude toward criminals. There is nothing moral about unleashing predators to prey on the defenseless.

Of course, everyone knows that Europe has much lower crime rates than the United States and that their soft sentencing policies are the cause. If we could just be enlightened and tolerant like the Europeans, we would have lower crime rates, too, the wise ones tell us. However, "It isn't what we don't know that gets us in trouble. It's what we know for a fact that just ain't so." We will have more on this later.

Posted by Kent Scheidegger at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Medical News Today cites to a recent CDC study reporting 905,000 children were victims of maltreatment in one year (2005-06).

As the figure from the study shows, neglect remains the most common form of child maltreatment reported in the United States:

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Posted by Steven K. Erickson at 07:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Regular readers of this blog know of my interests about science, law, and policy. The Last Psychiatrist has two great posts (here and here) discussing the recent flap about the cholesterol drug Vytorin and the Enhance study (basics here).

Also off topic, but noteworthy: Ed Silverman at Pharmalot notes that two years after Health Canada warned about prescribing antidepressants to children, a new study reports that the number of children and teens who died by suicide increased 25 per cent after years of steady decline.

As mentioned before, there's been a lot of discussion -and spin- about the dangers associated with antidepressants use in children.

Posted by Steven K. Erickson at 06:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Volokh Conspiracy: Orin Kerr has been blogging about Judge Jack Weinstein's opinion in United States v. Polizzi. The links can be found here. Of particular interest is Kerr's discussion of the Booker and Blakely decisions, especially in light of SCOTUS grant of certiorari in Oregon v. Ice, and whether the judge or the jury should find specific facts.

And in other Blakely news: How Appealing and Sentencing Law and Policy both had links to a Hawai'i Supreme Court decision approving the constitutionality of Hawai'i legislation addressing the Blakely issue. According to an article quoted at Sentencing Law and Policy, the court held that "enhanced" sentences may be imposed on criminals identified as dangers to the community so long as prosecutors notify defendants at the outset that enhanced sentencing will be pursued.

Posted by Lauren Altdoerffer at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ohio's hearings on lethal injection are going forward. Joe Milicia reports here for AP on the defense testimony. Dr. Mark Heath testified for the defense, again, saying pretty much the same things he has said in other states. Tomorrow Dr. Mark Dershwitz will testify for the state, again.

No mention of Darth Vader this time.

Posted by Kent Scheidegger at 04:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Crime Stoppers: A program that works. Karen Bune, Victim Specialist Contributor from officer.com reports that Atlanta has finally found an innovative program that aids with solving crimes. From 2000 to 2002, Atlanta was ranked as the city with the highest rate of violent crime and the only city that did not have a Crime Stoppers program. Now within the first year, Atlanta’s Crime Stoppers has helped clear 64 cases. One example was solving the case of 9-year-old Annijah Rolax who was killed by a stray bullet last July while sitting at her computer.

Cyber crime costs big bucks. Martin Bosworth writes on consumeraffairs.com of a report issued on April 4 by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership with the FBI’s Bureau of Justice Assistance and the National White Collar Crime Center. The report found that US citizens lost $239 million in various Internet based fraud schemes, which has risen from $189 million in 2006. The highest dollar loss per incident was reported by internet-based investment and retirement scams.

Missouri woman receives death penalty for the killing an expectant mother and keeping the child for her own. Lisa Montgomery strangled Bobbie Jo Stinnett and then cut the baby out of her abdomen. In Capital-Journal published Saturday, Steven Fry wrote that a federal judge sentenced Montgomery to death after an eleven-minute hearing. Neither the victim’s family or Lisa’s in laws had anything to say. Yet her defense attorney Fred Duchardt said “I'm sad that we were not able to convince the jury of what a sweet individual, a loving person, Lisa is.”

Discrimination Alleged Florida in Murder Case
Today ABC News reports, on an NAACP claim of discrimination in Manatee, Florida murder case. Michael Walker, a 19 year old, is connected with the death of 67-year-old Daniel Ramsey. Ramsey was shot on Valentine’s Day when he and his wife discovered two men robbing his home. Walker, who was the driver of the getaway car, is facing a 25 to life sentence if convicted. Local NAACP president Trevor Harvey says, “In similar cases white accomplices have received lighter sentences.”

Florida: Mental incompetence claims have doubled
According to the New-Press, a legislative study reports Florida has experienced a dramatic increase in felons found mentally incompetent to stand trial. Last year analysts estimated that 2,123 adults were judged incompetent for trial, more than twice the number judged incompetent in 2002. The Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability said, “This increase suggests that individuals with mental illness are coming into contact more frequently with the criminal justice system.”

Posted by CJLF Staff at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Charlton Heston died Saturday night. This story from the Associated Press describes his achievements as an actor, most notably in historical epics, and then says this:

The actor assumed the role of leader offscreen as well. He served as president of the Screen Actors Guild and chairman of the American Film Institute and marched in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

With age, he grew more conservative and campaigned for conservative candidates. In June 1998, Heston was elected president of the NRA, for which he had posed for ads holding a rifle.

Note how the change to being considered "more conservative" is reflexively attributed to a change in the man rather than a change in the times.

Many folks on the left seem to be completely clueless that a person can be considered "liberal" at one point in time and "conservative" at another without an iota of change in his own positions, but purely because of the change in the positions those labels are used to represent.

In Mr. Heston's case, there is no inconsistency whatever between marching for racial equality in the 1960s and campaigning for the right to bear arms in the 1990s and 2000s.

A few years ago, Harry Stein wrote a book about the experience of having the ideological ground shift beneath you. The great title is How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (and Found Inner Peace). Stein recounts his years as a confirmed and proud liberal.

But then something odd began to happen--mainly to the country, and incidentally to people like me. As feminism and multiculturalism more and more sought to remake society, attacking much that had served humanity well as narrow or even antique, we concluded we could no longer in good conscience remain on that side. There was both too little respect for the accumulated wisdom of the ages and too much playing havoc with truth and common sense. Indeed, many of us were soon startled to find ourselves tagged conservatives (and often worse) for holding firm to the values of old-fashioned liberalism: a bedrock commitment to fairness and individual liberty.

The left wants to deny that today's conservative is often yesterday's liberal because they want to claim the mantle of the civil rights movement in its heyday and paint their opponents as the heirs of George Wallace, dressed up in nicer clothes but the same old racists underneath. Maintaining this myth is essential to their self-image, but myth is exactly what it is.

In 1963, the liberal position was that a person should be judged by the content of his character and not by the color of his skin. In 2008, the liberal position is often to avoid judging a person at all for intentional violations of the most basic rights of others, but instead to find an excuse under any crackpot theory of psychology that suits the purpose. A person who believed the former in 1963 and rejects the latter today has not become more conservative but only been relabeled by a changing society. The old liberal position saw people as individuals and free moral agents, entitled to the rewards of doing the right thing and responsible for the consequences of doing the wrong thing, regardless of what group they may belong to. That position today is "conservative."

Posted by Kent Scheidegger at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Charles Lane, who formerly covered the Supreme Court for the Washington Post, has a book titled The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction. The subject is the 1873 murder of scores of black men in Colfax, Louisiana, the prosecution of that case by the U.S. Attorney, and the Supreme Court's reversal in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875). Cruikshank is one of the cases near the end of Reconstruction that effectively gutted the Fourteenth Amendment for a time. Guest-blogging at the Volokh Conspiracy, Chuck has posts on the book and the case here, here, here, here, and here.

The case is a reminder that the worst violations of equal protection of the laws have come not in prosecutions but in failures to prosecute.

Posted by Kent Scheidegger at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)