An initial court hearing on the pending consent decree between the U.S. Department of Justice and the city of Baltimore, scheduled for Tuesday, has been delayed more than a week after Justice Department officials asked for more time to brief the new Trump administration on the proposed police reform agreement.
"Because of the change in administration, the Department of Justice also experienced a transition in leadership," Justice Department officials wrote in a motion for continuance in U.S. District Court in Baltimore on Friday, the day President Donald Trump was sworn into office in Washington. "The United States requires additional time in order to brief the new leadership of the Department on the case at bar and the proposed Consent Decree before making any representations to the Court."
This is what I call getting right on the job.
U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar, who is presiding over the case, granted the motion, noting that the city had no objection to the delay. He rescheduled the hearing for 10 a.m. Feb. 1.
Bredar had called for the hearing earlier this week in a letter to Justice Department and city officials, in which he outlined dozens of questions he had on the proposed agreement.
He specifically asked Mayor Catherine Pugh to attend the hearing to discuss the lack of specific cost projections and how the expense will be covered. He also said some benchmarks and timelines for determining the Police Department's compliance are too vague and asked for more information on how requirements in the agreement compare to legal precedent and to provisions in the local police union's collective bargaining agreement with the city
Bredar must accept the agreement for it to become binding, and will oversee the agreement along with a court-appointed monitor.
The Justice Department and the city signed the consent decree last week as a proposed settlement to a complaint filed by the Justice Department based on its lengthy investigation into the Baltimore Police Department. The investigation was launched after the April 2015 death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray from injuries suffered in police custody. His death triggered rioting, looting and arson [but not one of the six charged police officers was convicted of anything despite the politically-charged atmosphere of the trials].
The investigation found Baltimore police routinely violated residents' constitutional rights, particularly in poor, predominantly black neighborhoods; used excessive force; improperly dismissed sexual assault complaints; mistreated youths and people with mental disabilities; and infringed on protesters' free-speech rights, among other violations.
Pugh and the Justice Department under former President Barack Obama had set Trump's inauguration as a deadline for the deal to be struck. Local elected officials and activists have expressed concerns the Trump administration would be less likely than the Obama administration to reach a deal. They have also expressed fears the Trump administration will try to back out of the deal.
But here's the punch line. Given Baltimore's bloody murder spike over the last two years, I strongly suspect it's a punch line that will save many lives over the next months and years, almost all of them black:
Trump has expressed skepticism about the Obama administration's use of the Justice Department to investigate local police departments and then mandate reforms.
On Friday, a statement was posted on the White House website titled "Standing Up For Our Law Enforcement Community." It said the Trump administration "will empower our law enforcement officers to do their jobs and keep our streets free of crime and violence."
"The dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America is wrong," it said. "The Trump Administration will end it."
Bill, as you know, former Prez Obama came into office in 2009 and crime kept dropping through 2014. Given that reality, would you compliment his work on this front throughout his first Term? Or do you have some alternative facts about crime that makes you critical of Obama's work from 2009 through 2012?
And, can you give specific examples of "policies of Clinton and Bush years [that] were reversed" during the Obama Administration. Are you talking about the FSA of 2010 which soon-to-be AG Sessions supported? Are you talking about the drugs -2 guideline changes, which was done by the bipartisan USSC including acting USSC Chair Bill Pryor?
"Bill, as you know, former Prez Obama came into office in 2009 and crime kept dropping through 2014. Given that reality, would you compliment his work on this front throughout his first Term?"
No. A Harvard Law grad hardly deserves compliments for being able to read the statistics showing the success of his predecessors' policies, and then keeping what obviously works. I might congratulate a seventh grader on it, however.
"And, can you give specific examples of "policies of Clinton and Bush years [that] were reversed" during the Obama Administration."
Sure. Eric Holder's restrictions on MM charging announced at the ABA Convention; watering down the Ashcroft Memo; and, as you point out, the watering down of tens of thousands of sentences accomplished by the Democratic-dominated USSC Obama installed.
This is scarcely to mention Obama's record-shattering commutations. They said quite a lot. One thing they said was that, if our former President couldn't get retroactivity through Congress or even a stacked Sentencing Commission, he'd just do it himself -- a characteristic overuse of executive authority by Obama that in other contexts got condemned by "libertarians" -- except when it benefited felons.
One other thing it shows us, hardly for the first time, is Obama's wonderfully high opinion of himself. It's not impossible that he's really more intelligent and far-seeing that every single President back to Truman. It's merely very unlikely.
P.S. To make one of my typically useless attempts to inveigle you to return to something resembling the topic thread, is it your position that the burdens and just-below-the-surface intimidation aimed at the Chicago police in the 2016 consent decree had NOTHING TO DO with the 57% murder increase in that city that year?
What specific action do you and other sentencing reformers propose to scale back that shocking number? Let more crack dealers out early? More smack pushers? Is that going to solve the problem? Does it help solve it in Washington, DC, according to the Washington Post? Or make it much, much worse?
In order:
1. It is a shame you will not give credit where it is due if it goes to a partisan adversary, but that seems to be an inside-the-Beltway norm that you embrace like far too many others.
2. The Holder Memo change came in 2013, but I assume you think it took 18 months for it to create problems. Perhaps, though crime hit record lows in big cities like NYC and Philly in 2016, so the story is dynamic.
3. The guideline change was unanimously supported, including by GOP hero Bill Pryor. Are you opposing Pryor's possible elevation to SCOTUS on this ground?
4. The vast majority of the 1,715 persons who had their sentences commuted by Obama are still in prison, so they are clearly not yet out causing crime. And though Obama's team was eager to spin his clemency work as record-setting, his commutation grant levels are on par with all the GOP Prez who saw the federal prison population explode during our failed federal war on alcohol --- Harding, Coolidge, Hoover averaged about 150 commutations per year, even though there federal prison population was only around 20,000 in the 1930s (and parole was possible). Obama's BOP numbers were at 200,000 and there is no parole. Add all that up, and I look back at Bush and Clinton as the problem, not Obama. And this is not about being "more intelligent" but rather about thinking some people have earned a second chance. Do you not believe in second chances, Bill?
5. The topic thread was the Trump Admin improving on the Obama Admin, and I was trying to figure out just what you thought was so terrible about the Obama Admin. With that covered, on to policing topics:
A. I surmise the Chicago police force is a disaster, though I am inclined to blame the mayor more than DOJ. I do think policing issues in part account for Chicago's worrisome murder/shooting spikes, though I also think gun access/policies may also be part of the story, too. And the crazy low homicide "clearance rate" strikes me as a critical part of the story that too few on the right or the left discusses. Even back in 2012, the clearance rate was only 25% and you can expect more carnage if/when 3 out of 4 murderers never get caught.
B. I do often wonder if decriminalizing drugs might help with modern violence problems in inner-cities like Chicago just like ending alcohol prohibition did 85 years ago. (I have seen the stat that in 1930 the murder rate was 14.6, by 1940 it was down to 7.1.) But I know that you, Bill, and so many other are so wedded to the drug war that you just cannot even imagine the mayhem that could ensure, kind of like the mayhem we have seen in Colorado and Washington and Oregon and Alaska with legalized marijuana.
Just briefly the first one, but I'll try to get to the others later.
"It is a shame you will not give credit where it is due if it goes to a partisan adversary, but that seems to be an inside-the-Beltway norm that you embrace like far too many others."
Bill Clinton was a partisan adversary, but I have repeatedly and enthusiastically given him credit for his strong (and successful) anti-crime policies. I have done this while those who share your views have denounced him.
Helen F. Fahey, the Democratic US Attorney for EDVA, was also on the other side politically. I have enthusiastically praised her as well for her courageous stand against DOJ's sellout in the Dickerson case.
Ted Kennedy was a partisan adversary if ever there was one, but I have repeatedly given him credit for co-sponsoring the landmark SRA of 1984, the most important and beneficial crime legislation passed during my federal career.
So most of this part of your comment is dead wrong. You are correct, however, in saying that I won't give credit to Obama for simply being in Office while the nation continued the anti-crime momentum other, more responsible Presidents (e.g., Clinton among others) created.
Of course, since Obama was busy scuttling those self-same anti-crime policies, eventually he got things turned around to where, over his last two years, we got the biggest two-year spike in violent crime in decades.
No, I will not be giving "credit" for that.
Glad to see your accounting of giving credit to some opposing partisans, but still a shame that you are so eager bash Obama for his largely bipartisan work in the sentencing reform space. It is a shame because there remains lots of good bipartisan work to be done here --- e.g., everyone should be eager to improve the murder clearance rate and reduce the number of guns in the hands of repeat felons in Chicago. Such is our partisan world.
Doug: There is no great mystery to improving the murder clearance rate-tell the cops what you know.
Unfortunately, inner city communities have developed an adversarial relationship with police which has manifested itself in a failure to cooperate in criminal investigations. We have the ex-President to thank for this sorry state of affairs for lending his imprimatur to the false narrative of the BLM movement.
Doug, when you can own up to the fact that the Obama Administration smeared Darren Wilson, a cop who was just doing his job, then maybe some of your concerns about Obama not getting credit can be addressed.
"Do you not believe in second chances, Bill?" is even more laughable than "non-violent drug offenders."
The VAST majority of those commuted were repeat offenders (the giveaway being that they were convicted of being 'felons in possession') and the irony is that some were 'punished' with drug treatment when we all know drug dealers don't test dirty because they don't remain successful if they are dipping into their own supply.
The whole commutation process was a farce, from the 'non-violent drug offender' myth to the wailing about guns on the streets, all the while Obama was commuting folks with 924(c) and 922 convictions.
Second chances...good one. More like 4th or 5th. At least.
Let me now take on some of your other points:
-- "The guideline change was unanimously supported, including by GOP hero Bill Pryor. Are you opposing Pryor's possible elevation to SCOTUS on this ground?"
I'm glad to see the props for Dem villain Bill Pryor. He's a casual friend and a strong voice for the death penalty. I would be thrilled to see him on the SCOTUS, despite occasional disagreements. (I also had occasional disagreements with Justice Scalia, e.g., Blakely).
I would also be happy to see elevation for several others in contention on SCOTUS. Over four (or eight) years, perhaps a number of my dreams will come true.
-- "The vast majority of the 1,715 persons who had their sentences commuted by Obama are still in prison, so they are clearly not yet out causing crime."
I love your shrewd choice of the word "yet."
-- "...though Obama's team was eager to spin his clemency work as record-setting, his commutation grant levels are on par with all the GOP Prez who saw the federal prison population explode during our failed federal war on alcohol --- Harding, Coolidge, Hoover averaged about 150 commutations per year, even though there federal prison population was only around 20,000 in the 1930s."
As I've said before, it's not illuminating to compare the criminal justice system now to the one that existed pre-WWII (or, in reality, to pre-Warren Court). In the era that makes sense for comparison purposes, Obama's unhinged clemency binge was indeed record setting, to put it charitably.
-- "Add all that up, and I look back at Bush and Clinton as the problem, not Obama."
When Bush and Clinton left Office, crime was plummeting. When Obama left it was skyrocketing. Could you say again who was the problem?
-- "Do you not believe in second chances, Bill?"
No, I'm a Nazi, as a number of your SLP commenters pointed out when I appeared there. But I was in good company; Kent, I think, had been called a Nazi even more often, although I can't quite remember.
To be a bit more serious: I believe that second chances should be given WHEN THE BODY GIVING THEM HAS TO PAY THE PRICE WHEN THINGS GO WRONG. Otherwise, it's just so much fake high-mindedness at some defenseless sucker's expense. Who paid the price for Wendell Callahan's second chance? The lying lawyers who made it possible? Or two little girls who, now, will never have a chance of their own?
And do you think it will stop with Callahan? Or come close to stopping? Are you guaranteeing no future victims of these hundreds of saints Obama gushes over? If not, how many more victims are worth the candle? And do they get a say-so? Yes? No?
One other thing to note.
-- " I do often wonder if decriminalizing drugs might help with modern violence problems in inner-cities like Chicago just like ending alcohol prohibition did 85 years ago."
Why go back 85 years to a world none of us knows when all you need to do is go back 25 years?
There was next to no drug decriminalization in the 1990's and early 2000's when the drop-off in violent crime was at its sharpest. Indeed, it was during that period that INCREASED mandatory minimums for drugs really started to roar. So I am at a loss to see why decriminalization of drugs is the answer to violent crime when we know from the recent past that it was other things (like more aggressive policing, et al.), and NOT decriminalization, that were so instrumental in bringing down crime, in big cities and across the country.
Bingo!