The alleged perpetrator...had an extensive criminal history, including eight arrests in four years and a robbery conviction. Three times, he was sentenced under laws designed to promote leniency and second chances for inexperienced adult offenders. In two of those cases, he was sentenced under the District's Youth Rehabilitation Act, a 1980s-era law aimed at "deserving" offenders under the age of 22.
Pitt's case shows that such laws, combined with lax enforcement by key federal agencies, can give many chances to violent offenders despite repeated criminal behavior and the failure to abide by terms of release, according to a Washington Post review of court records, transcripts and probation reports.
In the crucial weeks before the rape, a D.C. Superior Court magistrate judge and two federal agencies -- the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA) and the U.S. Parole Commission -- failed to work together to take Pitt off the streets.
Pitt's behavior raised many red flags, indicating escalating risk.
Just out of prison last summer after serving a robbery sentence, Pitt did not report for some of his court-ordered drug testing and anger management sessions. He did not keep in contact with his supervision officer. And in a final act of defiance, Pitt cut off the GPS monitoring bracelet affixed to his ankle and let the battery run dead. He was completely off the grid.
Sentencing "reformers" would of course tell us that those are merely the much-storied "technical violations" for which a return to inhumane (and expensive) incarceration is a fear-driven or racist (or both) over-reaction.
CSOSA, the federal agency charged with watching D.C. offenders released from prison, did not request a warrant for Pitt's arrest for 15 days after losing contact with him. The Parole Commission waited a week after getting that request before forwarding it to law enforcement. And the magistrate judge denied a prosecutor's request to keep Pitt behind bars, despite a troubling report from the Pretrial Services Agency.
"No conditions or combination of conditions can reasonably assure the defendant's appearance or safety to the community," said the report that was given to magistrate [judge] William Nooter.
Ah, yes. The judiciary we're supposed to trust with more discretion had the needed information right in front of its face and simply turned away.
Imagine that.
Still, this is better than the Callahan case. There, the defense lawyer, Steven S. Nolder, told the court that he, the probation officer, and the Assistant US Attorney (whose name I will publish as soon as I can verify it) had concluded that Callahan, a virtually life-long criminal, would, if released, "pose no danger to the safety of the public." This representation was made a matter of months before Callahan knifed to death his girlfriend and two of her grade school-age children.
At a time when the Obama administration and Congress are working to ease "mandatory minimum" sentencing guidelines for non-violent offenses, in part because of concerns that such laws have unjustly imprisoned large numbers of African Americans, D.C. law enforcement officials are increasingly concerned about the number of repeat violent offenders on the streets. The District, for example, has seen a near doubling in the percentage of homicide suspects with prior gun-related arrests.
"Sometimes, we just scratch our heads," D.C. police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said. "We feel like there's a revolving door for violent offenders. It's very frustrating for us because we see the victim, and we see the impact on the victim."
Which differentiates Ms. Lanier from the ivory-tower and think tank sponsors of "sentencing reform," whose finger-sandwich receptions and Capitol Hill parties tend to avoid inviting non-Harvard and non-Stanford human garbage like Ms. Smith, leaving them to their less enjoyable fate.
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This is only a small part of the Post story, which I intend to continue.
I will be accepting comments conditionally. Let me say, however, that diversionary comments, or those that directly or indirectly attempt to dismiss, minimize, or walk past this story, its victim or its lessons are disfavored and may result in a closing or truncation of the comments section.
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