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

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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

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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