Results matching “first”

It's a  staple of the defense bar that an accused should not wind up in prison in the service of a political agenda.  Although I often disagree with the defense, in this they are 100% correct.  Putting people in the slammer because of the political needs of those in power is odious to American justice.  It's the stuff of banana republics  -- banana republics and tyrannies.

Judge Rules That Some California Convicts can Vote: A California judge has ruled against a decision made by Secretary of State Debra Bowen that would have prevented thousands of criminals released under Realignment from voting in upcoming elections.  The Associated Press reports that a lawsuit brought forward by the ACLU sought to have voting rights restored to nearly 60,000 convicts released under Realignment and placed on Post-Release Community Supervision (PRCS).  Prior to Realignment, those felons would have been placed on parole, and barred from voting in state-run elections.  The judge agreed with the ACLU, citing that a goal of Realignment was to encourage rehabilitation, and participating in society and voting is a part of that effort.

Murder Suspect Arrested After Decades on the Run: A Detroit man accused of killing one man and wounding another has been arrested in Georgia after spending more than 20 years on the run.  Robert Allen of the Detroit Free Press reports that 41-year-old Antonio Daniels was tracked down by local and federal agents and found to be living in Georgia under a new name. When authorities confronted him about the killing he initially denied involvement, but later he admitted his true identity after being presented with fingerprint evidence.  Daniels is being held in Georgia awaiting extradition to Michigan.

The Supreme Court heard two cases last week about whether the warantless search of the digital contents of a cell phone incident to the arrest of its possessor is permissible and, if so, under what circumstances and to what extent.

The Sentencing Commission has published statistics showing that, for the first time ever, a majority of sentences are now outside the Guidelines range.  No one will be surprised to learn that virtually all the departures are downward, i.e., departures favoring the criminal.

[T]he public should be told the truth about what, under the present system, the seductive phrase judicial discretion actually means--namely, a one-way street to lower sentences. The most revealing measure of the exercise of so-called discretion is the incidence and direction of departures. As noted previously, a large minority of all sentencing is already outside the range, and the day is soon coming when it will be a majority. 

CA Supreme Court Upholds Death Sentence: The California Supreme Court has affirmed the death sentence of a man convicted of the 1997 slaying and attempted robbery of a liquor store clerk.  The City News Service reports that attorneys for Calvin Dion Chism appealed his death sentence based on allegations that the jury selection process during the penalty phase of the trial was racially biased.  Chism's two co-defendants were also convicted of first-degree murder and were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Minnesota Senate Passes Gun Restriction Bill: A bill aimed at preventing anyone convicted of abuse or stalking from owning a firearm is headed to Governor Mark Dayton's desk for approval after being passed in the state's Senate by a vote of 60-4.  Baird Helgeson of the Star Tribune reports that the bill prohibits anyone convicted of domestic or child abuse from possessing a rifle or handgun.  Anyone under an order of protection may also lose firearm possession if ordered by a judge.  If approved by the Governor, Minnesota will join both Wisconsin and Washington who have already passed similar measures this year.

OK Death Row Inmate Awaits Execution: The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the final appeal of an Oklahoma death row inmate.  Chris Casteel of News OK reports that 51-year-old Richard Glossip was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1997 for his role in the killing of an Oklahoma City motel owner.  An execution date has not been set in order to allow time for the state to review lethal injection protocols after last week's execution of Clayton Lockett.

The President has nominated for a seat on the First Circuit the ghost of America's worst federal circuit judge, Stephen Reinhardt.  Indeed, the nominee, Harvard law professor David Barron, is worse than merely Reinhardt's ghost; he's Reinhardt's ex-clerk.  I guess if you're going to learn pro-criminal extremism, you might as well learn from its Number One judicial practitioner.

Sen. Rand Paul has warned Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that he will place a hold on one of President Obama's appellate court nominees because of his role in crafting the legal basis for Obama's drone policy.

Paul, the junior Republican senator from Kentucky, has informed Reid he will object to David Barron's nomination to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, unless the Justice Department makes public the memos he authored justifying the killing of an American citizen in Yemen.

How does a civilization choose decline?

A thoughtful college junior I know told me that while he didn't envision a richer American economy in his future or a mightier American role in the world, he looked forward to a country with a warmer embrace of diversity, including gay marriage in every state.

I have opposed the Smarter Sentencing Act because it's bad policy:  It turns its back on our success in reducing crime to re-embrace our past failures, and it does so because, perversely, it views the incarceration rate as more important than the crime rate.

CA Legislators Kill Realignment Reforms:  Bills introduced by two Democrat lawmakers to make much needed reforms of California's Realignment law were killed at their first hearing Tuesday.  Brad Branan of the Sacramento Bee reports that AB1449 by Assemblyman Manuel Perez, D Los Angeles, and AB1901 by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, D Torrance, were supported by virtually every professional law enforcement organization in the state.  The Perez bill would have required the more intense supervision on state parole for inmates released from prison who had a prior conviction for a serious felony. The Muratsuchi bill would have given judges the authority to determine if a criminal convicted of a new felony should be placed on state parole or Realignment's new name for probation, Post Release Community Supervision (PRCS).  Since Realignment took effect in 2011, several thousand violent and serious felonies and tens of thousands of theft and drug-related crimes have been committed by prison inmates released to light supervision on PRCS instead of state parole.  Unmoved by these facts, the Democrat majority on the Assembly Public Safety Committee voted down both bills.

Second Man Charged in Nursing Student's Disappearance: A second man has been arrested and charged in the 2011 kidnapping and murder of Tennessee nursing student Holly Bobo.  Brian Wilson of the Tennessean reports that 39-year-old Jason Autry, who is currently serving a prison sentence for an unrelated aggravated assault was indicted Tuesday on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping after witness statements linked him to the crime along with Zachary Adams, who was arrested and charged in Bobo's death last month.  Bobo was abducted outside of her home in April 2011, and while her body has yet to be recovered, authorities say they have strong physical evidence that may result in the future arrests of more suspects.

MT Teacher's One-Month Rape Sentence Overturned: A Montana teacher who served just 31 days in jail for raping a 14-year-old girl may be headed back to prison after the state's Supreme Court ordered him to be re-sentenced.  Matthew Brown of the Associated Press reports that high court's decision will require the defendant, Stacey Dean Rambold, to serve a minimum sentence of two years in prison.  It is likely that the sentencing court will give Rambold an longer sentence.  Rambold's victim, who happened to be one of his students, killed herself in 2010 while Rambold was awaiting trial.

...but the alternative is worse.

Wednesday, May 7 is the Federalist Society's Executive Branch Review Conference in Washington.  The first panel is "Suspension of Laws: What are the Limits of Executive Authority?"

CA High Court Upholds Death Sentence: By a vote of 7-0, the California Supreme Court upheld the death sentence and murder convictions of serial killer William Suff.  Marylin Jacobsen of The Press Enterprise reports that 63-year-old Suff was sentenced to death in 1995 after being convicted of murder as many as 12 women throughout Southern California between 1989 and 1991.  Suff was sentenced to 70 years in prison in 1974 for the murder of his two-month-old daughter, but was paroled and released from Texas to California after serving just ten years.

Philadelphia Courts Failed to Report Thousands of Drug Convictions: A recently released report by the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper has revealed that the state court system failed for years to follow a state law enacted to keep dangerous drivers convicted of drug offenses off the road.  The Associated Press reports that the law requires each county to notify the state's Department of Transportation whenever someone is convicted of a drug crime.  The first offense results in an automatic six-month license suspension.  According to the report, roughly 11,500 people were supposed to be reported to the Department of Transportation  in 2012, but only four were. 

Egypt Sentences Hundreds to Death in Mass Trial: An Egyptian court has sentenced 683 supporters of the now-banned  Muslim Brotherhood to death, including the group's spiritual leader, after holding a mass trial Monday morning.  The Associated Press reports that the mass trial was in response to deadly riots that erupted in the country last August during the removal of Egypt's controversial President Mohammad Morsi.  A similar mass trial was held last month, and resulted in 529 defendants being sentenced to death, the majority of those sentences have since been commuted to life in prison.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has vetoed House Bill 2313, which would have expanded the class of murders eligible for the death penalty.

Arizona's death penalty law follows a fairly typical pattern.  Eligibility is narrowed by requirements that the perpetrator be convicted of first-degree murder plus a finding of at least one of a list of aggravating circumstances.  At present there are 14.  One of them is a prior or concurrent conviction of a "serious" offense, a list of violent offenses and burglary.

HB 2313 would have added an aggravating circumstance of, "a substantial likelihood that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that constitute a continuing threat to society."  I would advise against adopting such a subjective rule at the stage of narrowing the eligibility to be considered for the death penalty.  At this stage, the circumstances should be kept as objective as possible.  Letting the jury consider future dangerous in the discretionary decision to impose the penalty isn't as bad, although even there it is problematic.  Predictions are dicey.  Basing sentencing on objective facts produces more consistent and fair results.

The bill would also have added human smuggling to the list of "serious" offenses.  That change is less problematic than the future dangerousness one.  Even so, Arizona's law is broad enough already.  I don't really see the need to add this one.

The governor's veto letter is here, and she is correct.

Legislators who favor the death penalty should be focusing on procedural reforms to get the sentences we already have carried out.  In most states, we don't need any expansions of the scope.

OK Supreme Court Rules Against Death Row Inmates: The Oklahoma Supreme Court has rejected two death row inmates' demands to know the source of the drugs set to be used at their upcoming executions just days after the inmates were granted a stay.  Elliot C. McLaughlin of CNN reports that both convicted murderers are now scheduled to be put to death Tuesday, making this the state's first double execution in nearly 80 years.  The state Attorney General applauded the high court's ruling, and stood by the longstanding precedent of keeping drug sources anonymous.

Holder Cancels Speech at Police Academy Graduation: Attorney General Eric Holder has cancelled a speech that he was scheduled to deliver to graduating police cadets in Oklahoma City after crowds protested his appearance.  Alana Goodman of the Washington Free Beacon reports that protest organizers felt Holder's speech to academy graduates would be "inappropriate", because the attorney general has failed in his responsibilities to uphold the law himself.  Holder made headlines recently after announcing his plan to reduce the sentences for thousands of convicted drug offenders and release them back onto the streets.

Ex-Con Arrested in Brutal Assault: A New York man recently released from prison has been arrested after authorities say he broke into an apartment and attacked three women with a hammer before stealing their belongings.  Joe Kemp of the New York Daily News reports that 29-year-old Lawrence Parsons, released from prison last month after serving a two-year sentence for attempted robbery, stole electronics from the home after hitting the women repeatedly in their heads with a hammer, fracturing  their skulls.  Lawrence was arrested for attempted murder and robbery, he's being held in county jail in lieu of $75,000 bail.
  

The Obama Administration's Department of Justice is going all-out in its drive for clemency for a large segment of federal inmates convicted of drug offenses. It's also making a big display of it, with a prominent rollout this week.

Convicted Double-Murderer Put to Death: The state of Missouri executed 57-year-old William Rousan early Wednesday morning for his role in the 1993 murders of an elderly farming couple.  Carey Gillam of Reuters reports that Rousan, along with his son and brother, orchestrated the killings in an effort to steal the couple's cattle.  Missouri has executed one death row inmate each month since November, the next scheduled execution is set to take place May 21.

Man Wants 'Murder' Tattoo Removed Before Trial: A Kansas man awaiting trial for first-degree murder is asking to have a tattoo with the word 'Murder' removed from his neck, fearing that the tattoo may negatively affect his case.  Jessica Chasmar of the Washington Times reports that Jeffrey Chapman's defense attorney has filed a motion asking that a tattoo artist be allowed to either remove or cover up the tattoo across his client's neck before the trial begins on Monday.  Prosecutors aren't opposed to Chapman removing the tattoo, but county police have said they will not transport the man to a tattoo parlor for removal.  State law only permits tattoo artists to work in a licensed facility- eliminating the option removing Chapman's tatoo in jail.  Prosecutors have instead suggested that Chapman cover up his neck with a bandage or some type of clothing instead. 

Georgia Law Expands Gun Rights: Georgia Governor Nathan Deal has signed what many are calling an 'unprecedented' bill expanding gun rights for licensed owners.  Fox News reports that the bill increases the list public places where licensed gun owners are allowed to carry guns, including bars, churches, and some government buildings.  The bill also allows for school districts to decide whether or not employees will be allowed to carry firearms under certain conditions, and eliminates the fingerprinting requirement for those renewing weapons carry licenses.

First, we have to define what an over-zealous prosecutor is. That's the easy part:  An over-zealous prosecutor is one who's awake during business hours.

As the kidnappers pulled into a quiet, upscale golf course community, they thought they were about to abduct an assistant district attorney who sent a high-ranking gang member to prison for life, authorities said.

But they had the wrong address and when the prosecutor's father answered the door, they took him instead.

For five days, authorities said the kidnappers held 63-year-old Frank Janssen captive in an Atlanta apartment, tormenting his family by sending text messages threatening to cut him into pieces if police were called or their demands weren't met. They even sent a photo of him tied up in a chair.

In my first year at the Justice Department, one of the senior lawyers  --  seeing that I was frustrated by all the amicus briefs that had been filed opposing the government's position -- told me, "Thank God for your enemies."

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has released a study tracking the rearrest rate of 405,000 felons released from prison in 30 states.  The BJS press release is here.  The study examines ex-convicts released in 2005 who were rearrested for a new crimes over the next five years.  More than 57% of those released were rearrested in the first year.   By the third year 68% had been rearrested.  After five years 77% had been rearrested at least one time, with many rearrested more than once.  In total, ex-convicts released from prison in 2005 were rearrested 1.2 million times for new crimes.   Property criminals, including burglars, car thieves, and identity thieves were rearrested at the highest rate of 82%.  77% of drug offenders, typically drug dealers, were rearrested over the five year period.  Recividism was highest among blacks, followed by Hispanics and whites.  Age and sex were also major factors with 84% of those 24 or younger rearrested.  The rearrest rate dropped to 69% for those 40 or older.  78% of males were rearrested compared to 68% of females. 

There will be two varieties of spin put on this study.  The first and most publicized will come from "Smart on Crime" advocates, which includes the ACLU, the Urban Institute, the Sentencing Project and much of academia.  They will point to these findings as proof that fixed and progressively severe consequences for criminals, such as mandatory minimums and habitual criminal sentencing have failed to rehabilitate criminals.  We will be told that the current transition to alternative sentencing featuring "evidence based practices" and treatment programs will help to reform the current racially biased system, lower the recividism rate, improve  public safety, and remove the stigma on America as the "incarceration nation."  

     

The primary argument for the Smarter Sentencing Act  --  the proposal that would slash by half mandatory minimum sentences for drug dealers  --  is that MM's, though often only a half to a third of what the guidelines range would be for a given offender, are still unnecessarily harsh, and are driving the federal prison budget through the roof.  To save money if for no other reason, we need for these offenders to be spending less time behind bars.

Pro-criminal interest groups and academics are constantly admonishing us that we should use "evidence-based sentencing."  The problem is that they don't want consideration of anything a normal person would consider "evidence."  Instead, the "evidence" upon which we are told we should rest our gaze inevitably turns out to be  --  guess what  --  some slanted "study" or "report" done by these self-same groups.

PA Mayor to Limit Police Cooperation with Immigration Officers: Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter is expected to sign an executive order to limit collaboration efforts between his city's police department and federal immigration authorities.  Julie Shaw of Philly News reports that the order would prevent police from honoring detainer requests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement unless the case involves a person convicted of a first or second-degree felony.  Prior to this order, ICE officials were able to request that a person suspected of being a non-citizen be held by city police up to 48 hours until immigration officers could take custody of them.

CO Police Suspect Accused Murderer was Hallucinating from Marijuana: Denver police are investigating to determine if a man accused of fatally shooting his wife Monday was hallucinating from edible marijuana.  Paresh Dave of the Los Angeles Times reports that the man's wife called 911 Monday night and told the dispatcher that her husband was "talking about the end of the world" and hallucinating, and mentioned that he may have eaten some marijuana. During the 911 call, 47-year-old Richard Kirk retrieved a gun from a locked safe and shot his wife in the head while the couple's three children hid in a bedroom.  Kirk was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder, but has not yet been officially charged.

Advocates of increased use of pot through legalization often mock the 1930's film, "Reefer Madness."  The idea seems to be that only Puritanical, moralistic, anti-science zealots could think the pot might adversely affect brain development.

Casual marijuana use may come with some not-so-casual side effects.

For the first time, researchers at Northwestern University have analyzed the relationship between casual use of marijuana and brain changes - and found that young adults who used cannabis just once or twice a week showed significant abnormalities in two important brain structures.

The study's findings, to be published Wednesday in the Journal of Neuroscience, are similar to those of past research linking chronic, long-term marijuana use with mental illness and changes in brain development.

My post yesterday describing White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler's remarks about Presidential clemency did not go nearly far enough.  Now that I take a closer look at the AP report, I have to wonder whether something very, very broad is afoot. Specifically, I wonder whether the President is planning to implement the heart of the Smarter Sentencing Act on his own.  It would scarcely be the first time this President by-passed Congress.

"The president believes that one important purpose [of executive clemency] can be to help correct the effects of outdated and overly harsh sentences that Congress and the American people have since recognized are no longer in the best interests of justice," Ruemmler said in remarks prepared for delivery Tuesday at New York University's law school. "This effort also reflects the reality that our overburdened federal prison population includes many low-level, nonviolent offenders without significant criminal histories."  ***

[She also] said the Justice Department plans in the coming weeks to encourage worthy inmates to request commutations, with bar associations offering to help with applications. She said Obama's new budget proposal calls for seven more staffers to be added to the Office of Pardon Attorney to handle applications, saying that the two years the office has taken to resolve petitions in recent years has been "unacceptably long." She said Obama met with U.S. attorneys last month and asked them to personally review petitions to consider "whether granting clemency would be consistent with the values of justice and fairness that are the hallmark of the best traditions of the Department of Justice."

Much of what we hear about the Boston Marathon murders is  --  excuse me  -- unadulterated mush.  Have we had enough yet of teddy bears, plastic flowers and yellow ribbons? Have we had enough of the vapid talk that seems inevitably to follow them?  Take this, for example, from yesterday's Washington Post article commemorating the bombing:

Today is the one year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing.  Dozens of people received life-long, disfiguring injuries.  Three died: Krystle Campbell, 29; Chinese national Lu Lingzi, 23; and  Martin Richard, 8.  The latter was  to have started his first season in Little League in a few weeks.

"In this case the EEOC sued the defendants for using the same type of background check that the EEOC itself uses."

DNA Links Illinois Man to Cold Case Murder: Authorities have made an arrest in the 1997 killing of a 14-year-old girl after DNA collected from the scene several years ago linked 36-year-old James Eaton to the crime.  The Associated Press reports that investigators linked Eaton to the crime after positive matches came from both fingerprints at the scene and DNA evidence collected from a cigarette butt he recently discarded.  14-year-old Amber Creek's body was found in a marsh two weeks after she was reported missing in January 1997.  She had been beaten, sexually assaulted and suffocated with a plastic bag.  Eaton has been charged with first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse, he is currently being held on $1 million bail.

Drug Cartel 'Enforcer' Confesses to Dozens of Murders: Jose Manuel Martinez, a self-proclaimed drug cartel enforcer, is facing nine murder charges in California after authorities say he confessed to at least 30 killings in several states across the country.  Russell Goldman of ABC News reports that Martinez, who is currently in custody in Alabama on a murder charge from 2013, has confessed to a string of crimes he committed dating back to the 1980's including several murders for hire.  Aside from the murder charges, Martinez is also facing allegations of lying in wait and kidnapping, making him eligible for a possible death sentence.

Michael Graczyk reports for AP:

A serial killer was put to death Thursday in Texas after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his lawyers' demand that the state release information about where it gets its lethal injection drug.

Tommy Lynn Sells, 49, was the first inmate to be injected with a dose of newly replenished pentobarbital that Texas prison officials obtained to replace an expired supply of the powerful sedative.

Sells declined to give a statement. As the drug began flowing into his arms inside the death chamber in Huntsville, Sells took a few breaths, his eyes closed and he began to snore. After less than a minute, he stopped moving. He was pronounced dead 13 minutes later, at 6:27 p.m. CDT.

For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the undisclosed sources, we see once again that the single-drug method with pentobarbital is the way to go for lethal injection.  Another murderer snores his way to eternity and removal to a higher court.

To the extent that anyone is faced with a potentially painful execution by the substitution of other drugs, the blame for that falls squarely on the shoulders of those obstructing the supply.  For a manufacturer to restrict resale of its product should be illegal.  It is a restraint of trade.  Eliminating the barriers to supply is the solution.

The Supreme Court orders are here and here.  No dissent is noted.

Louisiana House Votes to Expand Death Penalty: Members of the Louisiana House overwhelmingly voted in favor of a bill that would make the murder of correctional worker punishable by death.  Lauren McGaughy of NOLA.com reports that House Bill 278 adds correctional facility employees to a list of first-degree murder victims, allowing prosecutors to pursue the death penalty or an automatic life without the possibility of parole sentence.  The bill, which was approved by a vote of 73-19, now heads to the Senate committee. 

Convicted Killer to get New Trial: Mississippi death row inmate Michelle Byrom, who was scheduled to be executed last week for the murder of her husband, will get a new trial after a rare ruling was made by the state's high court.  The Associated Press reports that attorneys for Byrom say they have new evidence in the case that points to her son being the killer, alleging that he even confessed to the crime during conversations with a forensic psychologist.  Byrom's son originally testified against her as part of a plea bargain, and was sentenced to 50 years in prison with 20 years suspended.

D.C. Mayor Signs Marijuana Decriminalization Bill: Washington D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray has signed a bill that decriminalizes possession of up to one ounce (28 grams) of marijuana in the nation's capital.  Ian Simpson of Reuters reports that the new law makes possession of marijuana a civil violation punishable by a $25 fine, possession used to be classified as a misdemeanor carrying up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.  The measure will now undergo a 60-day congressional review.