December 28, 2011
173 Police Officers Die In Line of Duty, Up 13% This Year
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The number of police fatalities caused by firearms made 2011 one of the deadliest years in recent history for U.S. law enforcement, reports the Associated Press. Some 173 officers died in the line of duty, up 13 percent from 153 the year before, says the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. The group reported that 68 federal, state and local officers were killed by gunfire in 2011, a 15 percent jump from last year when 59 were killed. It marks the first time in 14 years that firearms fatalities were higher than traffic-related deaths. The data shows that 64 officers died in traffic accidents, down from the 71 killed in 2010.
Craig Floyd, the group's chairman, blamed the rise on budget cuts to public safety departments. He cited surveys by police groups that showed many cut back on training and delay upgrading equipment, and referenced a Department of Justice report issued in October that said an estimated 10,000 police officers and sheriff's deputies have been laid off within the past year. It's the second year in a row the number of officers killed in the line of duty has grown. In 2009, the death toll dipped to 122 in a 50-year-low that encouraged police groups even though the year seemed to be an aberration.
Associated Press/Washington Post
Text Message May Have Presaged Killing of Six Near Ft. Worth
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Conflicting pictures emerged of a man who fatally shot six people, including his estranged wife and two children, and then himself on Christmas morning in Grapevine, Tx.,, reports the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. A friend of his children described Azizolah "Boba" Yazdanpanah as conservative and protective of his family, saying he didn't want his teenage daughter to date and restricted her cellphone use. "Aziz had weapons for protection and cameras in the house," said Allison Baum, 18, a classmate of the children. "He knew what bad people could do. He was very upset when the mother moved out."
Baum said one daughter had said her parents had an arranged marriage and were no longer in love. One woman who was part of a happy hour group that included Yazdanpanah described him as a sweet man who didn't talk about family problems. "One woman got a puzzling text message from Yazdanpanah on Dec. 4, a few months after his wife and two children moved out of their home. The message went like this: "What do u call a guy who's born in Austin and grows up in Dallas and then dies in Grapevine? [ ] DEAD." On Christmas morning a middle-aged man dressed in a Santa Claus suit shot and killed a man, a teenage boy, and four women and then himself inside an apartment. The attack was planned, investigators said. Police recovered two handguns, at least one of which Yazdanpanah had owned for years.
Ft. Worth Star-Telegram/McClatchy Newspapers
Hundreds of Youths Wreak Havoc In Post-Holiday Mall of America Mob
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The day after hundreds of youths wreaked havoc on the nation's largest shopping mall, Minnesota's Mall of America, during one of its busiest days, shoppers still mobbed the center yesterday as the nation chattered online about the unruly incident, reports the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Parking spots and food court seats were scarce, but uniformed police and security guards were not. Heightened security might have mollified mall patrons, but employees worried about a repeat of the Monday fights and thefts that roiled the sprawling complex that resulted in 10 arrests.
"It was a scary situation," said Guy, a kiosk worker who did not want to give his last name. "I was worried about my cart, but we were all worried about each other." The incident lasted several hours, beginning with a large fight at a north food court. Mobs of young people ran through the mall, knocked things over and grabbed merchandise. Large groups of young people gathering to cause mayhem is a social phenomenon happening across the country, said mall spokesman Dan Jasper. Some suggested the incident was a criminal flash mob or "smash-and-grab" mob, which occurs when a group of people coordinate on social media sites, swarm into stores and ransack shelves. "No doubt, the trend is growing quite quickly," the National Retail Federation warned its members in August.
St. Paul Pioneer Press
Sexual Assault Reports On the Rise At U.S. Military Academies
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The number of sexual assaults reported at the Naval Academy doubled during the 2010-2011 academic year, as did the percentage of female midshipmen reporting unwanted sexual contact, according to Defense Department report quoted by the Baltimore Sun. Assaults reported at the Naval Academy rose from 11 to 22, more than the 10 at the U.S. Military Academy but fewer than the 33 at the Air Force Academy.
Overall, the number of assaults reported at the three service academies rose from 41 to 65. "We know that the military academies are similar to college campuses around the country in that sexual harassment and assault are challenges that all faculty, staff and students need to work to prevent," said Maj. Gen. Mary Kay Hertog, director of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office. The report attributed at least some of the increase in reports to greater awareness of sexual violence and growing confidence in the reporting process. The percentage of female midshipmen who said they had been subjected to unwanted sexual contact rose from 8.3 in 2008 to 16.5 in 2010 - nearly one in six. The percentage of male midshipmen reporting such contact rose from 2.4 to 3.4 during the same span. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said "one sexual assault is one too many."
Baltimore Sun
Baca Task Force To Investigate Wrongful L.A. County Jailings
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Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca will create a task force to minimize the wrongful jailings of people mistaken for someone else, reports the Los Angeles Times. The move responded to a Times investigation that found hundreds of people wrongly imprisoned in recent years, with some spending weeks behind bars before authorities realized their true identities. "It's a horrible reality of what is basically the imperfect nature of the criminal justice system," Baca said. "No one who is an innocent person should ever be tied in with the criminal justice system. [ ] There's a difference between saying 'I plead not guilty.' It's another thing to say to anybody 'I'm not that person.'"
The wrongful incarcerations occurred more than 1,480 times in the last five years. Many of those mistakenly held inside the county's lockups had the same names as suspects or had their identities stolen. L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas called the jailings "a travesty of justice" and another blow to the sheriff's jails, which are under federal investigation over allegations of inmate abuse and other deputy misconduct. "The original arresting agency has to, up front, do a better job in vetting the person," Baca said. Victims of mistaken identification typically go through several rounds of checks before they land in L.A. County Jail.
Los Angeles Times
A Close Look at a Michigan Juvenile Life Without Parole Sentence
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As the Supreme Court prepares to take up two new cases of life without parole sentences for juveniles, the New Yorker tells the story of Michigan's Dakotah Eliason, who suffers from a bipolar disorder, and who killed his grandfather at age 14. In an article available only to subscribers, the magazine says that although judges have long been attuned to the difficulty of trying mentally ill defendants, there is little recognition that people may be incompetent to stand trial because of their age.
Each year, more than 200,000 offenders younger than eighteen are tried as adults, yet only about half of them understand the Miranda warning. In Michigan, several judges have described discomfort over sentencing an adolescent to die in prison, but the state's automatic-sentencing laws leave them no choice. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit challenging the law.
The New Yorker
Florida Panel May Call for Reviewing All Jailhouse Informant Testimony
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Chad Heins, a Jacksonville, Fl., man, spent 11 years in prison for a murder he did not commit based solely on the testimony of two jailhouse informants who lied to jurors, saying Heins had confessed, says the Orlando Sentinel. The New York-based Innocence Project says 15 percent of all wrongful convictions later cleared by DNA testing featured false testimony by jailhouse informants. In murder cases, it's 50 percent.
Florida's Innocence Commission, the blue-ribbon panel working to prevent future false convictions, is debating what to do about them. The panel's staff is drafting legislation that could make Florida the only state that would require judges to review the reliability of jailhouse informants - as well as any witness with pending criminal charges - before allowing them to testify at a felony trial. Florida now requires a pretrial reliability test for scientific evidence, said Henry "Hank" Coxe III, a panel member and former president of the Florida Bar. If it requires a test for that, it should also for "something this critically important."
Orlando Sentinel
CA's Cate Wants to Remake Prisons, Including Rehab, Health Care
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California corrections chief Matthew Cate, 45, is steering the department's historic downsizing with a flat budget and a federal court looking over his shoulder, says the Sacramento Bee. "For the first time, maybe, there's a chance to run the prisons the way they were designed to be run," he said. The goal of a current realignment is to cut the inmate population at the state's 33 prisons from 144,000 to 110,000 in about two years. As of Nov. 30, head count was at about 137,000.
Appointed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2008, Cate inherited a deeply troubled department under court order to relieve overcrowding and a prison medical system under federal control. Despite many challenges, he hung on when Democrat Jerry Brown took office. "Usually, when the governor keeps on a senior appointee from the previous administration, it's a because of a need for continuity," said Dan Schnur of the University of Southern California. Cate wants to remake the prison system "instead of taking the same model and just making it smaller." So look for him to press for more money for inmate education and rehabilitation. He wants to take back control over prison health care. He'll have to manage shrinking the 63,000- employee workforce.
Sacramento Bee
College Degree Program Hopes to Make Impact in Missouri Prison
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A class of 19 inmates, a small sampling of the 30,000 offenders in the Missouri Department of Corrections system, is part of the St. Louis University Prison Program, an effort that educators and prison reformers are watching with hopeful, yet cautious, eyes, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Too many programs, for the last two or three decades, get brought in and then somebody finds something they don't like about them and they smash it," said Jason Lewis, deputy warden of the Eastern Reception and Diagnostic Correctional Center in Bonne Terre. "We are moving slowly to get the momentum so we can spread it everywhere."
In 2008, SLU started offering certificates in Theology Studies at the prison. In March, it expanded to an associate of arts, a two-year degree that will take the inmates four years to finish. "We have got to find other ways of dealing with problems in our society besides locking people up," said Kenneth Parker, a SLU theologian who directs the program. "And that means finding more rehabilitative approaches. And that's where I think private nonprofits like SLU have a role to play." Doug Burris, chief U.S. probation officer for the Eastern District of Missouri, said he hopes the "Bonne Terre model" can expand with the help of a small college in Greenville, Il., home to St. Louis' closest federal lockup. The program, free to inmates, is supported by SLU, a $150,000 grant from the Hearst Foundation and other donations. More than 350 college prison programs used to operate, but only a few survived after Pell grants were cut for convicts in the 1990s, says a report by Bard College.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
New False Confession Cases Raise Question: Why Would Someone Do It?
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This month a Montana judge released confessed murderer Barry Beach after ruling that new evidence in his case was "credible" and that he deserved a new trial, says USA Today. Beach, 49, served 28 years of a 100-year prison sentence for the 1979 murder of high school classmate Kim Nees, a crime he confessed to but has since maintained he didn't commit. Illinois and New York also dealt this month with cases of confessions that defendants later said were coerced.
The question at the heart of each of these cases and dozens like them across the U.S. is: "Why would someone confess to a crime they didn't commit?" Until recently, the idea that someone would falsely admit to a murder or a rape they didn't commit was considered preposterous, says former Washington, D.C., homicide detective Jim Trainum. Law Prof. Steven Drizin of Northwestern University, legal director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions, studied more than 250 false confession cases. Nearly all start with the "misclassification error," Drizin says. "When the police officer enters the interrogation room, they've already presumed that the suspect is guilty based on evidence that has been gathered in the course of the investigation. Often times, it's based on little more than a hunch," he says.
USA Today
How Crime-Scene Crews Clean Up Bloody Messes in Oklahoma
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At homicide scenes, suicide scenes, or when a body has decomposed after an unattended death, crime scene cleanup specialists like Sean Small have a bloody mess to take care of, says The Oklahoman. Small, 45, knows firsthand the trauma a family faces after a sudden death. In 2001, in a farmhouse, his father, Lonnie, 65, died of a heart attack. It was nearly a week before church members found him.
Six years later, he was watching a crime scene television show and had the idea to start a cleanup business in Oklahoma City. In 2009, Small faced his most horrendous cleanup job after a man beat and stabbed to death his pregnant girlfriend. The boyfriend, still covered in blood, was arrested a short time later nearby. Her blood had been spilled in a room where family members found love letters she wrote to him before her death. Small has cleaned up about 40 sites in the past five years, including a filthy house where the Department of Human Services found 17 cats living inside
The Oklahoman
Phoebe Prince Family Was Paid $225,000 By MA Town In Suicide Case
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The family of Phoebe Prince, the Massachusetts teenager who took her life allegedly in response to a barrage of bullying, received $225,000 from the town and in exchange agreed not to sue the girl's school district, says a copy of the settlement disclosed yesterday and reported by the Boston Globe. South Hadley, Ma., officials had fought disclosure of the settlement, saying it violated a confidentiality agreement with Prince's family, who had accused the school district of ignoring the teenager's suffering.
Prince, a 15-year-old transfer student from Ireland, hanged herself in her home in January 2010. Her death led to a national outcry over bullying in schools. Prince's mother, Anne O'Brien, settled with the town because she wanted to avoid a trial. She feared a public legal proceeding would be painful for the family, which was still reeling from a news story that detailed Prince's medical history. The complaint accused the district of creating an "intimidating, hostile, and sexually offensive educational environment.''
Boston Globe
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Dec. 23, 2011
ATF Relaxes Rules Restricting Gun Purchases by Non-Citizens
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The ATF is relaxing restrictions on the sale of guns to noncitizens because Justice Department lawyers have concluded that the rules had no legal basis, reports the New York Times. In a letter to firearms dealers on Thursday, the bureau said it would soon drop a regulation that bars the sale of guns to noncitizens until they can document that they have lived in a state for at least 90 days, such as by producing three months of utility bills in their name at a local address.
While citizens, too, must generally be residents of a state in order to buy weapons there, the 90-day rule does not apply to them. The letter said the Justice Department had concluded that the Gun Control Act does not empower the ATF to impose a stricter requirement on noncitizen gun buyers. Under the new policy, both U.S. citizens and aliens legally present in the U.S. will be subject to the same requirements, the ATF said in the letter. Critics said the relaxed restrictions could make it easier for foreign terrorists to obtain weapons inside the United States.
New York Times
Florida Pol Reveals Secret: TSA Body Scanners 'Badly Flawed'
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U.S. Rep. John Mica, a Florida Republican who chairs the House Transportation Committee, says the Transportation Security Administration's airport body scanners are "badly flawed" and "can be subverted," reports ProPublica. The TSA uses hundreds of the devices to prevent suicide bombers from smuggling explosives onto planes. But Mica says indicate a significant failure rate. "If we could reveal the failure rate, the American public would be outraged," he said earlier this year.
Mica's comments received almost no press coverage. But his outrage, together with other reports by government inspectors and outside researchers, raise the disturbing possibility that body scanners are performing far less well than the TSA contends. The issue is difficult to assess since the government classifies the detection rates of the devices, saying it doesn't want to give terrorists a sense of their chances of beating the system. But the evidence is mounting. Last week, Department of Homeland Security investigators reported that they had "identified vulnerabilities" in the scanners' detection capability. And Mica described the findings of covert tests on the machines "embarrassing."
ProPublica
Wichita Council Approves Carrying of Guns in Many City Buildings
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The Wichita City Hall voted this week to allow citizens to bring concealed guns into 111 city-owned buildings, reports the city's Eagle. The vote was 4-3 along party lines, with Democrats strongly opposed and Republicans in support of the ordinance.
The state legalized the carrying of concealed weapons six years ago, allowing each city to form its own ordinance. Wichita had originally banned guns in all of the 392 city-owned buildings. But after the vote, 111 buildings will allow concealed weapons, including 82 parks and recreation facilities, 19 fire stations, four public works facilities and six garages. Mayor Carl Brewer, Vice Mayor Lavonta Williams and City Council member Janet Miller pushed for a public hearing on the issue, to no avail.
Wichita Eagle
Probe Finds Scrutiny by Coroners Lacking When the Elderly Die
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ProPublica and PBS "Frontline" say they have identified more than three dozen cases in which the alleged neglect, abuse or even murder of senior citizens eluded authorities. But for the intervention of whistleblowers, concerned relatives and others, the truth about these deaths might never have come to light. Often, the system errs by omission. If a senior dies under suspicious circumstances, there's no guarantee anyone will ever investigate, and autopsies on the elderly have become increasingly rare.
ProPublica, in concert with other news organizations, has been scrutinizing the nation's medical examiner officers, which are responsible for probing sudden and unusual fatalities. It has found that these agencies -- hampered by chronic underfunding, a shortage of trained doctors and a lack of national standards -- have sometimes helped to send innocent people to prison and allowed killers to walk free. Concerning the deaths of the elderly, it found that when treating physicians report that a death is natural, coroners and medical examiners almost never investigate; that in most states doctors canfill out a death certificate without ever seeing the body, and that the overall share of autopsies of seniors declined by more than half between 1972 and 2007.
ProPublica
Survey Indicates Police Are Overburdened by Mental Health Overflow
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A new nationwide survey of 2,406 senior law enforcement officials indicates that police agencies are being overburdened by the mentally ill, according to the Huffington Post. DJ Jaffe, executive director of PublicIllnessPolicy.org, writes that this is the unintended consequence of a policy change that "removed the daily care of our nation's severely mentally ill population from the medical community and place it with the criminal justice system," prompting a spike in the arrests of severely mentally ill persons.
The survey by Michael C. Biasotti, vice president of the New York State Chiefs of Police, calls for implementation of assisted outpatient treatment laws to improve care for people with mental illness, conserve law enforcement resources, and keep patients and the public safer. The laws allow courts to order mandatory treatment for severely mentally ill individuals who have a past history of dangerous behavior, arrest, incarceration or multiple hospitalizations.
Huffington Post
All Eyes on NYC Anti-Crime Project, But Not Much to See So Far
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are more questions than answers so far about the Young Men's Initiative, a highly touted three-year, $127 million program launched in New York by Mayor Michael Bloomberg last August. It was hailed at the time as an innovative approach to ending the cycle of poverty and educational disadvantage that has condemned thousands of young minority men to a bleak future. But details of the program have been hard to come by, and skeptics are wondering whether the project is as innovative as it claims to be, according to The Crime Report.
The initiative stands out because of the way it mixes philanthropy with tax dollars in an effort to help revenue-starved municipalities promote innovative ideas at a time of economic crisis. Financier George Soros pledged $30 million to the project, and Bloomberg, one of America's richest men, is kicking in $30 million of his own money. Taxpayers would provide the remaining $67 million. But when Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs was grilled about the program last month by City Council members, she referred them to the program's website. In an interview, Gibbs conceded that she had made some tactical mistakes in getting the initiative off the ground.
The Crime Report
A Second Judge Criticizes SEC Over Soft Corporate Crime Settlement
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A federal judge in Milwaukee has criticized the Securities and Exchange Commission for being too soft with corporate enforcement, marking the second time the agency has been criticized for weak settlements in the past month, reports the Huffington Post. Last month, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff put the kibosh on the agency's $258 million proposed settlement with Citibank. Now, Judge Rudolph Randa has told the SEC that its proposed settlement with the Koss Corp. is too vague and asked the agency to provide more facts by Jan. 24. In October the SEC charged Koss Corp., a headphone-manufacturer, with accounting fraud.
Wednesday's ruling is the latest in a string of actions by federal judges to challenge the way the government agency enforces regulations. The decision underscores the significance of the November ruling by Judge Rakoff to toss out the proposed settlement between the SEC and Citigroup that didn't have enough facts and did not force the corporation to admit guilt. The SEC responded that the proposed agreement was business as usual, but the two decisions indicate the status quo may be changing.
Huffington Post
'Wily' Politician Sets Sights on Justice Reform in Cook County, Ill.
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The Chicago Reader profiles Toni Preckwinkle, president of the Cook County board, who has set a goal of reshaping the county's $1 billion-a-year criminal justice system, starting with shrinking the number of nonviolent offenders behind bars. For decades crafty politicians have been finding creative ways to convince voters that they're cracking down on crime, mostly by playing on racial fears and locking up black men for drugs. But Preckwinkle is a wily politician herself, and she's betting that concerns about crime have evolved. She argues that voters don't just want "toughness"-they want smarts. And she knows they're tired of being asked to pay more and more for policies with unclear results.
She has set a 2012 goal of cutting the daily inmate rolls by at least 1,000, or more than 10 percent. It would save taxpayers $5 million. Preckwinkle's jail campaign really began this summer, when she declared the war on drugs had "failed." She then pressured Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to get city police to stop making arrests for misdemeanor marijuana possession. There are about 23,000 of these arrests a year, which end up costing the county at least $78 million annually in court and jail expenses.
Chicago Reader
'The Weep': When Tears Flow in Court, Do Lawyers Have a Stategy?
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The weep is a courthouse staple, notes the New York Times. The latest excruciating example came this week, as a previously powerful state senator from Brooklyn, Carl Kruger, sobbed his way through an admission of receiving bribes sufficient to have financed a shiny Bentley and a mansion originally built for a mob boss. Kruger's wad of tissues emphasized the humiliation of the moment. But his defense-table crying was far from unique. Which raises a question: What is the proper response to a courtroom wailer? Look away? Tell him or her to man up?
Defense lawyers, who are usually the ones within tissue-supplying range, say that in court, as in life, there is no easy answer. "You can't do much about it," said Ronald P. Fischetti, a defense lawyer who has handled his share of weeping politicians and red-eyed white-collar criminals. "You can put your arm around him," Fischetti offered. Kruger's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said that sitting next to his sobbing client was an ordeal, particularly because he could sense the ridicule coming. Many people, he said, "have watched too much TV and believe everything is rehearsed and staged."
New York Times
NJ Internal Affairs Reports Omit Key Data on Open Investigations
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After rolling out tougher rules in May for police departments' internal affairs units, State Attorney General Paula Dow has released new reporting forms that omit a crucial question: How many complaints about police officers are being investigated at the end of each year? The Newark Star-Ledger says the new forms, which were published Tuesday, don't require police departments to list the number of open investigations at year's end, raising concerns among rights' advocates that cases will continue to fall off the books, as they have for years.
"The intention with these forms is to provide a snapshot of accountability," Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for Dow, said today. "That reporting was never intended as a means to track individual cases." But Deborah Jacobs, executive director of ACLU-NJ, who initially supported Dow's proposals until she saw the finished product on Tuesday, called it "a huge step backward." Critics said it was the second time this month that Dow, who is leaving for a new job at year's end, limited access to public data. Earlier this month, she restricted information on overtime compensation for state law enforcement officers. Her office said today she was only codifying a set of legal precedents dating to 2002.
Newark Star-Ledger
Under Pressure, Seattle Mayor Orders Chief to Carry Out Federal Reforms
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Facing mounting public outcry, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn has ordered Police Chief John Diaz to immediately begin carrying out reforms urged by the U.S. Department of Justice in its scathing report on the Police Department's use of force, says the city's Times. The directive represented a dramatic change of course for McGinn, who stood with Diaz when the Justice Department report was issued last Friday, and both questioned what they called "allegations" that Seattle police engaged in a pattern of excessive use of force.
It also set the city on a course that could result in the most sweeping changes in the Police Department since it was fundamentally altered in the 1970s after decades of corruption and payoffs. McGinn said he would convene a public review panel to oversee the city's response to the report, which also raised serious concerns about the Police Department's treatment of minorities. Although McGinn reaffirmed his support of Diaz, the chief now finds himself in a weakened position, forced to accept the mayor's edict after Diaz defiantly challenged the Justice Department findings.
Seattle Times
California Funeral Home Inspector a 'Mortician With a Badge'
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The Los Angeles Times profiles Steve Allen, a field representative for California's Cemetery and Funeral Bureau. Called "mortician with a badge," Allen visits funeral homes to check licenses, inspect embalming and storage rooms and look at the price sheets. He knows how disconcerting the work might sound to an outsider - poking around funeral homes, looking into the backrooms and darkened closets for anything amiss - yet he does not take his authority lightly.
With a staff of 18 and an annual budget of $4 million, the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau employs nine field representatives like Allen whose job is to make sure licensed cemeteries, crematories and funeral establishments are not breaking state laws and regulations. The bureau is overseen by the Department of Consumer Affairs.
Los Angeles Times
ATF Relaxes Rules Restricting Gun Purchases by Non-Citizens
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ATF is relaxing restrictions on the sale of guns to noncitizens because Justice Department lawyers have concluded that the rules had no legal basis, reports the New York Times. In a letter to firearms dealers on Thursday, the bureau said it would soon drop a regulation that bars the sale of guns to noncitizens until they can document that they have lived in a state for at least 90 days, such as by producing three months of utility bills in their name at a local address.
While citizens, too, must generally be residents of a state in order to buy weapons there, the 90-day rule does not apply to them. The letter said the Justice Department had concluded that the Gun Control Act does not empower the ATF to impose a stricter requirement on noncitizen gun buyers. Under the new policy, both U.S. citizens and aliens legally present in the U.S. will be subject to the same requirements, the ATF said in the letter. Critics said the relaxed restrictions could make it easier for foreign terrorists to obtain weapons inside the United States.
New York Times
Florida Pol Reveals Secret: TSA Body Scanners 'Badly Flawed'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
U.S. Rep. John Mica, a Florida Republican who chairs the House Transportation Committee, says the Transportation Security Administration's airport body scanners are "badly flawed" and "can be subverted," reports ProPublica. The TSA uses hundreds of the devices to prevent suicide bombers from smuggling explosives onto planes. But Mica says indicate a significant failure rate. "If we could reveal the failure rate, the American public would be outraged," he said earlier this year.
Mica's comments received almost no press coverage. But his outrage, together with other reports by government inspectors and outside researchers, raise the disturbing possibility that body scanners are performing far less well than the TSA contends. The issue is difficult to assess since the government classifies the detection rates of the devices, saying it doesn't want to give terrorists a sense of their chances of beating the system. But the evidence is mounting. Last week, Department of Homeland Security investigators reported that they had "identified vulnerabilities" in the scanners' detection capability. And Mica described the findings of covert tests on the machines "embarrassing."
ProPublica
Wichita Council Approves Carrying of Guns in Many City Buildings
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Wichita City Hall voted this week to allow citizens to bring concealed guns into 111 city-owned buildings, reports the city's Eagle. The vote was 4-3 along party lines, with Democrats strongly opposed and Republicans in support of the ordinance.
The state legalized the carrying of concealed weapons six years ago, allowing each city to form its own ordinance. Wichita had originally banned guns in all of the 392 city-owned buildings. But after the vote, 111 buildings will allow concealed weapons, including 82 parks and recreation facilities, 19 fire stations, four public works facilities and six garages. Mayor Carl Brewer, Vice Mayor Lavonta Williams and City Council member Janet Miller pushed for a public hearing on the issue, to no avail.
Wichita Eagle
Probe Finds Scrutiny by Coroners Lacking When the Elderly Die
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ProPublica and PBS "Frontline" say they have identified more than three dozen cases in which the alleged neglect, abuse or even murder of senior citizens eluded authorities. But for the intervention of whistleblowers, concerned relatives and others, the truth about these deaths might never have come to light. Often, the system errs by omission. If a senior dies under suspicious circumstances, there's no guarantee anyone will ever investigate, and autopsies on the elderly have become increasingly rare.
ProPublica, in concert with other news organizations, has been scrutinizing the nation's medical examiner officers, which are responsible for probing sudden and unusual fatalities. It has found that these agencies -- hampered by chronic underfunding, a shortage of trained doctors and a lack of national standards -- have sometimes helped to send innocent people to prison and allowed killers to walk free. Concerning the deaths of the elderly, it found that when treating physicians report that a death is natural, coroners and medical examiners almost never investigate; that in most states doctors canfill out a death certificate without ever seeing the body, and that the overall share of autopsies of seniors declined by more than half between 1972 and 2007.
ProPublica
Survey Indicates Police Are Overburdened by Mental Health Overflow
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A new nationwide survey of 2,406 senior law enforcement officials indicates that police agencies are being overburdened by the mentally ill, according to the Huffington Post. DJ Jaffe, executive director of PublicIllnessPolicy.org, writes that this is the unintended consequence of a policy change that "removed the daily care of our nation's severely mentally ill population from the medical community and place it with the criminal justice system," prompting a spike in the arrests of severely mentally ill persons.
The survey by Michael C. Biasotti, vice president of the New York State Chiefs of Police, calls for implementation of assisted outpatient treatment laws to improve care for people with mental illness, conserve law enforcement resources, and keep patients and the public safer. The laws allow courts to order mandatory treatment for severely mentally ill individuals who have a past history of dangerous behavior, arrest, incarceration or multiple hospitalizations.
Huffington Post
All Eyes on NYC Anti-Crime Project, But Not Much to See So Far
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are more questions than answers so far about the Young Men's Initiative, a highly touted three-year, $127 million program launched in New York by Mayor Michael Bloomberg last August. It was hailed at the time as an innovative approach to ending the cycle of poverty and educational disadvantage that has condemned thousands of young minority men to a bleak future. But details of the program have been hard to come by, and skeptics are wondering whether the project is as innovative as it claims to be, according to The Crime Report.
The initiative stands out because of the way it mixes philanthropy with tax dollars in an effort to help revenue-starved municipalities promote innovative ideas at a time of economic crisis. Financier George Soros pledged $30 million to the project, and Bloomberg, one of America's richest men, is kicking in $30 million of his own money. Taxpayers would provide the remaining $67 million. But when Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs was grilled about the program last month by City Council members, she referred them to the program's website. In an interview, Gibbs conceded that she had made some tactical mistakes in getting the initiative off the ground.
The Crime Report
A Second Judge Criticizes SEC Over Soft Corporate Crime Settlement
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A federal judge in Milwaukee has criticized the Securities and Exchange Commission for being too soft with corporate enforcement, marking the second time the agency has been criticized for weak settlements in the past month, reports the Huffington Post. Last month, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff put the kibosh on the agency's $258 million proposed settlement with Citibank. Now, Judge Rudolph Randa has told the SEC that its proposed settlement with the Koss Corp. is too vague and asked the agency to provide more facts by Jan. 24. In October the SEC charged Koss Corp., a headphone-manufacturer, with accounting fraud.
Wednesday's ruling is the latest in a string of actions by federal judges to challenge the way the government agency enforces regulations. The decision underscores the significance of the November ruling by Judge Rakoff to toss out the proposed settlement between the SEC and Citigroup that didn't have enough facts and did not force the corporation to admit guilt. The SEC responded that the proposed agreement was business as usual, but the two decisions indicate the status quo may be changing.
Huffington Post
'Wily' Politician Sets Sights on Justice Reform in Cook County, Ill.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Chicago Reader profiles Toni Preckwinkle, president of the Cook County board, who has set a goal of reshaping the county's $1 billion-a-year criminal justice system, starting with shrinking the number of nonviolent offenders behind bars. For decades crafty politicians have been finding creative ways to convince voters that they're cracking down on crime, mostly by playing on racial fears and locking up black men for drugs. But Preckwinkle is a wily politician herself, and she's betting that concerns about crime have evolved. She argues that voters don't just want "toughness"-they want smarts. And she knows they're tired of being asked to pay more and more for policies with unclear results.
She has set a 2012 goal of cutting the daily inmate rolls by at least 1,000, or more than 10 percent. It would save taxpayers $5 million. Preckwinkle's jail campaign really began this summer, when she declared the war on drugs had "failed." She then pressured Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to get city police to stop making arrests for misdemeanor marijuana possession. There are about 23,000 of these arrests a year, which end up costing the county at least $78 million annually in court and jail expenses.
Chicago Reader
'The Weep': When Tears Flow in Court, Do Lawyers Have a Stategy?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The weep is a courthouse staple, notes the New York Times. The latest excruciating example came this week, as a previously powerful state senator from Brooklyn, Carl Kruger, sobbed his way through an admission of receiving bribes sufficient to have financed a shiny Bentley and a mansion originally built for a mob boss. Kruger's wad of tissues emphasized the humiliation of the moment. But his defense-table crying was far from unique. Which raises a question: What is the proper response to a courtroom wailer? Look away? Tell him or her to man up?
Defense lawyers, who are usually the ones within tissue-supplying range, say that in court, as in life, there is no easy answer. "You can't do much about it," said Ronald P. Fischetti, a defense lawyer who has handled his share of weeping politicians and red-eyed white-collar criminals. "You can put your arm around him," Fischetti offered. Kruger's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said that sitting next to his sobbing client was an ordeal, particularly because he could sense the ridicule coming. Many people, he said, "have watched too much TV and believe everything is rehearsed and staged."
New York Times
NJ Internal Affairs Reports Omit Key Data on Open Investigations
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After rolling out tougher rules in May for police departments' internal affairs units, State Attorney General Paula Dow has released new reporting forms that omit a crucial question: How many complaints about police officers are being investigated at the end of each year? The Newark Star-Ledger says the new forms, which were published Tuesday, don't require police departments to list the number of open investigations at year's end, raising concerns among rights' advocates that cases will continue to fall off the books, as they have for years.
"The intention with these forms is to provide a snapshot of accountability," Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for Dow, said today. "That reporting was never intended as a means to track individual cases." But Deborah Jacobs, executive director of ACLU-NJ, who initially supported Dow's proposals until she saw the finished product on Tuesday, called it "a huge step backward." Critics said it was the second time this month that Dow, who is leaving for a new job at year's end, limited access to public data. Earlier this month, she restricted information on overtime compensation for state law enforcement officers. Her office said today she was only codifying a set of legal precedents dating to 2002.
Newark Star-Ledger
Under Pressure, Seattle Mayor Orders Chief to Carry Out Federal Reforms
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Facing mounting public outcry, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn has ordered Police Chief John Diaz to immediately begin carrying out reforms urged by the U.S. Department of Justice in its scathing report on the Police Department's use of force, says the city's Times. The directive represented a dramatic change of course for McGinn, who stood with Diaz when the Justice Department report was issued last Friday, and both questioned what they called "allegations" that Seattle police engaged in a pattern of excessive use of force.
It also set the city on a course that could result in the most sweeping changes in the Police Department since it was fundamentally altered in the 1970s after decades of corruption and payoffs. McGinn said he would convene a public review panel to oversee the city's response to the report, which also raised serious concerns about the Police Department's treatment of minorities. Although McGinn reaffirmed his support of Diaz, the chief now finds himself in a weakened position, forced to accept the mayor's edict after Diaz defiantly challenged the Justice Department findings.
Seattle Times
California Funeral Home Inspector a 'Mortician With a Badge'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Los Angeles Times profiles Steve Allen, a field representative for California's Cemetery and Funeral Bureau. Called "mortician with a badge," Allen visits funeral homes to check licenses, inspect embalming and storage rooms and look at the price sheets. He knows how disconcerting the work might sound to an outsider - poking around funeral homes, looking into the backrooms and darkened closets for anything amiss - yet he does not take his authority lightly.
With a staff of 18 and an annual budget of $4 million, the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau employs nine field representatives like Allen whose job is to make sure licensed cemeteries, crematories and funeral establishments are not breaking state laws and regulations. The bureau is overseen by the Department of Consumer Affairs.
Los Angeles Times
Thursday, December 22, 2011
22 Dec 2011
Theft Trend: MA Police See Uptick in Xmas Gift Porch-Pickers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Police in the Boston area say that thefts of Christmas gift parcels from stoops seem to be a growing trend this year, reports the Boston Globe. Cases have been reported in Somerville, Wellesley, Medford and Quincy. A father-daughter duo and a part-time UPS worker were also arraigned yesterday in Quincy District Court on separate larceny charges. The dismal state of the economy - and the uptick in online shopping and shipping - seems to be making conditions ripe for porch-picking.
"There seems to be more of a rash this year,'' said Quincy Police Capt. John Dougan. An October consumer survey found that nearly 47 percent of consumers intended to do at least some of their shopping online, up from 44 percent last year, the National Retail Federation reported. That makes for plenty of deliveries. The United Parcel Service alone expects to deliver some 120 million packages this week. Somerville Police Capt. Charles J. Femino said, "This type of crime at this time of year is not unique to Somerville, but I can't say that I've seen it on this scale before."
Boston Globe
AP: California Peace Officers Have Bought 7,600 Assault Weapons
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
California law enforcers have bought more than 7,600 assault weapons that are outlawed for civilians in the decade since state lawmakers allowed the practice, reports the Associated Press. Federal authorities are investigating illegal gun sales by law enforcement. The information was obtained through a California Public Records Act request filed after federal authorities served search warrants in November as part of an investigation into allegations of illegal weapons sales by several Sacramento-area law enforcement officers.
The AP's findings and the federal probe have prompted one state lawmaker to revisit the law to ensure that the guns can be bought only for police purposes. "I think it's much more questionable whether we should allow peace officers to have access to weapons or firearms that a private citizen wouldn't have access to if the use is strictly personal," said Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, a Democrat who represents the Sacramento region. The inquiry has raised questions about the kinds of restricted weapons that the more than 87,000 peace officers in the state are entitled to purchase and about a 2001 law that allows them to buy assault weapons "for law enforcement purposes, whether on or off duty."
Associated Press
Ambush Attacks Drive Increase in Law Enforcers Killed on the Job
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A spike in ambush-style attacks is a factor in this year's second consecutive increase in the number of police officers killed in the line of duty, reports USA Today. Firearms-related fatalities of law enforcers are up 23% so far in 2011, even though violent crime has declined in much of the country, according to preliminary statistics. The Justice Department says about three-quarters of the shootings were ambush or surprise attacks.
Although the pace of overall shooting deaths has slowed since midyear, the numbers continue to frustrate law enforcement officials who earlier this year convened a national review of officer safety. Less than two weeks until the end of the year, the total number of officer deaths from all causes-174 -already marks the third largest death toll in the past decade.
USA Today
After 4 Years, Missouri Committee Suggests Criminal Code Updates
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After four years of work, a committee set up by the Missouri Bar is ready to ask lawmakers to update the state's criminal code for the first time since 1979, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The most significant change would be the addition of a fifth felony class that would close a gap for sentencing standards between Class B and Class C felonies. A new Class C felony, with a sentencing range of three to 10 years, would be created, and each crime would be assigned a new designation to reflect the change.
The Bar is also suggesting updates to the amount of fines for certain offenses, which have not been changed in 30 years. The Bar committee consisted of prosecutors, defense attorneys and representatives from the judiciary and the Legislature.
St. Louis Today
ACLU Sees Good News and Bad News in Criminal Justice in 2011
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was a bad news/good news year for criminal justice in America, according to an end-of-year account by the ACLU. The good news included these points: the number of adults behind bars, on probation, or on parole in the U.S. declined 1.3% in 2010, the second consecutive year of decline; half of all state departments of corrections reported decreases in their prison population during 2010; budget shortfalls prompted many states to realize that alternatives to incarceration can make us safer, cost less money, and keep communities more whole, and the Fair Sentencing Act gave relief to many of those convicted under racially slanted laws governing crack cocaine offenses.
The bad news: One in 33 American adults is under correctional supervision in the U.S.; President Nixon's War on Drugs rages on, 40 years alter; some state prison populations continue to increase, including Texas and Arkansas; racial disparities in the justice system remain staggering, with one in every 15 African-American males over 18 incarcerated, and states are increasingly looking to the private firms to run their prisons as a way to cut costs and cut corners, even though private prisons serve only their own interests.
ACLU Blog of Rights
Routine Traffic Stop Leads to Huge Drug Seizures in Arizona
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A simple traffic stop touched off the largest drug investigation in Tempe police history, making in-roads into a Sinaloan cartel that distributed drugs in several Western and Midwestern states, reports the Arizona Republic. The case began when Tempe police found a small quantity of drugs during a traffic stop That led detectives up the distribution ladder to dealers in a number of Arizona cities and eventually to the cartel connection.
Following a 15-month investigation, a task force of police agencies made 203 arrests and seized $7.8 million in cash, 650 pounds of marijuana, 435 pounds of methamphetamine, 123 pounds of cocaine and 4.5 pounds of heroin. The haul included the removal of $1.1million in cash and 156 pounds of methamphetamine from a south Phoenix home.
Arizona Republic
Stop-Gap Funding Again Heads Off Court Furlough in Arkansas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For the second month in a row, Gov. Mike Beebe has released $40,000 from his emergency fund to keep 125 Arkansas trial court assistants from taking unpaid furloughs because of a court funding crunch caused by declining revenues, reports the Arkansas News Bureau. Declining revenues from fewer civil case filings, among other problems, have resulted in cash-flow problems that jeopardized pay for trial court personnel.
In November, the governor released $40,000 from his emergency funds to prevent layoffs and furloughs this month. Chief Justice Jim Hannah recently recommended in an e-mail to the state's circuit and district judges that trial court assistants take at least three furlough days in January because of the financial problem. Hannah also has created a committee of judges and lawmakers to look at the declining revenue and develop a long-term solution. If that panel does come up with a possible solution, it might be something the Legislature will consider during the fiscal session that begins Feb. 13.
Arkansas News Bureau
Feds Accuse Police in East Haven, Conn., of Bias Against Latinos
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The East Haven, Conn., Police Department is "profoundly broken" with a pattern of discrimination, particularly against Latinos, so deeply rooted that it will take years to change, according to a scathing Justice Department report. It said that Latinos were the target of half the traffic stops of some officers, in a town with a Latino population of 10 percent, reports the Hartford Courant. Latino drivers are subject to much harsher treatment once they are stopped for a traffic violation, the report said.
In announcing the results of a probe into civil rights complaints, the Justice Department left unanswered the questions of whether East Haven officials will make changes voluntarily and also whether any officers will face criminal charges. A grand jury has been hearing evidence for nearly a year on allegations stemming from the civil rights investigation. Sources have said that six to 15 officers could face federal criminal charges. Deputy U.S. Attorney General Roy Austin Jr. said federal authorities hope to work with East Haven officials but will go to federal court to force changes if necessary.
Hartford Courant
L.A. Times: FBI's New Definition of Rape Is 'Not Just Symbolic'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In an editorial, the Los Angeles Times commends the FBI for its proposal to expand its definition of rape. The FBI definition, more than 80 years old, defines rape to include only incidents that involve "carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will." This is so outdated that many of the cases that local law enforcement authorities categorize as rape never get listed in the FBI's annual Uniform Crime Reports. A new definition, expected to be adopted by spring, defines rape as a crime against a woman or man that involves any vaginal or anal penetration by any object or body part. It also includes oral sexual penetration as a rape act. It drops the word "forcibly," and states that these acts are a crime if they occur without consent.
The Times says, "This overdue change is not just symbolic. Academics, legislators and public officials rely on the statistics when crafting laws and setting policy. What's more, understating rape's occurrence, women's advocates say, not only misleads the public about the prevalence of the crime, but also hinders funding for enforcement and treatment programs...A new definition also would trigger a change in public reporting by those local law enforcement agencies that have not modernized their own descriptions of rape." That includes the L.A. police department.
Los Angeles Times
In Media Spotlight, Sheriff Arpaio's Minions Surrender ICE Credentials
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Wednesday made a show of his detention officers turning in their federal credentials to conduct immigration screenings in Maricopa County, Ariz., jails, reports the Arizona Republic. Ninety-two detention officers joined Arpaio at a news conference where they turned in their ICE credentials. But federal officials say immigration enforcement at the jails will not change following a decision to revoke the authorization and take over the duties themselves.
The Sheriff's Office has had an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement since 2007 that authorized detention officers to conduct immigration screenings on every inmate booked. Arpaio's officers screened nearly 475,000 inmates since the agreement took effect, placing immigration detainers on about 44,000 inmates that prevent them from leaving jail until federal officials have reviewed their files. Federal officials removed that authority last week in the wake of a Justice Department report that accused the Sheriff's Office of violating civil rights and discriminating against Latino residents and inmates.
Arizona Republic
Second Acting Chief Named for Troubled California Police Department
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fullerton, Calif., has appointed a new acting chief to head up its troubled Police Department while Chief Michael Sellers remains on medical leave, reports the Los Angeles Times. Sellers went on medical leave in August as some were calling for his resignation over the beating death of a homeless man, Kelly Thomas, in an incident that involved six Fullerton police officers. Two of the officers face criminal charges.
Capt. Kevin Hamilton, head of the department's detective division, was initially appointed as acting chief. City officials announced this week that Hamilton will be replaced in the acting role by Capt. Dan Hughes, commander of the department's patrol division, effective Jan. 3. City Manager Joe Felz said in a statement that the decision to appoint Hughes to replace Hamilton was driven by Hamilton's desire to retire soon, a plan that he had put on hold to accept the acting chief position. Hughes is a 28-year veteran of the department who grew up in Fullerton.
Los Angeles Times
Charles Samuels Named to Lead U.S. Bureau of Prisons
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Charles E. Samuels Jr. was named director of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons Wednesday by Attorney General Eric Holder. The appointment of Samuels, a 23-year veteran of the agency, means that Holder rejected calls for leadership of the bureau, one of the largest Justice Department units, by an outsider. Holder said Samuels "will provide the kind of effective and innovative leadership that will increase efficiency, further expand prisoner development and reentry programs, and allow for transparency and accountability at the Federal Bureau of Prisons - while remaining true to the BOP's core mission of protecting public safety."
Samuels currently serves as assistant director of the bureau's Correctional Programs Division, overseeing all inmate management functions. He started as a federal corrections officer in 1988. Among several positions, he has been a warden of federal prisons in Manchester, Ky. and Ft. Dix, N.J. Last spring, the American Bar Association suggested that Holder name a director with a broad range of experience to head the bureau, noting that it always had named a director from within its ranks. Later, two dozen criminal justice groups called for a reformer to head what it called a "bloated" agency that "functions at nearly 140% capacity where prisoners are warehoused, rather than rehabilitated," Samuels succeeds Harley Lappin, who retired in May after he was arrested for drunk driving.
Crime & Justice News
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Police in the Boston area say that thefts of Christmas gift parcels from stoops seem to be a growing trend this year, reports the Boston Globe. Cases have been reported in Somerville, Wellesley, Medford and Quincy. A father-daughter duo and a part-time UPS worker were also arraigned yesterday in Quincy District Court on separate larceny charges. The dismal state of the economy - and the uptick in online shopping and shipping - seems to be making conditions ripe for porch-picking.
"There seems to be more of a rash this year,'' said Quincy Police Capt. John Dougan. An October consumer survey found that nearly 47 percent of consumers intended to do at least some of their shopping online, up from 44 percent last year, the National Retail Federation reported. That makes for plenty of deliveries. The United Parcel Service alone expects to deliver some 120 million packages this week. Somerville Police Capt. Charles J. Femino said, "This type of crime at this time of year is not unique to Somerville, but I can't say that I've seen it on this scale before."
Boston Globe
AP: California Peace Officers Have Bought 7,600 Assault Weapons
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
California law enforcers have bought more than 7,600 assault weapons that are outlawed for civilians in the decade since state lawmakers allowed the practice, reports the Associated Press. Federal authorities are investigating illegal gun sales by law enforcement. The information was obtained through a California Public Records Act request filed after federal authorities served search warrants in November as part of an investigation into allegations of illegal weapons sales by several Sacramento-area law enforcement officers.
The AP's findings and the federal probe have prompted one state lawmaker to revisit the law to ensure that the guns can be bought only for police purposes. "I think it's much more questionable whether we should allow peace officers to have access to weapons or firearms that a private citizen wouldn't have access to if the use is strictly personal," said Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, a Democrat who represents the Sacramento region. The inquiry has raised questions about the kinds of restricted weapons that the more than 87,000 peace officers in the state are entitled to purchase and about a 2001 law that allows them to buy assault weapons "for law enforcement purposes, whether on or off duty."
Associated Press
Ambush Attacks Drive Increase in Law Enforcers Killed on the Job
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A spike in ambush-style attacks is a factor in this year's second consecutive increase in the number of police officers killed in the line of duty, reports USA Today. Firearms-related fatalities of law enforcers are up 23% so far in 2011, even though violent crime has declined in much of the country, according to preliminary statistics. The Justice Department says about three-quarters of the shootings were ambush or surprise attacks.
Although the pace of overall shooting deaths has slowed since midyear, the numbers continue to frustrate law enforcement officials who earlier this year convened a national review of officer safety. Less than two weeks until the end of the year, the total number of officer deaths from all causes-174 -already marks the third largest death toll in the past decade.
USA Today
After 4 Years, Missouri Committee Suggests Criminal Code Updates
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After four years of work, a committee set up by the Missouri Bar is ready to ask lawmakers to update the state's criminal code for the first time since 1979, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The most significant change would be the addition of a fifth felony class that would close a gap for sentencing standards between Class B and Class C felonies. A new Class C felony, with a sentencing range of three to 10 years, would be created, and each crime would be assigned a new designation to reflect the change.
The Bar is also suggesting updates to the amount of fines for certain offenses, which have not been changed in 30 years. The Bar committee consisted of prosecutors, defense attorneys and representatives from the judiciary and the Legislature.
St. Louis Today
ACLU Sees Good News and Bad News in Criminal Justice in 2011
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was a bad news/good news year for criminal justice in America, according to an end-of-year account by the ACLU. The good news included these points: the number of adults behind bars, on probation, or on parole in the U.S. declined 1.3% in 2010, the second consecutive year of decline; half of all state departments of corrections reported decreases in their prison population during 2010; budget shortfalls prompted many states to realize that alternatives to incarceration can make us safer, cost less money, and keep communities more whole, and the Fair Sentencing Act gave relief to many of those convicted under racially slanted laws governing crack cocaine offenses.
The bad news: One in 33 American adults is under correctional supervision in the U.S.; President Nixon's War on Drugs rages on, 40 years alter; some state prison populations continue to increase, including Texas and Arkansas; racial disparities in the justice system remain staggering, with one in every 15 African-American males over 18 incarcerated, and states are increasingly looking to the private firms to run their prisons as a way to cut costs and cut corners, even though private prisons serve only their own interests.
ACLU Blog of Rights
Routine Traffic Stop Leads to Huge Drug Seizures in Arizona
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A simple traffic stop touched off the largest drug investigation in Tempe police history, making in-roads into a Sinaloan cartel that distributed drugs in several Western and Midwestern states, reports the Arizona Republic. The case began when Tempe police found a small quantity of drugs during a traffic stop That led detectives up the distribution ladder to dealers in a number of Arizona cities and eventually to the cartel connection.
Following a 15-month investigation, a task force of police agencies made 203 arrests and seized $7.8 million in cash, 650 pounds of marijuana, 435 pounds of methamphetamine, 123 pounds of cocaine and 4.5 pounds of heroin. The haul included the removal of $1.1million in cash and 156 pounds of methamphetamine from a south Phoenix home.
Arizona Republic
Stop-Gap Funding Again Heads Off Court Furlough in Arkansas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For the second month in a row, Gov. Mike Beebe has released $40,000 from his emergency fund to keep 125 Arkansas trial court assistants from taking unpaid furloughs because of a court funding crunch caused by declining revenues, reports the Arkansas News Bureau. Declining revenues from fewer civil case filings, among other problems, have resulted in cash-flow problems that jeopardized pay for trial court personnel.
In November, the governor released $40,000 from his emergency funds to prevent layoffs and furloughs this month. Chief Justice Jim Hannah recently recommended in an e-mail to the state's circuit and district judges that trial court assistants take at least three furlough days in January because of the financial problem. Hannah also has created a committee of judges and lawmakers to look at the declining revenue and develop a long-term solution. If that panel does come up with a possible solution, it might be something the Legislature will consider during the fiscal session that begins Feb. 13.
Arkansas News Bureau
Feds Accuse Police in East Haven, Conn., of Bias Against Latinos
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The East Haven, Conn., Police Department is "profoundly broken" with a pattern of discrimination, particularly against Latinos, so deeply rooted that it will take years to change, according to a scathing Justice Department report. It said that Latinos were the target of half the traffic stops of some officers, in a town with a Latino population of 10 percent, reports the Hartford Courant. Latino drivers are subject to much harsher treatment once they are stopped for a traffic violation, the report said.
In announcing the results of a probe into civil rights complaints, the Justice Department left unanswered the questions of whether East Haven officials will make changes voluntarily and also whether any officers will face criminal charges. A grand jury has been hearing evidence for nearly a year on allegations stemming from the civil rights investigation. Sources have said that six to 15 officers could face federal criminal charges. Deputy U.S. Attorney General Roy Austin Jr. said federal authorities hope to work with East Haven officials but will go to federal court to force changes if necessary.
Hartford Courant
L.A. Times: FBI's New Definition of Rape Is 'Not Just Symbolic'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In an editorial, the Los Angeles Times commends the FBI for its proposal to expand its definition of rape. The FBI definition, more than 80 years old, defines rape to include only incidents that involve "carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will." This is so outdated that many of the cases that local law enforcement authorities categorize as rape never get listed in the FBI's annual Uniform Crime Reports. A new definition, expected to be adopted by spring, defines rape as a crime against a woman or man that involves any vaginal or anal penetration by any object or body part. It also includes oral sexual penetration as a rape act. It drops the word "forcibly," and states that these acts are a crime if they occur without consent.
The Times says, "This overdue change is not just symbolic. Academics, legislators and public officials rely on the statistics when crafting laws and setting policy. What's more, understating rape's occurrence, women's advocates say, not only misleads the public about the prevalence of the crime, but also hinders funding for enforcement and treatment programs...A new definition also would trigger a change in public reporting by those local law enforcement agencies that have not modernized their own descriptions of rape." That includes the L.A. police department.
Los Angeles Times
In Media Spotlight, Sheriff Arpaio's Minions Surrender ICE Credentials
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Wednesday made a show of his detention officers turning in their federal credentials to conduct immigration screenings in Maricopa County, Ariz., jails, reports the Arizona Republic. Ninety-two detention officers joined Arpaio at a news conference where they turned in their ICE credentials. But federal officials say immigration enforcement at the jails will not change following a decision to revoke the authorization and take over the duties themselves.
The Sheriff's Office has had an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement since 2007 that authorized detention officers to conduct immigration screenings on every inmate booked. Arpaio's officers screened nearly 475,000 inmates since the agreement took effect, placing immigration detainers on about 44,000 inmates that prevent them from leaving jail until federal officials have reviewed their files. Federal officials removed that authority last week in the wake of a Justice Department report that accused the Sheriff's Office of violating civil rights and discriminating against Latino residents and inmates.
Arizona Republic
Second Acting Chief Named for Troubled California Police Department
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fullerton, Calif., has appointed a new acting chief to head up its troubled Police Department while Chief Michael Sellers remains on medical leave, reports the Los Angeles Times. Sellers went on medical leave in August as some were calling for his resignation over the beating death of a homeless man, Kelly Thomas, in an incident that involved six Fullerton police officers. Two of the officers face criminal charges.
Capt. Kevin Hamilton, head of the department's detective division, was initially appointed as acting chief. City officials announced this week that Hamilton will be replaced in the acting role by Capt. Dan Hughes, commander of the department's patrol division, effective Jan. 3. City Manager Joe Felz said in a statement that the decision to appoint Hughes to replace Hamilton was driven by Hamilton's desire to retire soon, a plan that he had put on hold to accept the acting chief position. Hughes is a 28-year veteran of the department who grew up in Fullerton.
Los Angeles Times
Charles Samuels Named to Lead U.S. Bureau of Prisons
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Charles E. Samuels Jr. was named director of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons Wednesday by Attorney General Eric Holder. The appointment of Samuels, a 23-year veteran of the agency, means that Holder rejected calls for leadership of the bureau, one of the largest Justice Department units, by an outsider. Holder said Samuels "will provide the kind of effective and innovative leadership that will increase efficiency, further expand prisoner development and reentry programs, and allow for transparency and accountability at the Federal Bureau of Prisons - while remaining true to the BOP's core mission of protecting public safety."
Samuels currently serves as assistant director of the bureau's Correctional Programs Division, overseeing all inmate management functions. He started as a federal corrections officer in 1988. Among several positions, he has been a warden of federal prisons in Manchester, Ky. and Ft. Dix, N.J. Last spring, the American Bar Association suggested that Holder name a director with a broad range of experience to head the bureau, noting that it always had named a director from within its ranks. Later, two dozen criminal justice groups called for a reformer to head what it called a "bloated" agency that "functions at nearly 140% capacity where prisoners are warehoused, rather than rehabilitated," Samuels succeeds Harley Lappin, who retired in May after he was arrested for drunk driving.
Crime & Justice News
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
21 Dec 2011
Police Spend Billions In U.S. Aid on Antiterror Equipment
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If terrorists ever target Fargo, N.D., the local police will be ready, says the Center for Investigative Reporting. They have bought bomb-detection robots, digital communications equipment and Kevlar helmets, like those used by soldiers in foreign wars. For local siege situations requiring real firepower, police there can use a new $256,643 armored truck, complete with a rotating turret. "Most people are so fascinated by it, because nothing happens here," said Carol Archbold, criminal justice professor at North Dakota State University. "There's no terrorism here."
Fargo, like thousands of other communities in every state, has been on a gear-buying spree with the aid of more than $34 billion in federal government grants since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The federal grant spending, awarded with little oversight from Washington, has fueled a rapid, broad transformation of police operations in Fargo and in departments across the country. More than ever before, police rely on quasi-military tactics and equipment. No one can say exactly what has been purchased in total across the country or how it's being used, because the federal government doesn't keep close track.
Center for Investigative Reporting
40% of Police Officers Suffer Sleep Disorders: New Harvard Study
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A serious lack of sleep may be a big problem among the nation's 700,000 police officers, reports NPR. In what's believed to be the first study on the subject, Harvard researchers queried nearly 5,000 municipal and state police officers in the U.S. and Canada about their sleep habits and symptoms of possible sleep disorders, and assessed their on-duty performance for two years.
Forty percent had sleep disorders, and the vast majority were undiagnosed before. Those who screened positive for a sleep disorder had a 25 percent higher risk of expressing uncontrolled anger to a suspect or citizen, and a 35 percent higher chance of having a citizen complaint filed against them. Sleep-deprived officers had 51 percent greater odds of falling asleep while driving on duty. One in three officers has sleep apnea - waking up repeatedly because breathing has temporarily stopped. That's at least 8 times higher than the rate among the general population. Sleep-starved officers reported falling asleep at meetings more often and calling in sick. The study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
NPR
In "Major Change In Street Crime," Minneapolis Property Offenses Up
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
While violent crime fell this year in Minneapolis, a rising number of burglaries and thefts have driven the overall crime level higher for the second year in a row, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Police say criminals are shifting from drug dealing to home break-ins. Auto thefts and robberies have also jumped downtown. "We're seeing a major change in street crime," Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan said. "Burglaries are becoming the trade of people who want to make money quick."
Burglaries rose nearly 5 percent, from 4,590 last year to 4,816 so far this year with two weeks yet to go. Larcenies -- defined as thefts unconnected with break-ins or robberies -- are up more than 11 percent, from 6,905 last year to 7,688 this year. Fourth Precinct Inspector Mike Martin said burglars hit north Minneapolis especially hard following a May 22 tornado. Martin said changes in the drug trade have reduced the profit margins for small-time dealers. Youths who might have turned to selling drugs for quick money find it's more profitable to break into a house and steal electronics or jewelry.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Justice System Cost $755 Annually Per U.S. Resident in 2007: BJS Report
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The U.S. justice system cost $228 billion annually to operate as of 2007, a 171 percent since 1982, after adjusting for inflation, says the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics in a newly released compilation. Because the data preceded the recession, they are likely to be down today in many categories. Between 2002 and 2007, public expenditures for criminal and civil justice remained flat.
The per capita justice system expenditure was $755 in 2007, a drop of 5 percent from 2002. �In 2007, 2.5 million persons were employed in the justice system, an increase of 93 percent from 1982. ƒƒBetween 1982 and 2002, federal justice system employment increased 115 percent; state, 118 percent; and local, 63 percent. ƒƒFederal employment increased from 7 percent of total justice employment in 1982 to 11 percent in 2007, while state employment increased from 27 percent to 31 percent, and local employment declined from 66 percent to 58 percent.
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics
Immigration Fastest Growing U.S. Arrest Offense In Recent Years
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Illegal immigration was the fastest growing federal arrest offense between 2005 and 2009, increasing an average rate of 23 percent each year, the Bureau of Justice Statistics said today. In 2009, 84,749 suspects were arrested and booked for immigration offenses, up from 38,041 in 2005.
During 2009, a record 183,986 suspects were arrested for federal offenses, up from 140,200 in 2005 and nearly double the 83,324 suspects arrested in 1995. Illegal immigration (46 percent) was the most common offense at arrest in 2009, followed by drug (17 percent) and supervision violations (13 percent). More than half (56 percent) of all federal arrests occurred in the five federal judicial districts along the U.S.-Mexico border: Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Western and Southern Texas. Of the 193,234 matters concluded by U.S. attorneys in 2009, two out of three involved immigration (46 percent) or drug (20 percent) offenses.
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics
Skepticism On Proposals to Bolster Child Abuse Reporting Laws
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After the Penn State sex abuse charges, several states want to expand the list of who's a mandated reporter - especially in places where coaches are not already included, NPR reports. Among the states with calls to expand required reporting or to stiffen penalties for those who fail to do so are California, New York, Virginia, Georgia, Connecticut, and Maryland. Former professional hockey player Sheldon Kennedy told a Senate committee he was sexually abused for years by a respected hockey coach, but adults around him who suspected never said a thing.
The proposed laws are being met with skepticism. Joette Katz, commissioner of Connecticut's Department of Children and Families, says. "Whether someone's a mandated reporter or not, you walk in and you see somebody sexually molesting a 10-year-old, you don't need a statute to tell you that that's a crime." She 30 percent of the calls to the agency's hotline already come from people who aren't mandated reporters. She worries that if everyone feels legally bound to report their suspicions, her case workers would get inundated with junk reports. Also, an investigation can be traumatic for children and their families. Robert Block, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, says it would be almost impossible to train every adult how to spot real child abuse cases.
NPR
Meth Use Down But It Plagues Depressed Rural Areas
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Methamphetamine has a tight grip on Jefferson County, south of St. Louis, Cpl. Timothy Whitney of the sheriff's department tells USA Today. The county leads the state in meth lab seizures - a sign, he says, of aggressive enforcement as well as the scope of its problem. Through Nov. 28, there were 6,915 seizures of meth labs, equipment and dumpsites nationwide this year; Missouri led all states with 1,744. So far this year, there have been 234 seizures in Jefferson County.
Meth continues to plague communities across the U.S. despite getting scant attention, says UCLA psychiatry professor Richard Rawson. "You'd think there's no meth problem, he says, but in many economically depressed rural areas it's still used "to cope with [ ] difficulty and poverty." Steven Shoptaw, a family medicine professor at UCLA, says the nation "is not yet past the chapter on methamphetamine." As the problem persists, he says, budget woes are shrinking resources to address the problem. "There's just an air of desperation that's out there," he says. Still, meth use is down, says the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, released in September by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The number of people who said they had used meth in the past month fell from 731,000 in 2006 to 353,000 in 2010.
USA Today
Traffic Stops Not Routine; PA Officer Killed by Driver in License Check
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Police officers make countless traffic stops in their careers for offenses large and small. But never tell them they're routine, says the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. East Washington, Pa., police Officer John Dryer's death at the hands of a gunman with expired license plates underscores the danger that lies in every stop, fellow officers said. Dryer, 46, apparently stopped Eli Myers, 58, on Interstate 70 late Sunday because he could tell from the sticker on his filthy license plate that his registration was expired.
The officer followed protocol. He told 911 dispatchers to run the plate to see if the driver had any wants or warrants. He asked them to send a backup when, in his words, the driver started "getting mouthy." "He was doing the right things," said Officer David Wright, an instructor at the Pittsburgh police training academy, where recruits are told that vigilance is key when stopping a vehicle. A driver's "mouthy" tone, his furtive glance and fidgeting hands are subtle signs of trouble that officers must train to recognize. Fifty-seven of the 305 police officers killed in the line of duty between 2005 and 2010 died while conducting traffic stops, say FBI data.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
U.S. Pulls National Guard From Mexican Border, Boosts Aircraft Use
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Sophisticated surveillance aircraft will be deployed along the Southwest border in coming months to peer miles into Mexico and spot smugglers, drug traffickers and undocumented immigrants, reports the Houston Chronicle. The plan to operate high-tech aircraft with so-called "over the horizon" technology came to light as the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security announced the end of the 18-month-old deployment of 1,200 National Guard ground troops who have been helping the U.S. Border Patrol.
About 300 Guardsmen will be used to oversee the aerial operations. By using unmanned drones and aircraft operated by the so-called "citizen soldiers" of the National Guard, the Obama administration avoids diplomatic strains that might arise with Mexico if U.S. military surveillance aircraft flown by active duty armed forces' pilots were used along the common border.
Houston Chronicle
Sacramento Anti-Gang Plan "Paradigm Shift" Moves to Prevention
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In another sign that officials are shifting the way they go after gangs, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson says his gang task force will turn much of its focus toward prevention and intervention tactics, reports the Sacramento Bee. Johnson said the task force would embark on a three-year gang prevention effort, putting less emphasis on enforcement strategies.
Some key elements of the strategy will be implemented by dozens of law enforcement officers set to be hired with federal grants this year. Other elements of the plan involve existing literacy and internship programs.The task force is copying gang prevention ideas that have been successful in other cities, including San Jose. The task force was formed after a community outcry when two people - including a young mother - were gunned down outside a barbershop. The anti-gang plan will represent "a paradigm shift," Johnson said. Most plans that tackle gang violence have "a heavy emphasis on incarceration and enforcement, and we don't want that to be the focus." Investing in school-based programs, developing strong connections between neighborhoods and law enforcement officers, job development programs, and regional collaboration among police agencies will make up the strategy.
Sacramento Bee
"Knowing" vs. "Reckless" Homicide: How Is a Juror to Decide?
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Someone convicted of a knowing homicide in Colorado is subject to a mandatory sentence of 16 to 48 years in prison. A reckless homicide brings a non-mandatory sentence of two to six years in prison. The problem, says a study by law and psychology professors reported by the National Law Journal, us that jurors may be unable to distinguish between knowing and reckless conduct, as defined by the Model Penal Code. The 50-year old code, adopted by most states, requires jurors to sort defendants into four categories of conduct: purposeful, knowing, reckless, and negligent.
Researchers conducted tests to gauge how well jurors identified those mental states and assigned punishment under varying degrees of exposure to the code's definitions. "Our results suggest, by and large, that people are pretty good at this," said Owen Jones, a law and biology professor at Vanderbilt University and director of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network of Law and Neuroscience. "However, we were surprised by the apparent confusion between reckless and knowing." The study, Sorting Guilty Minds, is in the November New York University Law Review.
National Law Journal
NC Prosecutor Accuses Gov Of Favoring Murderers In Bill Veto
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A North Carolina district attorney, Rick Shaffer, has quit Gov. Bev Perdue's Crime Commission, saying she may have "helped unleash violent murderers back into society" by vetoing a bill that would repeal the state's Racial Justice Act, reports the Charlotte Observer. Shaffer told Perdue, "You no longer have any moral authority to suggest that you strongly support the death penalty."
Perdue has called the legislature into session Jan. 4 to consider overriding her veto. The Senate has enough votes to override the veto, but it is highly unlikely that the House has the necessary three-fifths majority to overcome it. The Senate bill would have halted the 2-year-old Racial Justice Act, which allows death-row inmates to use statistics to argue that their sentences should be converted to life without parole if they can convince a judge there was racial bias in their prosecution or sentencing. Perdue said in her veto message that she believes in capital punishment but wants to ensure it is administered fairly and free of racial bias.
Charlotte Observer
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If terrorists ever target Fargo, N.D., the local police will be ready, says the Center for Investigative Reporting. They have bought bomb-detection robots, digital communications equipment and Kevlar helmets, like those used by soldiers in foreign wars. For local siege situations requiring real firepower, police there can use a new $256,643 armored truck, complete with a rotating turret. "Most people are so fascinated by it, because nothing happens here," said Carol Archbold, criminal justice professor at North Dakota State University. "There's no terrorism here."
Fargo, like thousands of other communities in every state, has been on a gear-buying spree with the aid of more than $34 billion in federal government grants since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The federal grant spending, awarded with little oversight from Washington, has fueled a rapid, broad transformation of police operations in Fargo and in departments across the country. More than ever before, police rely on quasi-military tactics and equipment. No one can say exactly what has been purchased in total across the country or how it's being used, because the federal government doesn't keep close track.
Center for Investigative Reporting
40% of Police Officers Suffer Sleep Disorders: New Harvard Study
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A serious lack of sleep may be a big problem among the nation's 700,000 police officers, reports NPR. In what's believed to be the first study on the subject, Harvard researchers queried nearly 5,000 municipal and state police officers in the U.S. and Canada about their sleep habits and symptoms of possible sleep disorders, and assessed their on-duty performance for two years.
Forty percent had sleep disorders, and the vast majority were undiagnosed before. Those who screened positive for a sleep disorder had a 25 percent higher risk of expressing uncontrolled anger to a suspect or citizen, and a 35 percent higher chance of having a citizen complaint filed against them. Sleep-deprived officers had 51 percent greater odds of falling asleep while driving on duty. One in three officers has sleep apnea - waking up repeatedly because breathing has temporarily stopped. That's at least 8 times higher than the rate among the general population. Sleep-starved officers reported falling asleep at meetings more often and calling in sick. The study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
NPR
In "Major Change In Street Crime," Minneapolis Property Offenses Up
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While violent crime fell this year in Minneapolis, a rising number of burglaries and thefts have driven the overall crime level higher for the second year in a row, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Police say criminals are shifting from drug dealing to home break-ins. Auto thefts and robberies have also jumped downtown. "We're seeing a major change in street crime," Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan said. "Burglaries are becoming the trade of people who want to make money quick."
Burglaries rose nearly 5 percent, from 4,590 last year to 4,816 so far this year with two weeks yet to go. Larcenies -- defined as thefts unconnected with break-ins or robberies -- are up more than 11 percent, from 6,905 last year to 7,688 this year. Fourth Precinct Inspector Mike Martin said burglars hit north Minneapolis especially hard following a May 22 tornado. Martin said changes in the drug trade have reduced the profit margins for small-time dealers. Youths who might have turned to selling drugs for quick money find it's more profitable to break into a house and steal electronics or jewelry.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Justice System Cost $755 Annually Per U.S. Resident in 2007: BJS Report
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The U.S. justice system cost $228 billion annually to operate as of 2007, a 171 percent since 1982, after adjusting for inflation, says the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics in a newly released compilation. Because the data preceded the recession, they are likely to be down today in many categories. Between 2002 and 2007, public expenditures for criminal and civil justice remained flat.
The per capita justice system expenditure was $755 in 2007, a drop of 5 percent from 2002. �In 2007, 2.5 million persons were employed in the justice system, an increase of 93 percent from 1982. ƒƒBetween 1982 and 2002, federal justice system employment increased 115 percent; state, 118 percent; and local, 63 percent. ƒƒFederal employment increased from 7 percent of total justice employment in 1982 to 11 percent in 2007, while state employment increased from 27 percent to 31 percent, and local employment declined from 66 percent to 58 percent.
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics
Immigration Fastest Growing U.S. Arrest Offense In Recent Years
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Illegal immigration was the fastest growing federal arrest offense between 2005 and 2009, increasing an average rate of 23 percent each year, the Bureau of Justice Statistics said today. In 2009, 84,749 suspects were arrested and booked for immigration offenses, up from 38,041 in 2005.
During 2009, a record 183,986 suspects were arrested for federal offenses, up from 140,200 in 2005 and nearly double the 83,324 suspects arrested in 1995. Illegal immigration (46 percent) was the most common offense at arrest in 2009, followed by drug (17 percent) and supervision violations (13 percent). More than half (56 percent) of all federal arrests occurred in the five federal judicial districts along the U.S.-Mexico border: Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico and Western and Southern Texas. Of the 193,234 matters concluded by U.S. attorneys in 2009, two out of three involved immigration (46 percent) or drug (20 percent) offenses.
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics
Skepticism On Proposals to Bolster Child Abuse Reporting Laws
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After the Penn State sex abuse charges, several states want to expand the list of who's a mandated reporter - especially in places where coaches are not already included, NPR reports. Among the states with calls to expand required reporting or to stiffen penalties for those who fail to do so are California, New York, Virginia, Georgia, Connecticut, and Maryland. Former professional hockey player Sheldon Kennedy told a Senate committee he was sexually abused for years by a respected hockey coach, but adults around him who suspected never said a thing.
The proposed laws are being met with skepticism. Joette Katz, commissioner of Connecticut's Department of Children and Families, says. "Whether someone's a mandated reporter or not, you walk in and you see somebody sexually molesting a 10-year-old, you don't need a statute to tell you that that's a crime." She 30 percent of the calls to the agency's hotline already come from people who aren't mandated reporters. She worries that if everyone feels legally bound to report their suspicions, her case workers would get inundated with junk reports. Also, an investigation can be traumatic for children and their families. Robert Block, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, says it would be almost impossible to train every adult how to spot real child abuse cases.
NPR
Meth Use Down But It Plagues Depressed Rural Areas
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Methamphetamine has a tight grip on Jefferson County, south of St. Louis, Cpl. Timothy Whitney of the sheriff's department tells USA Today. The county leads the state in meth lab seizures - a sign, he says, of aggressive enforcement as well as the scope of its problem. Through Nov. 28, there were 6,915 seizures of meth labs, equipment and dumpsites nationwide this year; Missouri led all states with 1,744. So far this year, there have been 234 seizures in Jefferson County.
Meth continues to plague communities across the U.S. despite getting scant attention, says UCLA psychiatry professor Richard Rawson. "You'd think there's no meth problem, he says, but in many economically depressed rural areas it's still used "to cope with [ ] difficulty and poverty." Steven Shoptaw, a family medicine professor at UCLA, says the nation "is not yet past the chapter on methamphetamine." As the problem persists, he says, budget woes are shrinking resources to address the problem. "There's just an air of desperation that's out there," he says. Still, meth use is down, says the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, released in September by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The number of people who said they had used meth in the past month fell from 731,000 in 2006 to 353,000 in 2010.
USA Today
Traffic Stops Not Routine; PA Officer Killed by Driver in License Check
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Police officers make countless traffic stops in their careers for offenses large and small. But never tell them they're routine, says the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. East Washington, Pa., police Officer John Dryer's death at the hands of a gunman with expired license plates underscores the danger that lies in every stop, fellow officers said. Dryer, 46, apparently stopped Eli Myers, 58, on Interstate 70 late Sunday because he could tell from the sticker on his filthy license plate that his registration was expired.
The officer followed protocol. He told 911 dispatchers to run the plate to see if the driver had any wants or warrants. He asked them to send a backup when, in his words, the driver started "getting mouthy." "He was doing the right things," said Officer David Wright, an instructor at the Pittsburgh police training academy, where recruits are told that vigilance is key when stopping a vehicle. A driver's "mouthy" tone, his furtive glance and fidgeting hands are subtle signs of trouble that officers must train to recognize. Fifty-seven of the 305 police officers killed in the line of duty between 2005 and 2010 died while conducting traffic stops, say FBI data.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
U.S. Pulls National Guard From Mexican Border, Boosts Aircraft Use
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Sophisticated surveillance aircraft will be deployed along the Southwest border in coming months to peer miles into Mexico and spot smugglers, drug traffickers and undocumented immigrants, reports the Houston Chronicle. The plan to operate high-tech aircraft with so-called "over the horizon" technology came to light as the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security announced the end of the 18-month-old deployment of 1,200 National Guard ground troops who have been helping the U.S. Border Patrol.
About 300 Guardsmen will be used to oversee the aerial operations. By using unmanned drones and aircraft operated by the so-called "citizen soldiers" of the National Guard, the Obama administration avoids diplomatic strains that might arise with Mexico if U.S. military surveillance aircraft flown by active duty armed forces' pilots were used along the common border.
Houston Chronicle
Sacramento Anti-Gang Plan "Paradigm Shift" Moves to Prevention
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In another sign that officials are shifting the way they go after gangs, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson says his gang task force will turn much of its focus toward prevention and intervention tactics, reports the Sacramento Bee. Johnson said the task force would embark on a three-year gang prevention effort, putting less emphasis on enforcement strategies.
Some key elements of the strategy will be implemented by dozens of law enforcement officers set to be hired with federal grants this year. Other elements of the plan involve existing literacy and internship programs.The task force is copying gang prevention ideas that have been successful in other cities, including San Jose. The task force was formed after a community outcry when two people - including a young mother - were gunned down outside a barbershop. The anti-gang plan will represent "a paradigm shift," Johnson said. Most plans that tackle gang violence have "a heavy emphasis on incarceration and enforcement, and we don't want that to be the focus." Investing in school-based programs, developing strong connections between neighborhoods and law enforcement officers, job development programs, and regional collaboration among police agencies will make up the strategy.
Sacramento Bee
"Knowing" vs. "Reckless" Homicide: How Is a Juror to Decide?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Someone convicted of a knowing homicide in Colorado is subject to a mandatory sentence of 16 to 48 years in prison. A reckless homicide brings a non-mandatory sentence of two to six years in prison. The problem, says a study by law and psychology professors reported by the National Law Journal, us that jurors may be unable to distinguish between knowing and reckless conduct, as defined by the Model Penal Code. The 50-year old code, adopted by most states, requires jurors to sort defendants into four categories of conduct: purposeful, knowing, reckless, and negligent.
Researchers conducted tests to gauge how well jurors identified those mental states and assigned punishment under varying degrees of exposure to the code's definitions. "Our results suggest, by and large, that people are pretty good at this," said Owen Jones, a law and biology professor at Vanderbilt University and director of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network of Law and Neuroscience. "However, we were surprised by the apparent confusion between reckless and knowing." The study, Sorting Guilty Minds, is in the November New York University Law Review.
National Law Journal
NC Prosecutor Accuses Gov Of Favoring Murderers In Bill Veto
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A North Carolina district attorney, Rick Shaffer, has quit Gov. Bev Perdue's Crime Commission, saying she may have "helped unleash violent murderers back into society" by vetoing a bill that would repeal the state's Racial Justice Act, reports the Charlotte Observer. Shaffer told Perdue, "You no longer have any moral authority to suggest that you strongly support the death penalty."
Perdue has called the legislature into session Jan. 4 to consider overriding her veto. The Senate has enough votes to override the veto, but it is highly unlikely that the House has the necessary three-fifths majority to overcome it. The Senate bill would have halted the 2-year-old Racial Justice Act, which allows death-row inmates to use statistics to argue that their sentences should be converted to life without parole if they can convince a judge there was racial bias in their prosecution or sentencing. Perdue said in her veto message that she believes in capital punishment but wants to ensure it is administered fairly and free of racial bias.
Charlotte Observer
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
20 Dec 2011
Loosened State Gun Curbs Mean More Carrying Concealed Weapons
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A Mississippi resident who receives a concealed carry permit and takes an eight-hour course can now carry a gun on college campuses, in bars, and in courthouses, says USA Today. Wyoming residents need no permits for concealed weapons. In Indiana, private businesses must allow employees to keep firearms in their vehicles on company property. Those and other recent changes on the state level represent a growing shift toward loosening state gun regulations, says University of Chicago Prof. Jens Ludwig.
Supporters of the trend see it as a boost for gun rights. "Somebody who's disturbed or a crook - they're not going to care (if it's illegal to carry a gun in certain locations)," says Mississippi state Rep. Greg Snowden, a Republican who was one of three authors of an amendment that paved the way for the new policy. Alaska, Arizona, and Vermont, like Wyoming, do not require permits for concealed guns, says the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action. University of Mississippi Police Chief Calvin Sellers says he supports the right to own firearms, but he still thinks Mississippi's newest policy could be a "bad law." "I just don't like the idea of people having firearms in a classroom," he says.
USA Today
Despite Instructions, Jurors Refuse to Limit Internet Use During Trials
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This month, the Arkansas Supreme Court overturned a guilty verdict in a capital murder case because a juror was tweeting about it while the case was being heard, reports Stateline.org. A few days earlier, a California juror was dismissed when the court discovered she had posted extensively about the case and about the other jurors on her Facebook page. Faced with rapidly changing technology, judges are struggling to keep jurors from getting and spreading information about current cases online.
Doing online research on a defendant's record or consulting Facebook friends on a vote for sentencing seems acceptable to some jurors, but it violates the oath "to base your verdict solely upon the evidence" presented in court. Even though a majority of states prohibit Internet research or communication by jurors, studies have found that many jurors misconstrue the instructions or refuse to limit their Internet use during a trial. In a pilot study of 500 jurors across the U.S. by the National Center for State Courts, researchers found that even after jurors had been instructed that they could not tweet, email, use Facebook, or communicate electronically with friends or family members about a case, one-third of respondents either didn't understand or incorrectly understood what they could and couldn't do when it came to using the Internet while acting as a juror.
Stateline.org
Perry Has Granted Few Pardons in Texas; Romney Issued None in MA
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Texas Gov. Rick Perry has turned away most applicants recommended for pardons by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, but his clemency record is more generous than Mitt Romney's, reports ProPublica. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney refused to grant a single pardon. Among the pardon applicants Romney denied was a decorated veteran of the Iraq War whose only offense, at age 13, was shooting another child with a BB gun.
ProPublica reviewed of past clemency actions by Republican presidential contenders after publishing a series on racial bias and inequities in the presidential pardons process. President Obama has granted few pardons, 22 in his first three years in office. Romney, Massachusetts governor from 2003-07, proudly advertised his record of granting no pardons. A Massachusetts furlough program that released a convicted murderer, Willie Horton, who went on to rape a woman and beat her fiancé, became a major point of attack against former Gov. Michael Dukakis in his 1988 presidential race.
ProPublica
Top Philadelphia Traffic Judge Out Amid FBI Probe of Ticket Fixing
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There are very different ways to have a case heard in Philadelphia's Traffic Court, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron Castille tells the Philadelphia Daily News. Most drivers show up, present evidence about their ticket and wait to see how a judge rules. A politically connected person can make arrangements ahead of time for favorable treatment.
There are very different ways to have a case heard in Philadelphia's Traffic Court, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron Castille tells the Philadelphia Daily News. Most drivers show up, present evidence about their ticket and wait to see how a judge rules. A politically connected person can make arrangements ahead of time for favorable treatment. With the FBI crawling all over Traffic Court, the Supreme Court removed Administrative Judge Michael Sullivan from his post, replaced him with Common Pleas Judge Gary Glazer and announced that it is launching its own inquiry. Castille said a review by the firm Chadwick Associates found that the practice of Traffic Court judges and staff "accepting external requests for favorable treatment was so prevailing that it had become institutionalized in the operation of the courts." Castille declined to detail how the ticket-fixing worked in Traffic Court, adding that he didn't know if it was also done for money or just as political favors. "This is, as we have seen, kind of an ingrained culture in the Traffic Court of adjusting these tickets and not really giving the city and citizens a fair shake," he said. "I'm sure the FBI later on will enlighten us as to the details of how these tickets were adjusted."
Philadelphia Daily News
Georgia Judge, Facing Charges After Critical Radio Program, Quits Bench
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Amanda Williams, the chief judge from Brunswick, Ga., who operated Georgia's largest drug court operation, is stepping down from the bench in the face of sweeping ethics charges, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Last month, the state Judicial Qualifications Commission filed a dozen charges against Williams, accusing her of indefinitely detaining defendants and cutting off their access to their family and lawyers. She also was charged with making false statements, behaving in a tyrannical manner on the bench, and allowing family members to appear in cases before her.
This month, the panel filed three more charges, saying she gave special treatment to a man facing family violence charges by allowing him to enter her drug court. Her drug court operation came under intense scrutiny early this year when the public radio show, "This American Life," broadcast "Very Tough Love," a segment that highlighted a number of cases from Williams' drug court. Williams threatened to sue, but didn't. She told the Journal-Constitution last spring, "I've spent 12 ½ years trying to give people an opportunity to get clean and sober, in spite of their addictive behaviors. You can really make a difference in people's lives."
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
TX Drops Murder Case After 25 Years; Judge Cites "Horrendous Tragedy"
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Texas Judge Sid Harle dismissed a murder charge against Michael Morton, declaring him innocent of the crime that cost him almost 25 years in prison, reports the Austin American-Statesman. Harle delayed a decision on Morton's request that a special court examine allegations that his prosecutor, Ken Anderson, broke several laws by concealing evidence before, during, and after Morton's trial.
A decision is not expected before year's end because Harle offered Anderson, now a judge who has repeatedly denied allegations of misconduct in Morton's 1987 trial, a chance to file briefs opposing the inquiry. The state's highest criminal court voided Morton's conviction in the murder of his wife, Christine, who was beaten to death while lying in bed in their home. Harle told Morton, "What befell you and your family many years ago was a horrendous tragedy." Recent tests have found DNA belonging to Mark Norwood on evidence collected from two murder scenes, including Morton's. Norwood is charged with Morton's killing, and authorities have said he is a suspect in Baker's death.
Austin American-Statesman
Bratton Contends Police Reforms Now Reaping Anticrime Dividends
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Commenting on the FBI's report showing a drop in crime reports in the first half of 2011, William Bratton, the former chief of police in Boston, Los Angeles, and New York City who's now chairman of worldwide investigative company Kroll, told CBS' "The Early Show" that the U.S. is feeling the residual effects of methods and strategies put into place more than a decade ago. "In the 1990s, policing got it right," Bratton said. "We began to focus once again on preventing crime; '60s, '70s, '80s, we focused on responding to crime. It's a lot different to try to prevent it, and we've become very successful at preventing it."
Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox disputes the popular myth that crime should be going up in a bad economy. "They're using technology; they're using data, crime patterns, maps to figure out where are the hot spots, what's the trend in terms of crime and trying to be proactive," Fox said of law enforcement agencies. "People are either criminals or not, independent of whether they have a job. In the first six months of 2011, robberies in Los Angeles dropped 10 percent from the number reported in the first half of the 2010. Over the same time period, Chicago recorded 14 percent fewer murders, and in Dallas the number of rapes fell by 22 percent.
CBS News
GAO Study Shows Lower Recidivism Among Drug-Court Participants
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An analysis of 32 drug courts by the U.S. Government Accountability Office showed that program participants were generally less likely to be re-arrested than comparison group members drawn from criminal court. Differences were statistically significant for 18 of the programs.
Cost-benefit analyses showed mixed results. The percentages of drug-court program participants re-arrested were lower than for comparison group members by 6 to 26 percentage points. Drug court participants who completed their program had re-arrest rates 12 to 58 percentage points below those of the comparison group. Analysis of relapse data for eight programs showed that drug-court program participants were less likely than comparison group members to use drugs, based on drug tests or self-reported drug use, although the difference was not always significant. Among studies assessing drug-court costs and benefits, the net benefit ranged from positive $47,852 to negative $7,108 per participant. The Justice Department agreed with a GAO recommendation that Justice document key methods used to guide future revisions of its performance measures for the drug-court program.
Government Accountability Office
Defense: John Doe DNA Indictments Can Make It Hard to Try Old Cases
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Prosecutors in Memphis' Shelby County are obtaining indictments in many "John Doe DNA" rape cases in the hope of stopping the clock on the statute of limitations and identifying the suspects later, says the Memphis Commercial Appeal. "That helps us tremendously," said prosecutor Amy Weirich, "so we don't run into any problems of the case being dead on the vine before we can even prosecute somebody. That happened with (Syracuse) coach Bernie Fine. The D.A. there said he couldn't prosecute (sex-abuse allegations) because of the statute of limitations."
Courts have ruled that as long as a defendant is accurately described in an indictment or warrant, the defendant's real name can be substituted later for a John Doe DNA profile even if the statute of limitations has elapsed. From a defense perspective, the approach needs more scrutiny by the courts. "What you're doing is waiving the defendant's right to a speedy trial and their right to call witnesses and to defend themselves adequately, which is impaired with the passage of time," said Bill Massey, a past president of the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "It's very difficult to defend a case that is 20 years old. Of course, they're weighing that against the public's and the prosecutor's interest in catching, apprehending and punishing these individuals."
Memphis Commercial Appeal
California 3-Strikes Reformers To Start Gathering Ballot Signatures
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Buoyed by a favorable financial analysis, advocates of an initiative to scale back the nation's toughest "three-strikes" law will launch a signature-gathering drive to put the measure on California's November ballot, reports the San Jose Mercury News. Supporters say revising the law would save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars a year initially and up to $100 million a year in the long run, largely in reduced prison and parole costs.
"Voters will potentially have a slew of initiatives on the November ballot seeking to raise revenue with tax hikes, and this initiative will stand out as a sensible way to raise significant revenue without raising taxes," said campaign spokesman Dan Newman. Political experts said opponents are likely to dispute the savings estimate and will portray it as soft on crime if the measure qualifies for the ballot. Proponents must collect 504,760 signatures by mid-April to qualify. The initiative, crafted by a group of Stanford University law professors and backed by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, would reserve the toughest penalty -- 25 years to life -- for the baddest of the bad.
San Jose Mercury News
Violence In CA Mental Hospitals Rarely Treated as Crimes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thousands of violent incidents occur every year in California's psychiatric hospitals, but very few are treated as crimes, reports NPR as part of an ongoing series. An exception was last year's murder of a hospital staffer by a patient. It's been a challenge for the criminal justice and mental health systems to figure out how to deal with assaults by the mentally ill.
Violence in California's psychiatric hospitals has been increasing, partly because the kind of patients treated at the hospitals has changed. Generally, people with mental illness aren't dangerous. These days, 90 percent of the patients in California's mental hospitals are committed by the criminal justice system. They've been found not guilty by reason of insanity, for example, or incompetent to stand trial. The spike in violence followed the adoption of a plan imposed by the Justice Department in 2006 and 2007 to remedy "horrifying" cases of abuse and neglect. Treatment improved but, unexpectedly perhaps, violence got worse.
NPR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Mississippi resident who receives a concealed carry permit and takes an eight-hour course can now carry a gun on college campuses, in bars, and in courthouses, says USA Today. Wyoming residents need no permits for concealed weapons. In Indiana, private businesses must allow employees to keep firearms in their vehicles on company property. Those and other recent changes on the state level represent a growing shift toward loosening state gun regulations, says University of Chicago Prof. Jens Ludwig.
Supporters of the trend see it as a boost for gun rights. "Somebody who's disturbed or a crook - they're not going to care (if it's illegal to carry a gun in certain locations)," says Mississippi state Rep. Greg Snowden, a Republican who was one of three authors of an amendment that paved the way for the new policy. Alaska, Arizona, and Vermont, like Wyoming, do not require permits for concealed guns, says the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action. University of Mississippi Police Chief Calvin Sellers says he supports the right to own firearms, but he still thinks Mississippi's newest policy could be a "bad law." "I just don't like the idea of people having firearms in a classroom," he says.
USA Today
Despite Instructions, Jurors Refuse to Limit Internet Use During Trials
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This month, the Arkansas Supreme Court overturned a guilty verdict in a capital murder case because a juror was tweeting about it while the case was being heard, reports Stateline.org. A few days earlier, a California juror was dismissed when the court discovered she had posted extensively about the case and about the other jurors on her Facebook page. Faced with rapidly changing technology, judges are struggling to keep jurors from getting and spreading information about current cases online.
Doing online research on a defendant's record or consulting Facebook friends on a vote for sentencing seems acceptable to some jurors, but it violates the oath "to base your verdict solely upon the evidence" presented in court. Even though a majority of states prohibit Internet research or communication by jurors, studies have found that many jurors misconstrue the instructions or refuse to limit their Internet use during a trial. In a pilot study of 500 jurors across the U.S. by the National Center for State Courts, researchers found that even after jurors had been instructed that they could not tweet, email, use Facebook, or communicate electronically with friends or family members about a case, one-third of respondents either didn't understand or incorrectly understood what they could and couldn't do when it came to using the Internet while acting as a juror.
Stateline.org
Perry Has Granted Few Pardons in Texas; Romney Issued None in MA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Texas Gov. Rick Perry has turned away most applicants recommended for pardons by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, but his clemency record is more generous than Mitt Romney's, reports ProPublica. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney refused to grant a single pardon. Among the pardon applicants Romney denied was a decorated veteran of the Iraq War whose only offense, at age 13, was shooting another child with a BB gun.
ProPublica reviewed of past clemency actions by Republican presidential contenders after publishing a series on racial bias and inequities in the presidential pardons process. President Obama has granted few pardons, 22 in his first three years in office. Romney, Massachusetts governor from 2003-07, proudly advertised his record of granting no pardons. A Massachusetts furlough program that released a convicted murderer, Willie Horton, who went on to rape a woman and beat her fiancé, became a major point of attack against former Gov. Michael Dukakis in his 1988 presidential race.
ProPublica
Top Philadelphia Traffic Judge Out Amid FBI Probe of Ticket Fixing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are very different ways to have a case heard in Philadelphia's Traffic Court, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron Castille tells the Philadelphia Daily News. Most drivers show up, present evidence about their ticket and wait to see how a judge rules. A politically connected person can make arrangements ahead of time for favorable treatment.
There are very different ways to have a case heard in Philadelphia's Traffic Court, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ron Castille tells the Philadelphia Daily News. Most drivers show up, present evidence about their ticket and wait to see how a judge rules. A politically connected person can make arrangements ahead of time for favorable treatment. With the FBI crawling all over Traffic Court, the Supreme Court removed Administrative Judge Michael Sullivan from his post, replaced him with Common Pleas Judge Gary Glazer and announced that it is launching its own inquiry. Castille said a review by the firm Chadwick Associates found that the practice of Traffic Court judges and staff "accepting external requests for favorable treatment was so prevailing that it had become institutionalized in the operation of the courts." Castille declined to detail how the ticket-fixing worked in Traffic Court, adding that he didn't know if it was also done for money or just as political favors. "This is, as we have seen, kind of an ingrained culture in the Traffic Court of adjusting these tickets and not really giving the city and citizens a fair shake," he said. "I'm sure the FBI later on will enlighten us as to the details of how these tickets were adjusted."
Philadelphia Daily News
Georgia Judge, Facing Charges After Critical Radio Program, Quits Bench
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Amanda Williams, the chief judge from Brunswick, Ga., who operated Georgia's largest drug court operation, is stepping down from the bench in the face of sweeping ethics charges, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Last month, the state Judicial Qualifications Commission filed a dozen charges against Williams, accusing her of indefinitely detaining defendants and cutting off their access to their family and lawyers. She also was charged with making false statements, behaving in a tyrannical manner on the bench, and allowing family members to appear in cases before her.
This month, the panel filed three more charges, saying she gave special treatment to a man facing family violence charges by allowing him to enter her drug court. Her drug court operation came under intense scrutiny early this year when the public radio show, "This American Life," broadcast "Very Tough Love," a segment that highlighted a number of cases from Williams' drug court. Williams threatened to sue, but didn't. She told the Journal-Constitution last spring, "I've spent 12 ½ years trying to give people an opportunity to get clean and sober, in spite of their addictive behaviors. You can really make a difference in people's lives."
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
TX Drops Murder Case After 25 Years; Judge Cites "Horrendous Tragedy"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Texas Judge Sid Harle dismissed a murder charge against Michael Morton, declaring him innocent of the crime that cost him almost 25 years in prison, reports the Austin American-Statesman. Harle delayed a decision on Morton's request that a special court examine allegations that his prosecutor, Ken Anderson, broke several laws by concealing evidence before, during, and after Morton's trial.
A decision is not expected before year's end because Harle offered Anderson, now a judge who has repeatedly denied allegations of misconduct in Morton's 1987 trial, a chance to file briefs opposing the inquiry. The state's highest criminal court voided Morton's conviction in the murder of his wife, Christine, who was beaten to death while lying in bed in their home. Harle told Morton, "What befell you and your family many years ago was a horrendous tragedy." Recent tests have found DNA belonging to Mark Norwood on evidence collected from two murder scenes, including Morton's. Norwood is charged with Morton's killing, and authorities have said he is a suspect in Baker's death.
Austin American-Statesman
Bratton Contends Police Reforms Now Reaping Anticrime Dividends
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commenting on the FBI's report showing a drop in crime reports in the first half of 2011, William Bratton, the former chief of police in Boston, Los Angeles, and New York City who's now chairman of worldwide investigative company Kroll, told CBS' "The Early Show" that the U.S. is feeling the residual effects of methods and strategies put into place more than a decade ago. "In the 1990s, policing got it right," Bratton said. "We began to focus once again on preventing crime; '60s, '70s, '80s, we focused on responding to crime. It's a lot different to try to prevent it, and we've become very successful at preventing it."
Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox disputes the popular myth that crime should be going up in a bad economy. "They're using technology; they're using data, crime patterns, maps to figure out where are the hot spots, what's the trend in terms of crime and trying to be proactive," Fox said of law enforcement agencies. "People are either criminals or not, independent of whether they have a job. In the first six months of 2011, robberies in Los Angeles dropped 10 percent from the number reported in the first half of the 2010. Over the same time period, Chicago recorded 14 percent fewer murders, and in Dallas the number of rapes fell by 22 percent.
CBS News
GAO Study Shows Lower Recidivism Among Drug-Court Participants
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
An analysis of 32 drug courts by the U.S. Government Accountability Office showed that program participants were generally less likely to be re-arrested than comparison group members drawn from criminal court. Differences were statistically significant for 18 of the programs.
Cost-benefit analyses showed mixed results. The percentages of drug-court program participants re-arrested were lower than for comparison group members by 6 to 26 percentage points. Drug court participants who completed their program had re-arrest rates 12 to 58 percentage points below those of the comparison group. Analysis of relapse data for eight programs showed that drug-court program participants were less likely than comparison group members to use drugs, based on drug tests or self-reported drug use, although the difference was not always significant. Among studies assessing drug-court costs and benefits, the net benefit ranged from positive $47,852 to negative $7,108 per participant. The Justice Department agreed with a GAO recommendation that Justice document key methods used to guide future revisions of its performance measures for the drug-court program.
Government Accountability Office
Defense: John Doe DNA Indictments Can Make It Hard to Try Old Cases
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Prosecutors in Memphis' Shelby County are obtaining indictments in many "John Doe DNA" rape cases in the hope of stopping the clock on the statute of limitations and identifying the suspects later, says the Memphis Commercial Appeal. "That helps us tremendously," said prosecutor Amy Weirich, "so we don't run into any problems of the case being dead on the vine before we can even prosecute somebody. That happened with (Syracuse) coach Bernie Fine. The D.A. there said he couldn't prosecute (sex-abuse allegations) because of the statute of limitations."
Courts have ruled that as long as a defendant is accurately described in an indictment or warrant, the defendant's real name can be substituted later for a John Doe DNA profile even if the statute of limitations has elapsed. From a defense perspective, the approach needs more scrutiny by the courts. "What you're doing is waiving the defendant's right to a speedy trial and their right to call witnesses and to defend themselves adequately, which is impaired with the passage of time," said Bill Massey, a past president of the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "It's very difficult to defend a case that is 20 years old. Of course, they're weighing that against the public's and the prosecutor's interest in catching, apprehending and punishing these individuals."
Memphis Commercial Appeal
California 3-Strikes Reformers To Start Gathering Ballot Signatures
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Buoyed by a favorable financial analysis, advocates of an initiative to scale back the nation's toughest "three-strikes" law will launch a signature-gathering drive to put the measure on California's November ballot, reports the San Jose Mercury News. Supporters say revising the law would save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars a year initially and up to $100 million a year in the long run, largely in reduced prison and parole costs.
"Voters will potentially have a slew of initiatives on the November ballot seeking to raise revenue with tax hikes, and this initiative will stand out as a sensible way to raise significant revenue without raising taxes," said campaign spokesman Dan Newman. Political experts said opponents are likely to dispute the savings estimate and will portray it as soft on crime if the measure qualifies for the ballot. Proponents must collect 504,760 signatures by mid-April to qualify. The initiative, crafted by a group of Stanford University law professors and backed by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, would reserve the toughest penalty -- 25 years to life -- for the baddest of the bad.
San Jose Mercury News
Violence In CA Mental Hospitals Rarely Treated as Crimes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thousands of violent incidents occur every year in California's psychiatric hospitals, but very few are treated as crimes, reports NPR as part of an ongoing series. An exception was last year's murder of a hospital staffer by a patient. It's been a challenge for the criminal justice and mental health systems to figure out how to deal with assaults by the mentally ill.
Violence in California's psychiatric hospitals has been increasing, partly because the kind of patients treated at the hospitals has changed. Generally, people with mental illness aren't dangerous. These days, 90 percent of the patients in California's mental hospitals are committed by the criminal justice system. They've been found not guilty by reason of insanity, for example, or incompetent to stand trial. The spike in violence followed the adoption of a plan imposed by the Justice Department in 2006 and 2007 to remedy "horrifying" cases of abuse and neglect. Treatment improved but, unexpectedly perhaps, violence got worse.
NPR
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
14 Dec 2011
Gangs Using Facebook, Twitter to Organize, Recuit; "The New Reality" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As Nashville police investigated the murder of Jeremy Green, they took to the streets, interviewed witnesses and turned to a different source that is quickly becoming routine in gang investigations: Facebook, reports The Tennessean. As social media gain prominence in everyday life, police are finding it a useful tool for tracking criminal activity. Gang members often publish photos of themselves holding money, guns, and drugs. Authorities are seeing gangs in particular begin to use social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to organize their activities and recruit new members. "I think it's the new reality. It's the new reality for every person with the Internet and this different social media. I don't think it's going to be a flash," said Lt. Gordon Howey, who heads the police gang unit. The FBI warns in its 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment report that gang violence expanded over the past two years and that the increase in communication technology - smartphones and social media - is partly to blame. |
State Prison Inmate Deaths Rise, Jail Mortality Rate Declines ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ State prisons reported 3,408 inmate deaths in 2009, an increase from 2,877 in 2001, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics said today. The mortality rate in state prisons has remained stable since 2003, fluctuating between 250 and 260 deaths per 100,000 prison inmates. Both the rate and number of deaths in local jails dropped to one of the lowest levels in a decade in 2009. The jail mortality rate dropped to 127 inmate deaths per 100,000 jail inmates in 2009 from 151 deaths per 100,000 in 2000. Jail deaths declined from a high of 1,102 in 2007 to 948 in 2009. In 2008 and 2009, suicide, heart disease, cancer, and liver disease remained the leading causes of death in state prisons and local jails. In 2009, 32 percent of deaths in jails were suicides and 21 percent were due to heart disease. Heart disease and cancer accounted for half (52 percent) and liver disease for 8 percent of all prisoner deaths in 2009. Suicide rates in jails dropped each year between 2001 and 2007 (from 49 to 36 deaths per 100,000 inmates), before increasing in 2009 to 41 deaths per 100,000 inmates. In state prisons, the suicide rate has been fairly stable, fluctuating between 14 and 17 deaths per 100,000 prison inmates between 2001 and 2009. |
State, Federal Conflict over Medical Marijuana: A "Giant Mess" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A "giant mess" is how Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar sees the conundrum over the expansion of medical marijuana, which is seen across the city in the growing number of patients with prescriptions, dispensaries popping up faster than Starbucks shops, and neighborhood complaints about rising crime and traffic, reports the Christian Science Monitor. The root of the "mess"? The challenge of carrying out the will of Californians, who in 1996 voted to decriminalize marijuana sales and possession for medicinal use, even as the federal government deems marijuana, "medical" or not, to be an illegal drug. In the 15 years since California became the first state to adopt a medical marijuana law, the nation's general drift has been toward greater tolerance of marijuana use. President Obama's Justice Department steered prosecutors away from charging "individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana" - though many say that no longer is the case. Some say that Obama policy contributed to the current confusion, with the feds missing in action as a patchwork of state laws and local rules sprang up around medical marijuana - much as has happened with illegal immigration. Lately, the Justice Department has moved to clamp down on marijuana dispensaries and growers, especially in California, citing large-scale criminal activity. Obama "made it sound like he was going to take a different tack than his predecessor - that they are not going to go after patients but only large collectives," says Vanderbilt law Prof. Robert Mikos. "The simplified media sound bites made it look like they weren't going to enforce the ban, and when they did, marijuana advocates overdramatized it." |
Las Vegas Officer Fired 8 Months After Beating Man WhoTaped Him ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Las Vegas officer accused of beating a man for videotaping police was fired, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Officer Derek Colling was terminated after an eight-month probe into a confrontation between him and videographer Mitchell Crooks. Crooks, 37, was videotaping police from his driveway as officers investigated a burglary across the street from his home. Crooks said that when he refused to stop filming, Colling beat him, with much of the altercation recorded by the camera. Crooks was arrested for battery against an officer, trespassing and resisting arrest, but the charges were dropped. The long investigation has been "driving me crazy," Crooks said. "This is a little vindication." Crooks' lawyer filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Colling in U.S. District Court last month. |
Man Freed Over Crack Term Back in Prison; U.S. Attorney Fought Change ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Maryland man who got out of federal prison in December when his crack cocaine sentence was reduced was sent back prison this week after being sentenced to 11 years for distributing drugs, reports the Baltimore Sun. Clevon "Ty" Johnson, 38, went back to his old career less than a year after walking out of prison. Revisions in federal crack cocaine sentencing guidelines are resulting in reductions of sentences for some defendants. The changes are nationwide, and are spurred by concerns that crack laws are more severe than for power cocaine, resulting in racial disparities. Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod Rosentstein objected to the changes, saying that often his office gets convictions in drug cases that are easier to prosecute than violent offenses. The long sentences means justice is served either way. That tool may now be gone. "In some cases, their record may not reflect the violent crimes in which they were engaged," Rosenstein said. "When prosecutors had these crack penalties, they used those to incarcerate people for lengthy periods of time without proving the violence. It's much more complicated to prove that somebody's involved in shootings and murder." |
Do Suspensions for Minor School Offenses Do More Harm than Good? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A boy, 11, was expelled for the rest of the school year in Bakersfield, Ca., for "slapping a girl on the buttock and running away laughing," His pro bono attorney, a retired FBI agent, was appalled, reports the Center for Public Integrity. "This, on his record, puts him right up there next to the kid who raped somebody behind the backstop," said Tim McKinley. Kern County, Ca., is at the leading edge of a contentious debate over where to draw the line in exacting school discipline. Teachers want a safe environment. Parents want to know their children are secure and not getting bullied. No-nonsense school districts in this conservative oil and agribusiness region are suspending and expelling students for a broad range of indiscretions. Meanwhile, a national reform movement is growing, fueled by reports that suspension and expulsion policies are disproportionately targeting minorities, and doing more harm than good by killing kids' attachment to school and putting many on a fast track to failure. Since the 1970s, multi-day, at-home suspensions and long-term expulsions have been on the rise nationally, many of them meted out not for violence, but for lesser violations like insubordination, says the Civil Rights Project of the University of California at Los Angeles. |
Five Candidates Interviewed to Replace Fired Miami Chief Exposito ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Five candidates have been named as finalists to become Miami's top cop, and a decision may be made by Friday, reports the Miami Herald. The finalists are: Adam Burden, Michael J. Gugliotti, Rafael Hernandez Jr., Manuel Orosa, and Amos Rojas Jr. Former Chief Miguel Exposito was booted for insubordination after months of picking fights with politicians and fellow law-enforcement officials. In open-to-the-public interviews, the candidates - all well-known figures in law enforcement circles in South Florida and the Northeast U.S. - echoed similar themes. They stressed the importance of mending tensions among factions within the department, emphasizing the need for community-oriented policing, and building transparent relationships with the local news media. Adam Burden, the lone black finalist, is a former Miami assistant chief, retired in 2009 after Exposito demoted him and a slew of other high-ranking staffers hailing from the administration of former police chief John Timoney. Gugliotti is chief of police in Waterbury, Ct. Hernandez, a former Miami-Dade officer, has served as chief of police in Sweetwater, South Miami and Chelsea, Ma. Manuel Orosa, a longtime Miami officer and command staffer, is the current interim police chief. His critics have pointed out that he was temporarily relieved of duty in 1988 after the infamous beating death of drug dealer Leonardo Mercado. Rojas is a longtime Florida Department of Law Enforcement special agent who headed Miami's field office for eight years before retiring earlier this year. |
Man Accused in NYC Cop Killing Should Have Been Extradited: Kelly ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Despite his being wanted for a shooting in North Carolina, the man accused of killing New York City police officer Peter Figoski on Monday was twice released from jail in New York this fall because the authorities in North Carolina declined to have him extradited, the New York Times reports. New York police had arrested Lamont Pride for possession of a knife and for possession of crack cocaine and endangering the welfare of a child. Each time, said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, police noticed that Pride was wanted in North Carolina, but that the arrest warrant could be served only in that state. A New York police officer called the authorities in Greensboro, N.C., after the second arrest, in November, because of "a concern about a violent felon going back on the streets of New York City." By the time the Greensboro police requested extradition, Pride had already been freed, Kelly said, "He should not have been out on the streets. He should ideally have been extradited to North Carolina. But that did not happen." |
TX, Other States Taking Blood Tests In DWI Cases: If It Bleeds, It Pleads ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Texans arrested for drunken driving should be prepared to give blood this holiday season, reports the Wall Street Journal. The state's cities and counties are demanding that suspects who refuse to take breathalyzer tests give blood samples that measure the amount of alcohol in their systems. The blood-test policy-dubbed "no refusal" because it prevents drivers from refusing to provide evidence of intoxication-has grown from a novel procedure used in a few places to an initiative used by police statewide, particularly during weekends and holidays when drunken driving is most common. The no-refusal initiative has caught on in other states, including Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, and Missouri. The attraction for law enforcement and prosecutors is that blood evidence is a powerful tool in front of juries. Armed with blood evidence of intoxication, prosecutors can win convictions in more than 90% of drunk-driving cases, said Houston police Capt. Carl Driskell. Defendants faced with blood evidence often admit guilt. "If it bleeds, it pleads," said Fort Worth prosecutor Richard Alpert. |
Ex-Inmate Wins $2.3 Million in D.C. for Wrongful Parole Revocation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A federal jury in Washington, D.C., awarded man $2.3 million in damages for 10 years he spent in prison after his parole was wrongfully revoked, reports Legal Times. Charles Singletary was paroled in 1990 after serving a 7-year term for armed robbery. In 1996, the District of Columbia Board of Parole - a body that no longer exists - revoked his parole and re-imprisoned Singletary after he was accused of being involved in a murder. The charges were dropped. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled in 2006 that Singletary had been denied due process at his parole-revocation hearing. He sued D.C. in 2009. "We think that it fairly compensates Mr. Singletary for what was a terrible wrong. said one of his attorneys, Edward Sussman. The District of Columbia is expected to appeal. |
Sandusky's Waiving Preliminary Hearing Seen as Plea-Deal Prelude ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When ex-Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky waived a preliminary hearing this week, for prosecutors the move is a clear sign the defense is preparing for a plea deal, says the Christian Science Monitor. Despite the overwhelming evidence against Sandusky, the 50 counts of abusing 10 boys, and his missteps in recent media interviews, the case will not be open and shut. "I know there's this perception that this is a slam-dunk case for the prosecutors. But there are icebergs out there that can sink this case," says Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago lawyer. Sandusky says he is innocent of charges he sexually abused boys over a 15-year window. He remains under house arrest on $250,000 bond and is wearing an ankle monitor. A preliminary hearing is meant for the judge to determine probable cause. Despite that being very likely, locking in victim testimony under oath would have provided an advantage for the defense, which could then wield it against the alleged victims in a trial, says Andrew Pollis, a law professor at Case Western University. Why is Sandusky giving media interviews? "There are very, very few lawyers who aren't scratching their heads and wondering why this is happening. The cardinal rule of criminal defense is not to let the client talk." |
Oregon Stops Temporarily Holding Juveniles In Adult Prison ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Oregon will stop temporarily holding juveniles in an adult prison after federal auditors questioned the practice, the Oregonian reports. About 100 youths a year had spent up to a week at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, said the nonprofit Partnership for Safety and Justice. Federal auditors questioned why 15-year-olds convicted as adults went directly to Oregon Youth Authority facilities while 16- and 17-year-olds first spent time at Coffee Creek. Youths were held in segregation cells up to 23 hours a day and mixed with adult prisoners at times, such as meals, while being processed to serve sentences. "Housing youth for any period of time in adult prisons and jails can be detrimental to their physical or mental health," said Shannon Wight of the safety partnership. |
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