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Monday, June 02, 2014
Tenth Circuit explains what's the matter with Kansas prior convictions as enhancers
Thanks to a helpful reader, I learned that today the Tenth Circuit handed down a significant opinion concerning the use of prior Kansas offenses in career offender guideline calculations in US v. Brooks, No. 13-3166 (10th Cir. June 2, 2014) (available here). Here is how the opinion in Books starts and ends:
Did Defendant Damian L. Brooks commit enough prior qualifying felonies to be considered a "career offender" under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines? The district court below said yes, relying on United States v. Hill, 539 F.3d 1213 (10th Cir. 2008), to classify a prior Kansas conviction of Defendant as a felony because it was punishable by more than one year in prison. On appeal, Defendant admits Hill mandates this classification. He argues, however, that Hill was abrogated by the Supreme Court in Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder, 560 U.S. 563 (2010). We agree. As such, exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742, we reverse and remand for resentencing....
In conclusion, Hill — which looked to the hypothetical worst possible offender to determine whether a state offense was punishable by more than a year in prison — cannot stand in light of Carachuri-Rosendo. We now hold, in line with our pre-Hill precedent, that in determining whether a state offense was punishable by a certain amount of imprisonment, the maximum amount of prison time a particular defendant could have received controls, rather than the amount of time the worst imaginable recidivist could have received. As such, Defendant's prior Kansas conviction for eluding police is not a felony for purposes of U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1(a). The district court's imposition of a career offender enhancement was therefore in error and is REVERSED. This case is REMANDED for resentencing.
The helpful reader who alerted me to this opinion noted that "for those of us who deal with Kansas state convictions, it is (as Ron Burgundy would say), kind of a big deal." Here is part of this reader's explanation for why:
Previous 10th Circuit authority held that a conviction for a Kansas on grid "felony" was punishable by more than one year if a sentence more than one year could be imposed on any hypothetical defendant. That is, the analysis was not limited by a defendant's actual criminal history category on the state guidelines grid. If more than one year could be imposed for any criminal history category, the conviction = felony for purposes of federal law, even though a particular defendant may have only been exposed to a sentence less one year or less....
This ruling will impact multiple areas of federal prosecution and sentencing. For instance, if the high end of a defendant's KS gridbox is 12 months, then the conviction is not a disabling conviction for purposes of 18 USC 922(g)(1). Likewise, such a conviction would not be a predicate conviction for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal Act or the Career Offender guidelines enhancement.
A more limited effect will be that a few drug-grid convictions will not be a "prior drug felony" that can enhance a controlled substance offense under 21 USC 851.... Certain attempts/conspiracies/solicitations to commit drug crimes would also not be a federal felony for enhancement purposes.
Because I do not know how many federal sentencing cases are significantly impacted by how certain prior Kansas offenses are assessed, I cannot readily guess just how loudly this Brooks ruling might echo in other settings. But I do know that a similar type of ruling from the Fourth Circuit a few years ago concerning how North Carolina priors were to be treated has tied up a lot of federal courts in a lot of jurisprudential knots as they try to unwind the impact of "mis-assessed prior offenses." Consequently, I would advise court officials and federal practitioners in Kansas and perhaps throughout the Tenth Circuit to start reviewing and giving thought to what Brooks says and what it could mean for prior cases as well as future ones.
June 2, 2014 in Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Sunday, June 01, 2014
Could video kill the sentencing brief?
The question in the title of this post is prompted by this notable Wall Street Journal article headlined "Leniency Videos Make a Showing at Criminal Sentencings: Some Lawyers Supplement Letters of Support With Mini-Documentaries; Effectiveness Is Debated." Here are excerpts:
Randy Ray Rivera, formerly of Springfield, Mass., and now a resident of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, is the subject of a documentary film that was made for a very limited audience: the federal district judge who held Mr. Rivera's fate in his hands.
It tells the story of a young man who began dealing drugs as a teenager to support his siblings and his heroin-addict mother, who died of AIDS in 2004. The 26-minute video includes emotional interviews with Mr. Rivera's brothers and sisters, daughters and son, current and ex-girlfriends and a social worker, as well as with Mr. Rivera himself, in white-and-gray prison garb.
Such films, while rare, have caught on in some federal public defenders' offices. Now, some private lawyers and investigators are attempting to unlock the potential of video in the sentencing phase of criminal cases, supplementing the memorandum and letters of support that are typically used to plead for leniency.
"The sentences are almost always better than they would otherwise be," said Doug Passon, a veteran assistant federal public defender in Arizona who is considered by his peers to be a pioneer of so-called sentencing-mitigation videos. For the past five years, he has held a sentencing film festival at an annual training conference for federal public defenders....
Judge William Sessions III, who sits on the federal district court in Vermont, gave Mr. Rivera 12 years in prison, after viewing the video Mr. Rivera's legal team put together. It captures the rundown buildings in Springfield that Mr. Rivera's family occupied, sometimes as squatters. At one point, Mr. Rivera's teenage daughter, through tears, calls him "one of the best dads ever."
Judge Sessions, speaking generally about sentencing videos, said, "When you have a video of either a defendant's life or a victim's life, it provides context for that life." But he said videos weren't a substitute for a good legal argument in a sentencing memorandum. "They are supplementary," he said....
Proponents say the videos fall within the scope of a federal rule that allows people convicted of a crime to "speak or present any information to mitigate the sentence" to the courts. But some courts have rejected sentencing videos, after prosecutors protested they weren't given an opportunity to question the witnesses who appeared in the videos, investigators said.
While investigators and lawyers say such videos are used in a small fraction of the tens of thousands of federal cases that end in a criminal sentence each year, the word appears to be slowly spreading. Susan Randall, a former documentary filmmaker who now works as a private investigator in Vermont, said she has created more than 20 sentencing videos for a range of white-collar and drug defendants, including Mr. Rivera....
Katrina Daniel, a former television news reporter who covered crime, started her own production company in 2012 and has made about 10 sentencing videos, charging anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000.Some are simply interviews with the defendants, while others draw on family, friends, co-workers and others. Ms. Daniel said she tries to convey the defendant's remorse and acceptance of responsibility.
Mr. Passon said he got the idea for sentencing videos from an attorney he clerked for in 1995, while he was law student at Washington University in St. Louis. They were representing a man charged with a drug crime whose wife was dying of lupus, and the defendant was her sole caretaker. "We were trying to show how desperately he was needed at home," Mr. Passon said. They went to the client's home with a clunky, tape-fed video camera and recorded the man as he cared for his wife. "It was very, very powerful," said Mr. Passon.
Pop culture fans will know that the title of this post is a bit of an homage to the very first video ever played on MTV and a song which may be my all-time favorite one-hit wonder. And long-time readers will know I cannot resist this excuse for a mini-song parody based on the start of the lyrics to Video Killed the Radio Star:
I heard you sold some drugs back in '92
Bad criminal intent will keep haunting you
Your criminal history points keep coming through
You now get credit for singing like a symphony
And will be helped by machine on new technology
And now I understand the post-Booker scene
We met your children
What will we show them?
Video killed the sentencing brief
Video killed the sentencing brief
Pictures came and eclipse my words,
We can't mitigate down too far
June 1, 2014 in Booker in district courts, Offender Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Looking at some killers benefiting from SCOTUS Eighth Amendment ruling in Hall
As I noted earlier this week when the Supreme Court's handed down its ruling in Hall v. Florida (opinion here, basics here), the Justices' Eighth Amendment decision will be a big deal for the administration of capital punishment in those states with lots of murderers on death row and/or for those states that have been applying Atkins in restrictive ways. Following up these themes, today's New York Times has this lengthy front-page article looking at some of the death row defendants likely to be grateful for the decision. The piece is headlined "On Death Row With Low I.Q., and New Hope for a Reprieve," and here are excerpts:
For Ted Herring, who has spent 32 years on Florida's death row for murdering a store clerk, signs of intellectual disability arose early and piled up quickly: He repeated first grade and got D's and F's through fourth grade. He read like a fourth grader at 14 and did not know that summer followed spring....
His intellectual disability was even obvious to a Florida judge, who found him "mentally retarded" and took him off death row 18 years after his original sentence. At 19, in 1981, Mr. Herring murdered a Daytona Beach 7-Eleven clerk, robbed the store and walked away with $23.84. But because Mr. Herring's I.Q. scores were 72 and 74, just over the "bright line" cutoff of 70 used by Florida to determine intellectual aptitude, the Florida Supreme Court returned him to death row.
When the Supreme Court ruled this week that states can no longer rely on a fixed I.Q. score cutoff to decide intellectual competency, it increased the likelihood that Mr. Herring and other death row inmates like him will have a chance to avoid execution. Fewer defendants are also less likely to wind up on death row in the future because their claims of intellectual disabilities will be not be as readily discounted by the courts.
The ruling affects roughly 30 death row inmates. The number is low because the vast majority of states follow modern standards of determining intellectual disabilities, going beyond using a single number to be considered disabled. But in those states that will be affected, death row inmates with low, but not low enough, I.Q. scores that have been previously rejected or never put forward can now seek to have their sentences reconsidered....
In Florida, 15 to 20 inmates — perhaps the largest number in the country — will probably seek to overturn their death sentences because of the decision... "Florida has the third largest death row in the country and was the state that was the leader in doing this — the bright-line cutoff," said William Henniss III, who said he had two clients who would most likely seek redress. "Expect there to be more cases like this."
In Kentucky, five of 34 death row inmates are also likely to ask for new hearings based on the decision, said David Barron, an assistant public advocate who handles post-conviction cases.
Some of them, like Thomas Bowling, who was sentenced to death after killing a married couple in 1990, are likely to explore what the new I.Q. range will be in Kentucky, where 70 has been the cutoff. Mr. Bowling, who claimed on appeal that he was intellectually disabled, repeated the ninth grade several times before dropping out. But the appeals court rejected his claim because his most recent scores, the ones they viewed as most reliable, were in the 80s....
In Virginia, Alfredo R. Prieto is likely to seek a hearing based on is low I.Q. scores, which ranged between 70 and 75, said his lawyer, Cary B. Bowen. Those scores, Mr. Bowen said, "kind of fall in line" with the I.Q. range described in the Supreme Court decision as the kind that should not be rejected simply because they do not meet a cutoff. Mr. Prieto, who is from El Salvador and whose lawyers argued that he was scarred by the violence he saw there during the country's civil war, is on Virginia's death row for the 1988 murders of two people. He faces the death penalty for a murder in California, as well, and has been linked to others.
Recent posts on Hall:
- Big criminal justice decision day for SCOTUS, including 8th Amendment reversal of Florida's Aktins approach
- "Intellectual disability is a condition, not a number. See DSM–5, at 37."
- Will Hall have import or impact other then when states seek to execute the possibly disabled?
May 31, 2014 in Death Penalty Reforms, Offender Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Thursday, May 29, 2014
"Funding Favored Sons and Daughters: Nonprosecution Agreements and 'Extraordinary Restitution' in Environmental Criminal Cases"
The title of this post is the title of this recent article authored by Paul Larkin that a helpful reader altered me. Here is the abstract:
Over the past eight years, the federal government has entered into more than two hundred nonprosecution agreements with corporations in white-collar crime cases. In such agreements the government promises to cease its investigation and forego any potential charges so long as the corporation agrees to certain terms. And there's the rub: given the economic realities of just being charged with a white-collar crime these days, corporations are more than willing to accept nonprosecution agreements.
Prosecutors are cognizant of this willingness, as well as of the fact that these agreements are practically insulated from judicial review. This results in the prosecution possessing a seemingly unfettered discretion in choosing the terms of a nonprosecution agreement. The breadth of this discretion is nowhere more apparent than in environmental criminal cases. Nonprosecution agreements in such cases have begun to require corporations to donate monetarily to a nonprofit of the government's choosing. Indeed, in 2012 British Petroleum agreed to pay more than $2.394 billion to nonprofit agencies.
This Article critiques this practice by highlighting the inconsistencies between nonprosecution agreements and plea bargaining — the latter are subject to judicial review while the former are not — and unearthing the differences between these payments and any common-law understanding of restitutionary principles. The Article then suggests that the practical result of these nonprosecution agreements is that prosecutors are diverting money that ought to be paid to the Treasury to government-chosen nonprofit agencies, a power constitutionally granted to legislative actors. Finally, the Article concludes by suggesting a modest reform: judicial review by a United States magistrate judge, so as not to run into any Article III concerns, to ensure that prosecutors do not take advantage of the nonprosecution agreement process.
May 29, 2014 in Fines, Restitution and Other Economic Sanctions, Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Will Hall have import or impact other then when states seek to execute the possibly disabled?
Hall is a very big deal for the administration of capital punishment (opinion here, basics here), especially for those states with lots of murderers on death row and/or for those states that have been applying Atkins in restrictive ways. Nevertheless, while a big round of new Atkins/Hall litigation is sure to churn in a number of states in the months and years ahead, in the end the fate of probably only a few dozen capital defendants will be significantly impacted by the holding in Hall.
But, of course, the dicta and direction of the Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment work in Hall could be a big deal in lots of other setting if lower courts conclude that the import and impact of this ruling should extend beyond capital cases involving intellectionally challenged defendants. Here is a sampling of some (mostly new) Eighth Amendment language from the majority opinion in Hall that I could envision having some bite in some other settings:
The Eighth Amendment's protection of dignity reflects the Nation we have been, the Nation we are, and the Nation we aspire to be. This is to affirm that the Nation's constant, unyielding purpose must be to transmit the Constitution so that its precepts and guarantees retain their meaning and force....
No legitimate penological purpose is served by executing a person with intellectual disability. To do so contravenes the Eighth Amendment, for to impose the harshest of punishments on an intellectually disabled person violates his or her inherent dignity as a human being....
[A]ggregate numbers are not the only considerations bearing on a determination of consensus. Consistency of the direction of change is also relevant.... The rejection of the strict 70 cutoff in the vast majority of States and the "consistency in the trend," Roper, supra, at 567, toward recognizing the SEM provide strong evidence of consensus that our society does not regard this strict cutoff as proper or humane....
The actions of the States and the precedents of this Court give us essential instruction, but the inquiry must go further. The Constitution contemplates that in the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment. That exercise of independent judgment is the Court's judicial duty....
The death penalty is the gravest sentence our society may impose. Persons facing that most severe sanction must have a fair opportunity to show that the Constitution prohibits their execution. Florida's law contravenes our Nation's commitment to dignity and its duty to teach human decency as the mark of a civilized world. The States are laboratories for experimentation, but those experiments may not deny the basic dignity the Constitution protects.
As these quotes highlight, the majority opinion per Justice Kennedy in Hall makes much of the "Eighth Amendment's protection of dignity." (For those into counts, the term dignity is used nine times in Justice Kennedy's majority opinion, while the term is not used even once in Justice Alito's dissent.) Needless to say, I can identify a number of non-capital punishments that states and the federal government have been known to experiment with that seem to "deny the basic dignity the Constitution protects" (such as LWOP for non-violent offenders). I am hopeful that not only the Supreme Court but also lower courts continue to be open to arguments that it is not only some capital punishment provisions that can and sometimes do "contravene our Nation's commitment to dignity and its duty to teach human decency as the mark of a civilized world."
Today's posts on Hall:
- Big criminal justice decision day for SCOTUS, including 8th Amendment reversal of Florida's Aktins approach
- "Intellectual disability is a condition, not a number. See DSM–5, at 37."
May 27, 2014 in Offender Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBack
"Intellectual disability is a condition, not a number. See DSM–5, at 37."
The title of this post is the sentence and cite that perhaps best summarized the work of the majority of the Supreme Court this morning in Hall v. Florida (opinion here, basics here). In Hall, the Court rejects as violative of the Eighth Amendment Florida's use of a bright-line IQ test cut-off set at 70 for defining who is eligible for execution (while dodging whether a cut off set at 75 would be okay) based principally on the medical community's consensus view that IQ tests are just one factor in assessing intellectual disability and are necessarily imprecise. Here are just a few excerpts from the majority opinion in Hall that highlight these themes:
That this Court, state courts, and state legislatures consult and are informed by the work of medical experts in determining intellectual disability is unsurprising. Those professionals use their learning and skills to study and consider the consequences of the classification schemes they devise in the diagnosis of persons with mental or psychiatric disorders or disabilities. Society relies upon medical and professional expertise to define and explain how to diagnose the mental condition at issue....
Florida's rule disregards established medical practice in two interrelated ways. It takes an IQ score as final and conclusive evidence of a defendant's intellectual capacity, when experts in the field would consider other evidence. It also relies on a purportedly scientific measurement of the defendant's abilities, his IQ score, while refusing to recognize that the score is, on its own terms, imprecise....
It is the Court's duty to interpret the Constitution, but it need not do so in isolation. The legal determination of intellectual disability is distinct from a medical diagnosis, but it is informed by the medical community's diagnostic framework. Atkins itself points to the diagnostic criteria employed by psychiatric professionals. And the professional community's teachings are of particular help in this case, where no alternative definition of intellectual disability is presented and where this Court and the States have placed substantial reliance on the expertise of the medical profession....This Court agrees with the medical experts that when a defendant's IQ test score falls within the test's acknowledged and inherent margin of error, the defendant must be able to present additional evidence of intellectual disability, including testimony regarding adaptive deficits.
Not surprisingly, the dissent in Hall recognizes and criticizes the majority's heavy reliance on the medical community's approach to determining intellectual disability. Here is a snippet of this criticism from the dissent:
Under our modern Eighth Amendment cases, what counts are our society's standards — which is to say, the standards of the American people — not the standards of professional associations, which at best represent the views of a small professional elite....
The Court's reliance on the views of professional associations will also lead to serious practical problems.
May 27, 2014 in Death Penalty Reforms, Offender Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Fascinating research on federal mortgage fraud prosecutions and sentencing in Western PA
I am pleased and excited to have learned over the long weekend that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Duquesne University School of Law collaborated on an innovative Fact Investigations class, led by associate professor and Criminal Justice Program director Wesley Oliver, to study the modern work of Western Pennsylvania's federal prosecutors in response to modern mortage fraus. As explained in this first article of a series about this work, this group "identified 144 prosecutions alleging mortgage-related crimes in the Pittsburgh area ... [and then] analyzed 100 prosecutions in which sentence had been pronounced and for which the federal sentencing guidelines could be discerned." Before getting into the findings, I want to heap praise on everyone involved in this project because it shows what valuable work can be done when law schools and traditional media team up to examine intricate and dynamic issues concerning the federal criminal justice system.
Here, from the start of the first article in the series, are the basic findings of this terrific project:
In 2008, as the housing market dragged the world economy down, orders came from Washington, D.C., to federal prosecutors nationwide: Bust the people whose lies contributed to the mess.
Six years later, the effort by Pittsburgh's federal prosecutors to punish fraudulent mortgage brokers, appraisers, closing agents, property flippers and bank employees can claim 144 people charged, more than 100 sentenced and no acquittals.
That undefeated record, though, came at a price: Some of the worst offenders got extraordinary deals in return for their testimony against others.
A review by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Duquesne University School of Law students of 100 completed cases showed that the sentences of mortgage-related criminals in the Pittsburgh area were driven more by their degree of cooperation with prosecutors than by the number of people they scammed, the dollars they reaped or the damage they did to the financial system. Some of the most prolific offenders used their central places in the fraud conspiracy to secure light sentences.
• Leniency for cooperation was doled out liberally. At least 30 of the 100 defendants were the beneficiaries of prosecutorial motions to reward "substantial assistance" to the investigation. That cooperation rate is nearly double that seen in fraud cases nationwide, suggesting that prosecutors here rewarded more defendants than normal.
• Most of the mortgage criminals who assisted prosecutors got no prison time, and the average amount of incarceration for those 30 defendants was a little more than three months. By contrast, defendants who pleaded guilty but didn't provide substantial assistance to prosecutors, got average sentences of three years in prison. Those few who went to trial faced an average of 6½ years behind bars.
• Several of the figures most central to the region's mortgage fraud problem cooperated with prosecutors, and got non-prison sentences. For instance, Kenneth C. Cowden, formerly of McKees Rocks and now of Florida, performed unlicensed appraisals that exaggerated real estate values in the region to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. He cooperated and got nine months in a halfway house. Jay Berger of Fox Chapel, who recruited Cowden and lived lavishly from fraudulent mortgages, was sentenced in 2012 to 15 months in prison, but died this month at age 49 without serving time.
Here are links to all the article in the series:
- Mortgage fraud assault a Pyrrhic victory
- Rewards uneven in mortgage fraud cases
- She fought charges, got 10-year term
- Pleading guilty could cut defendant's sentence
Regular readers will not be at all surprised to hear me say that I view this terrific bit of investigative journalism as further proof that those who are really concerned about suspect disparities in federal sentencing ought to be much more focused on the application of (hidden and unreviewable) prosecutorial sentencing discretion than about the exercise of (open and reviewable) judicial sentencing discretion.
May 27, 2014 in Data on sentencing, Detailed sentencing data, Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, White-collar sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Big criminal justice decision day for SCOTUS, including 8th Amendment reversal of Florida's Aktins approach
Clearly the Justices decided to celebrate the Memorial Day week by reminding everyone that the Bill of Rights has a lot of provisions concerning the administration of our criminal justice systems. Returning from the long weekend, the Supreme Court handed down five opinions this morning (four in argued cases, one per curiam), and all but one of the rulings has a criminal justice element. The big one for sentencing fans is the 5-4 Eighth Amendment ruling in Hall v. Florida, No. 12–10882 (S. Ct. May 27, 2014) (available here), which gets started this way:
This Court has held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution forbid the execution of persons with intellectual disability. Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U. S. 304, 321 (2002). Florida law defines intellectual disability to require an IQ test score of 70 or less. If, from test scores, a prisoner is deemed to have an IQ above 70, all further exploration of intellectual disability is fore closed. This rigid rule, the Court now holds, creates an unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disability will be executed, and thus is unconstitutional.
The other criminal justice rulings in argued cases today concern police use of force and immunity, and the per curiam concerns when jeopardy attaches for the application of the Double Jeopardy clause. How Appealing has its always terrific review of all the essentials (with links) assembled here, and SCOTUSblog is sure to have a lot on all this action in coming posts.
Once I have a chance to read the Hall decision in full, I am sure I will have one or more substantive posts about the decision later today.
May 27, 2014 in Death Penalty Reforms, Offender Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Monday, May 26, 2014
"Disarming the Dangerous: Preventing Extraordinary and Ordinary Violence"
The title of this post is the title of this new paper by Mary Fan now available via SSRN. Though posted on line a few weeks ago, this piece strikes me as distinctly and depressingly timely in the wake of the mass shooting in California a few days ago. Here is the abstract:
Recent mass shootings at Navy Yard, Newtown, Aurora and elsewhere have jolted Congress and the states into considering gun violence prevention. More than 1,500 gun-related bills have been introduced since 2013, after the slaughter in Newtown of twenty elementary school children and six adults. Current legislation and debates are shaped by the specter of a heavily armed, mentally ill individual hunting in public places such as schools, businesses, and workplaces. In the states, the most successful type of legislation involves firearms restrictions for the mentally ill. In Congress, the legislation that garnered the most debate was a ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines. While the national attention to firearms violence prevention is salutary, for law and policy to tackle the core of the problem it is important to address two empirical questions: Who are the dangerous individuals committing most firearms homicides and why do the law's current screens miss them?
This article draws on data from the National Violent Death Reporting System to answer the crucial foundational questions of who poses a danger and why the dangerous slip through existing legal screens. Presenting data on the most prevalent place of shooting, victim-shooter relationship, and the shooter's prior history, the article shows that prevention of extraordinarily devastating firearms violence calls for attention to how the nation addresses "ordinary" violence. By ordinary violence, this article means violence that is often viewed as mundane, such as altercations between family members, friends and intimates in the home. Many perpetrators of firearms homicide have a history of such prior events -- yet a substantially smaller proportion of these violent episodes have been adjudicated, thereby slipping through existing screens for firearms restrictions. Based on these findings, the article discusses how discretion in dealing with "ordinary violence" can improve detection of the dangerous regardless of whether proposed firearms restrictions survive the gauntlet for new gun laws.
May 26, 2014 in Gun policy and sentencing, Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Should I be hopeful Amy can now recover more restitution after major child porn bust in NYC?
The question in the title of this post is my (perhaps weak) effort to put some kind of positive spin on this depressing new story from CNN headlined "Cop, rabbi, scoutmaster among arrests in child porn bust." Here are just some of the ugly basics:
They are people children are supposed to trust: A New York Police Department officer, a Fire Department of New York paramedic, a rabbi and a scoutmaster were among more than 70 people arrested in a major child porn bust, authorities said Wednesday.
One of those arrested -- a supervisor with the Transportation Security Administration -- allegedly traveled to the Dominican Republic to have sex with children, a law enforcement official said. He allegedly made more than 50 trips there.
The investigation, involving agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as New York authorities, began as part of an undercover operation into peer-to-peer networks, authorities told reporters Wednesday. The suspects, who do not appear to know one another, were able to search files using graphic terms and descriptions. Software continuously scanned files and automatically uploaded images to personal computers, laptops and mobile phones.
Special Agent in Charge James Hayes, head of Homeland Security Investigations New York, called the arrests the largest enforcement operation in New York "targeting predators (who) possess, produce or distribute sexually explicit images of children." The activity, he said, has "reached epidemic proportions."
"The backgrounds of many of the individuals ... is shocking," Hayes said. "These defendants come from all walks of life ... This operation puts the lie to the classic stereotypical profile that child predators are nothing more than unemployed drifters. Many of the defendants are, in fact, well-educated and successful in private and professional lives. They work as registered nurses, paramedics, caretakers for mentally ill adults, computer programers and architects."
The continuing operation resulted in 71 arrests -- including one woman -- and the seizure of nearly 600 devices, including desktop and laptop computers, tablets, smartphones and thumb drives with tens of thousands of sexually explicit images and videos of children, Hayes said.
The pornographic images of children were shared at no charge, authorities said. About a third of the suspects remain in custody, and the others were released on bonds ranging from $30,000 to $500,000. Hayes said the January arrest of Brian Fanelli, chief of the Mount Pleasant Police Department in upstate Valhalla, New York, on child pornography violations helped lead to the other defendants.
A few months ago, I asked in the title of this post a serious question that comes to mind now again: "Just how many prominent, successful men are child porn fiends?". As the title of this post suggests, following the Supreme Court's messy "split-the-difference" approach to child porn restitution in its recent Paroline ruling (basis here), I am hoping a silver lining to this dark cloud might be that CP crimes committed too often by persons "well-educated and successful in private and professional lives" might now mean more restitution getting paid to the unfortunate victims of these crimes.
A few (of many) prior posts on Paroline and child porn issues:
- SCOTUS splits the difference for child porn restitution awards in Paroline
- Will Congress fix (quickly? ever? wisely?) the "puzzle of paying Amy" after Paroline?
- Fascinating NY Times magazine cover story on child porn victims and restitution
- "Pricing Amy: Should Those Who Download Child Pornography Pay the Victims?"
- Explaining why I am rooting so hard for "Amy" in Paroline
- Just how many prominent, successful men are child porn fiends?
May 21, 2014 in Fines, Restitution and Other Economic Sanctions, Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics, Sex Offender Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack
Two new juve justice papers from The Sentencing Project
- Juvenile Life Without Parole: An Overview -- Recent Supreme Court rulings have banned the use of mandatory life without parole for juveniles, as well as in non-homicide cases. Still, the United States stands alone as the only nation that sentences people to life without parole for crimes committed before turning 18. This briefing paper documents the key legal cases in this area, as well as the impact on fiscal costs, racial disparities, and prospects for reform.
- Disproportionate Minority Contact in the Juvenile Justice System -- Despite declining numbers of juveniles held in confinement nationally, racial disparities in the juvenile justice system remain a persistent problem. This briefing paper provides an overview of disparity trends in recent decades, and an assessment of how policy and practice decisions contribute to racial disparities.
May 21, 2014 in Offender Characteristics, Race, Class, and Gender, Scope of Imprisonment | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
More useful discussion of the (under-discussed) lead-crime-rate connections
A helpful reader alerted me to this helpful and lengthy new article at the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange headlined "Is Lead Exposure the Secret to the Rapid Rise and Fantastic Fall of the Juvenile Crime Rate?". Here are excerpts from a piece worthy of a full read (and with lots of helpful links to the research discussed):
For the juvenile justice field, there is no larger question. It's the elephant in the room, the great mystery, the trend that has changed everything — and seemingly without explanation. Why have juvenile crime rates, once predicted to rise inexorably, instead been falling for two decades? Falling... and falling... and falling.
What if the answer was readily available? What if it mostly boiled down to a single element, hiding in plain sight, and we just refused to notice? Well, compelling evidence suggests that much or most of the fluctuation in juvenile crime rates does boil down to a single element — a chemical element.
The element is lead, and a powerful body of research indicates that the recent declines in juvenile offending rates, like the rise in juvenile crime rates that preceded them, stem in large part from changes in children's exposure to lead paint and exhaust from leaded gasoline. The idea may sound crazy, "like a bad science fiction plot," quips Rick Nevin, one of the leading researchers documenting the link between lead exposure and crime. But the data don't lie and here's what they say.
For centuries it has been clear that lead is a potent poison. At extreme concentrations, lead poisoning causes anemia, blindness, renal failure, convulsions, abdominal spasms, insomnia, hallucinations, chronic fatigue and, ultimately, death. But only in the past four decades have researchers learned that lead exposure can severely damage the cognitive development of children, even at modest levels that produce no physical symptoms. And only through modern scanning technology have we learned that the lead molecule is perfectly designed to cripple young minds in ways that not only lower IQ, but also damage the very parts of the brain that oversee aggression, self-regulation, attention and impulse control.
As Kim Cecil, director of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, recently explained to the Chemical & Engineering News, "These are the parts of the brain that say, 'Ooh, I've learned from before that I shouldn't steal that, or if I do this, then the consequences are that.'" Even moderate levels of lead in the bloodstream of an infant or toddler significantly increase the odds that he will suffer behavioral disorders in childhood, and will engage in delinquency and criminal behavior later on. (Lead seems to affect boys more than girls.) A study published in 2008 tracked 250 children born in low-income Cincinnati neighborhoods between 1979 and 2004. It found that children with elevated levels of lead exposure (either in utero, or in early childhood) were significantly more likely to be arrested for both violent and nonviolent crimes than children with lower lead exposure. Earlier studies in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh also found a significant correlation between early childhood lead exposure and later conduct problems....
[T]he strength and consistency of the findings linking lead exposure and crime trends, plus the wealth of corroborating evidence from other disciplines (such as brain imaging studies and longitudinal studies of small population samples in selected cities) creates what Kevin Drum, a widely-cited blogger and journalist who has written extensively on the lead-crime connection, calls "an astonishing body of evidence."...
"We now have studies at the international level, the national level, the state level, the city level, and even the individual level," writes Drum. "Groups of children have been followed from the womb to adulthood, and higher childhood blood lead levels are consistently associated with higher adult arrest rates for violent crimes. All of these studies tell the same story: Gasoline lead is responsible for a good share of the rise and fall of violent crime over the past half century."
By this point, readers of this column may be wondering: If the evidence linking lead exposure and crime is so strong, why haven't we heard more about it? The primary reason is that the research has been largely ignored by academics. In 2008, a 250-page report on U.S. crime trends by the National Academies of Science included only one paragraph about lead exposure, drawing no conclusions. Late last year, a National Academies roundtable on crime trends did hold a session on lead exposure.
But even in that day's session, the opening presentation — delivered by the renowned British criminologist, David Farrington — did not include a word about lead exposure. His talk on "Individual Differences in Antisocial Behavior, Delinquency, and Crime" discussed unemployment, parenting, poverty, family size, peer influences, substance abuse, and even an individual's resting heart rate — none of which has seen changes in recent times consistent with the larger rise and fall in crime rates. Farrington said nothing about the introduction and subsequent removal of massive amounts of a toxic substance with a powerful known link to subsequent delinquency and criminality.
Drum suggests that the lack of attention to lead exposure is natural, given that the theory is new and unproven. Indeed, some critics have raised legitimate questions about the research — citing the small number of studies, questioning methodology and suggesting that other factors beyond lead (such as demographics, shifting drug markets and more) may also play an important role in determining crime rates over time....
Another factor behind the inattention to the lead exposure research is that most of the studies thus far have been conducted by economists and public health scholars, not criminologists, and the key papers have been published in environmental journals rather than criminology publications. Nevin also sees an element of self-interest: "Everyone has their own theory that they hold dear about why the crime decline has occurred," he says. "There are a whole lot of people ... on both sides of the political spectrum who want to claim credit for this and don't really like hearing about this unrelated powerful force."...
[T]he lead data suggest that perhaps the most important thing our nation can do to reduce juvenile crime — and also to boost youth success in general — has nothing to do with juvenile courts or corrections systems. Maybe our first priority should be lead abatement — finishing the job by removing the last remnants of our tragic 20th century fetish with this terrible toxin.
Some recent related posts:
- Should we thank unleaded gas and the EPA for the great modern crime decline?
- Effective Washington Post commentary talks up great (and still puzzling) crime decline
- Do lead exposure realities continue to best explain modern crime-rate realities?:
- Uh-oh: BJS reporting significant spike up in violent and property crime for 2012
- FBI releases 2012 crime statistics showing stability in relatively low crime rates
- New National Academy of Sciences effort seeking to unpack the crime decline
May 20, 2014 in National and State Crime Data, Offender Characteristics | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Occupy Wall Street activist sentenced to occupy jail for three months
As the New York Times reports here, a "woman whose assault case had become a cause célèbre, first among Occupy Wall Street supporters and then expanding well beyond the movement, was sentenced to three months in jail on Monday, as a judge rejected calls for her immediate release." Here is more about a high-profile state sentencing that occurred yesterday in Manhattan:
The woman, Cecily McMillan, 25, a graduate student at the New School and a volunteer labor organizer, was convicted two weeks ago of assaulting a police officer at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan in 2012. Before the sentence was delivered, Ms. McMillan remained mostly defiant, even as she characterized the encounter with the officer as "an accident.".....
But Justice Ronald A. Zweibel, who had remanded Ms. McMillan on May 5 after the four-week trial, imposed the jail sentence that prosecutors had requested, rather than release her on probation, as her lawyers had urged. She could have faced a maximum of seven years for the second-degree assault. "A civilized society must not allow an assault to be committed under the guise of civil disobedience," Justice Zweibel said....
Upon her conviction, Ms. McMillan's supporters wrote scores of letters to Justice Zweibel, urging him to be lenient. Five City Council members delivered the same message on the steps of City Hall, and the Russian activists Pussy Riot, who were recently imprisoned for criticizing President Vladimir Putin, visited her on Rikers Island and called for her release. An online petition calling for leniency garnered 160,000 signatures....
Before sentencing, Shanda Strain, an assistant district attorney, said Ms. McMillan deserved a three-month stay in jail because she had falsely accused Officer Bovell of grabbing her breast, lying under oath "to avoid responsibility for her actions."
"This trial was not a referendum on a large social cause or movement, though the defendant tried and continues to try to make it just that," Ms. Strain said. Then she added, "In essence, she has repeatedly argued that the rules should not apply to everyone equally — that defendants who are politically motivated deserve special treatment."...
Ms. McMillan's lawyer, Martin Stolar ... told the judge that the bruises and mental trauma that Ms. McMillan had suffered during her arrest were punishment enough. "You touch a police officer and get the hell beat out of you," he said outside court. "That's what happened to her. That's enough of a deterrent."
Ms. McMillan also received five years of probation, and was ordered to undergo a mental-health evaluation and treatment. Mr. Stolar said he had filed a notice of intent to appeal the verdict, and had asked that his client be granted bail pending the appeal.
May 20, 2014 in Celebrity sentencings, Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Friday, May 16, 2014
Federal judge splits the difference in sentencing former SAC money manager to 3.5 years
As reported in this Wall Street Journal article, a federal district judge in a high-profile white-collar sentencing today imposed a prison term roughly half-way between what federal prosecutors and the defense sought. Here are the basics:
A federal judge sentenced former SAC Capital Advisors LP portfolio manager Michael Steinberg to three and a half years in prison Friday, saying he hoped Wall Street would learn from this case. The term was well below what prosecutors had sought.
U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan called the former senior SAC employee "a basically good man," citing evidence of his character supplied in 68 letters sent by his family and friends. But he also pointed to the seriousness of Mr. Steinberg's insider trading. "They are crimes that go to the heart of living in an honest society and having a market system," he said during a hearing in Manhattan federal court. Wall Street, he hoped, would "derive lessons."
Mr. Steinberg, 42 years old, is SAC's most senior former employee to be convicted of insider trading. Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 5¼ to 6½ years to send a strong deterrent message to the market. Mr. Steinberg's lawyers had requested less than half that amount.
Mr. Steinberg was convicted in December on four counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy for trading on confidential information, handing prosecutors the first verdict from a federal jury to back up their allegations that there was insider trading at SAC. There is a chance Friday's sentence won't stick. A pending appeal in a related insider-trading case could bolster Mr. Steinberg's chances to overturn his conviction.
May 16, 2014 in Booker in district courts, Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics, White-collar sentencing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Thursday, May 15, 2014
AG Holder assails solitary for juves with mental illness
As highlighted by this DOJ press release, "Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday called for an end to the excessive use of solitary confinement for youth that suffer from mental illness." Here is more about AG Holder's latest use of his criminal justice bully pulpit:
"Across the country, far too many juvenile detention centers see isolation and solitary confinement as an appropriate way to handle challenging youth, in particular youth with disabilities. But solitary confinement can be dangerous, and a serious impediment to the ability of juveniles to succeed once released.
"In a study released last year by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 47 percent of juvenile detention centers reported locking youth in some type of isolation for more than four hours at a time. We have received reports of young people who have been held in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day, often with no human interaction at all. In some cases, children were held in small rooms with windows that were barely the width of their own hands.
"This is, to say the least, excessive. And these episodes are all too common.
"This practice is particularly detrimental to young people with disabilities – who are at increased risk under these circumstances of negative effects including self-harm and even suicide. In fact, one national study found that half of the victims of suicides in juvenile facilities were in isolation at the time they took their own lives, and 62 percent of victims had a history of solitary confinement....
"We must ensure in all circumstances – and particularly when it comes to our young people – that incarceration is used to rehabilitate, and not merely to warehouse and forget. Our nationwide effort to end the unnecessary or excessive seclusion of youth with disabilities will not be completed solely with one settlement or court filing. But as a department, we are dedicated – and as Attorney General, I am committed – to doing everything possible to ensure the effectiveness and integrity of our criminal and juvenile justice system. In the days ahead, we will continue to make good on our commitment to the best practices of law enforcement and the highest ideals of our nation."
May 15, 2014 in Offender Characteristics, Prisons and prisoners, Scope of Imprisonment, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack
"Crime, Teenage Abortion, and the Myth of Unwantedness"
The title of this post is the title of this intriguing new empirical paper by Gary Shoesmith available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This study shows that varying concentrations of teenage abortions across states drive all of Donohue and Levitt's (2001, 2004, 2008) crime and abortion results, narrowing the possible link between crime and abortion to mainly 16 percent of U.S. abortions. The widely promoted and accepted claim that unwantedness links crime and abortion is false. Across all states, there is a near one-to-one correspondence between ranked significance of abortion in explaining crime and ranked teenage abortion ratios. The results agree with research showing teenage motherhood is a major maternal crime factor, while unwantedness ranks fifth, behind mothers who smoke during pregnancy. The results are also consistent with the reasons women have abortions by age group.
For future research, a specific means is proposed to reconcile recent papers that apply alternative methods to DL's data but find no link between crime and abortion link. Given a 2013 Census Bureau report showing that single motherhood is the new norm among adult women, the results suggest the need to reeducate adult women about unwantedness and crime.
May 15, 2014 in Data on sentencing, National and State Crime Data, Offender Characteristics | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Fifth Circuit panel grants last-minute capital stay due to key IQ evidence hidden by Texas prosecutors
As reported in this AP article, headlined "Court halts execution over mental health claims," the Fifth Circuit "halted a convicted Texas killer's scheduled execution Tuesday so his attorneys can pursue appeals arguing he's mentally impaired." The reason this is coming up in this way now, as the Fifth Circuit explain in In re Campbell, No. 14-20293 (5th Cir. May 13, 2014) (available here) is because Texas prosecutors hid key IQ evidence from the defense for a decade. Here is how the Campbell opinion starts and a key paragraphs from its closing pages:
Robert James Campbell, a death-row prisoner whose execution is scheduled for Tuesday, May 13, 2014, contends that he is intellectually disabled (formerly called "mentally retarded") and is, therefore, constitutionally ineligible for the death penalty under Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002). He has filed with this court a motion for authorization to file a successive federal habeas corpus petition asserting his Atkins claim and a motion for stay of execution pending the resolution of that claim. For the reasons that follow, we grant both motions....
The evidence presented by Campbell at this stage indicates that, in 2003, the District Attorney's office had in its possession evidence reflecting Campbell's IQ score of 68, yet the State opposed Campbell's 2003 motion to authorize a successive habeas claim based on Atkins on the basis that the "sparse" school records failed to establish intellectual disability. The State also asserted that there was no "credible evidence" of intellectual disability. Also in 2003, Campbell sought funds for intellectual-function testing, which the State opposed even though the District Attorney had evidence of the IQ score of 68.
Moreover, according to Campbell, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice informed Campbell's prior attorney that, during Campbell's earlier robbery incarceration, he received an IQ test result of 84. As Campbell now argues, that was not true and contrary to the actual evidence. It is not facially unreasonable that Campbell's prior attorney relied upon the department's statement and was persuaded that it was fruitless to pursue this claim further. Indeed, as Judge Alcala of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stated in her dissent, "it would be unjust to penalize an applicant for not uncovering such a falsehood previously when he had no basis to believe that a falsehood had been conveyed to him."...
It is regrettable that we are now reviewing evidence of intellectual disability at the eleventh hour before Campbell's scheduled execution. However, from the record before us, it appears that we cannot fault Campbell or his attorneys, present or past, for the delay. According to Campbell, in the period immediately after Atkins was decided, his attorney diligently searched for evidence of intellectual disability. And, when the Texas Department of Criminal Justice failed to turn over the results of the intelligence test they had administered on Campbell upon the attorney's request for "any and all intellectual functioning tests," the State gave the attorney incorrect and incomplete information. Thus, although the delay is regrettable, we do not see it as militating against a stay of execution in this case
May 13, 2014 in Death Penalty Reforms, Offender Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack
"Modifying Unjust Sentences"
The title of this post is the title of this notable new paper by E. Lea Johnston now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The United States is in the midst of an incarceration crisis. Over-incarceration is depleting state budgets and decimating communities. It has also led to the overfilling of prisons, which has degraded conditions of confinement, increased violence, and reduced access to needed medical and mental health care. Judicial sentence modification offers a means to address both the phenomenon of over-incarceration and harsh prison conditions that threaten unjust punishment. Indeed, some legislatures have framed states' early release provisions as fulfilling goals of proportionality and just punishment. Proportionality is also an express purpose of the proposed Model Penal Code provisions on judicial sentence modification.
This paper explores whether the tools available to judges at sentence modification hearings are adequate to respond to the unjust punishment experienced by prisoners. In examining this question, the article focuses on one population particularly likely to experience disproportionate or inhumane punishment: inmates with serious mental disorders. A deep literature suggests that individuals with serious mental illnesses are especially likely to be victimized by staff and inmates, to be housed in isolation, and to experience an exacerbation of mental illness while incarcerated. This article's analysis reveals a gap in remedial coverage for some members of this population. In particular, existing remedies are inadequate to respond to the plight of those prisoners who must remain incarcerated, but for whom incarceration in current conditions constitutes a disproportionate or inhumane punishment.
To remedy this shortcoming, the article proposes that states authorize judges, upon a finding of past and likely future unjust punishment, to modify a mentally disordered prisoner's conditions of confinement. Only with such expanded authority will the process of sentence modification allow judges to reserve prison for those who deserve it and ensure that continued confinement will be a just and appropriate sanction.
May 13, 2014 in Offender Characteristics, Prisons and prisoners, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Friday, May 09, 2014
Connecticut debate spotlights how fights over death penalty can impede other needed reforms
Long time readers know that one of my enduring frustrations with debates over the fate of death penalty concerns how this debate can sometimes get in the way of other important criminal justice work. A notable new example of this dynamic was on display this week in Connecticut, as evidenced by this local article headlined "Juvenile Sentencing Bill Fails Second Year In A Row." Here are the basic details:
A barrage of amendments, a planned Republican filibuster over the merits of reviving the death penalty, and recent charges against a Milford teen in the fatal stabbing of a classmate scuttled a criminal justice bill on the last day of the 2014 session.
The bill would have offered inmates serving long prison sentences for crimes they committed at a young age a chance at freedom. The measure was crafted in response to two U.S. Supreme Court rulings, in 2010 and 2012. The court held that life sentences for offenders younger than 18 are unconstitutional and that juvenile offenders must be given a "meaningful opportunity" to seek release.
The legislation cleared the House of Representatives on a broad and bipartisan vote in early April. But for the second year in a row, it failed to come up in the Senate by midnight Wednesday, when the General Assembly adjourned. Republicans signaled to Democratic leaders that they were going to block the bill by filing 22 amendments, including one to reinstate the death penalty in Connecticut for convicted terrorists and another to eliminate a program that aims to rehabilitate prisoners by offering them credit toward early release....
Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams said there were enough votes to pass the measure. But, facing Republican opposition and wanting to avoid votes on controversial issues like the death penalty, Williams opted not to bring the bill up....
The proposed bill was based on recommendations by the non-partisan Connecticut Sentencing Commission. It would have permitted prisoners who committed crimes as teenagers and are serving prison terms of 20 years or less to be eligible for a sentence review after they had served 60 percent of their time. Inmates serving 50 years or more could receive that "second look" 30 years into their sentences. The proposal would not have guaranteed freedom for the inmates but would have given them the opportunity to argue their case at a special parole hearing with highly restrictive criteria.
"We're disappointed with what happened in the Senate," said David M. Borden, a retired state Supreme Court justice who chairs the Sentencing Commission, the panel charged with reviewing criminal justice policy and proposing legislation. The commission's members include prosecutors, defense attorneys, police, corrections officials and the state victims advocate. "When you look at the bill dispassionately and look at the facts dispassionately and clear away all the underbrush of things that don't have anything to do with it, it's a very good bill," Borden said Thursday. "To the extent politics got in the way, well, we live in the real world ... we'll take the consequences."
The commission will meet in June and determine whether it will push for the measure again in 2015. "I don't think there's going to be a strong sentiment for giving up this fight," Borden said. He said 70 inmates in Connecticut already have filed cases seeking revisions in their sentences, based on the two Supreme Court rulings. "This bill would have set down reasonable parameters for how these cases should be handled," Borden said.
In the absence of legislation setting a legal framework, the decision of how to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court rulings likely will be left to state courts, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Thursday. "Don't be surprised if it goes to court," Malloy said. The courts "will do what the [legislature] should have done and perhaps do more."
May 9, 2014 in Assessing Graham and its aftermath, Assessing Miller and its aftermath, Offender Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Second Amendment issues, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Thursday, May 08, 2014
Fascinating discussion of "mom movement" to reform sex offender registration laws
NBC News has this lengthy new piece about efforts to reform sex offender registration laws under the headline "My Son, the Sex Offender: One Mother's Mission to Fight the Law." The full piece is worthy of a full read, and here is how it gets started:
In the run up to Halloween one year, Sharie Keil saw something that really made her jump: Missouri governor Jay Nixon, then the attorney general. He was on television to announce that registered sex offenders were hereby banned from participating in her favorite holiday. On threat of a year in jail, they had to stay inside and display a sign saying they had no candy. The goal was "to protect our children," as Nixon put it, but Keil heard only a peal of political hysteria.
She is not a sex offender nor, at 63, a new-age apologist for pedophiles or predators. She is a mother, however, and in 1998 her 17-year-old son had sex with a pre-teen girl at a party. He was convicted of aggravated sexual abuse, which got him six months in county jail and a lifetime of mandatory registration as a sex offender. Ten years later, after the Halloween law, Keil felt shocked into action.
"As my husband says, I decided to go on the war path," she remembers. Today, she's at the forefront of a growing fight against sex offender registries, a shame-free alliance of offenders and their families, supported by researchers and some advocates who helped pass stringent anti-abuse laws in the first place. They're organized (albeit loosely) under Reform Sex Offender Laws, a five-year-old lobby that claims 38 state affiliates and a steady patter of legal and legislative victories.
Most of their progress, however, has been limited to a slice of the registry: juvenile offenders. That would remove Keil's son, but this former soccer mom and chapter head of the League of Women Voters wants to abolish the public registry altogether. She funds a powerful RSOL affiliate, Missouri Citizens for Reform, which has helped push sweeping changes through the Missouri House four years in a row, only to see the effort smothered in the Senate or, last summer, stabbed by a governor's veto.
"Changing the registry would provide relief for tens of thousands of Missourians," Keil says. "Since there are nearly 800,000 people on the registry nationally, millions of lives would change for the better."
As reckless as Keil's ideas may sound, she and her intellectual allies—among them Nicole Pittman, an attorney who slammed registries in a Human Rights Watch report last year—are fervently opposed to sexual abuse and believe in jail time for law breakers. However, they also hope to realign the law with second-chance ideals and new research that shows rehabilitation is possible, even for America's last pariahs.
If they succeed, Keil believes, public safety will actually improve. As the registries shrink or disappear, law enforcement will be freed to focus on crime prevention. If the movement fails, she warns, public safety could suffer. Truly dangerous people will be lost in the thousands that police must monitor, while relatively harmless offenders break bad in a system that gives them no hope for a normal future.
May 8, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Offender Characteristics, Sentences Reconsidered, Sex Offender Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Last update: Thursday 11 April 2013 [31 news items]
Taiwan market: NCC gives CHT green light to ADSL, FTTx price cuts
Apr 11, 13:57
Taiwan's National Communications Commission (NCC) on April 10 approved the reduction in pricing for ADSL and FTTx broadband Internet-access services proposed by Chunghwa Telecom (CHT),...
Lantiq launches ADSL2/2+ SoC for broadband home gateways
Mar 30, 11:06
Lantiq has introduced its XWAY ARX300 device family for ADSL2/2+ customer premise equipment (CPE) designs. The Lantiq XWAY ARX300 family includes four system-on-chip (SoC) derivatives...
Taiwan market: NCC approves cuts in ADSL circuit lease price
Jan 5, 11:24
Taiwan's National Communications Commission (NCC) has approved the reduction in leased ADSL circuit wholesale price proposed by Chunghwa Telecom (CHT).
Taiwan market: Chunghwa Telecom to lower ADSL charges
Dec 15, 10:50
Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) has announced reductions in charge rates for its ADSL broadband Internet-access service by an average of 20%.
Taiwan market: NCC approves price cut for fixed-line Internet
Jun 9, 16:39
Taiwan's National Communications Commission (NCC) on June 8 gave the green light to reduce charge rates for ADSL and FTTx broadband Internet-access services as well as increased download/upload...
Taiwan market: Chunghwa Telecom offers free upgrade in ADSL speeds to promote value-added services
Aug 18, 10:48
Chunghwa Telecom on August 17 started upgrading Internet-access speeds for its ADSL subscribers at 256K/64K, 1M/64K and 2M/256K to respective download speeds of 512K, 2M and 3M in...
Taiwan market: CHT raises ADSL speeds without hiking prices
Jul 15, 15:27
Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) on July 14 announced it will upgrade three existing ADSL download/upload speeds with circuit-lease and network fees remaining unchanged.
Taiwan market: Internet user base over 16 million
Mar 31, 15:30
There are an estimated 16.22 million fixed-line Internet surfers in Taiwan, equivalent to a penetration rate (divided by population) of 70.46%, according to the government-sponsored...
Ralink-TrendChip merger to help Taiwan makers win ADSL procurement, say sources
Mar 15, 14:34
The merger of Ralink Technology and TrendChip Technologies is expected to help Taiwan-based networking equipment makers expand their presence in the telecom procurement markets, according...
Taiwan market: 3.5G data card users double in 2009
Feb 8, 16:26
The number of 3.5G data card users in Taiwan doubled to 660,000 at the end of 2009 compared to 330,000 a year earlier, according to data compiled by Taiwan's National Communications...
China residential gateway shipments surge on multimedia services, says iSuppli
Jan 8, 16:47
Shipments of residential gateways (RGs) in China are set to more than triple from 2009 to 2013 as the nation's telecommunications carriers look to these platforms to enable the delivery...
Chunghwa Telecom capex tops NT$16.5 billion in Jan-Sep 2009
Nov 2, 10:22
Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) recorded a capex of NT$16.56 billion (US$505 million) for January-September 2009, 79.8% of which went on fixed-line and Internet infrastructure and 17.8% on...
Arcadyan posts profit for first three quarters
Oct 28, 14:29
Network equipment maker Arcadyan Technology has posted net profits of NT$442 million (US$13.6 million), or NT$4.12 per share, for the first three quarters of 2009, according to company...
Edimax steps into ADSL IAD and GPON CPE production
Oct 2, 14:05
Network equipment maker Edimax Technology has stepped into the development of ADSL IAD (integrated access device) and GPON (Gigabit passive optical network) CPE products with small...
Top-three Taiwan carriers post strong earnings gains in August
Sep 14, 10:02
The top-three carriers in Taiwan, Taiwan Mobile, Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) and Far EasTone Telecommunications (FET), all posted strong profit gains in August, with their EPS' topping...
Chunghwa Telecom lands 4-year FTTB/ADSL network contract from Taipei City Government
Sep 7, 10:31
Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) has obtained a contract from the Taipei City Government to provide a network of 13,800 FTTB and ADSL leased-circuits specifically for a security monitoring...
Taiwan market: Chunghwa Telecom gaining users in FTTx, losing in ADSL
Sep 3, 15:49
Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) saw a rise of 25.4% in subscribers to its FTTx (fiber to the home/building/curb) broadband Internet service but a drop of 8.6% in ADSL users in the first half...
Taiwan market: TWM lowers broadband Internet-access rates
Aug 10, 11:54
Telecom carrier Taiwan Mobile (TWM) has announced a reduction in charge rates for its ADSL and FTTx broadband Internet-access services by 20-58%.
Chunghwa Telecom nets NT$2.30 per share for January-June 2009
Jul 13, 10:36
Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) on July 10 reported a net profit of NT$4.024 billion (US$123 million) for June 2009, with a January-June net profit of NT$22.323 billion translating into net...
Emphasis shifts to fiber to the home, says Ovum
Jul 9, 11:57
In countries such as Korea and Japan, the rapid take-up of FTTH/B and subsequent decline of ADSL technologies is nothing new. However, this network evolution is now spreading outside...
ADSL solution vendor TrendChip Technologies to debut on TSE on June 18
Jun 11, 12:36
Shares of ADSL chipset solution vendor TrendChip Technologies will debut on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) with an initial price of NT$70 (US$2.13) on June 18. The company posted...
Network equipment maker Cameo eyes 50% shipment growth in 2009
May 7, 11:49
Network equipment maker Cameo Communications expects its shipments of broadband products, including ADSL CPE, cable, WLAN and VoIP products, to top three million units in 2009 compared...
Chunghwa Telecom nets NT$1.11 per share for first quarter
Apr 13, 10:57
Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) on April 10 reported a net profit of NT$2.80 billion (US$82.8 million) for March 2009, with its January-March net profit of NT$10.78 billion translating into...
Taiwan market: ISPs dispute over ADSL interconnection fees
Apr 13, 09:38
Chunghwa Telecom (CHT), the largest ISP (Internet service provider) in Taiwan, on April 8 temporarily reduced the 9.3Gbps bandwidth of Internet-access interconnection leased to fellow...
Taiwan market: Chunghwa Telecom ADSL fee cut approved
Apr 9, 14:33
Taiwan's National Communications Commission (NCC) has approved the reduction in circuit-leasing fee by 5.35% on average proposed by Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) for its ADSL broadband Internet-access...
Sercomm expects to ship over one million ADSL routers to China in 2009
Mar 25, 14:46
Taiwan-based network equipment maker Sercomm will focus its marketing on telecom carriers in China in 2009 and expects to ship more than one million ADSL routers to the market, accounting...
CeBIT 2009: Alpha Networks to present broadband CPE lineup
Mar 2, 11:27
Taiwan-based network equipment specialist Alpha Networks will showcase a lineup of new broadband CPE solutions that include a GPON (Gigabit passive optical network) ONT (optical network...
Taiwan market: Chunghwa Telecom sees FTTx surpass 2M/256K ADSL in user volume
Feb 23, 10:51
Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) has indicated the number of its 10Mbps/2Mbps FTTx (fiber to the home/building/curb) broadband Internet-access subscribers has risen to 1.05 million, exceeding...
TrendChip ADSL CPE shipments jump over 100% in 2008
Feb 11, 15:50
TrendChip Technologies, a Taiwan-based ADSL solution provider, has said that shipments of its ADSL CPE (customer premises equipment) chipsets rose more than 100% in 2008. The impressive...
Taiwan market: NCC approves Chunghwa Telecom ADSL/FTTx network fee cuts
Nov 6, 15:44
Taiwan's National Communications Commission (NCC) on November 5 approved reductions in network fees proposed by Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) for using its ADSL and FTTx broadband Internet-access...
Taiwan 3.5G mobile Internet-access could grow to 2 million users in 2009, says Vibo Telecom
Oct 9, 16:24
Mobile access to the Internet through a notebook PC together with an HSDPA data card is becoming increasingly popular in the Taiwan market. The number of 3.5G Internet surfers, of...
HTC reports 37% growth in August revenues
Mobile + telecom - Stockwatch | 26min ago
China to post highest growth in semiconductor manufacturing equipment spending in 2014
Bits + chips | 54min ago
Foxconn to invest in AirSig
Before Going to Press | Sep 2, 21:39
Demand of 3D ICs may not take off for 3 years, says Amkor Technology
Before Going to Press | Sep 2, 21:03
China-based CTIEC acquires France-based CIGS business
Before Going to Press | Sep 2, 20:45
Taiwan market: HTC to launch new exclusive stores to promote aftersale services
Before Going to Press | Sep 2, 20:43
Niching looks to ramp up LED leadframe and FC CSP substrate shipments in 2015
Before Going to Press | Sep 2, 20:19
Clevo chairman to develop innovation park in northern Taiwan
Before Going to Press | Sep 2, 19:51
Shortage of CNC capacity to remain until 2015, say unibody chassis makers
Before Going to Press | Sep 2, 19:50
Tencent invests in DXY
Before Going to Press | Sep 2, 19:46
Digitimes Research: Samsung lowers US 7-inch tablet prices
Before Going to Press | Sep 2, 19:45
LDK Solar sees continued losses in 1H14
Before Going to Press | Sep 2, 19:44
- Digitimes Research: CSOT expected to ship 25 million LCD TV panels in 2014
- China, Taiwan solar-grade silicon wafer makers plan to hike prices
- Epistar, Genesis may benefit from Cree investment in Lextar, says Epistar
- Notebook panel supply expected to see 20% shortage in 3Q14
- Supply chains ramp up production for 9.7-inch iPad
- Asustek readies new 2-in-1 products
- China-based monocrystalline solar wafer maker Longi sees huge growth in 1H14 profit
- China-based Comtec Solar to expand wafer capacity in Malaysia
- Semicon Taiwan 2014: Focus on new processing, packaging technologies
- New mobile products to benefit component suppliers until end of 2014
- LG Display opens first overseas LCD panel plant in China
- Flexible PCB makers raise funds to address growing business operations
- Digitimes Research: Kickstarter wearables expand presence in sleep tracking industry
- Digitimes Research: Bit-growth of DRAM chips lower in 2014 on weak PC demand
- Acer becomes top PC and projector vendor in Philippines
- Digitimes Research: China smartphone vendors turning to retail and online channels for better profits
- Solartech Energy sees increased August revenues
- LED demand turns weak in 3Q14, says Epistar chairman
- Gigabyte Communications to ship 2G feature phones
- Trends and technologies at Touch Taiwan 2014
- Digitimes Research: Korea kicks off semiconductor development projects
- Taiwan solar cell makers see orders increase in August
- LED driver IC vendors look to flat performance in 3Q14
- Taiwan market: HTC launches HTC Butterfly 2 in cooperation with CHT
- Spending on energy efficient buildings in Europe expected to total nearly US$800 billion from 2014-2023, says Navigant
- Releases
- White papers
- Bulletin
- G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 Achieves DDR4 Memory Record at 4004MHz On ASUS ROG X99 Rampage V Extreme Motherboard and Intel Core i7-5930K CPU
- G.SKILL Officially Announces Ripjaws 4 Series DDR4 Memory Kits - Extreme Speed Available Up to DDR4 3200MHz
- Twinwill produces perfect touch products under the supply chain
- Indium Corporation features high-reliability, low-voiding flux coating for solder preforms at IMAPS
- Iceleads announces opening of Taiwan Branch Office to grasp local opportunities
- AccuTouch Five Wire Resistive Touchscreens
- Getting the Most Out Of Your Next Generation Digital Security Surveillance System
- Embracing the New Generation Intel Atom Family with DDR3 Memory Support
- Got The Message? Ensuring efficient and reliable delivery of content across a mission critical digital signage network
- Emb' Store On-Demand Software Service for Embedded Computing
3-Sep-2014 markets closed
|TSE electronic
|OTC electronic
- Amazon in Shanghai e-commerce pact (Aug 21) - BBC News
- USITC investigates alleged infringement of Macronix patents by Spansion (Aug 19) - Company release
- Infineon to acquire International Rectifier for US$40 per share, approximately US$3 billion in cash (Aug 20) - Company release
- ON Semiconductor completes acquisition of Aptina Imaging (Aug 18) - Company release
- Applied Materials' profit rises 79% on higher sales, improved margins (Aug 14) - The Wall Street Journal
- Cisco to cut up to 6,000 jobs (Aug 14) - USA Today
- Chinese PC maker Lenovo posts 23% jump in profit (Aug 14) - BBC News
- Michael J Fox Foundation and Intel join forces to improve Parkinson's Disease treatment - PR Web
- Digitimes Research: Kickstarter wearables expand presence in sleep tracking industry
- Digitimes Research: China smartphone vendors turning to retail and online channels for better profits
- Gaining an advantage in emerging markets: Q&A with India-based handset player Micromax
- Voices from India: How can Taiwan best tap the booming India handset market
- Digitimes Research: All-in-one PC shipments to decline in 2014
Karbonn looks to in-house handset production in India: Q&A with executive director
Karbonn, the second-largest India-based handset vendor, is looking into in-house production. Digitimes...
Gaining an advantage in emerging markets: Q&A with India-based handset player Micromax
Sales of handsets in the India market reached 61.07 million units in the first quarter of 2014, with...
Quantum dot panel, lighting technology: Q&A with QD Vision
With increasing competition from AMOLED, TFT LCD display manufacturers are beginning to look to quantum...
On the handset market in India and increasing presence of Lava: Q&A with Lava chairman Hari Om Rai
As India's handset market is continuing to grow, local vendors including Lava, Spice, Intex and GI...
- Smartphone and tablet industry: The view from Taiwan - May 2012
Taiwan-based companies have a long and successful history of involvement in the supply chain for mobile devices, which for the purposes of this article consist...
- Taiwan motherboard industry overview - May 2012
The year 2011 saw the motherboard industry reverse its trend of declining shipments year-on-year, to post a slight 0.2% growth. This upturn in fortunes was expected...
- Notebook market overview - Jun 2011
The notebook industry in 2010 experienced several major events that significantly changed the industry's ecosystem for the year and the industry is also believed...
- LCD TV overview - Jun 2011
Growth of the global LCD TV market was not as strong as expected in 2010 as the market continued to feel the aftershocks of the economic recession that had hit...
- 2014 global high brightness LED market, trends and shipment forecast
For the global LED lighting market, the market size will reach US$25.82 billion in 2014 or a market penetration rate of 23.4%. This is attributable to exponential shipment growth for light bulbs, tubes, and directional lamps.
- Greater China touch panel shipment forecast through 2015
This Special Report provides forecasts through 2015 for Greater China touch panel shipments with breakdowns based on technology (glass, film, resistive), application (smartphone, NB and tablet) and by firm.
- 2014 global tablet demand forecast
This report analyzes the main players, their strategies and shipments forecasts for 2014, as well as other factors contributing to either growth or decline in various segments within the tablet market, with a particular focus on Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft, along with whitebox vendors.


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Academic Programmes Available
Discover the most competitive range of Studies and the exclusive UCJC qualifications.
Information for New Students
UCJC places the best team of professionals at your disposal, to help you out. Come on in and meet them!
UCJC Student Access
This is your space, here you have your main gateways and the information you need as a student.
Request Information
Access the Information Application Form for any queries. We will get back to you in less than 24 hours.


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FREE EVENT! Stroll and Roll on Sept. 13th! From 9am-5pm, Don't miss out!
Gallery Talk: Artist Tuan Le will give a gallery talk about his super hero inspired art. August 21st, 5:30-7:30pm
For updates on Mystery Art and info for artists Click HERE For information
Book your Holiday Party Now! Call Ashleigh at the Kemp to make your reservations! Limited Dates Available.
The Great Hall makes a lovely sight for weddings, receptions, recitals and almost anything else you can think of! Click here for more rental information.
"Life is a Cabaret My Friend" in the Northlight Gallery! The exhibit will be open to the public August 8 till September 27, 2014.
Freehand, color pencil, pen & ink, and watercolor portraits by David K. White will be featured in the What's Up Downstairs Gallery. The exhibit will be open to public July 31-Sep 20, 2014 during Kemp gallery hours!
After school art classes starting in September! You can register online NOW! Click HERE For information
Click HERE For more Information
Check out our online gallery! Get more info about Camp on the Go! Click HERE
BECOME A MEMBER OF THE KEMP! To find out more information on getting a Kemp membership Click HERE
Art on the Green Sculpture Garden Exhibit is here again! Click HERE to find out more info.


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A collection of news and information related to Thomaston published by this site and its partners.
Top Thomaston Articles
Displaying items 34-44
Thomaston Opera House - Blue's CluesStory | Apr 28, 2009
Stoic In Devotion `Marines Don't Cry'Story | Sep 10, 2006Marines don't smile. It's strength they want to show now, as they stand in this field of white marble markers. Strength for Cpl. Jordan Pierson. Strength for his family. Utterly unruffled. So they watch without expression as their friend's casket is...
Back home on LI, DiNapoli is "champion" to one groupBlog | Jun 4, 2009 | 4:30 PMState Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli volunteered Thursday to become the first statewide candidate to opt into a proposed public financing system that would begin with the 2010 election for comptroller. The Long Island Progressive Coalition and other good...
Kleen Energy Blast Victim's Widow Testifies
Salsa Dancing: Passion, Exercise, A Key To Culture
Thomaston Victim Peter Chepulis Remembered As 'Gentle Giant'
Rell: Wednesday Is Official Day Of MourningStory | Feb 9, 2010 | 8:48 AMState flags will be flown at half-staff Wednesday from early morning into the evening in recognition of the five men who died in Sunday's blast at the Kleen Energy Systems power plant in Middletown. The day will be observed as a statewide day of...
Mourners Grieve At Funerals For Connecticut Workers Who Died In Power Plant Explosion
First Lawsuit Filed In Kleen Energy BlastStory | Feb 23, 2010Two electricians who survived the Kleen Energy power plant explosionin Middletownhave filed the first lawsuit against the contractor conducting the gas line purge that claimed the lives of six people and injured 26 others. While some of the victims...
Opera House Ceiling CollapsesStory | Nov 8, 2008A piece of Connecticut history is closed today following the partial collapse of its ceiling! A portion of the Thomaston Opera House's plaster ceiling caved in early this morning. An organist discovered the collapse. No one was injured. This is not...
Parking BansStory | Mar 2, 2009TOWNS AND CITIES WITH PARKING BANS : Berlin Bloomfield Branford Bridgeport Enfield East Lyme Farmington Hamden Killingly Meriden New Haven Newington North Haven Plymouth Rocky Hill South Windsor Stonington Thomaston Vernon...


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Residence Lugano is in a quiet traffic-free street in central Rimini, near the main railway station and 100 metres from the Adriatic Sea. Free internet and parking are available here.
Each furnished apartment at the Lugano features a fully equipped kitchen, satellite TV and a spacious balcony. Free wired internet access is available.
Coin-operated laundry facilities are available to all guest of the Lugano Residence. Baby cot, high chair and changing table are available on request.
You can easily walk or use one of the Lugano's free bikes to reach Rimini's historic centre. The residence's outdoor private car park is also free.
A variety of shops, pubs and restaurants are found in the area surrounding the Lugano Residence.
The price is not included the final cleaning. The price for final cleaning is: Studio 30 euro, Two-Room Apartment 40 euro, Three-Room Apartment 60 euro.
For laundry is 12 euro for person.
72 hrs cancellation policy, check in 1pm till 8pm, check out 10am.
宿泊したことがありますか? レビューを書く


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Indian Run Farms runs on perseverance
Check for local fairs in your area
4 Weeks of Farm and Dairy delivered to your home or office for FREE
Roast Pork Tenderloin with Asian Dry Rub
Home Classifieds Livestock - Pets and Equipment Horseshoeing
Toll-Free 800-837-3419
Local 330-337-3419
Farm and Agriculture News, Local Market Prices and Crop Reports, Columns and Commentary.
Hundreds of Auction Advertisements for Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Featuring Specialty Antique Auctions, Stores and Shows
Hundreds of Classifieds, Autos & Real Estate Listings


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Boston Mayor Excited About '24 Games Bid Casey Wasserman Takes Over L.A.'s Olympics Bid Boston Mayor Weighing Potential Olympic Bid World Cup Brings Optimism For '16 Rio Games John Fish Touts Boston As Olympic Host City Construction Costs A Concern For Tokyo Games Rio Still Way Behind For '16 Games Olympic Museum Nears Deal With USOC USOC Narrows Possible '24 Bid To Four Cities USOC Meets To Discuss Potential '24 Bid Cities
Upcoming Conferences and Events
SBD/April 24, 2012/Olympics
USATF Names Max Siegel New CEO After 19-Month Search For Doug Logan Successor
Published April 24, 2012
|Siegel will earn a base
salary of $500,000
APPLE NOT FAR FROM THE TREE: In Oregon, Curtis Anderson notes Siegel "becomes the fourth chief executive in USATF's history." He has "extensive background in working with other Olympic sports such as swimming, gymnastics, and skiing as an attorney based in Indianapolis." Siegel yesterday said that he "wanted to build more collaborative relationships with the sport's commercial partners, work on new and innovative things with ESPN, help shape the NBC television product, create more sponsorship opportunities for athletes, and finally, make an impact on participants from the grass roots to elite levels of the sport." He also "plans to stick with the USATF campaign started by Logan to push for 30 medals at the London Olympics" (Eugene REGISTER-GUARD, 4/24). In N.Y., Lynn Zinser writes in hiring Siegel, USATF "did not travel far from its home base." Siegel said, "Who wouldn't want to challenge this challenge? I'm excited about the impact I can have on this organization but also on lifestyle" (N.Y. TIMES, 4/24).


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In his Feb. 17 piece, Our vision of peace, prosperity and cooperation, Ambassador Maen Rashid Areikat, the chief representative of the PLO Delegation to the United States, presents a lucid, fair and feasible solution to the Israel/Palestinian territory, ethnic and religious conflict.
If a similarly equitable adoption and implementation of the partition plan of Palestine that created the state of Israel had been devised at the end of the British Mandate for Palestine in May 1948, a great deal of Middle East bloodshed and worldwide animosity could have been prevented.
Israel must demonstrate to the world that it has not become an abuser in this decades-long territorial struggle by no longer blocking the formation of a Palestinian state with the same citizenship rights and land privileges that Israel has enjoyed since 1948.
Graciela C. Catasus, Miami Beach


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Raised in Possum Kingdom, South Carolina, brothers Bear and Bo Rinehart developed an early enthusiasm for music, learning piano from their mom and moving on to guitar in their teens. As they grew older, the brothers walked different paths – Bear pursued college football, earning several all-time Furman University records and winning the 2002 Banks McFadden trophy, while Bo studied architecture at Clemson (though he too excelled on the gridiron, appearing in a supporting role in the 2003 football drama, Radio).
Despite their respective successes, the Rineharts still dreamt of making music. Bear formed a band during his college years playing coffee houses and later with Bo and Seth Bolt, a childhood friend they became the group known as NEEDTOBREATHE. The band's expressive songwriting and aggressive regional touring saw an ardent fan base grow in the South East in ever-increasing numbers.
Upon signing to Atlantic in 2005, NEEDTOBREATHE headed to the UK to record their debut album, "DAYLIGHT", with British Producer Andy Green, which released April 2006.
Age group-16+
For further information click here
Event Category: Live Music
When: October 1, 2013
Time: 8:00pm
Where: Bowery Ballroom
More Info: http://www.boweryballroom.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/boweryballroom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/boweryballroom


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HHS Issues Final Rule on Benchmarking EHBs for Insurance Exchanges
The rule also establishes the two-phase approach to be used in the quality health plan accreditation process. Phase one identifies the National Committee for Quality Assurance and the URAC as interim accrediting agencies. The two are already responsible for most health plan accreditations.
Phase two, which will be detailed in another rule, will establish the criteria-based review process to be used.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires HHS to define EHBs, which are 10 general categories of service that must be offered beginning in 2014 by health insurance exchanges, as well as individual and small group health insurance policies. In December, 2011, HHS announced that it would leave that job up to the individual states.
HHS, however, reserved the right to establish the process that states must use to identify their EHBs. According to the final rule, "HHS will also publish the state-specific benchmarks for notice and comment" and make final approval of the EHBs.
The EHB categories are
- ambulatory patient services,
- emergency services,
- hospitalization,
- maternity and newborn care,
- mental health and substance use disorder services (including behavioral health treatment), prescription drugs,
- rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices,
- lab services,
- preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management, and
- pediatric services (including oral and vision care
Comments are moderated. Please be patient.
- CNO Leads $1M Charge for New Scrubs, Uniforms
- NFP Hospitals' Revenue Growth at 'All-Time Low'
- Transforming Cancer Care
- Acute Kidney Injury Gets New Focus
- Interventional Radiology No Longer a Sub-Specialty
- Sharp HealthCare Leaves Pioneer ACO Program
- Half of All Primary Care, Internal Medicine Jobs Unfilled in 2013
- mHealth Tackles Readmissions
- MA an Insurance Proving Ground for Providers
- Proton Beam Therapy Poised for Growth in US


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Leeds North East 10th December 2010
Writing following the much reduced government majority securing the rise in University tution fees, Fabian has issued a statement to those contacting him on the issue.
"The Government got its increase through using a Statutory Instrument under an existing Act of Parliament, it did not even think it was worth introducing new primary legislation. The vote was carried by 324 votes in favour to 301 against - a majority of just 23 and given that the coalition government has a majority of 83, this was not bad. Every single Labour MP voted against. However, a number of Liberal Democrats abstained, effectively voting in favour, since their abstentions meant that the government won the day when had they voted with their consciences, the measure would have been defeated. We need to emphasise that these outrageous increases in Tuition Fees for university students which were Tory Party policy were only made possible by a handful of Liberal Democrat MPs who all pledged to abolish Tuition Fees at the last general election, barely six months ago. Ten Tory MPs voted with Labour MPs tonight, including David Davis."


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RAM Backwards compatible?
Last response: in Memory
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Don't-Miss Storage Stories
Business flash arrays pack in more storage with denser media
New NAND flash components fit more data into the same space, which reduces power consumption and per-gigabyte cost. The catch: Flash gets slower and more error-prone when it gets that dense
Next-gen storage wars: In the battle of RRAM vs 3D NAND flash, all of us are winners
While resistive RAM's chances of crowding out NAND flash anytime soon are slim, the coming RAM wars mean mobile users are likely to have hundreds of gigabytes, or even a terabyte, of storage at their fingertips.
New SATA spec paves way for faster SSDs
Make way for SATA Express, part of the new SATA revision 3.2 that was ratified on Thursday. The new version should pave the way for faster solid-state discs.
Box wants to be the teacher's pet
As a new school year approaches, Box is hoping to march into more campuses right alongside students and teachers with its cloud storage and file sharing application.
SSD shipments skyrocketed in the first quarter of 2013
SSD shipments nearly doubled from the first quarter of 2012 to the same time frame of 2013 thanks to growing usage of mobile devices.
Dimension Data plans cloud backup for its computing services
More cloud vendors are adding backup to the choices they offer customers, letting enterprises that embrace the cloud for applications, computing and storage also go there for business continuity.
Samsung starts producing fast, super-durable 3D vertical NAND chips
Samsung has started making flash storage chips that it claims will be twice as fast and up to 10 times more durable than the current flash storage used in mobile devices.
Businesses turn to the cloud to back up the cloud
Enterprises that rely on cloud-based services are getting more options for falling back on another cloud if necessary.
Startup PernixData virtualizes server-based flash
PernixData, a startup founded by VMware veterans, says its software can turn server-based flash storage into a resource shared across a standard VMware cluster of as many as 32 systems.
Microsoft to rename SkyDrive after losing trademark suit
A British broadcaster has successfully convinced a judge to require Microsoft to change the name of its SkyDrive cloud-storage service because of trademark issues.
Flash breakthrough promises faster storage, terabytes of memory
In the ongoing quest for faster access to data, Diablo Technologies has taken what could be a significant next step.
Will New 300GB Optical Discs Be Good For Businesses?
Sony and Panasonic announced plans to collaborate on new optical technology that packs up to 300GB of data on a single disc.
Why are Sony and Panasonic releasing 300GB optical discs in 2013?
This isn't as silly as you might think.