Results matching “first”

Kent noted that an unrepentant terrorist will be honored in this year's NYC Puerto Rico Day parade (with Mayor de Blasio proudly marching in step).

The Black Lives Matter movement will receive the Sydney Peace Prize, an award given by the Sydney Peace Foundation -- part of the University of Sydney -- and be honored at an event in the city in November, the foundation announced this week.

Black Lives Matter was chosen for allegedly "building a powerful movement for racial equality, courageously reigniting a global conversation around state violence and racism. And for harnessing the potential of new platforms and power of people to inspire a bold movement for change at a time when peace is threatened by growing inequality and injustice," the foundation's website states.

It's no longer disputed (if it ever was) that Baltimore has seen a staggering increase in murder at least since the politically-staged Freddie Gray prosecutions of six police officers.  This was the city where the then-Mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, told us that rioters and arsonists should be given "space to destroy."  (Ms. Rawlings-Blake later went on to fame when she was chosen to open the Democratic National Convention).

Darlene Superville reports for AP:

After saying he was "very close" to naming a new FBI director, President Donald Trump boarded Air Force One on Friday for his first foreign trip without making any comment about the future leadership of the law enforcement agency.

The White House said earlier in the day that no announcement would be made.

The Washington Examiner has this editorial:

President Trump's last minute decision to put off the selection of a new FBI director until after his overseas trip is a good sign, perhaps even an indication that he's learned something and avoided making a mistake.

In the last two days, the strange choice of former Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman had been floated as a trial balloon. It seemed like a very bad idea, and perhaps Trump has ultimately decided to deflate it. The choice of the 75-year-old Lieberman -- who, remember, addressed the 2008 Republican convention, and also recently wrote a letter of recommendation for Jeff Sessions as attorney general -- was never going to placate Democrats, if that's what was intended.

The California Court of Appeal for the Fifth District (Fresno) yesterday decided People v. Marquez, F070609.

Mental disorders and their treatment (or non-treatment) are related to issues of crime and incarceration, so C&C readers might be interested in this article by Stephen Eide in the City Journal.

Since the 1960s, America has faced an epidemic of serious mental illness that represents a shameful chapter in social policymaking. Hundreds of billions spent on "mental health" programs have left many untreated, fated to eke out a pitiful existence on the institutional circuit of jails, homeless shelters, and psychiatric hospitals. We often take for granted that modern times are gentler than the dark days of the thumbscrew, lynchings, and public executions. Yet we have allowed scores of tormented men and women to suffer and die on city streets every year.

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New York mayor Bill de Blasio has made improving New Yorkers' mental health a priority of his administration, but his ThriveNYC program repeats too many of the mistakes of the past and will deliver too little assistance to those in greatest need. Promising a "comprehensive solution to a pervasive problem," ThriveNYC relies on an overly expansive definition of mental health and lacks focus. While de Blasio claims that public confusion about the nature of mental health makes matters worse, his plan will increase that confusion by blurring the lines between mental illness in its serious and mild forms, making too much out of "stigma," and emphasizing prevention over treatment. De Blasio has committed more than $800 million to ThriveNYC, but these resources are spread too thin, across too many priorities. A better approach would focus more on helping the seriously mentally ill and less on ideological and political concerns.

The Brennan Center is a far left organization that occasionally tells us the truth, as it did in revealing the extent of the murder spike over the last two years:  "With violence at historic lows, modest increases in the murder rate may appear large in percentage terms. Similarly, murder rates in the 30 largest cities increased by 13.2 percent in 2015 and an estimated 14 percent in 2016."

This post notes the findings of drug legalizer Jacob Sullum and UC Irvine criminologist Mona Lynch.  The main point argued is that the Sessions charging memo will have less effect than had been thought at first.  This is because drug pushers theoretically eligible to avoid a mandatory minimum under the more lenient, Eric Holder regimen often were never going to get one anyway, either because they qualified under the long pre-existing statutory Safety Valve, or because they assisted the government.  I believe this conclusion is correct.

...only increase the divide between jurisdictions that collectively eschew aggressive federal drug prosecutions and those that dive back into the harsh practices of an older era.

In 1992, J.W. Ledford murdered Dr. Harry Johnston in Murray County in northwest Georgia.  As long-overdue justice for this crime approached, Ledford's lawyers argued that execution with pentobarbital (the preferred drug, which Georgia still has as other states run out) would be excruciatingly painful in his case because his long use of a painkilling medication had raised his tolerance level.  Kate Brumback has this story for AP.  It was a far-fetched claim, given that lethal injection involves a massive overdose.  So how painful was it?

Records from past executions show that the lethal drug generally starts flowing within a couple of minutes of the warden exiting the execution chamber. Ledford raised his head to look at his right arm right after the warden left and about a minute later appeared to speak to a guard to his right.

He then rested his head, closed his eyes and appeared to take several deep breaths before falling still within two or three minutes of the warden leaving the room.

In other words, the pentobarbital worked exactly as it should have.

Let's not forget what Ledford did to deserve his punishment.

Today was pretty much a nothingburger for SCOTUS criminal law, so readers might be wondering what is left for decision before the Justices clear out of D.C. ahead of the dog days of summer.  Here is a rundown of criminal and related cases remaining.

• Hernandez v. Mesa, No. 15-118, argued February 21.  Civil case arising out of a shooting by a border patrol agent across the border from El Paso, Texas into Juarez, Chihuahua.  CJLF filed an amicus brief in support of Agent Mesa.
• Packingham v. North Carolina, No. 15-1194, argued February 27. Restriction of social media access for convicted sex offender.
• Jennings v. Rodriguez, No. 15-1204, argued November 30.  Bond hearings for aliens detained pending deportation.
• Ashcroft v. Abbasi, No. 15-1359 and two companion cases, argued January 18.  Suing government officials for detentions in the wake of 9/11.
• Turner v. United States, No. 15-1503 and companion case, argued March 29.  Brady nondisclosure of evidence issues.
• Honeycutt v. United States, No. 16-142, argued March 29.  Forfeiture liability in conspiracy.
• Weaver v. Massachusetts, No. 16-240, argued April 19.  Standard of reversible error for ineffective assistance in regard to a "structural error."  CJLF filed an amicus brief in support of Massachusetts.
• Lee v. United States, No. 16-327, argued March 28.  Guilty pleas, ineffective assistance, and deficient immigration consequences advice.
• Los Angeles County v. Mendez, No. 16-639, argued March 22.  Considering provocation in deciding whether police used excessive force.
• McWilliams v. Dunn, No. 16-5294, argued April 24.  Whether Ake v. Oklahoma requires that expert appointed be an independent one to be on the defense team as opposed to a neutral evaluation reported to both parties.
• Davila v. Davis, No. 16-6219, argued April 24.  On claim of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel, defaulted on state habeas and raised for first time in federal court, whether alleged ineffectiveness of state habeas lawyer is recognized as "cause" for default, reopening the claim for federal court resolution.  CJLF filed an amicus brief in support of Texas.
  

Abolitionist Fordham Law Professor Deborah Denno has a book review out endorsing the prediction by another abolitionist, Professor Carol Steiker of Harvard, that the death penalty will be eliminated by the Supreme Court when it "seems right"  --  an intriguing phrase Prof. Denno does not further explain.

[T]he Review expands on some key contributors to the death penalty's decline that may have been obscured by the all-encompassing nature of the Steikers' regulation argument -- for example, the emergence of unforeseeable exogenous variables (similar to the introduction of DNA evidence into criminal trials in the 1980s), as well as pressure points that exist largely outside of the constitutional regulatory framework, such as lethal injection litigation.  Despite these influences, the Review finds the Steikers' prediction -- that, when abolition seems right, it will come by way of a "Furman II" Supreme Court decision -- to readily comport with the death penalty's trajectory over the last fifty years.

The odd thing is that Prof. Denno, though a capital punishment expert, seems to have next to no idea of what the "death penalty's trajectory over the last fifty years" has actually been.

The anti-death-penalty crowd very earnestly desires a case of a demonstrably innocent person actually executed, and if they can't find a real one they will just invent one.  Employing the Lenin Principle, if they can simply repeat enough times that Cameron Todd Willingham was innocent of burning to death his baby daughters, he will become innocent.  The original New Yorker article on the case was a shameless piece of propaganda, as demonstrated in this post.  After the first year, it seemed like we were making some progress on balanced coverage, as noted in this post, but as time went on the only people interested in the case were those with an anti-death-penalty agenda, and that has become the overwhelmingly dominant narrative.

In their quest, they went after the original prosecutor in the case for a claimed Brady disclosure violation.  Interestingly, in Texas you can take a bar discipline case to a local jury, so that is what former prosecutor (and now judge) John Jackson did.

Regrettably, the only coverage on the decision I can find is by the Marshall Project, an advocacy group masquerading as journalists.  So we have to take the story with a heaping tablespoon of salt.  The WaPo is printing this report instead of devoting actual journalism resources to it.  Update:  Michael Kormos has this article on the verdict in the Corsicana Daily Sun, the local paper for the venue.  Regrettably, the article has no information on the trial or the evidence presented that convinced the jury the charges were groundless.

What does the FBI need right now?

I have some first impressions of the big news this afternoon, the firing of Jim Comey as FBI Director.

Two well-known physicians were brutally murdered in Boston Friday night.  The killer should not have been on the streets.  He had a record, and a felony conviction on  -- ready now?  --  September 30, 2016.  That would be a little more than seven months ago. Nor was that his first serious crime.  Still, in the land of second chances, and what with our scandalously racist criminal justice system, we need to emphasize redemption, right? See, e.g., this self-righteous piece in the Atlantic, published, in a masterpiece of bad timing, 48 hours before the Boston murders: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2017/05/criminal-justice-across-america-reporting-project/524985/

Debra Cassens Weiss reports for the ABA Journal:

President Donald Trump nominated 10 lawyers Monday for federal judgeships, including two state judges from his list of 21 potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees.

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The two judges from the Supreme Court list are Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen, nominated to the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Justice David Stras of the Minnesota Supreme Court, nominated to the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Larsen is a former University of Michigan law professor and a former law clerk to late Justice Antonin Scalia. Stras is a former University of Minnesota law professor and a former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas.

The nomination of another judge from the Supreme Court list, U.S. District Judge Amul Thapar of Kentucky, is pending. He has been nominated to the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. His is the only other nomination to the lower federal courts so far.

Other nominees are:

FBI Report: Police Backing Off:  An FBI study of the influence of last year's surge of violence against police and the increase in anti-cop protests is having on policing found that departments and individual officers have made the decision to stop engaging in proactive policing.  Valerie Richardson of the Washington Times reports that the study examined 50 of the 53 incidents in 2016 where a police officer was killed in the line of duty, finding that 28% of the killings were motivated by hatred of police and a desire to kill police officers.  "Nearly every police official interviewed agreed that for the first time, law enforcement not only felt that their national political leaders (publicly) stood against them, but also that the politicians' words and actions signified that disrespect to law enforcement was acceptable in the aftermath of the (Michael) Brown shooting." 

DNA Links Rapist to 1993 Assault:  A New York sex offender serving time for the 2016 rape of a 12-year-old girl has been charged with the 1993 rape of an 11-year-old girl.  Rebecca Rosenberg of the New York Post reports that William Dixon was linked to the 1993 rape when his DNA sample taken last year matched DNA from the rape kit taken from the victim 23 years earlier.  Dixon also served five years in prison for sodomizing an 8-year-old girl in 1984.

Eugene Volokh of UCLA has this video for the Federalist Society on proposed ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(g).  The web page caption states the question as, "Is it a violation of the first amendment for the American Bar Association to impose a nationwide speech code for lawyers?"  But of course (as Prof. Volokh makes clear in the video), the ABA has no government power, so it can neither impose its rules nationwide nor violate the First Amendment.  The problem is that too many state rulemaking entities that do have government power tend to go along with whatever the ABA says.

This deference to the ABA is based on a view of the nature of the organization that was obsolete long ago.  The ABA today is a left-wing, political, ideological organization.  It does not represent the profession as a whole, and its views are not entitled to any deference whatever.  That is why the ABA now has a special position in vetting judicial nominees only in Democratic administrations; previously it had that special position in administrations of both parties.  The previous and current Republican administrations both showed the ABA the door and appropriately informed them, in essence, that they are just another interest group, nothing special.

If the the ABA wants to be special again, it needs to purge itself of its heavy political and ideological bias.  Don't hold your breath.  In the meantime, states should write their own rules, considering the ABA's position to be just one opinion of many.

Siobhan Hughes reports for the WSJ on the deal to fund the government through September 30:

The deal also includes $1.5 billion for border security, with the money to be spent on technology and on repairing existing infrastructure, the aide said.

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But the package says explicitly that the money can't be used to pay for the construction of the new border wall that Mr. Trump has made a signature project, a blow to the White House.

Fine with me.  Border security is the true need, and in many places on the border the best bang for the buck may not be a physical wall.  Rome wasn't built in a day, and border security won't be either, so doing the non-wall parts first is fine.

And maybe come September 30 we could have an actual, annual federal budget instead of continuing resolutions with periodic shutdown threats.  Wouldn't that be nice? 

How would we get that past filibustering Democrats?  Here is my suggestion.

What punishment is appropriate for a life-sentenced killer who kills again?

According to Arkansas News Online, Kenneth Dewayne Williams was sentenced to

life without parole for the Dec. 13, 1998, kidnapping and slaying of 19-year-old Dominique Hurd, a University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff cheerleader from Fort Worth. Williams was convicted of capital murder in Hurd's death and of attempted capital murder in an attack on Hurd's boyfriend, Peter Robertson of New Jersey.

According to trial testimony, Williams abducted the couple from a Bonanza restaurant parking lot in Pine Bluff, forced them to drive to an automated teller machine to get cash and then took them to a wooded area and shot them.

And what happened next?  On Oct. 3, 1999, 18 days after beginning his prison sentence,

Williams ... escaped by hiding in a hog-slop truck that was on the prison grounds and then jumping out as the truck left the prison. He hid in a ditch and eventually made his way to [Cecil] Boren's house, where Boren was outside working in his garden. Williams stole Boren's guns, fatally shot the former warden seven times and made off with the guns and Boren's vehicle.

Williams was recaptured the next day after a high-speed chase in Missouri that resulted in the death of another driver.

Williams really should have gotten the death penalty the first time.  Kidnapping, robbery, and attempted murder on top of murder are more than sufficient aggravating circumstances.  For the second murder, the choice is even more clear.  A life-sentenced inmate is "judgment proof" from any sentence but death, as life sentences are necessarily concurrent in fact regardless of how they are sentenced on paper.  The choices of punishment for the murder of Cecil Boren are (1) death, or (2) none at all.

Option (1) is scheduled for overdue completion tonight.

Within days of his inauguration, President Trump signed Executive Order 13768.  Section 9 of that order addressed so-called "sanctuary cities."  The header paragraph and subdivision (a) read (emphasis added):

Sec. 9. Sanctuary Jurisdictions. It is the policy of the executive branch to ensure, to the fullest extent of the law, that a State, or a political subdivision of a State, shall comply with 8 U.S.C. 1373.

(a) In furtherance of this policy, the Attorney General and the Secretary [of Homeland Security], in their discretion and to the extent consistent with law, shall ensure that jurisdictions that willfully refuse to comply with 8 U.S.C. 1373 (sanctuary jurisdictions) are not eligible to receive Federal grants, except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes by the Attorney General or the Secretary. The Secretary has the authority to designate, in his discretion and to the extent consistent with law, a jurisdiction as a sanctuary jurisdiction. The Attorney General shall take appropriate enforcement action against any entity that violates 8 U.S.C. 1373, or which has in effect a statute, policy, or practice that prevents or hinders the enforcement of Federal law.

This section has been challenged in court as illegal and unconstitutional.

If it occurs to you that a direction from the chief executive to his subordinates that is expressly limited by its terms to actions "consistent with law" cannot possibly be illegal, congratulations, you understand law better than a federal district judge.

The ACLU put out a press release today that contains the following paragraph:

Although the mandate of prosecutors is to advance justice, many district attorneys have focused on punishment at any cost.  This approach has increased the jail and prison population; led to sentences that are too severe for the offenses; produced more wrongful convictions and more death sentences; and sent people with addictions, disabilities, and mental health conditions into jails and prisons who should receive treatment or other social services instead. These consequences of unchecked prosecutorial power burden people of color and the poor disproportionately.

More Fatal Car Crashes From Drugs Than Alcohol:   While this should not come as a surprise to anyone paying attention, more U.S. drivers in fatal car crashes tested positive for drugs than alcohol in 2015.  Ashley Halsey III, of the Washington Post reports that data released by the Governors Highway Safety Association found that 43% of drivers in fatal accidents had been under the influence of legal or illegal drugs, while 37% were drunk.  The story also notes that the number of drivers who died in car crashes who tested positive for drugs went from 28% in 2005 to 43% in 2015.  In Colorado the number of marijuana-related traffic deaths increased by 48% after the state legalized recreational use of the drug.  No worries, the state is reportedly getting lots of tax revenue from pot sales. 

DHS to Help Victims of Alien Criminals:  The Office of Homeland Security has announced that it will begin offering services to American crime victims who were assaulted by illegal aliens.  Brooke Singman of Fox News reports that the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office was opened in response to a Presidential directive.  "All crime is terrible, but these victims are unique--and often too ignored," said Homeland Security John Kelly.  "They are casualties of crimes that should never have taken place--because the people who victimized them often times should not have been in the country in the first place," he added.

U. Tex. Law Professor Steve Vladeck has this post at SCOTUSblog on yesterday's argument in Davila v. Davis.  This is the case of a Houston gang member who wanted to get a member of a rival gang, so he opened fire with an AK-47-type weapon on a porch full of women and children having cake and ice cream at a child's birthday party.  Steve thinks Texas will prevail, and the question is how narrowly or broadly.  I was also encouraged by the argument transcript, but I am glad to have this independent, in-person observation.

After the break are the background of the case and my notes on the argument transcript.

Mob Swarms Rapid Transit Train:  A mob of roughly 60 juveniles swarmed Oakland Colliseum Station of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), jumped the fare gates, and took over at least one train car, robbing and beating passengers.  Demian Bulwa and Michael Cabantuan of the SF Chronicle report that the incident occurred at about 9:30 p.m. Saturday, as passengers were boarding the Dublin-bound train.  As members of the mob held the doors open other streamed inside, attacking and robbing passengers of purses, cell phones, and other valuables.  A BART spokesperson said that passengers being robbed by small groups at stations are not uncommon, but that this was the first time a large mob had swarmed a train. 

Illegal Sought For Oregon Sexual Assault:  A Mexican national who had been deported is the prime suspect for the February 26 sexual assault of a 9-year-old girl.  Fox News reports that police are looking for Santiago Martinez-Flores who re-entered the U.S. following his 2001 deportation after serving two years in prison for assault.  The victim awoke in her parents Portland apartment as the man she identified as Martinez-Flores was assaulting her.  She managed to break free and run to her parents' room, but Martinez-Flores had fled before they returned.  In addition to the victim's description, physical evidence linking Martinez-Flores to the crime was found at the scene.  

More Bureaucratic Delay of CA Death Penalty:  The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has won approval from a state regulatory agency to further delay the implementation of the single-drug execution protocol it announced last November.   Don Thompson of the Associated Press reports that corrections officials asked for another four months to develop lethal injection regulations after some of them were rejected by the the regulatory agency five months ago.  This is kind of like one hog asking another hog if he'd like some more slop. The announced protocol is similar to those which have been used for several years in other death penalty states, including Texas.  While the California public voted twice last November to retain and speed enforcement of the death penalty, when the Governor, Attorney General, and Legislature oppose the law, they use the bureaucracy to prevent its enforcement.   

 

Arkansas carried out two executions tonight, the first time that has happened in almost 20 years, as the Washington Post observes.  It executed another murderer a few days ago.

Arkansas has two executions set for tonight (I understand that the first has now taken place).  It also has one set for Thursday.  I read for the first time a short summary of the facts in that case, and the killer, Kenneth Williams.  The New York Times reports them as follows:

Mr. Williams killed a cheerleader at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff in December 1998 but escaped from a maximum-security prison after a jury sentenced him to life the next year. A few miles from the prison, he fatally shot Cecil Boren, a farmer who was working in the yard while his wife was at church, and stole his truck. Mr. Williams led the police into Missouri in a high-speed chase before he crashed into a car, killing the driver. In 2005, he confessed to killing a 36-year-old man the same day he shot the cheerleader.

You know it will be a bad day when you are arguing for the defendant in the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice quotes Professor Wayne LaFave on point against your argument.  LaFave is the author of three leading treatises on criminal law and is consistently pro-defendant on virtually all debatable questions.  So when the CJ cited him in the argument in McWilliams v. Dunn this morning, advocate Stephen Bright could do little more than stammer out a response of the "even Homer nods" variety.  See p. 13.

The underlying question is whether a defendant with a mental claim is entitled to an appointed, state-paid expert who is a partisan member of the defense team or whether a court's appointment of a neutral expert to examine the defendant and report to both sides meets the requirement of the high court's 1985 precedent in Ake v. Oklahoma.* 

Further, because this case was decided on the merits by the state courts and is now on federal habeas corpus review, the threshold question is whether the answer to the above question was "clearly established" in the defendant's favor back when the Oklahoma court decided it.  That is an easier question.  No.

I've met Justice Stephen Breyer only two or three times.  The first was 30 years ago at a meeting of interested parties (for want of a better term) concerning the about-to-become-effective federal Sentencing Guidelines.  Breyer was then a First Circuit judge and a USSC Commissioner.  I was pretty much of a nobody from DOJ, but had been in on the Guidelines' implementation.

Increased Immigrant Crime in Germany:  The Interior Minister of Germany has announced that crimes committed by immigrants "increased disproportionately" last year.  Reuters reports that the number of immigrants identified as criminal suspects increased by 52% in 2016, while the number of German suspects declined by 3.4%.  The Minister told reporters that "those who commit serious offenses here forfeit their right to stay here."  It was also reported that crimes motivated by Islamism increased by 13.7% in 2016.  This included the December truck massacre of 12 Christmas shoppers by a Tunisian immigrant loyal to Islamic State.

Two Arkansas Killers Face Execution Today:  The executions of Arkansas murderers Jack Jones and Marcel Williams are likely to be carried out tonight barring a last-minute stay by a state court or the U.S. Supreme Court.  Fox News reports that the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Jones' petition for a stay earlier today.  Williams' petition is pending, but both inmates were challenging the use of the execution drug midazolam, which was cleared by the courts for an execution last week.  Williams was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1994 rape and murder of 22-year-old Stacy Errickson, whom he kidnapped from a gas station.  Williams had kidnapped and raped two other women days before he murdered Errickson.  Jones was sentenced to death for the 1995 rape and murder of 34-year-old Mary Phillips and the attempted murder of her 11-year-old daughter, Lacy.  The facts of the crime and the strength of the evidence are described in this Arkansas Supreme Court decision. 

One undeniable legacy of the Obama administration has been the explosion of violent crime in many U.S. urban centers, a widespread increase in illegal drug trafficking and an accompanying record-setting number of fatal drug overdoses.  While the causes or even the existence of these facts are disputed by liberal/progressive political and academic leaders and their followers, it is also undeniable that the only candidate for the presidency who consistently targeted the increases violence and drugs under the Obama administration was the candidate that won the election.  While the deniers and hecklers continue their resistance, sometimes violently, the new president is working to address the pervasive crime, violence and drugs that most Americans outside of Hollywood, the beltway and academia are witnessing first hand.  Manhattan Institute scholar Heather MacDonald has laid out a game plan for the administration in a recent article in the City Journal.