Results matching “first”

Let me admit from the getgo that my title is misleading.  There will be no replacing Justice Scalia.  His intellect was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, as was his command of the written word.

CNN broadcast an appreciation of Justice Scalia by the first clerk he selected to go with him to the Supreme Court, my wife, the Hon. Lee Liberman Otis.  The broadcast of the telephone interview is here.

Bill noted yesterday the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia.  His passing is a great loss to the country and the Constitution.

The Great Question of constitutional law is not hard to state.  Is the Constitution a contract between the people and their government, with the power to change its terms reserved to the people, or is it an empty vessel for five unelected, unaccountable justices to pour their policy preferences into?

Legitimate judicial review is to prevent the legislature from crossing a line that the people wrote into the Constitution.  Illegitimate judicial review is creating lines that the people did not write into the Constitution, striking down laws enacted by the people's representatives or by the people themselves on a pretense that they violate the Constitution but actually just because the judges disagree with the people -- "substitute their own pleasure to the constitutional intentions of the legislature," as Hamilton put it in Federalist No. 78.

There are two primary dangers in appointing Justices to the Supreme Court:  appointing people with views on the wrong side of the Great Question and appointing people who have not thought much about it at all.

Family of Slain CA Baby Wonder if Black Lives Matter:  In the wake of the suspected gang-related murder of a one-year-old Compton girl, her great-uncle is calling on the public to face the problems in neighborhoods.  Michelle Moons of Breitbart reports that baby Autumn Johnson died Tuesday after being shot in the head while sitting in her crib, and authorities believe that her father, 24-year-old admitted gang member Darrell Johnson, was the intended target of the shooting. Cornell Patton, baby Autumn's great-uncle, said to the public, "If black lives matter, then let's make it matter."  The Black Lives Matter movement, established in 2013, has been very vocal in their condemnation of police violence against blacks, which it describes as an "epidemic," but have disregarded questions about black-on-black crime.  Police are still searching for the two male black suspects that were seen opening fire at Autumn's East Compton home.

CO Lawmakers Reject Death Penalty Bill:  A bill proposed by Colorado State Sen. Kevin Lundberg to change the state's death penalty was rejected by lawmakers at a Wednesday hearing.  KDVR reports that under current state law, a jury can only impose the death penalty if the decision is unanimous.  Lundgren's bill initially proposed that nine out of 12 jurors be able to deliver a death sentence, though he amended it at the hearing to 11 out of 12 jurors, but it was still rejected by the majority of the legislators.  There are other death penalty bills to be introduced this year, including one that would permit another jury to be brought in if the first cannot agree on imposing a death sentence.

GA Police Major Shot and Killed:  A Georgia police major was shot and killed Thursday while helping other officers serve a no-knock warrant to a suspect that was also shot and remains in critical condition.  Lauren Foreman and John Spink of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution report that Riverdale police Maj. Greg 'Lam' Barney, who joined the Riverdale Police Department in 1990, was fatally shot in the torso by 24-year-old Jerand Ross after Ross ran out of the apartment shooting.  Ross was shot by another officer when he attempted to flee.  Barney was not wearing his bulletproof vest at the time of the incident, which is not uncommon for officers with mostly administrative responsibilities.  The the department says that it will assess what can be done differently in the future.  "His service will never be forgotten," the department said.

I saw this article in SL&P about Bernie Sanders' campaign promise:

But, here is a pledge I've made throughout this campaign, and it's really not a very radical pledge.  When we have more people in jail, disproportionately African American and Latino, than China does, a communist authoritarian society four times our size. Here's my promise, at the end of my first term as president we will not have more people in jail than any other country. We will invest in education, and jobs for our kids, not incarceration and more jails.

Two MD Officers Shot and Killed:  Two Maryland sheriff's deputies were fatally shot Wednesday afternoon during an incident that began in a crowded restaurant, and the shooter was also killed.  Justin Jouvenal and Dana Hedgpeth of the Washington Post report that Deputy Patrick Dailey, a 30-year veteran of the Harford County Sheriff's Department, and Senior Deputy Mark Logsdon, with the office for 16 years, were shot and killed by David Brian Evans, who was being sought by Dailey for an arrest warrant from Florida for assaulting a police officer there.  Dailey approached Evans in the crowded restaurant and was shot "almost immediately" in the head.  Evans fled to the parking lot and got into his vehicle, where he fired shots at Logsdon, among the first on the scene, striking him.  Logsdon managed to return at least three rounds while other deputies arriving on the scene also opened fire, killing Evans.  Last year, three Maryland officers were lost in the line of duty; nationwide, 124 officers died in the line of duty, 42 of whom were shot.  The gunman's son alleges his father suffered emotional problems.

ND Officer Not Expected to Survive After Being Shot:  A Fargo police officer sustained a "non-survivable" wound Wednesday evening during an 11-hour standoff with a domestic violence suspect, who also died.  Fox News reports that the incident began around 7 p.m. when a 911 call was placed by an individual who said his father had possibly fired a gun at his mother, and 33-year-old Officer Jason Moszer responded to the scene.  The suspect, who had barricaded himself inside the home, fired multiple shots out of the house, hitting Moszer.  The suspect was discovered dead early Thursday in his home from a gunshot wound, though police have not yet determined if it was self-inflicted or from officers engaging him.  No one else is believed to have been injured.

U.S. Cartel Violence Victims Suing Banks:  U.S. victims and family members of cartel violence have filed a lawsuit against banking leader HSBC and its multiple subsidiaries, claiming that these financial institutions "have provided material support to Mexican drug cartels by allowing them to launder billions of dollars leading to their explosive growth."  Ildefonso Ortiz of Breitbart reports that the lawsuit states that in the process of money laundering, which involves concealing drug money to make it appear as though it came from a legitimate business, the HSBC knowingly provided material support to drug cartels while making a profit.  Since the 1980s and 1990s, when drug trafficking routes shifted toward Mexico, the Mexican cartels have steadily developed into multinational criminal organizations and "mobilized into sophisticated international networks."

Would you buy a house without knowing the price?  

Sen. Tom Cotton spoke on the Senate floor today to put the lie to the mass sentencing reduction bill supported by the Inside-the-Beltway Establishment. The bill's backers include President Obama, Speaker Paul Ryan, Deputy Senate Majority Leader John Cornyn, Deputy Minority Leader Dick Durbin, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and prominent Republicans and Democrats such as Mike Lee and Corey Booker. If that is not The Establishment, there is no such thing as The Establishment.

There is much debate about the wisdom of this bill. That is, like most bills we discuss in this chamber, a judgment call. But there cannot be debate over the facts of this bill. We have to be very clear on what this bill, by its own text, is designed to do.

Proponents of the bill often invoke four phrases to describe the felons to be released under the terms of the bill: "first-time," "non-violent," "low-level," "drug possession" offenders. Yet none of those four descriptors is accurate.

CA Man Gets Death Penalty:  A California man was sentenced to death Friday for the 2012 shooting deaths of four people outside a Northridge boarding home.  Debbie L. Sklar of My News LA reports that 34-year-old Ka Pasasouk was convicted in November on four counts of first-degree murder for the Dec. 2, 2012 murders of four people while "fueled by drugs and alcohol." He was allegedly seeking revenge on one of the victims, whom he'd had an altercation with months earlier, and killed the other three victims in an effort to eliminate witnesses.  Pasasouk was also convicted on one count each of attempted murder, being a felon in possession of a firearm and assault with a semiautomatic firearm, for confronting other people nearby prior to the shooting.  Almost a year before the incident, in Jan. 2012, Pasasouk was released from prison under Realignment.

ISIS Attacks Expected to Worsen:  The Pentagon's head of military intelligence told a security conference Monday that he expects the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group to pick up "the pace and lethality" of attacks in 2016 in order to expand its operations.  Rudy Takala of the Washington Examiner reports that Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart said that he expects ISIS to expand operations in Egypt in particular, but also parts of Africa and Asia as well, including Mali, Tunisia, Somalia, Bangladesh and Indonesia.  According to Stewart, ISIS attacks will worsen "because it seeks to unleash violent actions and to provoke a harsh reactions from the West, thereby feeding its distorted narrative."

Ferguson to Vote on Justice Dept's Agreement:  City council members in Ferguson, Mo., are set to vote Tuesday on an agreement with the Justice Department to overhaul the police and court systems, which has the potential to financially cripple the city.  Andrea Noble of the Washington Times reports that the consent decree follows months of negotiations between city leaders and the Justice Department, which produced a scathing report after the 2014 fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, calling out the Ferguson Police Department for exhibiting racial inequalities.  The decree includes reforms to the city's police department, such as training Ferguson officers to "recognize unconscious racial stereotyping," requiring more stringent accounting of police use-of-force incidents and limiting court fines and jail time for minor offenses.  The agreement is estimated to cost city officials $3.7 million in the first year; the city operated with a budget of $14.5 million and a budget deficit of $2.8 million this fiscal year.  The city could face legal actions if it refuses to comply.

Chicago Shootings Continue to Soar:  Over the weekend, two people were killed and 24 others were wounded in shootings across Chicago, with homicides in the troubled city in the first eight days of February, falling just four short of last February's total.  The Chicago Tribune reports that between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning alone, one man was killed and at least 10 others were wounded in shooting incidents.  The city has seen 16 homicides since the start of the month and 73 since the start of the year, with 330 people shot since Jan. 1, more than double from the same period last year.

NJ Law Prevents Some Retired Cops from CCW Permits:  A New Jersey gun law is preventing some retired police officers from being granted permits to carry concealed weapons.  Fox News reports that since the law doesn't specifically address whether retired public university police officers are permitted to obtain a permit, "there seems to be some discrepancy in whether [state] university police are viewed as working for state agency."  John Kotchkowski and Robert Dunsmuir, two retired University of New Jersey police sergeants, were denied right-to-carry permits, stemming from the 1997 law that was enacted after the murder of a police chief who was killed when he attempted to stop a carjacking.  Kotchkowski says that the denial of a right-to-carry permit makes him feel as if the law is saying that he "wasn't a real cop."  Last month, a judge refused to grant Kotchkowski a permit on appeal, and Dunsmuir's appeal is to be heard in March.

S.F. Hands Illegal Over to ICE, Igniting Furor:  After San Francisco police officers actually complied with federal immigration authorities, handing over an illegal immigrant wanted for deportation, they are being criticized for violating the city's "sanctuary city" policy that bars law enforcement from detaining people for immigration authorities unless they are wanted for a serious crime.  William Bigelow of Breitbart reports that the controversy surrounds 31-year-old Pedro Figueroa-Zarceno, an illegal immigrant who failed to appear at an immigration hearing in San Antonio in 2005 and then was arrested in 2012 for drunk driving and remained in the U.S.  When he reported his car stolen to San Francisco police in November 2015, a background check that found he had missed the hearing ten years earlier triggered a warrant for his arrest, and he was taken into custody the following month when he came to the station to obtain his vehicle, and was subsequently handed over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  However, he was released from jail last Wednesday after San Francisco police were slammed for violating the city's 2013 "Due Process for All" ordinance.  ICE spokesman James Schwab asserted that Figueroa-Zarceno was one of the "at-large foreign nationals who meet the agency's enforcement priorities, including convicted criminals and other individuals who pose a potential threat to public safety."  The case is currently being reviewed.

The death penalty came up briefly in the Clinton-Sanders debate.  Even though it came second, let me quote Sanders first:

MADDOW: Senator Sanders, you have singled out the death penalty, and Senator Clinton's support for the death penalty, as an issue that makes it hard to consider as progressive in your mind...

SANDERS: ... Look, I hear what the Secretary said, and I understand, but look, there are -- all of us know that we have seen in recent years horrible, horrible crimes. It's hard to imagine how people can do, bomb, and kill 168 people in Oklahoma City, or do the Boston Marathon bombing, but this is what I believe, and for a couple of reasons.

Number one, too many innocent people, including minorities, African Americans, have been executed when they were not guilty. That's number one. We have to be very careful about making sure about that.

Too many?  Name one, Senator Sanders.  Name one demonstrably innocent person executed in the modern capital punishment era (1976+).

For many years, Roger Coleman was the poster boy as the absolutely, incontrovertibly innocent person wrongfully executed.  Then improved DNA technology conclusively proved him guilty.  Oops.  Then they latched on Cameron Willingham, a case where the arson evidence was shown to be inconclusive.  (Contrary to myth, the arson evidence does not affirmatively show accidental fire.)  When AP contacted the jurors, every one they could find said that would have made no difference, because it never was the forensic evidence that convinced them in the first place.  The most damning evidence against Willingham was his own words and actions, all of which still stand.

"We have to be very careful about making sure about that."  Correct.  And we are.

Most of the time when we're urged to reduce prison sentences, we're earnestly told that a good chunk of the money we'd supposedly save will be "invested" in more careful and active supervised release.  Probation, which is both cheaper and more humane than incarceration  --  so the argument goes  --  will be expanded to help insure we maintain public safety.

[S]tates should closely reexamine the numbers of people who are placed on probation each year, and the lengths of terms they are required to serve. Options for "early termination" of the lowest-risk and most successful probationers should be explored. Some experts in the field allege that probationary sentences do little to control crime, and frequently do more harm than good.

The title of this post is taken from today's Powerline entry by my friend Paul Mirengoff.  It also coincides with a question I was asked just two hours ago on another thread.

Those backing sentencing "reform" tell us that, for the last 25 years, the government (broadly speaking) has made thousands of mistakes in deciding whom to imprison and for how long  --  but now we can trust the same government to decide whom to release and how early.

A parolee recently charged in the death of another homeless man was touted by a state parole administrator as a model of success in a meeting with legislators just 16 days before the fatal stabbing.

Calvin Johnson, 44, who allegedly called himself "Calvin/Elijah the prophet/crazy killer" in a text after the slaying, faces one count of first-degree murder in the New Year's Day death of Teodoro Leon III.

The search is over.  Three California inmates who managed to escape a Santa Ana jail are back in custody.  The prison teacher arrested last Thursday for allegedly aiding in their escape, however, is being released due to insufficient evidence, for now at least.

Since the daring January 22 escape, word has circulated that the English-as-a-second-language teacher, Nooshafarin Ravaghi, and one of the escapees, Hossein Nayeri, had a relationship that was "close" and "personal," highly atypical for a prison teacher and an inmate, not to mention inappropriate and completely banned.  It is believed that Ravaghi provided Nayeri and two other inmates, Bac Duong and Jonathan Tieu, with a printed photograph from Google Earth to help them escape from the maximum-security facility.  Authorities believe she may have helped them on the outside as well.

Record Number of Chicago Homicides in January:  In the first month of 2016, Chicago recorded the highest number of homicides since 2000.  Aamen Madhani of USA Today reports that the city recorded 51 homicides in January of this year, compared to 29 in 2015 and 20 in 2014.  Additionally, 241 shooting incidents were recorded, more than double the 119 recorded last January.  The police department maintains that gang conflict and retaliatory violence are the main drivers of the spike in homicides, though they acknowledge that the increased scrutiny the department faces in the wake of the court-ordered release of a video showing the fatal shooting of a black teenager, as well as a decrease in investigative stops following the implementation of new rules on Jan.1, have also played a role.

Legislation Introduced to Combat Drug Epidemic:  An Ohio senator, in response to the heroin and prescription drug epidemic sweeping Ohio and the nation, is calling for the passage of new legislation that aims to curb addiction.  Curt Mills of the Washington Examiner reports that Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, warned during the weekly Republican address that heroin and prescription drug overdoses have surpassed car accidents as the number one cause of injury-related deaths in the country.  First responders at an Ohio fire department say that they currently respond to more overdoses than fires.  Portman's bill, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, would focus on prevention and education, and aid in the funding of recovery programs.  Lawmakers in several states across the country, from Utah to North Dakota, have introduced similar legislation after seeing a dramatic increase in overdoses related to heroin and prescription drugs in their communities.

GOP Chairman Presses DOJ on Sanctuary Cities:  Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, warns Attorney General Loretta Lynch that if she does nothing to prevent sanctuary cities from receiving federal law enforcement grants, he will take it upon himself to act.  Caroline May of Breitbart reports that Culberson has called on Lynch to change the grant process for Department of Justice regarding sanctuary cities which that fail to comply with federal immigration authorities.  Culberson plans to block funding for those jurisdictions in future appropriations bills and budgets if the Attorney General does not make the changes. In 2014, over 300 sanctuary cities in the U.S. released more than 9,000 criminal aliens that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was seeking to deport.  In the following months, more than 2,300 of those released went on to commit new crimes.

As noted previously on this blog, the FBI recently announced the Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report covering the first half of 2015 for cities over 100,000.  I have totaled the crime counts for violent and property crimes for 2014 and 2015 and computed the percent changes for California cities versus cities in other states.  Click on the graph for a larger view.

California has (1) court orders overriding state law to release prisoners because of overcrowded conditions caused by the Legislature's failure to build enough prison space, (2) the "realignment" program moving prisoners from state prison to overcrowded county jails where they are either released or push out prisoners who would otherwise be in jail, and (3) Proposition 47, which reduced many felonies to misdemeanors.  Between these measures, the state has seriously softened its approach to crime and put many criminals on the street who would otherwise be in custody.  Although other states are taking more modest measures to reduce prison populations, nowhere else do we see this headlong rush to push criminals out the gates.  One would expect, then, that California would have much worse results than other states, and that is exactly what we see.

What is Governor Brown's plan?  Push even more criminals onto the streets. 

Hundreds of Illegals Smuggled in just 3 Months:  Since the start of the 2016 fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, 2015, over 200 illegal immigrants have been discovered in car trunks, tractor trailers or in other dangerous situations at the hands of Mexican cartels, in an attempt to evade inspection checkpoints in the Rio Grande Valley.  Ildefonso Ortiz of Breitbart reports that in 2014, a shift in human smuggling routes transformed the Rio Grande Valley into the main corridor used by the Gulf Cartel to smuggle thousands of illegal immigrants from Central America into Texas.  The U.S. Border Patrol says that the involvement of cartels in human smuggling and trafficking puts the lives of immigrants and the public in "extreme danger." 

Hundreds of DHS Badges, Guns, Cell Phones Lost or Stolen:  Inventory reports have exposed that, in the span of 31 months between 2012 and 2015, hundreds of badges, credentials, cell phones and guns belonging to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees have been lost or stolen.  Adam Shaw of Fox News reports that the information, obtained by a Colorado-based online news site via a Freedom of Information Act request, show that over 1,300 badges, 165 firearms and 589 cell phones were lost or stolen; most of the credentials belonged to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) employees, while lost or stolen guns mostly belonged to CBP as well.  The revelation raises serious concerns over national security and the danger posed to the U.S. if the missing items get into the wrong hands.

Traffickers Shipping Weed Out of CO:  Law enforcement officials say that illegal drug traffickers are exploiting Colorado's legal marijuana marketplace, growing weed among the state's sanctioned pot warehouses and farms before secretly shipping it to other states for significant profit.  The AP reports that in one case, the owner of a skydiving company made millions when he sold hundreds of pounds of Colorado pot in Minnesota after transporting it via his planes.  Another case involved a Denver man who sent more than 100 pot-filled FedEx packages to Buffalo, New York, where the shipment was divvied up among drug dealers and sold.  While tourists who buy retail pot and attempt to bring it to their out-of-state residences also adds to the problem, it's the larger-scale traffickers who move to the state specifically to grow the drug and ship it to more lucrative markets that is concerning authorities.  These cases confirm the fears by marijuana opponents that the state's "much-watched experiment in legal pot would invite more illegal trafficking to other states where the drug is strictly forbidden."

More People Murdered Last Year than in 2014:  Homicides rose nearly 17 percent in America's 50 largest cities last year, the greatest increase in lethal violence since 1990.  Max Ehrenfreund and Denise Lu of the Washington Post report that an analysis by Wonkblog of preliminary crime data found that approximately 770 more people were killed in major cities in 2015 than in 2014, marking the worst annual change in a quarter century and the first interruption in a steady decline in homicides.  Experts say it's too early to know what is to blame for the surge, whether it's the Ferguson effect, the exploding heroin epidemic, reduced police department budgets or soft-on-crime reforms that have led to the decline in less convicts behind bars.

I blogged here about the enormous increase in murder our country experienced in 2015.  This is after a generation of consistent decreases.

If a person is convicted of burglary of a home, has prior convictions for rape and murder, and had a gun in his waistband when he broke into the home, how long should we keep him in prison?

Under California sentencing law, the violent priors and the gun use result in major sentence enhancements that extend the term far beyond that for burglary alone.  Yet Governor Jerry Brown has proposed an initiative that would make this career criminal eligible for parole after he has served his term for the burglary alone, which could be 2, 4, or 6 years.  (Penal Code §461(a).)  That is insane.

John Myers has this story in the LA Times.  It quotes me on a version of the above example, although the quote is a bit truncated.

Is it an answer to say we can trust the parole board not to let him out too early?  No, our experience from an earlier era when the parole board had nearly unlimited power demonstrates that we cannot.  That was why we needed to pass the tougher laws in the first place.

CA Jailers Move to Improve Anti-Escape Measures:  As the manhunt intensifies for the three inmates who escaped an Orange County jail Friday, sheriff's officials at the nine jails in the Inland Empire region of Southern California hope to learn how the prisoners managed the daring breakout to help improve the security of their own lockups.  Brian Rokos of the Press Enterprise reports that to prevent escapes, some facilities have constructed better fences, situated a deputy at the front gate to greet all arrivals and now escort all inmates to various locations inside the jails, including the low-level offenders who were previously allowed to walk freely.  Jail officials point to AB 109, passed in 2011 to ease prison overcrowding, as part of the problem since there are now more dangerous felons serving longer sentences in county jails throughout the state, giving them more time to plot an escape.  "We knew our facilities were not ready for this kind of inmate," said Shannon Dicus, deputy chief for corrections in San Bernardino County. 

New Orleans Officer Shot, Suspect Charged: A New Orleans sheriff's deputy was shot five times on Tuesday serving a warrant with federal drug agents. The AP reports that 35-year-old Deputy Stephen Arnold was in critical condition following the five shots, one of which entered his neck, and immediately rushed into surgery. It is unclear whether or not he has sustained neurological damage. The suspect, 26-year-old Jarvis Hardy, was taken into custody and charged with attempted first degree murder and narcotics violations.  

Homeless Camp Shooting Leaves 2 Dead:  A Tuesday night shooting at a Seattle homeless encampment known as "The Jungle" ended in the deaths of two homeless people and the wounding of three others.  Lisa Baumann of the AP reports that the particular encampment "has been unmanageable and out of control for decades," said Mayor Ed Murray, who declared a state of emergency regarding homelessness in November and now wonders if he acted too late.  Police are currently tracking down two persons of interest in the case and believe the shooting was "very targeted," assuring the public that it is not in any immediate danger.

Gov. Brown Doubles Down on Sentencing Reform:  Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown is to announce a ballot measure on Wednesday that would overhaul the state's current sentencing laws, likely reducing the length of time some felons serve in prison.  David Siders of the Sac Bee reports that Brown says he hopes to return to greater discretion in sentencing, moving away from the state's determinate sentencing system that he helped create in his previous years as governor.  When Brown took office in 2011, he enacted AB 109, also known as prison realignment, which resulted in the early release of thousands of felons, and last year, he vetoed several crime-related bills, including one focused on date rape, reasoning that "multiplication and particularization of criminal behavior" would make the state's criminal code more complex.  Brown's pro-criminal approach to criminal justice reform has and will continue to benefit felons like this one with a history of domestic violence charges, who was out on parole when he assaulted his estranged wife and injured her two-year-old child in the process.

Yesterday, Mike Rushford wrote a post detailing the dismal experiences California has had implementing its version of dumbed-down sentencing and early release called "realignment."  Realignment was signed by Gov. Brown roughly five years ago, in April 2011, in response to years of problems with prison overcrowding.

Following up on my earlier post, here is a second draft of amendments to Florida Statutes.  I have rearranged and expanded some of the provisions and also added comments explaining some of the language.

Another issue is what to do about the existing judgments.  I have some thoughts on that, also, but I don't want to delay the publication of this proposal.

There has been quite a bit of discussion on this blog about legislation (S2123) before Congress that would reduce federal sentences for so-called non-violent drug offenders, including some with gun allegations, and allow early release for thousands of offenders convicted under previous law.  The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act is supported by several of the same anti-incarceration advocates who supported California's "Public Safety Realignment Act" (adopted in 2011),  "The Three Strikes Reform Act" (Proposition 36 passed in 2012), and "The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act" (Proposition 47 passed in 2014).  Together, those measures reclassified most property and drug crimes as low-level, non-violent offenses, restricted the sentences of criminals convicted of those crimes to county jail, eliminated the third strike 25-to-life sentence for habitual criminals whose third conviction was not a violent felony, and allowed for the early release of thousands of criminals sentenced under previous law. 

S2123, while not as extensive as the California reforms, would do many of the same things.   

DNA Bloodtest Predicts Suspects' Age:  Forensic biomedical scientists at the University of Leuven in Belgium have developed a unique test of blood samples that has the ability to predict the age of an individual within a four-year range.  Jim Drury of the Global Post reports that lead researcher Bram Bekaert and his team advanced a test that examines a set of four age-associated DNA methylation markers, testing them against hundreds of blood samples from crime victims whose age was known and correlating the chronological age.  The results determined individuals' age in the blood samples with a margin of error of 3.75 years across the age range.  A similar test was conducted on a smaller sample of teeth in which the team determined an individual's age with a margin of error of 4.86 years.  The two tests will play a critical role in narrowing down and identifying suspects in both active and cold criminal cases.

Three Violent Criminals Escape from CA Jail:  Authorities are scrambling to locate three violent criminals that escaped a Southern California maximum-security jail on Friday, marking the first escape at the jail in over 20 years.  The AP reports that Jonathan Tieu, 20; Bac Duong, 43, and Hossein Nayeri, 37, were all awaiting trial for violent crimes in unrelated cases at Central Men's Jail in Santa Ana when they disappeared from a dormitory shared by 65 other inmates shortly after an early morning headcount.  The escape is described as elaborate and sophisticated and went unnoticed for 16 hours.  The escapees include Tieu, facing charges of murder, attempted murder and shooting at an inhabited dwelling; Nayeri, charged with kidnapping, torture, aggravated mayhem and burglary; and Duong, who faces charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, shooting at an inhabited dwelling and being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm.  A probe is underway to determine if the men received any help from inside or outside the jail.

International Flight Passengers Skip Customs:  For the second confirmed time in recent months, passengers arriving at JFK Airport on an international flight were cleared to exit without first going through Customs and Border Protection checkpoints.  Victoria Bekiempis and Denis Slattery of the NY Daily News report that travelers on American Airlines Flight 1223 from Cancun, Mexico, were allowed to leave the airport without airline and security officials checking their bags or passports.  One passenger even approached a TSA agent to inform them what happened, but was told he was free to go.  Hours later, the passenger, and presumably others, were contacted and told to return to the airport to compete the customs process.  A similar incident occurred in November involving another American Airlines flight from Cancun, just two days after ISIS released a video threatening New York City with a terrorist attack.  The oversights confirm concerns that terrorists could slip into the United States undetected.  In a statement, the airline admitted to the security blunder but provided no information as to what they were doing to address it.

NM Gets Tough on Crime:  As states around the country ditch tough-on-crime measures, for more lenient sentencing refroms, New Mexico lawmakers are taking the opposite approach.  Morgan Lee and Mary Hudetz of CNS News report that legislators and Gov. Susana Martinez are behind 20 pieces of proposed legislation aimed at cracking down on criminals and extending prison terms for violent career felons, repeat DWI offenders, parole jumpers and crimes related to child pornography.  The package also includes a mandatory-minimum sentencing measure, expansion of the state's three-strikes law, making the targeted killing of a police officer a hate crime and adding a constitutional amendment to overhaul bail rules in the state.  Multiple polls across the state show that for the first time since the financial crisis, crime has overtaken the economy as the top concern among New Mexico residents. 

After the break is my first cut at a post-Hurst fix for Florida's capital sentencing statute.

New CA Execution Method under Scrutiny:  As California begins to discuss its new execution method after years of debate and stagnation, death penalty opponents are lashing out at reforms they argue amounts to "human experimentation."  Howard Mintz of the San Jose Mercury News reports that back in November, state prison officials proposed a new lethal injection procedure, moving from a three-drug cocktail to just one lethal drug, and now the anti-death penalty crowd is arguing that the state is risking experimentation on its condemned inmates because two of the four drug options have never been used in executions.  Death penalty supporters, however, counter-argue that opposing groups, such as the ACLU, are putting up "invalid roadblocks" to executions in an effort to thwart them.  A public hearing will be heard Friday to air the new procedure and, at some point, a San Francisco federal judge is expected to consider its legality.

Parolee Arrested for Murder:  A Colorado parolee facing charges of murder was touted as a model of success by a state parole administrator just 16 days before the fatal stabbing of a homeless man.  Kirk Mitchell of the Denver Post reports that 44-year-old Calvin Johnson faces one count of first-degree murder in the New Year's Day death of 50-year-old Teodoro Leon III, who was stabbed 10 times in the head, face, torso and back.  A few weeks before the murder, on Dec. 16, deputy director of parole Alison Morgan discussed Johnson's success overcoming troubles linked to mental illness with the Joint Judiciary Committee, saying of his progress, "all of this is working, really very successfully."

Police and Sheriffs Team up in Chicago Gang Fight:  The Chicago Police Department and the Cook County Sheriff's Office announced Wednesday that they are teaming up to combat gangs and remove illegal guns from the streets.  Jeremy Gorner of the Chicago Tribune reports that though the partnership is nothing new, it will be more coordinated than before, targeting gangs in some of the most violent districts in the city and aided by interim police Superintendent John Escalante and Sheriff Tom Dart.  The partnership is to continue through the end of January and will then shift focus to other police districts in February.  The city is off to a violent start this year; as of Tuesday, 190 people have been shot across the city, more than double than the year earlier, which saw only 78 shooting victims by this time.  Homicides have risen this year as well, with 29 so far compared with 16 the year prior.

Update:  See the follow-up post, regarding an execution in Alabama which the Supreme Court allowed to go forward even though the murderer was making a Hurst claim.

Throughout the United States Supreme Court's modern capital punishment jurisprudence, it has clearly distinguished two separate determinations to be made in capital sentencing.  The difference is explained in, among many other cases Tuilaepa v. California, 512 U.S. 967, 970-971 (1994):

Our capital punishment cases under the Eighth Amendment address two different aspects of the capital decision-making process: the eligibility decision and the selection decision. To be eligible for the death penalty, the defendant must be convicted of a crime for which the death penalty is a proportionate punishment. Coker v. Georgia, 433 U. S. 584 (1977). To render a defendant eligible for the death penalty in a homicide case, we have indicated that the trier of fact must convict the defendant of murder and find one "aggravating circumstance" (or its equivalent) at either the guilt or penalty phase.

*            *            *

We have imposed a separate requirement for the selection decision, where the sentencer determines whether a defendant eligible for the death penalty should in fact receive that sentence. "What is important at the selection stage is an individualized determination on the basis of the character of the individual and the circumstances of the crime."

Different requirements apply to these two decisions.  Most pertinently here, Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 597-598, n. 4 (2002) very explicitly confines its jury trial holding to the eligibility decision, i.e., the finding of at least one aggravating circumstance, and not to the weighing or the ultimate penalty decision.

Did the Supreme Court in Hurst v. Florida throw away the distinction between these two decisions that it has so carefully constructed and explained over so many years?  Some people are claiming it did.  I find that inconceivable, particularly since just a week later the Court reasserted the distinction in Kansas v. Carr, an opinion joined by eight Justices, including six who joined the Hurst opinion.

Yet the people making that claim have some sloppy language in the Hurst opinion to back them up.

AL Man Faces Execution:  A condemned Alabama murderer is set to be executed by lethal injection Thursday evening, marking the first time the state has put a prisoner to death in more than two years.  Kim Chandler of the AP reports that attorneys for 43-year-old Christopher Eugene Brooks unsuccessfully argued Wednesday to halt the execution, claiming further court review of the state's execution protocol was needed before being used for the first time.  However, lawyers for the state countered that the new drug combination, which changed two of the three drugs in the procedure, is "virtually identical" to the one Florida has used several times without incident and argued that Brooks was simply attempting to delay his execution.  Brooks was convicted in 1993 for the rape and murder of 23-year-old Jo Deann Campbell, who was found bludgeoned and sexually assaulted under her bed after Brooks had spent the night at her house.  

San Fernando Valley Homicides Spike:  Police data indicates that homicides in Southern California's San Fernando Valley surpassed Los Angeles increases.  Brenda Gazzar of the L.A. Daily News reports that while homicides citywide in Los Angeles increased about 9 percent over last year and 13 percent over two years ago, the Valley, which is located north of the Los Angeles Basin, saw a spike of 14 percent in 2015 over the previous year and a staggering 46 percent over 2013.  Believed to be contributing to the concerning surge is increased homelessness, lower costs for heroin and methamphetamine, and the implementation of Prop. 47, a ballot measure passed in November 2014 which downgraded several crimes such as drug possession and minor theft from felonies to misdemeanors.

CO Bill Aims to Reduce Number of Juror Votes in Death Penalty Cases:  Colorado lawmakers have introduced new legislation that could make it easier for juries to sentence a defendant to death.  Marshall Zelinger of the Denver Channel reports that the bill, called SB 64, would remove the unanimous voting requirement for death sentences, changing the standard to just nine out of 12 jurors voting for the death penalty for it to be enforced.  The legislation follows last year's high-profile trial of Aurora theater shooter James Eagan Holmes, who was found guilty on multiple counts of murder but skirted the death penalty when jurors could not reach a unanimous decision, with nine jurors "firm," two "on the fence" and one "absolute no," according to one of the jurors.  "For one person to be able to decide for everyone, it's kind of ridiculous," added the juror.  Of the 31 states that impose capital punishment, Alabama, Florida and Delaware are the only states that do not require a unanimous jury decision.

Barstow Police Need More Resources:  A city councilman in Barstow, Calif., says that the city needs additional resources to combat the "alarming" increase in crime brought on by soft-on-crime legislation enacted in the state in recent years.  Mike Lamb of Desert Dispatch reports that Councilman Richard Harpole spoke during Tuesday's Council meeting, stating that crime in Barstow, located about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles, is up "in every single category in part one crimes" and blames the spike on AB 109 and Prop. 47.  He emphasized that the increase in crime is "not a reflection of our Police Department" but rather, recent legislation implemented that simply slaps criminals on the wrist and sends them on their way.  Harpole suggests adding two more investigators to the police department that are specially trained to focus on career criminals in order to "build the type of cases that will require prison time."

The United States Supreme Court today decided the case of Kansas v. Carr, along with the companion case of Kansas v. Gleason.  The Carr brothers are Kansas's exemplar of why the death penalty is necessary.  Their crime spree of robbery, murder, home invasion, and rape is truly a case where any lesser penalty would be a mockery of justice.

Kansas is a conservative state, but because it selects its state supreme court justices in the worst possible way, it has a court that bends over backwards to help murderers escape justice.  It often invokes the federal constitution to do so in order to prevent its decisions from being abrogated by the legislature.  Those clearly erroneous decisions can be reversed by the United States Supreme Court, however, and today's decision is not the first.

And when the Kansas Supreme Court time and again invalidates death sentences because it says the Federal Constitution requires it, "review by this Court, far from undermining state autonomy, is the only possible way to vindicate it." Ibid. "When we correct a state court's federal errors, we return power to the State, and to its people." Ibid.

Justice Scalia wrote the opinion from the Court, and he quoted his own powerful concurring opinion in Kansas v. Marsh (2006), elevating that language from concurrence to controlling precedent.  Bravo.

In the capital sentencing regime that has been built since the 1976 cases, the process consists of two distinct steps -- eligibility and selection.  Blurring that distinction is an error, because the two decisions are quite different.  The jury instruction issue in this case illustrates the importance of keeping that distinction clear.