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Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Anyone interested in making bold predictions on the last four criminal cases still to be decided by SCOTUS this Term?
Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog has this helpful new post reviewing the final eight cases still to be resolved by the eight Justices before they take their summer vacations. Some of these opinions will be handed down tomorrow and the others are likely to be released early next week. Notably, four of the remaining eight are criminal cases (and I am leaving out of this accounting the big immigration case). Here are Amy's review of the four criminal cases left:
Voisine v. United States (argued February 29, 2016). Stephen Voisine and William Armstrong, the other petitioner in this case, both pleaded guilty in state court to misdemeanor assaults on their respective domestic partners. Several years later, each man was charged with violating a federal law that prohibits the possession of firearms and ammunition by individuals who have previously been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. Voisine and Armstrong contend their state convictions (which the First Circuit affirmed) do not automatically qualify as misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence because the state-law provisions can be violated by conduct that is merely reckless, rather than intentional.
Birchfield v. North Dakota (argued April 20, 2016). Twelve states and the National Park Service impose criminal penalties on suspected drunk drivers who refuse to submit to testing to measure their blood-alcohol levels. The question before the Court is whether those penalties violate the Fourth Amendment, which only allows police to "search" someone if they have a warrant or one of a handful of exceptions to the warrant requirement applies. Three drivers from North Dakota and Minnesota argue that neither of those conditions is met, and so the laws must fall. The North Dakota and Minnesota Supreme Courts ruled in favor of the states, and now the Justices will weigh in.
Mathis v. United States (argued April 26, 2016). After having been convicted of several burglaries in Iowa, Richard Mathis was later prosecuted by the federal government for being a felon in possession of a firearm and received a mandatory minimum sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act based on his burglary convictions. The Eighth Circuit affirmed his conviction. The question before the Court is how to determine whether state convictions like Mathis's qualify for federal mandatory minimum sentences and for removal under immigration law.
McDonnell v. United States (argued April 27, 2016). Former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell is challenging his convictions for violating federal laws that make it a felony to agree to take "official action" in exchange for money, campaign contributions, or anything else of value. The Fourth Circuit affirmed, and so the Justices agreed to weigh in. He argues that merely referring someone to an independent decision maker – in his case, in an effort to help promote a Virginia businessman's nutritional supplement – doesn't constitute the kind of "official action" that the statute bars.
I think it is possible that any of these cases could turn into a blockbuster, and Birchfield and McDonnell arguably require the Justices to do some "big" jurisprudential work to resolve the issues before them. Narrow/technical rulings seem more likely in Voisine and Mathis, though the former may get some extra attention in light of the on-going political discussions and sparring over gun control following the Orlando shootings and the latter seems sure to add yet another chapter to the lengthy and complicated ACCA jurisprudence.
As we await these final rulings (and especially because all are sure to be eclipsed in the mainstream media by the abortion, affirmative action and immigration cases also on tap), I would be eager to hear from readers about what they are expecting or even hoping for as the SCOTUS Term winds down.
June 22, 2016 in Offense Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (2)
"Making Hard Time Harder: Programmatic Accommodations for Inmates with Disabilities Under the Americans with Disabilities Act"
The title of this post is the title of this interesting new report from the AVID Prison Project. (AVID stand for Amplifying Voices of Inmates with Disabilities, and its website provides more on the report and on the AVID Prison Project.) Here are excerpts from the report's executive summary:
The disproportionate incarceration of people with disabilities in the United States is a serious and growing problem. As the prison population ages, more inmates are reporting physical disabilities. The U.S. has also seen a rise in the number of people with mental illness and developmental and cognitive disabilities in prison. National surveys now indicate that as many as 31 percent of inmates in state prisons report having at least one disability.
While prison is hard for everyone, incarceration is even more challenging for inmates with disabilities. Research shows that inmates with disabilities are sentenced to an average of fifteen more months in prison as compared to other inmates with similar criminal convictions. The time they serve is also harder, with more sanctions imposed and less access to positive programming than other inmates. Prisoners with disabilities are also four times more likely to report recent psychological distress as compared to inmates without disabilities. In a system intended to control and sanction behavior believed to violate the many regulations that govern prison life, inmates with disabilities who need accommodations are often overlooked, ignored, or even punished.
Very few outsiders are allowed into the prisons, and the public rarely gets to witness the conditions in which many inmates are confined. In recent years, protection and advocacy agencies (P&As), organizations granted with special federal authority to enter facilities that serve people with disabilities, have been going behind prison walls to identify issues facing inmates with disabilities.
P&As have received reports of inmates forced to drag themselves across their cell or sleep on the floor because their cane or walker was removed. Inmates with cognitive disorders, intellectual disabilities, or mental illness have sought assistance because they are unable to complete the programming required to move out of restrictive housing, forcing them to remain in segregation for years, if not decades. These same inmates may be punished for failing to follow the written rules of the prison, rules they either cannot read or cannot understand due to a disability, resulting in sanctions, loss of good time, or even additional criminal charges. Inmates in need of therapeutic diets or those who require assistance in activities of daily living often find themselves caught in an endless cycle of institutional grievances and appeals as they seek approval for accommodations in correctional policy and practice.
In recognition of the growing population of inmates with disabilities, in 2012 Disability Rights Washington, the P&A for Washington State, began focusing more attention on the state's prisons, investigating the conditions of these correctional settings and working on creative solutions to some of the most serious problems faced by inmates with mental illness, brain injuries, and physical and intellectual disabilities. In early 2014, with increased funding through a private grant, Disability Rights Washington created Amplifying Voices of Inmates with Disabilities (AVID), a project with the sole purpose of protecting and advancing the rights of inmates with disabilities and assisting those who are reentering society. In September 2014, AVID brought together staff from the P&As in New York, South Carolina, Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, and Texas, as well as from the National Disability Rights Network, to strategize about ways to increase national attention on the issues faced by inmates with disabilities.
This report, which has grown out of that collaborative national effort, aims to highlight the difficulties that inmates with disabilities face as they seek to access programs and services in state prison systems. P&As from across the country provided examples of either past or ongoing advocacy to enforce the protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on behalf of inmates with disabilities. By no means exhaustive, this report provides an overview of the protections afforded to inmates with disabilities under the ADA as well as examples in which P&As have advocated effectively on behalf of inmates with disabilities. This advocacy is multi-modal, ranging from routine monitoring, to informal and individual advocacy, to systemic litigation.
This report begins with a brief overview of the P&A system, describes the different types of advocacy P&As use, and outlines the ADA's application to prisons. Next, this report details the work P&As across the country have done to advance inmates' rights under the ADA, focusing on three main areas of prison life: (1) hygiene, health, and safety, (2) accommodations in communication, and (3) access to programming and services. A review of this work reveals that while the ADA has been in place for more than 25 years, much remains to be done to bring programs and buildings in the nation's prisons into compliance with the requirements of the ADA. This report concludes with a series of recommendations for future action....
Ultimately, this report is intended to spur interest and action within the P&A network and other prison advocacy groups and increase focus on what has become a crisis within the nation's prison system.
June 22, 2016 in Offender Characteristics, Prisons and prisoners, Scope of Imprisonment | Permalink | Comments (0)
Ninth Circuit discusses timing and tolling for successor 2255 petitions making Johnson claims
Hard-core habeas fans know that all sorts of procedural issues can potentially trip up federal defendants serving Armed Career Criminal Act sentences from being able to bring claims collaterally attacking their sentences based on Johnson v. US. Some of the procedural trip-wires, and potential work-arounds, are discussed today by a Ninth Circuit panel in Orona v. US, No. 16-70568 (9th Cir. June 22, 2016) (available here).
I am not sure any of the particulars discussed in Orona are that noteworthy, but I thought the case merited a blog mention because this week is, arguably, the last week in which defendants with long-final sentences can bring timely collateral attacks based on Johnson.
June 22, 2016 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Vagueness in Johnson and thereafter | Permalink | Comments (0)
Making the case for enfranchisement to create a "prison constituency"
Corey Brettschneider has this lengthy new commentary at Politico with this lengthy full headline: "Why Prisoners Deserve the Right to Vote: Giving inmates the vote isn't just constitutionally the right thing to do, it could also help the country solve one of its most intractable problems." I recommend the full piece, and here are excerpts from its closing sentiments:
Perhaps the most important reason to allow prisoner voting is that prisons, not just prisoners, would benefit. Prisoners need the vote to serve as the "natural defenders" of their own interests. But in defending their own interests, prisoners could substantially improve the prison system itself.
We can start with the issue of prisoner abuse. We already know that prisoners are subject to abusive and inhumane conditions. In a 2011 ruling that held overcrowded California prisons in violation of the Eighth Amendment, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that in California alone, an inmate "needlessly dies every six or seven days." Plenty of other prison practices, such as solitary confinement, are just now receiving public scrutiny, and there are likely more troubling conditions we don't know about. Under the current system, ending abusive practices requires years of expensive litigation as prisoners sue over maltreatment and prisons adjust to the rulings. We could improve prisons much more quickly and cheaply by creating a political constituency of prison voters.
How would that work? Obama's historical 2015 visit to a federal prison was noteworthy because politicians rarely listen to those incarcerated. A prison and jail constituency, numbering roughly 2 million across 50 states, would make it routine for politicians to hold town halls and seek ways to improve prison and jail conditions from those who are subjected to them. This is not coddling prisoners. More and more politicians are looking to reform our criminal justice system, and this would be a common sense way to help them identify needed changes.
Of course, granting the right to vote is not enough to create a robust prison constituency. Prisoners will also need to be granted the right to speak freely and receive information, both of which are rights that are often limited for prisoners currently. Superstar litigator and former Solicitor General Paul Clement has already filed a lawsuit defending the right of prisoners to gain access to news about public life. Indeed, government can be held accountable only when citizens have information about the actions of their representatives.
Many will resist the idea of a prison constituency. The point of prisons, they say, is to inflict punishment, not to allow organizing. But this is shortsighted. Prison is itself already severe punishment. The deprivation of liberty and the loss of control over everyday interaction, including the ability to see one's loved ones on a daily basis, are all severe constraints imposed by incarceration. One can be punished without being subjected to civic exile.
Some will argue that it is enough to allow prisoners to regain their right to vote after release. But we cannot expect prisoners to be deprived of all rights and then emerge from prison ready to use them well. The new consensus around post-release enfranchisement demands a smarter way to think about prisoners' political rights behind bars. A prison constituency with rights to vote and related rights of free speech can engage in civic activism that will continue after release. Although voters in Massachusetts saw prisoner political participation as a kind of insurrection, it is nothing like the violent insurrections that marked prisons of the 1970s. As Joe Labriola, chairman of a Massachusetts civic prison organization called the Norfolk Lifers Group, put it, "In the '70s, we thought we could make change with violence. Our whole point now is to make prisoners understand that we can make changes by using the vote. We have the ability to move prisons in a new direction."
Research by Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell and Maya Sen suggests another reason to care about voting in prison: They show that even temporary gaps in voting will have a long-term impact on participation. If we really care about felons' post-release political participation, it is important that they be able to participate while they are in prison....
The creation of a prison constituency is not yet on the national agenda. But the increasing end to post-felony disenfranchisement makes this a good time to think about deeper changes to the way we treat the incarcerated. In the meantime, alternative measures could move things in the right direction: We should affirm nationally and, if need be, litigate for the right of prisoners to form PACs on the model of the Massachusetts group. Although legitimate concerns exist about the impact of PAC money on politics, these committees do provide a way to further a group's policy interests. We can no longer grant that right to non-incarcerated citizens as a matter of free speech and deny it to prisoners, who are, according to the Supreme Court, citizens no less. The backlash from Massachusetts' citizens was from an era in which mass incarceration was lauded and prison organizing was anathema in national politics. But today, citizens from both political parties are mobilizing against the harsh prison policies of the 1990s. Giving prisoners the right to free political speech is a sensible corrective to our misguided practice of mass incarceration.
In the end, restoring these basic rights is not only the right thing to do constitutionally; it could also present positive solutions to a major national political problem. The prison system would be more effective if it were accountable to its constituents. Prisoners have often committed heinous crimes. But they remain a part of our democratic polity, and we can learn from what they have to say.
June 22, 2016 in Elections and sentencing issues in political debates, Prisons and prisoners, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (3)
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
"Society would benefit from rewarding attorneys for identifying the wrongly and unnecessarily imprisoned"
The title of this post is the subheading of this great new article in the latest issue of Regulation published by the Cato Institute. The article, authored Christopher Robertson and Jamie Cox Robertson, carries the main title of "Reducing Wasteful Incarcerations," and here are excerpts from the start and heart of the article:
Prisons are essential to a safe and civil society. Prisons are also costly for the taxpayers whose government houses, feeds, medicates, and supervises millions of people underlock and key. This expense is compounded by errors in the U.S. legal system that produces both false guilty verdicts and overly harsh penalties. It's time for the United States to take a closer look at these unnecessary incarcerations. By working to release prisoners who don't belong in prison, we can lower the costs of the prison system — not to mention restore freedom to people who are wrongly being deprived of it. Unfortunately, it is difficult to identify which prisoners are wrongly incarcerated, and itwould take an enormous investment of professional expertise and money to produce that information. However, we could make valuable progress on this issue by offering appropriate incentives for attorneys to identify some of these wasteful incarcerations, thus saving public money and serving the ends of liberty....
Under current law, most prisoners probably deserve to be there, and there is no simple algorithm for identifying which ones don't. The challenge is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and that requires professional skills and the investment of both time and money. Currently, to do this sorting, we largely depend on charity, luck, and pluck, which is no way to run a multibillion dollar government enterprise.
A better approach would be for the government to increase funding for public defenders so they can do more post-conviction litigation. Some public defenders already have in-house innocence projects. Still, funding for public defenders' offices is notoriously scarce, the salaries offered for these cases often fail to attract the best attorneys needed to undertake such complex work, and the overworked offices naturally triage in favor of new cases.
Of course, we could spend more on public defenders. But as a centrally planned solution, it's hard to assessthe optimal level of investment. Prior reform efforts suggest that additional spending on public defenders may also be politically infeasible because it is often viewed as providing a service for criminals.
Instead, governmentsshould consider using a contingent-fee system for post-conviction counsel. Attorneys would only receive this fee if they successfully show that a prisoner's continued incarceration is wrongful. The fee could be based on a simple proportion of the estimated amount the government would save by stopping the incarceration — perhaps 50% of those costs. Or, the system could be set up like the statutory fee paid to civil rights attorneys, taking into account a reasonable hourly rate multiplied by a factor to recognize the low chances of prevailing. In the False Claims Act, passed during the Civil War to root out fraud by government contractors, and the more recent whistle blower statute that the Internal Revenue Service uses to expose tax evaders,we have precedents for paying financial rewardsthat align the interests of knowledgeable individuals and the government.
The advantage of a contingent fee is that it gives attorneys an incentive to search for worthy cases and bring them to prosecutors and the courts, which is exactly what a cost-conscious government needs. Unlike desperate and unskilled prisoners representing themselves, attorneys would have no incentive to clog the courts with frivolous claims for post-conviction relief. Any such claim would require the investment of time and money without promise of return. Instead, we should expect a small industry of specialist attorneys to develop, at first focusing on the low-hanging fruit, but then becoming more specialized to identify entire categories of cases where review is most promising.
June 21, 2016 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (6)
Bureau of Justice Statistics releases new detailed report on recidivism of federal offenders
This official press release reports on some of the interesting highlights of this interesting new report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics about recidivism rates and patterns for federal offenders. The report is formally titled "Recidivism of Offenders Placed on Federal Community Supervision in 2005: Patterns from 2005 to 2010." Here is the text of the BJS press release on the report:
Of the nearly 43,000 federal offenders who were placed on federal community supervision in fiscal year 2005, an estimated 43 percent were arrested at least once within five years of their placement, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. An estimated 18 percent of these offenders were arrested at least once within one year of placement on community supervision and 35 percent were arrested at least once within three years of placement.
An estimated 80 percent of offenders who were placed on federal community supervision in 2005 were male. More than a third (41 percent) were white and nearly a third (31 percent) were black. An estimated 28 percent were age 29 or younger and about 42 percent were age 40 or older.
The first arrest offense for federal offenders after placement on community supervision varied by federal and nonfederal offenses. Among federal offenses, public order offenses, such as probation violations, accounted for 90 percent of first arrests of federal offenders after placement on community supervision, compared to 33 percent of first arrests for nonfederal offenses.
In comparing federal and state prisoners placed on community supervision, almost half (47 percent) of federal prisoners were arrested within five years, compared to more than three-quarters (77 percent) of state prisoners. Nearly a third (32 percent) of federal prisoners returned to prison within five years of their release to community supervision, compared to more than half (59 percent) of the state prisoners.
Other findings include —
Nearly a quarter (23 percent) of federal offenders on community supervision were directly sentenced to probation, while more than three-quarters (77 percent) began a term of community supervision following release from prison.
An estimated 70 percent of federal offenders on community supervision had at least one prior nonfederal arrest, and more than a third (35 percent) had four or more prior nonfederal arrests.
June 21, 2016 in Data on sentencing, Detailed sentencing data, Offender Characteristics, Reentry and community supervision | Permalink | Comments (3)
Open letter from large group of reform advocates urges Prez Obama to "accelerate the process" for granting clemency
As reported in this new USA Today piece, headlined "Experts warn White House that time is running out for clemency initiative," an impressive group signed on to this open letter to Prez Obama discussing his clemency activities. Here are excerpts from the USA Today reporting providing some pf the leteer's context and content:
Thousands of federal inmates could be eligible to have their sentences reduced under the Obama administration's initiative to free non-violent offenders from prison, but experts are warning the White House that time is running out for the president to take action.
A record-setting number of clemency petitions, lack of resources and a confusion over eligibility have hampered President Obama's plan to use his constitutional pardon power to shorten sentences, particularly for low-level drug offenders serving mandatory minimum sentences. If those inmates are going to have any hope, President Obama needs to personally intervene in the process, a group of advocates, law professors and attorneys said in a letter to the president Tuesday.
"The initiative has been plagued by bureaucratic inefficiencies that have kept petitions that meet all of your stated criteria from reaching your desk," the letter said. "We are concerned that as your days in office diminish, the clemency initiative is moving too slowly to meet the goals you set when you announced it in 2014."
The letter was signed by 41 people, led by Julie Stewart of Families Against Mandatory Minimums and including and law professors from Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, Berkeley, Columbia, Northwestern, New York University and others. Also notable: former White House special adviser Van Jones and former U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner.
In response, the White House said Obama "has demonstrated a commitment to the commutations process not seen by any other president in the modern era." He's issued more commutations than the past seven presidents combined, written personal letters to clemency recipients and met with recipients to urge society to give them second chances.
"As we have said, the president will continue to issue additional commutations throughout the remainder of his time in office," said Assistant White House Press Secretary Brandi Hoffine. "The clemency process alone, however, will not address the vast injustices in the criminal justice system resulting from years of unduly harsh and outdated sentencing policies."
Obama has stepped up the pace of commutations in his last year in office, no longer waiting until the end of the year to announce clemency decisions. Obama granted 61 commutations in March, 58 in May and 42 this month — part of what White House Counsel Neil Eggleston said was a deliberate attempt to grant clemency on a more regular basis. In all, Obama has commuted the sentences of 348 people, more than any president since Franklin Roosevelt. (He's also granted just 70 pardons, fewer than any full-term president since 1800.)
But according to the Office of Pardon Attorney, 11,861 commutation petitions were still pending as of June 6, fueled largely by the Judtice Department's call for more applications from volunteer defense attorneys in 2014. And this isn't the first time there have been warnings of a backlog in the process. A year ago, former Pardon Attorney Deborah Leff told defense lawyers that "the clock is running," and that petitions weren't coming in quickly enough. There were questions about the eligibility criteria, and many cases required a complete re-examination of court and prison records. Then in January, Leff resigned, citing a lack of resources and interference from Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates that prevented her recommendations from reaching the president's desk.
I had the honor of being asked to sign on to this open letter, and I agree with nearly all of its sentiments. But, as I stressed in this post a few months ago, I have been clamoring for clemency reform since Prez Obama's first day on the job, and I remain deeply disappointed and troubled that there seems to have been no serious interest or commitment to any kind of structural/institutional reform in this space. As a result, I did not feel I could comfortable sign this letter because it includes a sentence stating that, in th clemency arena, the signers "believe [Prez Obama's] leadership will bring lasting change to the country and set the table for further reforms in future administrations."
I certainly do not want to unduly criticize Prez Obama's (still very important) efforts in this arena, and I am especially pleased to see this open letter getting press attention. But, unless Prez Obama does something more than just grant a few hundred more commutations (which is what I am expecting to see in the coming months), I am still going to view his Presidency in terms of a unique missed opportunity to create a criminal justice reform legacy in this historically and constitutionally important arena.
June 21, 2016 in Clemency and Pardons, Criminal justice in the Obama Administration, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (0)
"What is 'violent' crime?"
The question in the title of this post is the very first sentence of this effective Salon commentary by Benjamin Levin. The commentary has this (much less pithy) full headline and subheadline: "It's time to rethink 'violent' crime: How mislabeling misconduct contributes to our bloated criminal justice system: The distinction between violent and nonviolent crime is a problematic metric for determining criminal punishment." And here are excerpts:
What is "violent" crime? Perhaps that seems like an easy question — murder is; tax evasion isn't. But the distinction between violent and nonviolent crime has proven tricky for lawyers, judges and legislators.
Policy debates about proper punishments or enforcement too often break down because the various stakeholders get hung up on whether the crime in question is "violent." If we are serious about addressing mass incarceration and our bloated criminal justice system, it's time to rethink what counts as violent crime.
Perhaps nowhere is this issue more evident than in recent debates about drug crime. Where the bipartisan push to reduce prison populations has focused on "nonviolent drug offenders," sentencing reform opponents have argued that drug crime is inherently violent.
Last year, the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys (an organization representing federal prosecutors) published a white paper arguing that drug trafficking is violent crime. Last month, William Bennett and John Walters (the drug czars for Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, respectively), penned an op-ed echoing this claim.
I think that Bennett and Walters are wrong on the facts, but their argument also highlights the problem with using the violent/non-violent distinction as a relevant metric of criminal punishment.
Bennett and Walters claim that drug trafficking is violent because of the harms that drugs themselves do (i.e., by hurting users and by imposing third party harms). Notably, their claim isn't that drug dealers use violence to make money and control their turf. Indeed, a body of research shows that prohibition – not the drugs themselves — has made drug dealing a dangerous industry. Rather, their claim is that drug dealing is violent because it has victims. And that's a much broader claim.
They're certainly right that many illegal drugs carry with them severe health risks and risks to third parties, causing danger at home, in the workplace, and on the road. But does that make drug dealing a "violent crime"?
Bennett and Walters's argument appears to rest on an expansive definition of violent – an act is violent if it does harm in the world or if people suffer directly or indirectly because of it. This definition would capture many traditional violent crimes (murder, rape, assault, etc.), but it would also sweep in a great deal of conduct that does harm, directly or indirectly. Why isn't selling alcohol or cigarettes a violent act? What about gun possession? Drunk driving? Theft? Or even tax evasion?
While the Supreme Court has struggled to define when conduct is "violent," the real-world consequences of this definitional question are critically important: the law often treats violent and nonviolent crime very differently. Many laws govern the conduct of those with criminal records, restricting housing, employment, voting and a range of benefits. These laws often depend upon the nature of the underlying offense — a violent felony might preclude someone from finding work in a given industry; a nonviolent conviction might not. Additionally, a conviction for a violent (as opposed to a nonviolent) crime might trigger a much longer sentence if an individual commits another crime — even if the second crime is nonviolent or less serious....
Certainly, there are many cases in which most of us would agree that the alleged conduct is violent. And there may be cases in which most of us would agree that conduct is nonviolent. (And, those latter cases often serve as the easiest point of bipartisan sentencing reform.) Yet Bennett and Walters's argument shows that most harmful or objectionable conduct might be classified as violent. If a determination that crime is violent rests simply on finding someone who suffers directly or indirectly based on the act in question, then the definition knows no bounds.
If "violent crime" means so many things, then it only creates the illusion that society has sorted out the true "bad guys" or punished the worst conduct. Instead, it becomes a proxy for social harm, risk prediction, or moral condemnation. It may be that consensus on questions of criminal punishment is an impossible goal. But continuing to cast all objectionable conduct as violent is counterproductive and makes meaningful compromise and reform even more difficult.
June 21, 2016 in Offense Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (7)
Intriguing review of Georgia's intriguing modern history with capital punishment
Because many modern landmark Supreme Court death penalty cases came from Georgia (e.g., Furman, Gregg, Coker, McKlesky), the Peach State will always have a plum role in any story of the modern history of the death penalty. And this recent local article, headlined "Georgia executions rise, while death sentences plummet," details why Georgia's most recent history with capital punishment also merits attention. Here is how the piece starts:
It's Georgia's new death penalty paradox: the state is executing inmates at a record clip, but prosecutors almost never seek the death penalty anymore, and juries refuse to impose it when they do.
During each of the past two years, Georgia executed five inmates. If, as expected, the state carries out another execution later this year, it will have put more people to death — six — in 2016 than in any single year since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment four decades ago. But the last time a Georgia jury imposed a death sentence was in March 2014. And district attorneys have been turning away from death as a sentencing option, more often allowing killers to receive sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A decade ago, state prosecutors filed notices of intent to seek the death penalty against 34 accused killers. That number dropped to 26 in 2011 and to 13 last year. How many times have Georgia DAs sought the death penalty so far this year? Once. And this was against a man accused of killing a priest — a clergyman who had signed a document saying if he died a violent death he did not want his killer to face the death penalty.
The incongruity of the increasing numbers of executions and the plummeting numbers of death sentences took both prosecutors and defense attorneys by surprise. "Wow," Atlanta criminal defense attorney Akil Secret said. "Maybe the times are changing." The precipitous declines raise the question of whether prior capital sentences were justified, Secret said. "If a life-without-parole sentence is sufficient for today's worst crimes, why isn't it sufficient for those crimes from the past where death was imposed?"
June 21, 2016 in Data on sentencing, Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (3)
Monday, June 20, 2016
"Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Statistical Discrimination: A Field Experiment"
The title of this post is the title of this revealing new empirical paper available now via SSRN and authored by Amanda Agan and Sonja Starr. Here is the abstract:
"Ban-the-Box" (BTB) policies restrict employers from asking about applicants' criminal histories on job applications and are often presented as a means of reducing unemployment among black men, who disproportionately have criminal records. However, withholding information about criminal records could risk encouraging statistical discrimination: employers may make assumptions about criminality based on the applicant's race.
To investigate this possibility as well as the effects of race and criminal records on employer callback rates, we sent approximately 15,000 fictitious online job applications to employers in New Jersey and New York City, in waves before and after each jurisdiction's adoption of BTB policies. Our causal effect estimates are based on a triple-differences design, which exploits the fact that many businesses' applications did not ask about records even before BTB and were thus unaffected by the law.
Our results confirm that criminal records are a major barrier to employment, but they also support the concern that BTB policies encourage statistical discrimination on the basis of race. Overall, white applicants received 23% more callbacks than similar black applicants (38% more in New Jersey; 6% more in New York City; we also find that the white advantage is much larger in whiter neighborhoods). Employers that ask about criminal records are 62% more likely to call back an applicant if he has no record (45% in New Jersey; 78% in New York City) — an effect that BTB compliance necessarily eliminates. However, we find that the race gap in callbacks grows dramatically at the BTB-affected companies after the policy goes into effect. Before BTB, white applicants to BTB-affected employers received about 7% more callbacks than similar black applicants, but BTB increases this gap to 45%.
June 20, 2016 in Collateral consequences, Offender Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Race, Class, and Gender, Reentry and community supervision, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (1)
A couple of SCOTUS wins for prosecution in procedural cases
There really are no more big sentencing cases pending on the SCOTUS docket, but the Supreme Court is still resolving a number of cases dealing with a number of criminal justice issues. Today, two such cases were handed down, and here are the basics (with links) via How Appealing:
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. delivered the opinion of the Court in Taylor v. United States, No. 14-6166. Justice Clarence Thomas issued a dissenting opinion....
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court in Utah v. Strieff, No. 14-1373. Justice Sotomayor issued a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Ginsburg joined in part. And Justice Kagan issued a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Ginsburg joined.
For some early commentary, here are two posts from Crime & Consequences on these cases:
- An Incremental Win for Evidence from Good-Faith Police Searches
- Crime and Commerce, Interstate and International
I expect C&C and SCOTUSblog and others will have more commentary on these cases before too long, though neither appear to blockbusters. And because I am on the road most of the rest of the day, I hope commentors will flag anything in these opinions that ought to be of special interest to sentencing fans.
June 20, 2016 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (12)
GVRs based on Foster generates opinions, including dissent from Justices Alito and Thomas
Last month, as reported here, the Supreme Court's reversed a conviction in Georgia capital case, Foster v. Chapman, because the Court had a "firm conviction" juror strikes in the case were "motivated in substantial part by discriminatory intent." Today, at the end of this order list, the Court now has relied on Foster to issue this order in a few cases:
The motion of petitioner for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the Supreme Court of Mississippi for further consideration in light of Foster v. Chatman, 578 U. S. ___ (2016).
Justice Ginsburg explains this order via a concurrence in one of the cases, while Justice Alito joined by Justice Thomas cries foul. Here is how Justice Alito starts his dissent on one of these cases:
This Court often "GVRs" a case—that is, grants the petition for a writ of certiorari, vacates the decision below, and remands for reconsideration by the lower court—when we believe that the lower court should give further thought to its decision in light of an opinion of this Court that (1) came after the decision under review and (2) changed or clarified the governing legal principles in a way that could possibly alter the decision of the lower court. In this case and two others, Williams v. Louisiana, No. 14–9409 and Floyd v. Alabama, No. 15–7553, the Court misuses the GVR vehicle. The Court GVRs these petitions in light of our decision in Foster v. Chatman, 578 U.S. ___ (2016), which held, based on all the circumstances in that case, that a state prosecutor violated Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), by striking potential jurors based on race. Our decision in Foster postdated the decision of the Supreme Court of Mississippi in the present case, but Foster did not change or clarify the Batson rule in any way. Accordingly, there is no ground for a GVR in light of Foster.
June 20, 2016 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Race, Class, and Gender, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (0)
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Some highlights from Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform . . . for Fathers' Day(?)
I am not sure if it is in any way fitting to be blogging about marijuana reform topics on Fathers' Day, but polls do pretty consistently show that men are generally more supportive of reform than women. That reality aside, this review of some recent postings from my Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform blog highlights that fathers and mothers, sons and daughters all ought to be paying attention to this dynamic arena of law and policy:
Two great new Brookings papers on the varied forces really shaping marijuana reform
Women in Maryland marijuana industry savoring absence of a glass ceiling in new industry
Big-stakes litigation over Michigan legalization initiative gets underway
Microsoft's engagement with marijuana industry hits the front page of the New York Times
New Drug Policy Alliance report highlights problems with access and data in New York medical marijuana program
Former Minnesota Gov makes full-throated argument for full marijuana legalization
Notable CDC survey data showing no changes in youth marijuana use despite massive state changes in marijuana law and policy
June 19, 2016 in Marijuana Legalization in the States, Pot Prohibition Issues, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (1)
Alabama appeals court says, in essense, "roll tide" to its capital sentencing process
As reported in this post from a few months ago, a county judge had declared Alabama's capital murder sentencing scheme unconstitutional because it allows judges to override jury recommendations of life without parole and instead impose the death penalty. But, as reported by this local article, late last week an Alabama appeals court took a different view. Here are the basics:
An Alabama appeals court on Friday ordered a Jefferson County judge to vacate her rulings earlier this year that declared the state's capital punishment sentencing scheme unconstitutional. In its order the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals says the state's capital sentencing scheme is constitutional and told Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Tracie Todd to vacate her March 3 order in the pending capital murder cases of four men that says otherwise.
The Alabama Attorney General's Office had filed four petitions for a writ of mandamus asking the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals to direct Todd to vacate her orders and allow the state to decide whether to seek imposition of the death penalty in those cases if it decides.
The cases involve Kenneth Eugene Billups, Stanley Brent Chapman, Terrell Corey McMullin, and Benjamin Todd Acton who were all indicted for various counts of capital murder. Chapman and McMullin are charged in the same case and the others in separate cases. Before their trials, the men each filed a motion to bar imposition of the death penalty in their cases and to hold Alabama's capital-sentencing scheme unconstitutional based on the United States Supreme Court's decision in January declaring Florida's death sentencing system unconstitutional....
Todd agreed and declared the capital murder sentencing law unconstitutional in a 28-page order. "The Alabama capital sentencing scheme fails to provide special procedural safeguards to minimize the obvious influence of partisan politics or the potential for unlawful bias in the judiciary," Todd stated in her ruling. "As a result, the death penalty in Alabama is being imposed in a "wholly arbitrary and capricious" manner."
The Court of Criminal Appeals, however, said Friday that the state's capital sentencing law is constitutional. "Alabama's capital-sentencing scheme is constitutional under (U.S. Supreme Court rulings) Apprendi, Ring, and Hurst, and the circuit court (Todd) erred in holding otherwise and prohibiting the State from seeking the death penalty in capital-murder prosecutions," the appeals court opinion on Friday states.
The Alabama Attorney General's Office established the prerequisites for the appeals court to issue an order to Todd telling her to vacate her opinion, the appeals court stated in its order. "Therefore, the circuit court (Todd) is directed to set aside its order holding Alabama's capital-sentencing scheme unconstitutional and to allow the State to seek the death penalty in capital-murder prosecutions if it chooses to do so.
The appeals court ruled that under Alabama's capital-sentencing scheme a capital murder defendant "is not eligible for the death penalty unless the jury unanimously finds beyond a reasonable doubt, either during the guilt phase or during the penalty phase of the trial, that at least one of the aggravating circumstances ... exists."
The court noted that Florida's law, which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in January as unconstitutional, was conditioned on a first-degree-murder defendant's eligibility for the death penalty based on a finding by the trial judge, rather than the jury, that an aggravating circumstance existed. The appeals court also criticized the fact that the Attorney General was not given a the required notice that a state law was being challenged as unconstitutional and that Todd then didn't allow an assistant AG to speak at the hearing she held before making her ruling. Todd also had pre-written her ruling before the hearing, the court stated.
Judges Mike Joiner and Liles Burke concurred with the majority although they differed on some points in separate opinions. Both Joiner and Burke criticized Todd's order. Todd's order "contains sparse analysis on the application of Hurst to Alabama's capital-sentencing scheme," Burke wrote. "The majority of the order is devoted to the trial court's opinions regarding partisan politics, the effects of an elected judiciary, court funding, and the propriety of the death penalty in general," Burke states. "Additionally, the trial court extensively cites secondary sources, including materials from "Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty" as well as from the Web site of the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization whose attorneys are representing the defendants in this very proceeding." "In reviewing the materials that were filed with this Court, I find no mention of these issues," Burke writes. "Thus, I question whether the trial court's (Todd's) ultimate conclusion is based on its analysis of Hurst or on the trial judge's personal opinions regarding Alabama's death penalty."
Alabama's attorney general reacted to the ruling early Friday night. "Today's decision by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals is the first case to affirm under Hurst that Alabama's capital sentencing is constitutional," Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange stated in a Friday evening press release. "The Appeals Court vacated the Jefferson County Court's March order and thereby held that Alabama can continue to seek the death penalty in capital murder prosecutions."
It's unclear, however, how Friday's ruling might affect recent orders by the U.S. Supreme Court telling the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals to reconsider the appeals of three Alabama death row inmates in light of the Supreme Court's ruling earlier this year striking down Florida's capital punishment scheme.
The full 58-pages of opinions from the Alabama Court of Appeals can be accessed at this link.
Some prior related posts:
- Post-Hurst hydra heads emerging in Alabama
- Post-Hurst hydra takes big bite into some capital cases in Alabama
- Is SCOTUS essentially telling Alabama its capital punishment process in unconstitutional through Hurst GVRs?
June 19, 2016 in Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (2)
"Collateral Consequences and the Preventive State"
The title of this post is the title of this article by Sandra Mayson just posted to SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Approximately eight percent of adults in the United States have a felony conviction. The "collateral consequences" of criminal conviction (CCs) — legal disabilities imposed by legislatures on the basis of conviction, but not as part of the sentence — have relegated that group to permanent second class legal status. Despite the breadth and significance of this demotion, the Constitution has provided no check; courts have almost uniformly rejected constitutional challenges to CCs. Among scholars, practitioners and mainstream media, a consensus has emerged that the courts have erred by failing to recognize CCs as a form of additional punishment. Courts should correct course by classifying CCs as "punishment," the consensus holds, such that constitutional constraints on punishment will apply.
This Article argues for a different approach. The consensus view overlooks the fact that most CCs invoke a judgment of dangerousness as the basis for limiting individual liberty. Given their predictive logic, the Article contends that there are serious costs to classifying (most) CCs as punishment and that the courts have reached a defensible result in declining to do so. Where they have erred is in assuming that, as mere regulation, CCs are benign. On the contrary, laws that restrict certain people's liberty solely on the basis of their perceived propensity to commit future crimes raise both moral and constitutional concerns. Rather than classify CCs as punishment, this Article contends that the better approach to constitutional adjudication of most CCs — for both theoretical and tactical reasons — is to recognize them as predictive risk regulation and seek to develop appropriate constraints.
June 19, 2016 in Collateral consequences, Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Reentry and community supervision | Permalink | Comments (0)
Even after Orlando shootings, GOP leaders in Congress unwilling to allow more medical research into gun deaths
Though I generally favor so-called "common-sense" gun regulations, I am not sure that more gun regulations will really help to reduce gun violence. But I am sure that more research on gun violence and gun-related deaths could and should help us better engineer laws to advance public safety. Consequently, I was saddened and disappointed to see this recent article in The Hill. It is headlined "GOP rebuffs doctors on gun research," and here are excerpts:
The American Medical Association's new push to unfreeze federal funding for gun research is hitting a wall of resistance in the Republican Party. In the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando, the nation's leading doctors group announced Tuesday it plans to "actively lobby" against a nearly 20-year-old budget rule that has prevented federal researchers from studying gun-related deaths.
The near-unanimous vote, which took place two days after Orlando shooting early Sunday morning, puts the powerful doctor's lobby at odds with Second Amendment supporters who have argued that gun-related violence is no different from other violent acts.
Dr. Alice Chen, the executive director of the nonprofit Doctors for America, called the move a "game changer" for the long-standing fight to lift the research restrictions. "The strength of the AMA's vast membership, plus that of the over 100 medical and public health groups across the country, will be hard for Congress to ignore," she said.
But Republicans in Congress, including those in the House Doctors Caucus who are members of the group, are soundly rejecting the AMA's calls for research into gun-related deaths. "I don't particularly see the need for it, quite frankly," Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who leads health funding for the House Appropriations Committee, told The Hill on Thursday.
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), a member of the House Doctors Caucus, said he also opposed the policy change. "Although I'm a member of the AMA, I don't always agree with the position they take," Burgess told The Hill on Thursday. "It seems to have worked well. I don't favor changing it," Burgess said of federal researchers staying away from the issue of guns....
It's becoming increasingly unlikely that the gun research will be part of Congress's response to the Orlando shooting. Cole, the Oklahoma Republican, said GOP leaders are much more likely to boost funding for the FBI to improve background checks. "Research is good, but unfortunately, this administration has used terrorism despicably to advance their gun control issue. It doesn't shock me to tears that he might use [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] research rules to do the same," Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) said Thursday.
Democrats this week already forced the GOP-led House Energy and Commerce Committee to vote on the research issue during its markup of a mental health bill. That amendment, from Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.), failed on a party line vote of 23-29.
The moratorium on federal gun research stems from a 1997 budget amendment that prohibits federal funds "to advocate or promote gun control" — language that researchers say has had a chilling effect. Republicans adopted the so-called Dickey amendment, named after Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ga.), in 1997 after strong lobbying from groups such as the National Rifle Association. Gun rights supporters have long argued that government agencies use studies to advance gun control, something researchers deny.
Dickey has since reversed course and is now campaigning to change the wording in the law. Other gun rights advocates have remained strong in their opposition. Larry Keane, general counsel for the National Sports Shooting Association, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has "misdiagnosed the issue."
"Our view is that criminal violence involving firearms is a criminal justice [issue]," Keane said in an interview Thursday. "The CDC should focus on its mission, which is addressing diseases and illnesses like cancer and preventing an outbreak of the Zika virus."
The renewed push for lifting the federal research restrictions began on Tuesday, after the AMA's policy-making arm, the House of Delegates, decided by voice vote to "actively lobby" on the issue. It also officially declared gun violence to be a "public health crisis" for the first time, over the protest of some members.
American Academy of Family Physicians president, Dr. Wanda Filer, who attended the meeting in Chicago, said she heard "very few nay votes" during the vote. The resolution had been drafted late into the night on Sunday by a group of young doctors who skipped planned conference festivities to draft it.
It was the second year in a row the AMA's conference was interrupted by reports of a mass shooting. Last year, the AMA held a moment of silence after the shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., that killed nine people....
Filer said the AMA's vote adds momentum to the cause that many physician groups, like hers, already supported. "Without research and being brave enough to ask the questions, we're going to have ill-informed, emotional arguments," Filer said Thursday. "What we're saying is, we need research."
Importantly, I do not disagree with the gun rights advocates' view that "criminal violence involving firearms is a criminal justice [issue]," but accepting that notion does not logically justify precluding medical research on gun-related deaths. If our society is truly committed to reducing gun deaths, we ought to have bright researchers working in all disciplines studying this grave problem to try to discover evidence-based strategies to improve public safety. But, sadly, it seems that even after the worst mass shooting in recent US history, partisan politics can still preclude sensible policymaking.
June 19, 2016 in Gun policy and sentencing, Offense Characteristics, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (2)
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Considering the potential negative consequences of the Stanford rape sentencing controversy and judge recall effort
Jeannie Suk has this notable New Yorker commentary headlined "The Unintended Consequences Of The Stanford Rape-Case Recall." Here are excerpts:
Federal judges at least have lifetime tenure to insulate them from public pressure. For the vast majority of state judges in America, who are elected and who must fund-raise and campaign to get and retain their jobs, ignoring public opinion is impossible. The phenomenon of electing judges strikes many as antithetical to the ideals of an independent judiciary. Pamela Karlan, a Stanford Law School professor, has suggested that "fear of future electoral retaliation" may cause pernicious judicial bias. In fact, studies show that the prospect of a reëlection or retention campaign makes judges more punitive toward criminal defendants, and high-court judges more likely to affirm death sentences. Even more troubling, eight states provide a recall process for the public to remove a sitting judge before he or she stands for reëlection or retention. In California, all that is necessary for a recall election is a petition that follows a certain format and has enough signatures.
We are now seeing a very public judicial-recall movement in response to a sexual-assault case in California. More than a million people have signed petitions demanding the removal of Aaron Persky, the California state judge who sentenced Brock Turner, a Stanford swimmer convicted of three felony sexual-assault counts, to six months in jail, three years of probation, and lifetime registration on the sex-offender list....
Judge Persky's explanation of his departure from the state guidelines included the statement that "a prison sentence would have a severe impact" on Turner. To many, this remark appeared to discount both the harm to the victim and the effects of imprisonment on people who were not formerly élite college students. Michele Dauber, a Stanford law professor and a family friend of the victim, is leading the campaign to force a recall election to replace Persky, stating, "We need judges who understand violence against women."...
It is remarkable, to say the least, that sharp disagreement over a particular decision has ballooned into a widespread social movement to oust a judge. But as the historian Estelle B. Freedman noted in the Times, earlier this week, American feminists have twice succeeded in recalling state judges because of their handling of rape cases: in San Francisco in 1913 and in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1977. Those recall efforts coincided with the first- and second-wave feminist movements, while the current decade has brought intense student activism and government action to force schools to take campus sexual assault more seriously. The movement to recall Persky is an expression of outrage, not just about one case but about a broader failure to acknowledge violence against young women and about the class and race privilege afforded to white male defendants. Turner's case is extraordinary not only because of the severity of the assault but because it occurred in public and was observed and stopped by two reliable witnesses. Without the two students who happened upon the crime, it is unlikely that the case would even have made it to the police, given that an estimated two-thirds of sexual assaults go unreported, and that the victim here had no memory of the event.
The petitioners and supporters of the victim have every right and reason to protest the sentence imposed by Persky. And because Persky is elected, and his electorate is empowered to recall him if it is unhappy with his job performance, a recall effort is a reasonable form for their protest to take. But the fact that it is a valid form of protest does not mean that we should be directing serious concerns about rape into a campaign to fire a judge in retaliation for an overly lenient criminal sentence. The current recall movement could have the effect of pressuring judges to play it safe by sentencing more harshly — and there is no reason to believe that will be true only in cases with white male rape defendants.
Nonwhite men are more likely than white men to be perceived as violent, predatory, or acting without consent, by complainants, police, prosecutors, witnesses, juries, and judges — particularly if a complainant is white. That bias translates into inequality at all levels of the criminal system, from reporting and arrest to conviction and sentencing. Of course, that bias is precisely what Turner's victim's allies intend to protest with their recall efforts. But as Paul Butler, a Georgetown law professor, wrote last week, in the Times, that effort could easily lead to harsher sentences all around, even in cases where giving someone a break is the right thing for a judge to do. "The people who would suffer most from this punitiveness would not be white boys at frat parties," Butler argued, but rather black and Latino men, who make up a disproportionate sixty per cent of the country's prisons and jails.
The strong public reaction and organizing after the Stanford case has expanded public engagement with the largely campus-based efforts to change how sexual assault is treated in our society. It also reflects a tension between the crime of sexual assault and the generally progressive social-justice movements criticizing harsh criminal penalties. This recall movement could not only influence who is elected to judgeships and the decisions those judges make, it could also spur harsh new legislative measures. In the midst of our reckoning with decades-long ravages of the war on drugs, are we gearing up to have sexual assault take its place to fulfill our apparent appetite for outrage and punishment? The existing sex-offender registries, which cause convicted people to be reviled and ostracized long after their penalty, are ready-made to support that turn.
Prior related posts:
- Lots of seemingly justifiable outrage after lenient California sentencing of privileged man convicted of three felony counts of sexual assault
- Lots more mainstream and new media commentary on lenient sentencing of Stanford sex assaulter
- NY Times debates "Should an Unpopular Sentence in the Stanford Rape Case Cost a Judge His Job?"
- "The Stanford rape case demonstrates liberal hypocrisy on issues of basic fairness in the criminal justice system"
- Juror involved in trial of Stanford swimmer Brick Turner assails sentence given for sexual assault convictions
June 18, 2016 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sex Offender Sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (5)
New analysis suggests Pennsylvania may have spent more than $1 billion for its (dysfunctional) capital system
This interesting new Reading Eagle article, headlined "Executing Justice: A look at the cost of Pennsylvania's death penalty," seeks to put a price tag on the operation of the death penalty in the Keystone State. The article starts this way:
Pennsylvania's death penalty system since 1978 has produced three executions at a stunning cost: $272 million each, for a total of $816 million, according to a Reading Eagle analysis. The revised analysis of the death penalty's cost to taxpayers dwarfs the $350 million total the paper estimated in 2014.
But, this cost appraisal is also conservative, calculating — over nearly four decades — the expense of sentencing inmates to death rather than life in prison. The total tally, at least one researcher said, could easily top $1 billion.
Death penalty critics note that the money — in a time of constricting budgets — drains public coffers and could be spent to fund a wide range of services, including sorely needed road construction or bridge repairs, while supporters doubted the costs could reach $1 billion.
"We're scratching for every dollar that we can right now," said state Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, a Montgomery County Republican and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "To continue to spend that kind of money is hard to justify."
June 18, 2016 in Death Penalty Reforms | Permalink | Comments (0)
Friday, June 17, 2016
"'Loss' Revisited: A Guarded Defense of the Centerpiece of the Federal Economic Crime Sentencing Guideline"
The title of this post is the title of this notable new article authored by Frank Bowman now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This article discusses "loss," the concept at the heart of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines section governing economic crimes, Section 2B1.1. It notes the common criticism that "loss" plays too large a role in federal economic crime sentencing, but distinguishes between the sound observation that structural problems in Section 2B1.1 cause loss amount to generate too many "offense levels" and critiques of the core definition of "loss."
The article summarizes previous suggestions made by the author and others to address the arguably disproportionate role played by "loss," but it focuses primarily on the Guidelines' definition of "loss," whether actual or intended. The article defends the fundamental soundness of the existing "loss" definition, but suggests some points on which improvements might be made, particularly to the definition of intended loss.
The article was solicited as a response to an article by Mr. Daniel Guarnera, published in the same issue of the Missouri Law Review, in which Mr. Guarnera argues for a revision of the definition of intended loss to include unrealized harms as to which the defendant was reckless.
June 17, 2016 in Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Offense Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, White-collar sentencing | Permalink | Comments (0)
Daughter of mass murder victim explains why she opposes death penaly for Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof
This new Vox commentary authored by Sharon Risher explains a notable person's notable perspective on forgiveness and the death penalty in a notable capital case. The piece is headlined "My mom was killed in the Charleston shooting. Executing Dylann Roof won't bring her back." Here are excerpts:
Ethel Lance, my mother, was killed on Wednesday, June 17, 2015, along with my cousins Susie Jackson and Tywanza Sanders, and six other people at Charleston's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. It appears to have been a racially motivated massacre plotted by a 21-year-old white man....
A mere 48 hours after the church shooting, millions of Americans watched my sister, Nadine Collier, stand in front of our mother's accused killer and forgive him at his bond hearing. The media ran with the forgiveness narrative, praising the ability of the victims' families for their graciousness and faith.
I didn't forgive Dylann Roof. And I still don't forgive him. After I saw my sister address the nation, I thought, This girl has to be crazy! Who's going to forgive him so quickly? I was hurt that people thought Nadine's views reflected the views of the Lance family and the thoughts of all of the Charleston nine's loved ones.
Don't get me wrong. I disagreed with Nadine, but I respected her opinion — she's my sister, and she has a right to her own emotions and grieving process. Still, after the shooting, there were several articles that exploited our different ways of grieving. They pitted us against each other in the midst of a horrific tragedy.
I understand that the people of Charleston, and of America as a whole, latched onto the overwhelming message of forgiveness as a coping mechanism. But the focus on quick forgiveness and the pivot to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina statehouse washed away the severity of the larger issues at hand – that the accused killer, because of his hatred of black people, could be so stirred by white supremacist ideology that he would go into that church to kill my momma and all the others.
The man accused of killing my mother did not show any remorse. Why should I feel the need to forgive him when he has not asked for forgiveness? I know God commands us to forgive, but there is no time stamp — forgiveness is a journey that you allow yourself to feel because someone has wronged you....
In the months since the shooting, I received a handwritten letter from Lucia McBath, whose son Jordan Davis was killed in 2012 from gun violence. Lucia sent her condolences and told me to reach out to her if I needed to. On a whim, I did. From there, I became involved with gun control advocacy, rallying for national gun control organizations....
Despite the anger I am still coping with from my mother's death, I don't believe in the death penalty, even for the man who killed her. That's my conviction because of my faith. I've said the same thing all along — I don't believe as human beings that we should take away someone's life just because we have the power to do so.
God is the only person, the only being who decides our fate. Still, I will let the judicial system do what they choose. The Department of Justice announced last month that it will seek the death penalty against the shooter. Whatever the outcome, I will not protest.
This is how my faith carries me. I don't walk in fear. I don't think about Dylann Roof. All I want to do is do what God has planned out for me. If I can stop one person from experiencing the pain myself and my family and all the families experienced post-Charleston, then I have done my part.
June 17, 2016 in Death Penalty Reforms, Offense Characteristics, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (1)
Thursday, June 16, 2016
"States of Incarceration: The Global Context 2016"
The title of this post is the title of this notable new report from the folks at the Prison Policy Initiative. This press release from PPI provides an overview of the context and contents of this report:
How does your state compare to the international community when it comes to the use of incarceration? Not very well, says a new report and infographic by the Prison Policy Initiative.
"When compared against each other, some U.S. states appear to be far more restrained in their use of incarceration than high incarcerators like Louisiana," said Peter Wagner, Executive Director of the Prison Policy Initiative and co-author of the report. "But all U.S. states are out of step with the rest of the world."
This report, "States of Incarceration: The Global Context 2016," updates our 2014 briefing that, for the first time, directly situated individual U.S. states in the global context.
"Massachusetts and Vermont have the lowest incarceration rates in the U.S.," said Alison Walsh, report co-author and Policy & Communications Associate. "Compared to Louisiana, these states look progressive. But if these states were independent nations, they would rank as the 11th and 12th greatest users of incarceration on the planet, following the United States and a group of nations whose recent history often includes wars, military coups and genocides."
The report includes an interactive graphic showing the incarceration rates for individual U.S. states and the District of Columbia and all countries with a population of at least 500,000. The report also includes a separate graphic comparing the incarceration rates of the U.S. to several NATO nations. "I hope that this data helps all states prioritize further criminal justice reforms. Lower incarceration rates are not only possible, in the rest of the world they are a reality," said Wagner.
The report and infographic draw international figures on incarceration from the Institute for Criminal Policy Research's World Prison Brief and state-level figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Easthampton, Massachusetts-based Prison Policy Initiative was founded in 2001 to expose the broader harm of mass criminalization and spark advocacy campaigns to create a more just society. The organization is most well known for sparking the movement to end prison gerrymandering and for its big picture data visualization "Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie."
June 16, 2016 in Data on sentencing, Detailed sentencing data, Prisons and prisoners, Scope of Imprisonment, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (0)
Making the case that Congress should, at the very least, make the Fair Sentencing Act fully retroactive
Julie Stewart, the President of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), has this notable new Huffington Post commentary headlined "The Least Congress Can Do on Criminal Justice Reform." Here are extended excerpts:
Five and a half years ago, I wrote an op-ed in this space in which I urged Congress to apply retroactively the recently passed Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 (FSA). The FSA reduced the indefensible disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences from 100:1 to 18:1. Every member of the U.S. Senate, including Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), supported the FSA because they recognized that there was simply no scientific or public safety rationale for the disparity and yet ample evidence of its racially discriminatory effect. Yet five and a half years later, Congress still has not approved FSA retroactivity.
There are approximately 4,900 individuals still serving the crack cocaine sentences Congress repudiated when it passed the FSA. They are the people whose cases we used to illustrate why the law needed to change, yet they did not benefit. After the FSA passed, the U.S. Sentencing Commission fixed all of the non-mandatory minimum crack sentences by lowering its guidelines consistent with the new law. But the Commission only has authority to changes its guidelines, not mandatory minimum punishments set by Congress and found in statutes.
Today, legislation to make the FSA retroactive is included in a broader sentencing reform bill, which was introduced by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and is pending in the Senate.... [T]he U.S. Sentencing Commission, at FAMM's urging and with FAMM's support, has done all it can to reduce drug sentences and make those reductions retroactive for tens of thousands of federal prisoners. Notably, those who received retroactive relief from the Commission have reoffended at a lower rate than those who served their full sentences.
We recognize that bipartisan consensus and compromise are essential to passing criminal justice reform through the Congress. Because of the hard work of key senators and outside advocates from across the ideological spectrum, we believe that Senator Grassley's bill would receive more than the 60 votes necessary to invoke cloture and would probably receive closer to 70 votes on final passage. But in an election year, especially a presidential election year, consensus is not enough. The bar is much higher. Unanimity, not broad consensus, is required. Without unanimity, any reform bills will require floor time and will be subject to hostile amendments that could significantly weaken them.
Unanimity is lacking today because of a number of factors. A couple of vocal but mistaken members of Congress insist that any drug sentencing reform will endanger the public, an election-year fearmongering tactic that has no basis in fact. There is also strong disagreement about whether to include minimum criminal intent requirements ("mens rea") in any final reform bill. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) support broad mens rea protection; the White House and most Democrats strongly oppose it. The congressional calendar presents an equally daunting challenge. We are in June of an election year. The Senate only plans to be in session for roughly 40 days between now and the November election....
For 4,900 people serving sentences Congress itself deemed unfair, members of the Senate and House need not wait a day longer. If prospects for passing a larger package of criminal justice reforms do not dramatically improve in the coming days, Congress should at least pass narrow legislation making the FSA retroactive. Those serving discredited, excessive sentences for crack offenses should not be forced to wait any longer for justice. The Sentencing Commission's evidence suggests that giving retroactive relief to those serving excessive crack sentences does not harm public safety. To the contrary, making the FSA retroactive would save lives, money, and right a terrible wrong. That is a legacy both parties can be proud to share with their voters this Fall.
June 16, 2016 in Drug Offense Sentencing, Mandatory minimum sentencing statutes, New crack statute and the FSA's impact, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (1)
New NIJ research report explores particulars and reasons for unprecedented 2015 increase in US homicides
The National Institute of Justice this week released this important and interesting new report authored by criminologist Richard Rosenfeld titled "Documenting and Explaining the 2015 Homicide Rise: Research Directions." Here is the report's executive summary:
The debate over the size, scope and causes of the homicide increase in 2015 has been largely free of systematic evidence. This paper documents the scale of the homicide increase for a sample of 56 large U.S. cities. It then examines three plausible explanations of the homicide rise: an expansion of urban drug markets fueled by the heroin epidemic, reductions in incarceration resulting in a growing number of released prisoners in the nation's cities, and a "Ferguson effect" resulting from widely publicized incidents of police use of deadly force against minority citizens. The paper concludes with a call for the more frequent and timely release of crime information to address crime problems as they arise.
The homicide increase in the nation's large cities was real and nearly unprecedented. It was also heavily concentrated in a few cities with large African-American populations. Empirical explanations of the homicide increase must await future research based on year-end crime data for 2015. Several empirical indicators for assessing the explanations under consideration here are discussed. For example, if the homicide increase resulted from an expansion in urban drug markets, we should observe larger increases in drug-related homicides than those committed under other circumstances. If returning prisoners fueled the homicide increase, that should be reflected in growing numbers of homicides committed by parolees.
It will be more difficult to empirically evaluate the so-called Ferguson effect on crime increases, depending on the version of this phenomenon under consideration. The dominant interpretation of the Ferguson effect is that criticism of the police stemming from widely publicized and controversial incidents of the use of force against minority citizens caused the police to disengage from vigorous enforcement activities. Another version of the Ferguson effect, however, switches the focus from changes in police behavior to the longstanding grievances and discontent with policing in AfricanAmerican communities. In this interpretation, when activated by controversial incidents of police use of force, chronic discontent erupts into violence.
The de-policing interpretation of the Ferguson effect can be evaluated with data on arrests and other forms of self-initiated activity by the police. De-policing should be reflected in declining arrest rates in cities experiencing homicide increases. Tracing the pathways from chronic levels of discontent to an escalation in homicide will ultimately require ethnographic studies in minority communities that reveal, for example, whether offenders believe they can engage in crime without fear that residents will contact the police or cooperate in police investigations. Such studies could also disclose other linkages between discontent, police use of force and criminal violence.
In summary, the following research questions for documenting and explaining the 2015 homicide rise, at a minimum, should be pursued when the requisite data become available:
• How large and widespread was the homicide increase in 2015? Did other crimes also increase?
• What conditions drove the homicide increase? Candidate explanations must account for the timing as well as the magnitude and scope of the increase.
• What role, if any, did the expansion of drug markets play in the 2015 homicide increase? Was there a relative increase in drug arrests and drug-related homicides?
• Did declining imprisonment rates contribute to the 2015 homicide rise? Was the increase greater in cities with more returning prisoners and among parolees?
• What role did the Ferguson effect play in the homicide rise? If de-policing contributed to the increase, arrest rates should have declined in cities experiencing the largest homicide increases. An open question is how to evaluate the role, if any, of community discontent with the police. Ethnographic studies, among other methods, should be high on the list of research approaches to identify the mechanisms linking police legitimacy and escalating levels of violence.
Researchers would have been in a better position to begin addressing the 2015 homicide rise, with evidence rather than speculation, if timely crime data had been available as the increase was occurring. We would have known whether the homicide rise was confined to large cities, whether other crimes were also increasing, and whether arrest rates were falling. The debate over the homicide increase would have been better informed. Technical impediments to the monthly release of crime data no longer exist. A large and worrisome increase in homicide should be the catalyst to finally bring the nation's crime monitoring system into the 21st century.
June 16, 2016 in National and State Crime Data, Offense Characteristics | Permalink | Comments (8)
"Private Prisons and the Marketplace for Crime"
The title of this post is the title of this notable new paper authored by andré douglas pond cummings and Adam Lamparello now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:
A saner and safer prison policy in the United States begins by ending the scourge of the private prison corporation and returning crime and punishment to public function. We continue by radically reimagining our sentencing policies and reducing them significantly for non-violent crimes. We end the War on Drugs, once and for all, and completely reconfigure our drug and prison policy by legalizing and regulating marijuana use and providing health services to addicts of harder drugs and using prison for only violent drug kingpins and cartel bosses. We stop the current criminalization of immigration in its tracks and block the private prison lobby from influencing legislation in our current immigration policy debates. We provide prisoners a fair wage for work done in prison, allowing them a re-entry account upon release filled with the money they earned while working in prison. We provide humane and habitable prison cells populated by one inmate, as saner and safer crime and punishment policies will imprison far fewer American citizens.
At their core, private prisons reflect a continuation of policies that have tainted the criminal justice system with perceptions of arbitrariness, unfairness, and injustice. As this article has shown, the continued proliferation of private prisons does not save taxpayers money, increase prison safety, or elevate the conditions of the prison environment. Conversely, they do the opposite. Inmates are being physically abused, denied medical care, and forced to endure inhumane living conditions, as corporations like CCA and GEO Group realize higher profits from a marketplace in which prisoners are in high demand. Indeed, CCA is a textbook example of the grave injustices that can occur when profit maximization clashes with human dignity. The time has arrived for private prisons to be eliminated and for legislators and courts to realize that this experiment is one that has failed. Until that time comes, Congress should implement purpose-driven reforms to ensure that private prisons can no longer be institutions where inmates have rights but no remedies.
June 16, 2016 in Prisons and prisoners, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Scope of Imprisonment | Permalink | Comments (0)
Delaware Supreme Court struggles to tame the post-Hurst hydra
As regular readers know, in this post not long after the Supreme Court in Hurst v. Florida declared Florida's death penalty procedures violative of the Sixth Amendment, I coined the term term "post-Hurst hydra" to describe what I expected to be multi-headed, snake-like litigation developing in various courts as judges sort ought what Hurst must mean for past, present and future capital cases. This local article reports on the Delaware Supreme Court arguments yesterday trying to sort out the constitutionality of the state's death penalty law in the wake of Hurst. Here are excerpts:
After two sides argued their cases Wednesday morning, justices on Delaware's highest court departed to consider the constitutionality of the most severe punishment of all – death.
The Delaware Supreme Court is weighing the merits of a judge's role in capital punishment sentencing and how it relates to the right to a jury trial. "We understand how important this is (to all you)," said Chief Justice Leo E. Strine Jr. before exiting the packed courtroom with his four Supreme Court colleagues.
The issue arose after the U.S. Supreme Court determined in January that Florida's death penalty statute was unconstitutional and that "the Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death." After the ruling, all death penalty trials in Delaware were stopped until more clarity was brought to the state's process and how it relates to the constitution.
According to the Supreme Court in an order, there are over two dozen capital cases pending in Superior Court, four scheduled for trial, in less than 120 days.
Questions to the court were raised in the currently pending murder case of Benjamin Rauf. On Wednesday, attorneys presented their beliefs before the court in a scheduled 60-minute session, at times engaging in question and answer discussions with the justices.
Since a jury decides whether a case is death penalty eligible in Delaware, the state maintains that constitutional requirements are currently met. Deputy Attorney General Sean Lugg argued for the state on Wednesday. Mr. Lugg said Delaware's sentencing scheme, which was revised in 2002 in response to a previous U.S. Supreme Court ruling, meets all of the elements outlined by the Supreme Court in the Florida decision, according to the Associated Press. "The fundamental right to a jury is provided by the Delaware statute," he said....
In Delaware, judges have the final say on whether a death sentence is ordered; a jury must find at least one statutory aggravating factor unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt to make a defendant death penalty eligible. In Florida, judges had the responsibility to find any "aggravating factors" that qualify it for possible capital punishment sentencing.
Assistant Public Defender Santino Ceccotti argued for the appellant. "The Sixth Amendment requires not a judge, but a jury, to find each fact," he said.
Prior related post:
- Post-Hurst hydra develops new heads in Delaware as all capital cases get halted
- Updating Delaware's struggles with the post-Hurst hydra
June 16, 2016 in Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Split Second Circuit panel reverses (on procedural grounds, sort of) 60-year sentence for production and possession of child porn
A few helpful readers helped make sure I did not fail to note the interesting split Second Circuit panel decision handed down yesterday in US v. Brown, No. 13‐1706 (2d Cir. June 14, 2016) (available here). Here area key passages from the majority opinion authored by Judge Pooler explaining its (procedural?) basis for reversal of a 60-year prison term (with most cites omitted) for the production of child pornography:
At sentencing, the district court noted "the trauma to these three children," the fact that "three children" would have to "worry for the rest of their li[v]e[s]" about the photographs, and that Brown "destroyed the lives of three specific children." App'x at 100‐01. The district court's explanation suggests that the 2 individual harm suffered by each of Brown's three victims played a critical role in the district court's decision to impose three consecutive 20‐year sentences. But the sentencing transcript also suggests that the district court may have misunderstood the nature of that harm as to Brown's third victim. Three times the court emphasized the mental anguish that "three specific children" would suffer as a result of Brown's abuse. App'x at 100‐01. Brown's third victim, however, has "no knowledge of having been victimized by Brown." PSR ¶ 35. Her mother declined to submit a victim impact statement specifically because her daughter "was unaware of the abuse" and had experienced "no negative impact." PSR ¶ 51. To be sure, the district court was entitled to punish Brown for that abuse regardless of whether the victim was aware of it. But given the district court's repeated emphasis on the fact that Brown had destroyed the lives of "three specific children," we conclude that it is appropriate to remand for resentencing to ensure that the sentence is not based on a clearly erroneous understanding of the facts.
It is possible that, on remand, the district court will reimpose the same 60‐year sentence that it imposed at the original sentencing. Although we express no definitive view on the substantive reasonableness of that sentence at this time, we respectfully suggest that the district court consider whether an effective life sentence is warranted in this case. We understand and emphatically endorse the need to condemn Brown's crimes in the strongest of terms.
But the Supreme Court has recognized that "defendants who do not kill, intend to kill, or foresee that life will be taken are categorically less deserving of the most serious forms of punishment than are murderers." Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 69 (2010)....
The sentencing transcript suggests that the district court may have seen no moral difference between Brown and a defendant who murders or violently rapes children, stating that Brown's crime was "as serious a crime as federal judges confront," App'x at 101, that Brown was "the worst kind of dangerous sex offender," App'x at 102, and that he was "exactly like" sex offenders who rape and torture children, App'x at 100. Punishing Brown as harshly as a murderer arguably frustrates the goal of marginal deterrence, "that is, that the harshest sentences should be reserved for the most culpable behavior."...
Finally, to the extent that the district court believed it necessary to incapacitate Brown for the rest of his life because of the danger he poses to the public, we note that defendants such as Brown are generally less likely to reoffend as they get older.
Judge Droney authored a lengthy dissent, which gets started this way:
The majority simply disagrees with the length of the imprisonment imposed upon the defendant by the district court, yet it cloaks that disagreement as procedural error. There was no procedural error, and the sentence was well within the discretion of the district court. It was also appropriate. The defendant sexually abused at least three very young girls, recorded that abuse, installed secret cameras in public areas where children changed clothes, and possessed over 25,000 images of child pornography on his computers, including many scenes of bestiality and sadistic treatment. No doubt this was a lengthy sentence, but it was warranted.
I dissent. The district judge committed no error whatsoever— procedural or substantive.
June 15, 2016 in Booker in district courts, Booker in the Circuits, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (7)
"The Antidemocratic Sixth Amendment"
The title of this post is the title of this intringuing new article about the right to counsel authored by Janet Moore and now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Criminal procedure experts often claim that poor people have no Sixth Amendment right to choose their criminal defense lawyers. These experts insist that the Supreme Court has reserved the Sixth Amendment right to choose for the small minority of defendants who can afford to hire counsel. This Article upends that conventional wisdom with new doctrinal, theoretical, and practical arguments supporting a Sixth Amendment right to choose for all defendants, including the overwhelming majority who are indigent.
The Article's fresh case analysis shows the Supreme Court's "no-choice" statements are dicta, which the Court's own reasoning and rulings refute. The Article's new theoretical framework exposes the "no-choice" stance as an antidemocratic concentration of judicial power, which blocks pressure from poor people to strengthen the right to counsel. Finally, the Article addresses practical objections to an equal right of attorney choice with innovative strategies that promote meaningful choice for all defendants.
June 15, 2016 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (0)
If you are eager to take a peek behind this blog...
you can and should thank Scott Greenfield, the defense attorney behind the terrific Simple Justice blog, for kindly inviting me to be subject to this "cross" at Mimesis Law. Scott asked me 10 series of questions about my personal and professional history, and as a teaser I will reprint here the first and last sent of Scott's "crossing" inquiries:
Q. You graduated Princeton in 1990 with a degree in philosophy. Why philosophy? Was this about a liberal arts foundation for the future, or was there a plan to be the Nietzsche of Jersey? How did that prepare you for the rigors of law school and, later, the practice of law? Were there any alternatives coming out of Princeton other than law for your future?...
Q. Having written the hornbook on sentencing law, getting your second endowed chair professorship, and being the acknowledged sentencing scholar on the internets, what's next for you? Are you a professor for life? Dean someday? What about a seat next to Judge Calabresi? What's the next step for Doug Berman? And will SL&P last forever?
If you are curious at all about how I responded to these queries and eight more sets of terrific questions in between, please do check out CROSS: Douglas Berman, The Final Sentence
June 15, 2016 in On blogging, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (0)
Juror involved in trial of Stanford swimmer Brick Turner assails sentence given for sexual assault convictions
I am generally somewhat hesitant about lambasting a judge's sentencing decision when I have only limited information about the case, and I often wonder whether others' quick to critcize a particular decision have reviewed all the key evidence before going on the attack. Relatedly, I am uniquely interested in the views and criticisms of a sentening decision lodged by anyone who was intimately involved in the case, and thus I find distinctly noteworthy this new report about new criticisms of the controversial Brock Turner sentencing. The article is headlined "Juror slams judge in Stanford rape case, calls sentence 'a mockery' amid recall push," and here is how it gets started:
The judge who sentenced Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner to six months in jail for sexual assault is continuing to face criticism for his decision. The effort to recall Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky has gained steam, with several political groups vowing to raise money for the campaign. Two veteran Democratic political consultants, Joe Trippi and John Shallman, decided Thursday to join the effort to force a recall election.
Then, one of the jurors who convicted Turner of sexual assault wrote a letter to Persky. The juror wrote of being "absolutely shocked and appalled" at the sentence.
"After the guilty verdict I expected that this case would serve as a very strong deterrent to on-campus assaults, but with the ridiculously lenient sentence that Brock Turner received, I am afraid that it makes a mockery of the whole trial and the ability of the justice system to protect victims of assault and rape," the juror wrote to Persky. "Clearly there are few to no consequences for a rapist even if they are caught in the act of assaulting a defenseless, unconscious person," the juror wrote in the letter, which was obtained by the Palo Alto Weekly [available here].
Prior related posts:
- Lots of seemingly justifiable outrage after lenient California sentencing of privileged man convicted of three felony counts of sexual assault
- Lots more mainstream and new media commentary on lenient sentencing of Stanford sex assaulter
- NY Times debates "Should an Unpopular Sentence in the Stanford Rape Case Cost a Judge His Job?"
- "The Stanford rape case demonstrates liberal hypocrisy on issues of basic fairness in the criminal justice system"
June 15, 2016 in Celebrity sentencings, Sex Offender Sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (7)
"Substantive and Procedural Silence"
The title of this post is the title of this intriguing new paper authored by Erin Sheley now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Perceptions of the procedural fairness of the criminal justice system turn on whether it gives individuals and communities a "voice," or a forum in which to tell their stories. If the system imposes unwanted silence on a party its legitimacy in the eyes of the public decreases. Despite the extensive literature on the many specific applications of silence in the justice system, no attempt has yet been made to break down the relationship between the victim's silence and the defendant's across the disparate doctrines of criminal law, or the importance of these interconnections to the expressive purposes of punishment, particularly in a world where punishment so frequently turns on the outcome of plea negotiations.
Such an effort requires us to recognize a distinction between procedural silence, which is grounded in the individual rights of each party, and what should be understood as substantive silence, which can form part of both the definition of criminal conduct on the front end and, on the back end, of the judgment and sentence in a particular case. This article has two purposes. One, it provides the first full taxonomy of the role of silence in the criminal law and identifies the key interactions between procedural and substantive silence. And, two, it offers normative suggestions — particularly to prosecutors — for managing silence in a way that will better achieve justice in light of the cumulative relationship between substance and procedure.
June 15, 2016 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Split en banc Ninth Circuit tries its level best to sort through what Freeman means for crack guideline retroactivity eligibility
This Courthouse News Service article, headlined "Ninth Circuit Tackles Sentencing Disparities," does a nice job explaining the context and particulars of the ruling on a Ninth Circuit en banc court yesterday in US v. Davis, No. 13-301335 (9th Cir. June 13, 2016) (available here). Here are snippets from the press reporting:
Davis pleaded guilty to distributing at least 170.5 grams of crack cocaine in 2005. U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton, a George W. Bush appointee, sentenced Davis on the higher end of the 188- to 235-month federal guidelines range a year later.
In 2010, Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced the sentencing disparity ratios between crack and powder cocaine down to 18-to-1. The U.S. Sentencing Commission passed an amendment the following year that would allow more than 12,000 drug offenders — 85 percent of whom were black — to apply for retroactive relief. But prosecutors claimed that Davis waived his right to contest his sentence when he signed his plea agreement back in 2005.
After losing two rounds of appeals, Davis notched a small courtroom victory that may help hundreds who received disproportionate sentences. In addressing Davis's case, the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals tried to settle a controversy that has raged since the Supreme Court's uncertain conclusion five years ago in Freeman v. United States, which did not clearly define whether defendants could be eligible for retroactively reduced sentences if they pleaded guilty under guidelines that were subsequently reduced.
Although five justices agreed that the appellant in that case should receive reconsideration of his sentence, only four concurred on the lead opinion. Four judges dissented, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a special concurrence. This left lower courts to puzzle over whether Sotomayor had broken the tie. "To say that Freeman divided the court would be an understatement," U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Paez wrote for a divided 11-judge panel in Monday's majority opinion. "Not only did the plurality and dissenting opinions take opposite positions, but both also strongly criticized Justice Sotomayor's concurrence."...
Davis has received a fresh opportunity to reduce his sentence, but this does not guarantee that the district judge will grant him relief. Jones Day attorney Nathaniel Garrett, who represents Davis, said in a phone interview that his client's recommended sentence under the federal guidelines should drop dramatically when it returns to the lower court. Garrett noted sentencing guidelines without the 100-to-1 crack-to-powder disparity would range between 78 and 97 months in prison, and Davis already has served 143 months behind bars.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission noted two years ago that at least 71 applications for sentence reductions have been denied because of plea agreements like the one Davis signed, but Garrett believes his client's case would open the way for others to find relief. "What we don't know is how many individuals are in prison who haven't applied because the courts told them that they can't," he said.
Nancy Talner, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington state affiliate, said in a phone interview that the opinion underscores "how unfair the old crack-cocaine sentencing was."...
In a concurring opinion, U.S. Circuit Judge Morgan Christen agreed that Davis deserved the opportunity to reduce his sentence, but quibbled about how courts should interpret plurality decisions with no clear victors. The majority opinion leaves the possibility open to take dissenting opinions into account, but Christen thought that this could sow more confusion.
"This is not to say that dissents serve no purpose," Christen wrote. "They can and should be read to provide context and a deeper understanding of the court's decisions, but they do not inform our analysis of what binding rule, if any, emerges from a fractured decision."
Dissenting Judge Carlos Bea would have rejected Davis's effort entirely. "The district court correctly determined that it lacked jurisdiction to resentence Davis, and the panel should affirm on that basis," he wrote.
Defense attorney Garrett predicted, however, that the majority's "reasoned and thoughtful and thorough" opinion would serve as a guide for other circuit judges who have struggled to interpret the Supreme Court's plurality decisions.
June 14, 2016 in New crack statute and the FSA's impact, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (1)
Notable South Carolina affinities and disaffinities for capital prosecution of Charleston mass murderer Dylann Roof
This recent local article out of South Carolina provides an interesting review of interesting survey data about opinion on the high-profile capital prosecution(s) of a local mass murderer. The article is headlined "Most SC blacks say Dylann Roof should get life without parole," and here are excerpts:
A majority of black South Carolinians say Dylann Roof should be sentenced to life without parole — not death — if he is found guilty of murdering nine African-American members of Charleston's Emanuel AME Church. But most white South Carolinians say Roof should be sentenced to death if he is found guilty, according to a University of South Carolina poll.
Roof faces federal and state charges in connection with the Charleston massacre. Both federal and state prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty. The difference of opinion over Roof reflects historically differing attitudes toward the death penalty between black and white South Carolinians, according to the USC poll, released Saturday.
The poll — on race relations a year after the Emanuel Nine massacre — also found stark differences in how South Carolina's white and African-American residents view the criminal justice system.
The poll found:
▪ A majority of black South Carolinians — 64.7 percent — said Roof should be sentenced to life without parole if found guilty.
▪ Just three in 10 African Americans — 30.9 percent — said Roof should be sentenced to death. Another 4.4 percent said they didn't know what the punishment should be, according to the poll, which surveyed 800 random S.C. adults.
▪ The majority of whites — 64.6 percent — think Roof should be sentenced to death.
▪ Only 29.9 percent of whites think Roof should be sentenced to life without parole; 5.6 percent of those surveyed said they didn't know.
The question of whether to seek the death penalty against Roof divides the families of those slain in Charleston. Some family members oppose the death penalty. Others say it would be justice. The findings of the USC poll reflect most black South Carolinians' consistent opposition to the death penalty and most whites' consistent support for it, said Monique Lyle, a USC political scientist who co-conducted the poll with USC's Bob Oldendick.
The majority of black South Carolinians — 64.9 percent — oppose the death penalty, according to the poll. The majority of white South Carolinians — 69.4 percent — favor it. The African-American community's opposition to the death penalty reflects its history with the criminal-justice system, said Kylon Middleton, senior pastor of Charleston's Mount Zion AME Church.
"Most black people would not want someone to be executed because" so many African Americans have been executed, said Middleton, a longtime friend to Clementa Pinckney, the Emanuel pastor and state senator who was among the nine slain. "We have been brutalized in this country, therefore, we can empathize with anyone … who would receive ultimate judgment," Middleton said, citing America's history of slavery.
Beyond that history, African Americans also tend to be extremely religious, said state Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, noting the Bible commands: Thou shall not kill. In addition, a life sentence without parole now means that a defendant will spend life in prison. "That seems to be sufficient for most African Americans as punishment," even in the case of Roof, Rutherford said, an attorney. The African-American community also believes in a rehabilitative and repentant society, said state Sen. Gerald Malloy, D-Darlington, who declined to discuss Roof specifically. (Malloy, an attorney, represents the family of Sen. Pinckney.)
African Americans also have concerns about the fairness of the justice system, said Todd Shaw, a USC professor of political science and African-American studies. "I don't think there would be an exception for someone such as Dylann Roof," Shaw said, adding some African Americans feel "bringing about his death will not bring about justice."
A few prior related posts:
- Should it be the state or feds (or both!?!) that capitally prosecute racist mass murderer Dylann Storm Roof?
- Thanks to death penalty, one of worst racist mass murderers gets one of best defense lawyers
- South Carolina prosecutors begin pursuit of death penalty again Charleston church mass murderer
- Attorney for Dylann Roof, Charleston church mass murderer, suggests plea to avoid death sentence
- Just why is DOJ still uncertain about seeking death penalty against Charleston mass murderer Dylann Roof?
- "Why Dylann Roof is a Terrorist Under Federal Law, and Why it Matters"
- Federal prosecutors (FINALLY!) decide to pursue death penalty for Charleston mass murderer Dylann Roof
June 14, 2016 in Death Penalty Reforms, Race, Class, and Gender, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (4)
Monday, June 13, 2016
"Taking Dignity Seriously: Excavating the Backdrop of the Eighth Amendment"
The title of this post is the title of this notable new paper authored by Meghan Ryan now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The U.S. punishment system is in turmoil. We have a historically unprecedented number of offenders in prison, and our prisoners are serving longer sentences than in any other country. States are surreptitiously experimenting with formulas for lethal injection cocktails, and some prisoners are suffering from botched executions. Despite this tumult, the Eighth Amendment of our Constitution does place limits on the punishments that may be imposed and how they may be implemented. The difficulty, though, is that the Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence is a bit of a mess.
The Court has been consistent in stating that a focus on offender dignity is at the core of the Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments, but there has been virtually no analysis of what this dignity requirement means. This Article takes the first foray into this unexplored landscape and finds that the Constitution demands that the individuality of offenders be considered in imposing and carrying out sentences. While this appears to be a simple concept, it raises significant concerns about several modern-day sentencing practices. Punishments rooted in pure utilitarianism, by neglecting the importance of the individual offender, run afoul of this dignity demand. This sheds doubt on the propriety of some judges' assertions that defendants' freestanding innocence claims cannot stand because policy considerations like finality are of paramount importance; an individual offender cannot be ignored purely for the sake of societal goals.
For the same reason, the importance of individual dignity should lead us to question statutes supporting only utilitarian aims of punishment. While this raises questions about the constitutionality of pure deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation, these purposes of punishment may be reconceptualized to account for the individual offender. For example, rehabilitation could be reformulated to consider not only the offender's effects on society when he is returned to the community but also whether the offender's character has been reformed. Finally, the importance of Eighth Amendment dignity raises questions about the constitutionality of mandatorily imposed punishments, which overlook the importance of individualization in sentencing. If we take seriously the dignity core of the Eighth Amendment, then many of these practices must be reconsidered.
June 13, 2016 in Assessing Graham and its aftermath, Assessing Miller and its aftermath, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Recommended reading, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (1)
Notable new commentary at The Federalist talks through conservative support and opposition to federl statutory sentencing reform
Rachel Lu, a senior contributor at The Federalist, has this interesting new commentary under this lengthy headline: "We Need Sentencing Reform And This Bill Is A Good Start: The past two decades have seen ramped-up sentences for drug criminals, which have cost us billions in taxpayer money, while yielding few benefits. Let's take this opportunity to do better." The piece usefully goes beyond the usual superficial advocacy for federal sentencing reform and digs into the debate within conservative circles about whether to support or oppose the SRCA. I recommend the piece in full, and here excerpts (with links from the original):
What's really going on with the federal Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act? This bipartisan legislation has been in the news lately, prompting a strange and confusing exchange between conservatives who support justice reform (notably Vikrant Reddy and myself) and critics of the movement (Sean Kennedy and Jeffrey Anderson)....
Donald Trump has been comparatively quiet thus far on the crime issue. That may reflect the fact that some of his likely vice presidential candidates (most notably Newt Gingrich and Nathan Deal) have already established themselves in the pro-reform camp. Nevertheless, this initiative could still fall prey to the dreary realities of partisan base-beating. That would be sad to see, especially since justice reform is almost the only bipartisan issue we've got left in these bitter times.
Of course, for some that is itself a strong motive to kill the bill. They hardly even pretend to know or care about the content of the legislation itself. Consider Jeffrey H. Anderson's "What, are we the sort of people who work with Democrats?" rebuttal to my last essay for an example of this thinking....
[P]risons are beneficial primarily insofar as they keep dangerous people off the streets. That's a huge benefit with respect to murderous psychopaths. Yet if we're talking about minor, subsidiary figures in the drug trade, we should recognize they are easily replaced. Hitting small-time distributors or smugglers with decades-long sentences will not solve our drug problem.
Even recognizing those principles, it's always best to be cautious about public safety. The Sentencing and Corrections Act is cautious. We certainly won't be seeing the immediate release of thousands of drug criminals. Rather, the bill takes modest steps to soften some of the more drastic measures in federal drug laws. Sean Kennedy's recent missive cautioned against "rushing" conservative justice reform, but looking at the bill currently in front of us, I'm truly at a loss to imagine what might satisfy him if this does not....
If you're unsure whom to trust in the justice-reform debate, consider this. Reform-minded conservatives have ideas, an agenda, and recent legislative accomplishments to their names. They've been elbow-deep in the relevant policy issues for many years now. By contrast, their critics can't even seem to agree on the most fundamental point: is over-incarceration is actually a problem in America?
In many ways it's unsurprising that this would be a fuzzy point for critics. Mass incarceration was the rock against which tough-on-crime finally foundered. For decades, conservatives called for tough, consistent sanctions as a response to rising crime and disorder. This approach did yield some benefits: crime fell through the '80s and '90s.
As prison populations exploded, however, the price tag likewise grew steeper, and the social effects of imprisoning about 1 percent of our population became ever harder to ignore. Crowded prisons are bad for any number of reasons. They're miserable and unsafe (for guards as well as inmates), and they do a poor job of rehabilitating offenders.
Eventually, it became clear to policy-savvy conservatives that they needed a more multifaceted approach to crime control. Red states have been leading the way for years now in using data-driven methods to reduce incarceration without sacrificing public safety. Many of the same people and organizations have helped to craft and promote federal sentencing reform, eventually giving rise to the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act.
As policy, it's been an impressive effort. Politically, it requires a paradigm shift that some haven't yet made. As the data pile up indicating that prudent reform is possible, William Otis has gone on defending large-scale incarceration, regularly repeating his maxim that a nation is judged not by its incarceration rate, but by its crime rate. That no-limit position is too drastic for most, so we see figures like Kennedy and Anderson taking softer but more confusing stances, vacillating between tough-on-crime rhetoric and vague complaints that the legislation in front of us is too quick, too drastic or too bipartisan.
Kennedy warns us, in the spirit of Otis' critique, that the real problem with our society is the number of criminals, not the number of inmates. Then he goes on to imply that state-level justice reform has been healthy but that the federal bill somehow goes too far. (How? Why? What provisions would he change?)
Anderson implies that federal sentencing reform represents an irresponsible lapse of conservative principles, but then later concedes that some reform may be good, on the condition that we scrap the present bill and replace it with exclusively Republican-authored legislation. (Why would we do that when reform-interested conservatives have been involved in writing and promoting this bill?)
It's hard to have a serious debate when critics are bringing so little to the table. Through promoting successful state-level reforms, conservative justice reformers have demonstrated that they are prudent, cautious, and highly attentive to data. Unless critics can offer something more substantive than dated political platitudes, we should trust that this statute is moving us a step in the right direction.
June 13, 2016 in Aspects and impact of Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, Elections and sentencing issues in political debates, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (0)
Intriguing Ninth Circuit ruling about restitution and forfeiture and the Excessive Fines Clause
The Ninth Circuit handed down an interesting new opinion dealing with various challenges to various financial sanctions in US v. Beecroft, No. 12-10175 (9th Cir. June 13, 2016) (available here). Here are snippets from the start and heart of the extended ruling:
Following her convictions for participating in an extensive mortgage-fraud conspiracy, a defendant was ordered to pay more than $2 million in restitution and to forfeit more than $100 million. We must decide whether either amount was erroneously calculated or unconstitutionally excessive....
As noted, Beecroft has not demonstrated error in the district court's calculation of the amount of losses suffered by the banks injured by Beecroft's actions. Without error in the loss calculation, Beecroft cannot show that requiring her to pay that amount back to the victims was somehow excessive or grossly disproportional to her crimes, which caused the loss in the first place. And we reiterate that Beecroft was not ordered to pay anything approaching the full amount of the banks' losses. Uncontroverted evidence was presented to the district court showing that the scheme in which Beecroft participated caused losses in excess of $50 million; requiring her to pay slightly more than $2 million of that back is not an unconstitutional and excessive punishment....
The $107 million Beecroft was ordered to forfeit for the conspiracy (Count 1) stands apart. As with the other counts of conviction, for Count 1 Beecroft could be fined no more than $1 million (with a Guidelines range beginning as low as $20,000). In other words, for Count 1, Beecroft was ordered to forfeit a sum more than 100 times greater than the maximum fine allowable and more than 5,000 times greater than the lower-end of the Guidelines range. Even accounting for the fact that Beecroft faced potentially significant prison time as well, see Mackby, 339 F.3d at 1018, this is a tremendous disconnect between the forfeiture amount and Beecroft's legally available fine. Indeed, such a disconnect stands out even among forfeiture orders which have previously been held grossly disproportional....
The government cites no case upholding a forfeiture order with a disparity similar to the one here, and it has not attempted to argue that the $107 million otherwise corresponds to injuries sustained by the government or the banks....
We have little doubt that the Eighth Amendment allows Beecroft to be ordered to forfeit a substantial sum of money for her participation in such an extensive and damaging conspiracy. But difficulty remains with the exceptional amount of forfeiture the court did impose. Without even an argument supporting the propriety of the $107 million forfeiture, we have no choice but to conclude that an order which so vastly outpaces the otherwise available penalties for Beecroft's criminal activity runs afoul of the Excessive Fines Clause. Even on plain-error review, we must vacate the forfeiture order with respect to Count 1 and remand to the district court for reconsideration of that amount in light of the Eighth Amendment's Excessive Fines Clause.
June 13, 2016 in Fines, Restitution and Other Economic Sanctions, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, White-collar sentencing | Permalink | Comments (2)
SCOTUS finds no Sixth Amendment problems with reliance on uncounseled tribal conviction
The Supreme Court gave federal prosecutors a unanimous win this morning through its opinion in US v. Bryant, No.15-420 (S. Ct. June 13, 2016) (available here). The opinion by Justice Ginsburg for the Court gets started this way:
In response to the high incidence of domestic violence against Native American women, Congress, in 2005, enacted 18 U. S. C. §117(a), which targets serial offenders. Section 117(a) makes it a federal crime for any person to "commi[t] a domestic assault within . . . Indian country" if the person has at least two prior final convictions for domestic violence rendered "in Federal, State, or Indian tribal court proceedings." See Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 (VAWA Reauthorization Act), Pub. L. 109–162, §§901, 909, 119 Stat. 3077, 3084.1 Respondent Michael Bryant, Jr., has multiple tribal-court convictions for domestic assault. For most of those convictions, he was sentenced to terms of imprisonment, none of them exceeding one year's duration. His tribal-court convictions do not count for §117(a) purposes, Bryant maintains, because he was uncounseled in those proceedings.
The Sixth Amendment guarantees indigent defendants, in state and federal criminal proceedings, appointed counsel in any case in which a term of imprisonment is imposed. Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367, 373–374 (1979). But the Sixth Amendment does not apply to tribal-court proceedings. See Plains Commerce Bank v. Long Family Land & Cattle Co., 554 U. S. 316, 337 (2008). The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 (ICRA), Pub. L. 90–284, 82 Stat. 77, 25 U. S. C. §1301 et seq., which governs criminal proceedings in tribal courts, requires appointed counsel only when a sentence of more than one year's imprisonment is imposed. §1302(c)(2). Bryant's tribal-court convictions, it is undisputed, were valid when entered. This case presents the question whether those convictions, though uncounseled, rank as predicate offenses within the compass of §117(a). Our answer is yes. Bryant's tribal-court convictions did not violate the Sixth Amendment when obtained, and they retain their validity when invoked in a §117(a) prosecution. That proceeding generates no Sixth Amendment defect where none previously existed.
June 13, 2016 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (8)
Sunday, June 12, 2016
After most deadly mass shooting in US history, sadness and frustration and realism
The tragic news today from Orlando, which is already being identified as the worst mass shooting in US history, is not a sentencing story because the shooter apparently was killed by the police while on the scene of his horrible crimes. But, I feel compelled to blog about this horrific crime in order to express my deep sadness. I also have to express my frustration that, no matter what I or others have to say, the circumstances of this horrific crime will likely engender political and social discussions that may just deepen divisions among Americans who cannot help but want to "do something" and yet rightly struggle to figure out just what can be done about man's inhumanity to man.
June 12, 2016 in Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics | Permalink | Comments (12)
Now a murderer, Oscar Pistorius facing resentencing
This new AP article, headlined "A Glance at Oscar Pistorius's ReSentencing, Now for Murder," details the high-profile resentencing scheduled for this coming week in South Africa. Here are excerpts:
Oscar Pistorius is going back to jail. The only question now is for how long? It could be 15 years. The doubleamputee Olympic runner's sentencing hearing opens Monday after he was convicted of murder by South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal for shooting girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
It'll be the second time Pistorius has been sentenced for the killing following an appeal by prosecutors. The three-year legal saga that began with the fatal gunshots in the predawn hours of Valentine's Day 2013 now appears to be near its end....
Pistorius was initially convicted of the lesser charge of culpable homicide, or manslaughter, at his 2014 trial for shooting Steenkamp through a closed toilet door in his home. He testified he mistook the model and reality TV celebrity for a nighttime intruder hiding in a bathroom, and shot with his 9mm pistol in selfdefense fearing an attack. The trial judge accepted part of Pistorius' story, and he was given a fiveyear jail sentence based on the judge's ruling that he acted recklessly, but didn't mean to kill. After serving a year in jail, Pistorius was released on parole in line with South African procedure and has been living under house arrest at his uncle's mansion since October last year.
But following Pistorius' manslaughter verdict, prosecutors appealed to the Supreme Court, saying that the former star athlete, a multiple Paralympic champion, should have been found guilty of murder. They argued that Pistorius intended to kill someone — even if he didn't know it was Steenkamp in the toilet cubicle — when he shot four times through the door with no justification.
In December, a panel of Supreme Court judges agreed with prosecutors, overturned Pistorius' manslaughter conviction, and raised it to a more serious murder conviction. Pistorius must now be sentenced for murder. Supreme Court Justice Lorimer Leach said: "The accused ought to have been found guilty of murder on the basis that he had fired the fatal shots with criminal intent."...
15 years in prison [is] the minimum sentence for murder in South Africa, which no longer has the death penalty. Legal experts say a judge can reduce that sentence in some circumstances, and that Pistorius' disability and the fact that he is a first-time offender could be taken into account. He has also already served a year in prison. Pistorius will return to the same courthouse in Pretoria where his dramatic sevenmonth murder trial played out in 2014 to be sentenced again.
The hearing has been scheduled to last a week and Pistorius' punishment will again be decided by Judge Thokozile Masipa, who acquitted him of murder at his trial but had her decision overturned by the Supreme Court....
After his conviction was changed to murder by the Supreme Court last year, Pistorius appealed to South Africa's highest court, the Constitutional Court, to review his case. The Constitutional Court dismissed that appeal in March and Pistorius now has no chance of escaping the murder conviction.
Prior related posts:
- "Will Oscar Pistorius serve any prison time for killing Reeva Steenkamp?"
- Bladerunner Oscar Pistorius sentenced to five years in prison for killing girlfriend
- Prosecutors in South Africa indicate they plan to appeal Pistorius outcome
June 12, 2016 in Celebrity sentencings, Sentencing around the world | Permalink | Comments (0)
Friday, June 10, 2016
Two SCOTUS reslists concerning Johnson's application to the career-offender guideline worth keeping an eye on
This week's entry in the always amusing and informative Relist Watch SCOTUSblog posting by John Elwood has flagged two cases of note for sentencing fans, especially for those especially interested in the continued fall-out from the Supreme Court's big Johnson vagueness ruling last year. I will reprint, with all the humor and links, Elwood's coverage of these cases:
Our next new relist is Jones v. United States, 15-8629. No, not that one. Not that one either. Or that. Now you're trying my patience. Can we just agree it's a pretty common case caption? And indeed, this case has been up to the Court once before. The petitioner in Jones was sentenced to about twenty-one years' imprisonment under the residual clause of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines' career-offender provision. During its last trip to One First Street, the Court granted cert., vacated the judgment, and remanded ("GVR") in light of Johnson v. United States, which declared an identically worded residual clause in the Armed Career Criminal Act ("ACCA") unconstitutionally vague and therefore void. On remand, the Third Circuit determined that Johnson was inapplicable because Jones's career-offender designation relied not on the residual clause, but on its "Application Note," which specifically lists robbery as a predicate offense. During Jones's stay in the Third Circuit, the Court held in Welch v. United States that Johnson announced a new substantive constitutional rule that applies retroactively to ACCA cases on collateral review. Jones poses three questions: (1) whether Johnson applies retroactively to collateral cases challenging the residual clause of the Guidelines' career-offender provision; (2) whether Johnson applies to and invalidates the Guidelines' residual clause; and (3) whether Jones's robbery conviction qualifies as a "crime of violence" under the residual clause based on the clause's Application Note, "even though [the Note] does not interpret and conflicts with the text of the guideline."
Jones, unsurprisingly, is not one of a kind: It has a doppelganger, Beckles v. United States, 15-8544, which is nearly identical right down to the GVR and raises the same three questions (except that Beckles's third question presented involves possession of a sawed-off shotgun). Both the Jones and Beckles petitions assert urgency because of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act's one-year bar: "Prompt resolution of these issues is required because the one-year statute of limitations governing collateral Johnson claims will expire on June 26, 2016," the petitioners say, adding that "a per curiam opinion on these issues without full briefing or oral argument may be appropriate." The government opposes cert. because, among other things, the Sentencing Commission has adopted a Guidelines amendment, likely taking effect on August 1, 2016, that deletes the residual clause from the guideline in light of the Court's concerns in Johnson: "The question of Johnson's application to the current career offender guideline is therefore likely to be of no continuing importance." Both cases got something of a late boost when the Fourth Circuit deepened the split on Wednesday....
Issue: (1) Whether Johnson v. United States announced a new substantive rule of constitutional law that applies retroactively on collateral review to challenges of sentences imposed under the residual clause in United States Sentencing Guidelines career offender provision, U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(2); (2) whether Johnson's constitutional holding applies to U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(2)'s identical residual clause thus rendering that provision void; and (3) whether Petitioner's Pennsylvania conviction for robbery by force however slight is a "crime of violence" because it is listed in the commentary to U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2, even though it does not interpret and conflicts with the text of the guideline, after Johnson.
(relisted after the June 2 Conference)
Issue: (1) Whether Johnson v. United States applies retroactively to collateral cases challenging federal sentences enhanced under the residual clause in United States Sentencing Guidelines (U.S.S.G.) § 4B1.2(a)(2) (defining "crime of violence"); (2) whether Johnson's constitutional holding applies to the residual clause in U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(2), thereby rendering challenges to sentences enhanced under it cognizable on collateral review; and (3) whether mere possession of a sawed-off shotgun, an offense listed as a "crime of violence" only in commentary to U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2, remains a "crime of violence" after Johnson.
(relisted after the June 2 Conference)
June 10, 2016 in Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Offender Characteristics, Sentences Reconsidered, Vagueness in Johnson and thereafter, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (0)
"The Color of Justice: Racial and Ethnic Disparity in State Prisons"
The title of this post is the title of this notable data-heavy new report from The Sentencing Project. Here is part of the reports "Overview" section:
Growing awareness of America's failed experiment with mass incarceration has prompted changes at the state and federal level that aim to reduce the scale of imprisonment. Lawmakers and practitioners are proposing "smart on crime" approaches to public safety that favor alternatives to incarceration and reduce odds of recidivism. As a result of strategic reforms across the criminal justice spectrum, combined with steadily declining crime rates since the mid-1990s, prison populations have begun to stabilize and even decline slightly after decades of unprecedented growth. In states such as New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and California, prison depopulation has been substantial, declining by 20-30%. Still, America maintains its distinction as the world leader in its use of incarceration, including more than 1.3 million people held in state prisons around the country.
At the same time of productive bipartisan discussions about improving criminal justice policies and reducing prison populations, the U.S. continues to grapple with troubling racial tensions. The focus of most recent concern lies in regular reports of police brutality against people of color, some of which have resulted in deaths of black men by law enforcement officers after little or no apparent provocation.
Truly meaningful reforms to the criminal justice system cannot be accomplished without acknowledgement of racial and ethnic disparities in the prison system, and focused attention on reduction of disparities. Since the majority of people in prison are sentenced at the state level rather than the federal level, it is critical to understand the variation in racial and ethnic composition across states, and the policies and the day-to-day practices that contribute to this variance. Incarceration creates a host of collateral consequences that include restricted employment prospects, housing instability, family disruption, stigma, and disenfranchisement. These consequences set individuals back by imposing new punishments after prison. Collateral consequences are felt disproportionately by people of color, and because of concentrations of poverty and imprisonment in certain jurisdictions, it is now the case that entire communities experience these negative effects. Evidence suggests that some individuals are incarcerated not solely because of their crime, but because of racially disparate policies, beliefs, and practices, rendering these collateral consequences all the more troubling. An unwarranted level of incarceration that worsens racial disparities is problematic not only for the impacted group, but for society as whole, weakening the justice system's potential and undermining perceptions of justice.
This report documents the rates of incarceration for whites, African Americans, and Hispanics, providing racial and ethnic composition as well as rates of disparity for each state.
June 10, 2016 in Data on sentencing, Detailed sentencing data, Prisons and prisoners, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Race, Class, and Gender, Scope of Imprisonment | Permalink | Comments (1)
Split Seventh Circuit panel debates import and impact of jury finding of drug quantity rejected by the judge at sentencing
A helpful reader altered me to an interesting Seventh Circuit ruling today in US v. Saunders, No. 13-3910 (7th Cir. June 10, 2016) (available here). These passages from the partial dissent authored by Judge Manion provides a reasonable look into why this split panel's sentencing work is blog-worthy:
The jury in this case found beyond a reasonable doubt that the drug amount was between 100 grams and 1 kilogram. This necessarily implies that the jury found the offense did not involve 3.69 kilograms, but at sentencing, the district court found a 3.69-kilogram amount. These findings are irreconcilable. By its finding, the district court overrode the jury's decision. The Sixth Amendment does not allow this. I dissent from this aspect of the court's decision, but join in all other aspects....
A straightforward reading of the jury-verdict form does not allow this court to find an "effective acquittal." The jury does not — in a single sentence, passing judgment on one count — actually convict and effectively acquit. Here, the jury convicted Saunders and Bounds of a capped drug quantity, and its verdict should stand....
In its ruling today, the court affirms the district court's application of Watts to this case. It should not. Watts stands for the simple principle that a sentencing court may consider conduct underlying an acquitted charge if that underlying conduct is proven by a preponderance of the evidence. Watts, 519 U.S. at 157. Watts is therefore factually and legally distinguishable from this case. Instead of an acquittal, this case features an affirmative jury finding of fact. An acquittal is a legal conclusion, "not a finding of any fact," and it "can only be an acknowledgment that the government failed to prove an essential element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt." See id. at 155 (internal quotation marks omitted)....
As the Supreme Court observed [in Watts], "That [acquittal] verdict does not preclude a finding by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant did, in fact, use or carry such a weapon, much less that he simply possessed the weapon in connection with a drug offense." Id. at 157 (emphasis in original). In contrast, the two results in this case cannot square: the defendants cannot have (1) possessed less than 1 kilogram and (2) also possessed 3.69 kilograms. By flatly contradicting the jury's express factual finding, the sentencing judge in this case violated the Sixth Amendment rights of Saunders and Bounds. And if the jury system is to mean anything, this outcome is a problem.
June 10, 2016 in Drug Offense Sentencing, Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Offense Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (3)
Should I really be too troubled by a Texas life sentence (with parole eligibility in 30 years) for nine-time drunk driver?
The question in the title of this post is prompted by this New York Times piece headlined "He Had 8 Convictions for Driving Drunk. On His 9th, He Got Life." Here are the details:
The first eight convictions for driving while intoxicated didn't stop Donald Middleton of Houston from sliding behind the wheel and getting his ninth conviction. This time, the judge had had enough.
When Mr. Middleton, 56, faced Judge Kathleen Hamilton of the 359th District Court in Texas on Tuesday, she sentenced him to life in prison. He won't be eligible for parole for 30 years.
Such a harsh sentence is uncommon for drunken-driving convictions, which often lead to temporary license suspensions and prison stays that allow repeat offenders to return to the road. In Mr. Middleton's case, he still had a valid driver's license, despite the eight convictions. Mr. Middleton's case raises the question: How many times does someone have to be caught driving drunk before he or she can no longer legally drive?
He was arrested in May 2015 after he turned into the wrong lane and collided head-on with a vehicle driven by a 16-year-old who was on the way home from work at a grocery store. Mr. Middleton ran into a nearby convenience store and repeatedly asked a clerk to hide him, prosecutors said. He had a blood-alcohol level of 0.184, more than twice the legal limit, 0.08, according to Justin Fowles, a Montgomery County assistant district attorney. Mr. Middleton pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated last May and has been in jail since.
The teenager, Joshua Hayden, was not injured, but his father, Rowdy Hayden, said in a telephone interview that he appreciated the judge's harsh sentence. "It angers me, as a father, that this individual skirted the justice system eight times and was still out here endangering our citizens on the roadway by drinking and driving," said Mr. Hayden, who is a police constable in Montgomery County. "His proven track record showed he was going to continue to drink and drive. And who knows, the next time he may have killed someone."
Mr. Middleton had four previous stints in prison for driving while intoxicated. His eighth conviction, in 2008, involved rear-ending a car with several people inside; they sustained minor injuries. Mr. Middleton fell out of the car and was unable to stand, Mr. Fowles said.
The conviction from that episode led to a 13-year prison sentence, of which he served four years. After the most recent conviction, he was classified as a habitual offender, which enabled the longer sentence. "He had proven to us that he can't be trusted with his own freedom, that he's a danger to our community and that the best thing for everyone else's safety on the roadways is for him to never be able to drive again," Mr. Fowles said in a telephone interview.
Rules for stopping habitual drunken drivers vary wildly by state, but repeat offenders tend to get multiple extra chances. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that one in three people arrested on drunken-driving charges are repeat offenders. In Minnesota, a 61-year-old man was released from prison last year after a five-year stay for his 27th conviction related to drunken driving. In Pennsylvania, one man was arrested five times in less than a year, but never lost his driver's license or served more than 10 days in jail....
J. T. Griffin, the chief government affairs officer for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said the organization had focused on promoting ignition interlock devices, which require anyone convicted of drunken driving to pass a breathalyzer test before starting a car. Twenty-seven states have laws requiring them, including New York, he said. Suspending licenses can be ineffective when many people continue to drive without a valid license, he said.
"We believe in going after D.U.I. the first time, not waiting for the second or third or fourth offense," Mr. Griffin said. "The first time is unacceptable. And nine times is just ridiculous."
June 10, 2016 in Offense Characteristics, Scope of Imprisonment | Permalink | Comments (7)
Thursday, June 9, 2016
"The Stanford rape case demonstrates liberal hypocrisy on issues of basic fairness in the criminal justice system"
The title of this post is the subheadline of this notable new Slate commentary authored by Mark Joseph Stern run under the main headline "Justice for None." The piece highlights that we are already now at the stage of seeing some backlash to the backlash over the lenient sentence given to Brock Turner. Here are excerpts:
Brock Turner is an odious criminal who committed a heinous act and deserves to go to prison for much longer than his six-month sentence requires. His trial confirmed that both racism and sexism continue to plague America's criminal justice system, especially where rape is involved. Yet in their rush to condemn Turner's sentence, far too many liberals have abandoned what were, not so long ago, fundamental principles of progressivism. This willingness to toss due process out the window in sexual assault cases is, unfortunately, indicative of a broader inconsistency that plagues the American left....
[T]he movement to remove Persky from the bench will not, and cannot, be limited to this one case. It would set a clear precedent that liberals should feel empowered to knock judges off the bench when they really disapprove of their rulings. That is an extraordinarily dangerous mindset — one conservatives have exploited for decades. In 1986, Republicans spearheaded a successful campaign to oust three justices from the California Supreme Court over their judicial opposition to capital punishment. The overtly partisan effort politicized the court and temporarily shattered the state judiciary's independence. More recently, anti-gay activists ousted three judges from the Iowa Supreme Court over their votes affirming same-sex couples' right to wed.
American liberals have long looked upon these efforts as antithetical to the judiciary's responsibility to remain above politics and faithfulness to the law. Is that belief suspended when the judge issued a sexist ruling rather than a progressive one? Even worse, Persky has received anonymous threats from social justice advocates outraged by his ruling. These hecklers may believe their cause to be noble, but they are taking a page straight from Donald Trump's playbook — not a good look for activists hoping to combat everything Trump stands for.
Then there is the widely lauded victim impact statement Turner's victim read during the sentencing hearing. I am glad she wrote this extraordinarily powerful letter and glad so many millions have read and been moved by it. But it had absolutely no place in the courtroom. Victim impact statements were once a liberal bête noire, and rightly so, because they seriously undermine the defendant's due process rights. In a criminal sentencing hearing, the judge (or jury) should consider only the facts of the case at hand in determining the defendant's culpability. Victim impact statements introduce a massive amount of emotion into the proceedings, allowing the judge or jury to be swayed by emotional response rather than logical reflection. That, in turn, shifts the focus away from the defendant and toward the victim while injecting arbitrariness into the sentencing process. The defendant's punishment may well hinge on how emotionally compelling the victim can make his or her statement....
Liberals' blasé attitude toward judicial impeachment and victim impact statements in the Turner case, then, must be viewed as part of a larger trend: the willingness among a certain faction of the American left to jettison progressive principles in a good-hearted but profoundly misguided effort to stop sexual violence. That is a noble cause, but it cannot justify unraveling the most cherished safeguards of our criminal justice system. What Brock Turner did was sickening; what he received as punishment is far less than what he deserved. But eroding due process and threatening judicial independence is not the way to bring his victim justice.
Prior related posts:
- Lots of seemingly justifiable outrage after lenient California sentencing of privileged man convicted of three felony counts of sexual assault
- Lots more mainstream and new media commentary on lenient sentencing of Stanford sex assaulter
- NY Times debates "Should an Unpopular Sentence in the Stanford Rape Case Cost a Judge His Job?"
June 9, 2016 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sex Offender Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (5)
Seventh Circuit affirms above-guideline child porn sentence given to former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle
A panel of the Seventh Circuit made quick work of the appeal brought by former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle. Readers may recall Fogle received a federal sentence after pleading guilty to various child porn offense of 15 years and eight months, and on appeal Fogle asserted his sentence was unreasonable based on various alleged procedural and substantive errors. Oral argument on Fogle's appeal too place just a few weeks ago, and today this panel opinion affirmed the sentence given to Fogle and winds up this way:
Fogle attacks the district court's overall reasoning in imposing his sentence. He characterizes the district court's discussion as "puzzling" and claims that the various factors that the court relied upon cannot reasonably support an enhanced sentence. For instance, he alleges that an enhanced sentence is not warranted because he only engaged in "[o]ne single act" of distribution. He tries to downplay this conduct by claiming that it was a mere "technical" violation of the statute because he only showed the video to "one individual with whom [he] was then involved with romantically and it occurred in the confines of a locked hotel room."
Fogle's arguments regarding substantive error are unpersuasive in light of the deference "we must give … to the district court's determination that the § 3553(a) factors, taken as a whole, justified the extent of the variance" from the guidelines range. Scott, 555 F.3d at 610. The district court provided a thorough explanation for its imposition of an above-guidelines sentence, which is all that was required. And contrary to Fogle's allegation of double-counting, the district court properly invoked the § 3553(a) factors and explained why the aggravated nature and circumstances of Fogle's offenses warranted a higher sentence for both counts. Specifically, the district court noted that Fogle knew that his employee was secretly videotaping minors yet never reported this to law enforcement, as well as the fact that Fogle repeatedly acted on his attraction to minors rather than limiting himself to fantasies. The court also discussed how Fogle's lack of a difficult upbringing failed to mitigate the circumstances of his conviction, and how his celebrity status could be viewed as both a mitigating and aggravating factor.
In light of the district court's sound exercise of discretion under the disturbing facts of this case, we uphold the aboveguidelines sentence as substantively reasonable.
Prior related posts:
- Subway pitchman and his "Jared Foundation" subject to serious child porn investigation
- What sort of child porn federal plea deal might be in works for Subway pitchman Jared Fogle?
- Even with plea deal, Subway pitchman Jared likely facing at least a decade in federal prison for sex offenses
- Has Jared Fogle gotten a sweetheart plea deal and/or celebrity treatment for sex crimes?
- Federal child porn downloaders complaining to judges about Jared Fogle's (too sweet?) plea deal
- Federal prosecutors seeking plea-deal max sentence of 12.5 years for Jared Fogle
- Jared Fogle given (above-guideline and above-prosecutor-recommend) sentence of 188 months in federal prison for sex offenses
- Does anyone think former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle has any real chance to have his long federal sentence reversed as unreasonable?
June 9, 2016 in Booker in district courts, Booker in the Circuits, Celebrity sentencings, Sentences Reconsidered, Sex Offender Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (2)
US Sentencing Commission provides notice of proposed 2017 priorities and requests comment
The US Sentencing Commission has now posted here a "notice to identify tentative priorities for the amendment cycle ending May 1, 2017." The notice lists a dozen tentative priorities, and here are what I consider highlight from the list:
(1) Continuation of its work with Congress and other interested parties on statutory mandatory minimum penalties to implement the recommendations set forth in the Commission's 2011 report to Congress, titled Mandatory Minimum Penalties in the Federal Criminal Justice System, including its recommendations regarding the severity and scope of mandatory minimum penalties, consideration of expanding the "safety valve" at 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f), and elimination of the mandatory "stacking" of penalties under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), and to develop appropriate guideline amendments in response to any related legislation.
(2) Continuation of its multi-year examination of the overall structure of the guidelines post-Booker, possibly including recommendations to Congress on any statutory changes and development of any guideline amendments that may be appropriate. As part of this examination, the Commission intends to study possible approaches to (A) simplify the operation of the guidelines, promote proportionality, and reduce sentencing disparities; and (B) appropriately account for the defendant's role, culpability, and relevant conduct.
(3) Continuation of its study of approaches to encourage use of alternatives to incarceration, including possible consideration of amending the Sentencing Table in Chapter 5, Part A to consolidate and/or expand Zones A, B, and C, and any other relevant provisions in the Guidelines Manual.
(4) Continuation of its multi-year study of statutory and guideline definitions relating to the nature of a defendant's prior conviction (e.g., "crime of violence," "aggravated felony," "violent felony," "drug trafficking offense," and "felony drug offense") and the impact of such definitions on the relevant statutory and guideline provisions (e.g., career offender, illegal reentry, and armed career criminal), possibly including recommendations to Congress on any statutory changes that may be appropriate and development of guideline amendments that may be appropriate.
(5) Continuation of its comprehensive, multi-year study of recidivism, including (A) examination of circumstances that correlate with increased or reduced recidivism; (B) possible development of recommendations for using information obtained from such study to reduce costs of incarceration and overcapacity of prisons, and promote effectiveness of reentry programs; and (C) consideration of any amendments to the Guidelines Manual that may be appropriate in light of the information obtained from such study....
(8) Study of the operation of Chapter Four, Part A of the Guidelines Manual, including (A) the feasibility and appropriateness of using the amount of time served by an offender, as opposed to the sentence imposed, for purposes of calculating criminal history under Chapter Four; and (B) the treatment of revocation sentences under §4A1.2(k)....
(12) Consideration of any miscellaneous guideline application issues coming to the Commission's attention from case law and other sources, including possible consideration of whether a defendant's denial of relevant conduct should be considered in determining whether a defendant has accepted responsibility for purposes of §3E1.1.
The Commission hereby gives notice that it is seeking comment on these tentative priorities and on any other issues that interested persons believe the Commission should address during the amendment cycle ending May 1, 2017. To the extent practicable, public comment should include the following: (1) a statement of the issue, including, where appropriate, the scope and manner of study, particular problem areas and possible solutions, and any other matters relevant to a proposed priority; (2) citations to applicable sentencing guidelines, statutes, case law, and constitutional provisions; and (3) a direct and concise statement of why the Commission should make the issue a priority. [Public comment should be received by the Commission on or before July 25, 2016.]
June 9, 2016 in Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (1)
SCOTUS overturns Pennsylvania death sentence because involved DA who became state justice did not recuse
A death row defendant in the Keystone State got a key win on a judicial bias claim from SCOTUS this morning in Williams v. Pennsylvania, No. 15-5040 (S. Ct. June 9, 2016) (available here). Justice Kennedy authored the opinion for the Court, while Chief Justice Roberts dissented in an opinion Justice Alito joined and Justice Thomas authored his own dissenting opinion. Here is how the Court's opinion gets started:
In this case, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania vacated the decision of a postconviction court, which had granted relief to a prisoner convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. One of the justices on the State Supreme Court had been the district attorney who gave his official approval to seek the death penalty in the prisoner's case. The justice in question denied the prisoner's motion for recusal and participated in the decision to deny relief. The question presented is whether the justice's denial of the recusal motion and his subsequent judicial participation violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
This Court's precedents set forth an objective standard that requires recusal when the likelihood of bias on the part of the judge "'is too high to be constitutionally tolerable.'" Caperton v. A. T. Massey Coal Co., 556 U.S. 868, 872 (2009) (quoting Withrow v. Larkin, 421 U.S. 35, 47 (1975)). Applying this standard, the Court concludes that due process compelled the justice's recusal.
June 9, 2016 in Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (2)
Win for defendant (and a loss for Puerto Rico, I suppose) in SCOTUS Double Jeopardy case
An interesting array of opinions resulted today from the Supreme Court in an interesting case coming from Puerto Rico addressing Double Jeopardy protections. Justice Kagan wrote the Court's opinion in Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle, No. 15-108 (S. Ct. June 9, 2016) (available here); Justices Ginsburg and Thomas both authored concurring opinions, and Justice Breyer (joined by Justice Sotomayor) authored the chief dissent. Here is how the opinion for the Court gets started:
The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits more than one prosecution for the "same offence." But under what is known as the dual-sovereignty doctrine, a single act gives rise to distinct offenses—and thus may subject a person to successive prosecutions — if it violates the laws of separate sovereigns. To determine whether two prosecuting authorities are different sovereigns for double jeopardy purposes, this Court asks a narrow, historically focused question. The inquiry does not turn, as the term "sovereignty" sometimes suggests, on the degree to which the second entity is autonomous from the first or sets its own political course. Rather, the issue is only whether the prosecutorial powers of the two jurisdictions have independent origins — or, said conversely, whether those powers derive from the same "ultimate source." United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313, 320 (1978).
In this case, we must decide if, under that test, Puerto Rico and the United States may successively prosecute a single defendant for the same criminal conduct. We hold they may not, because the oldest roots of Puerto Rico's power to prosecute lie in federal soil.
Justice Breyer's dissent starts by explaing that his "reasons for disagreeing with the majority are in part conceptual and in part historical."
June 9, 2016 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (21)
Unpacking the (never-simplistic and never-certain) stories of state crimes and incarceration levels
This new Atlantic story, headlined "Crime Is Down, Sort Of: New stats on U.S. imprisonment rates suggest a complicated future for criminal-justice reform," provides a usefully nuanced account of this new Brennen Center report titled simply "Update: Changes in State Imprisonment Rates." Here first is what the Brennan Center sets up its report:
Today, there are 2.3 million people in the nation's prisons and jails — a 500 percent increase over the last forty years. With almost one in 100 American adults behind bars, our incarceration rate is the world's highest. This fact sheet provides an update to findings on state imprisonment trends originally outlined in The Reverse Mass Incarceration Act. It analyzes data from all 50 states on imprisonment and crime from 2006 (as bipartisan criminal justice reforms generally began around 2007) through 2014 (the most recent year of data).
Two overarching findings:
1. Many argue that increased incarceration is necessary to reduce crime. Yet the data shows the opposite. Over the last ten years, 27 states have decreased both crime and imprisonment. Not only is this trend possible, it's played out in the majority of states. Nationally, imprisonment and crime have fallen together, 7 percent and 23 percent respectively since 2006. Crime continued its downward trend while incarceration also decreased.
2. In recent years, states in the South have seen some of the largest decreases in imprisonment. Yet, they also remain the largest incarcerators in the country. Mississippi reduced imprisonment by 10 percent but still has the nation's 5th highest incarceration rate. Texas has reduced imprisonment by 15 percent yet still has the 7th highest imprisonment rate in the country.
And here is a snippet from the Atlantic's discussion of the report:
Many Americans might make a basic mathematical error in looking at the country's criminal-justice system: They assume more people in jail or prison always equals less crime, and more crime necessarily calls for putting more people behind bars. Both conclusions are wrong. A new report from the Brennan Center for Justice provides some illuminating data on this point.
The report's most fascinating finding is that imprisonment and overall crime rates were down 7 percent and 23 percent, respectively, from 2006 to 2014. "States will continue to decrease imprisonment slowly; we might perhaps see crime leveling out," Chettiar said. "Criminologists say we have reached an all-time low in crime. I expect we'll continue to see low crime and lowered imprisonment rates."...
In the analysis, high achievers included Rhode Island, New Jersey, Hawaii, Nebraska, Connecticut, California, Colorado, and South Carolina. All saw double-digit drops in their rates of imprisonment per 100,000 residents. That does not necessarily indicate a dramatic drop in the actual number of people behind bars—an overall decrease in the rate at which a state imprisons people can result from many factors, including the release of current inmates, diversion efforts to keep those arrested out of jail, and the reclassification of low-level crimes that may let some offenders bypass custody....
In terms of overall crime, Vermont, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Illinois, Maryland, and Louisiana reduced their rates most. Each saw a decrease of 30 percent or more in their crime rates per 100,000 residents. States such as New Hampshire, North Dakota, and South Dakota each saw big increases in their in crime rates, all 30 percent or higher.
As policymakers are paying increased attention to the shortcomings of the criminal-justice system and more citizens seem to accept the need for policy changes, these facts suggest reform will look very different in different states—and above all, it will be complicated.
June 9, 2016 in Data on sentencing, Detailed sentencing data, National and State Crime Data, Scope of Imprisonment, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (0)
NY Times debates "Should an Unpopular Sentence in the Stanford Rape Case Cost a Judge His Job?"
The Room for Debate section of the New York Times has this new set of notable commentaries discussing whether the judicial recall effort in the controversial Standford sexual assault sentencing case is a good idea. Here is the section's set up:
A California judge sentenced Brock Allen Turner to only six months in jail for raping an unconscious woman after a Stanford University fraternity party, despite her angry, eloquent, courtroom denunciation of the way she and other rape survivors are treated. In response, a petition was started to hold a recall election to throw him off the bench.
But should judges be subject to recall because of an unpopular sentence or would that impede their independence?
Here are the contributions, with links via the commentary titles:
"Judicial Recall Will Inevitably Lead to Harsher Sentences" by Paul Butler
"Recall Is Warranted for an Indecent Sentence" by William G. Otis
"If You Want Independent Judges, Don't Elect Them" by Tracey L. Meares
"Judicial Recall Can Be Appropriate" by Kevin Cole
June 9, 2016 in Sentences Reconsidered, Sex Offender Sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (9)
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
"Salience and the Severity Versus the Certainty of Punishment"
The title of this post is the title of this notable new essay authored by Murat Mungan now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The certainty aversion presumption (CAP) in the economics of law enforcement literature asserts that criminals are more responsive to increases in the certainty rather than the severity of punishment. In simple economic models, this presumption implies that criminals must be risk-seeking. Some scholars claim that this and similar anomalous implications are caused by the exclusion of various behavioral considerations in theoretical analyses.
This article investigates whether a model in which criminals over-weigh probabilities attached to more salient outcomes (as in Bordalo et al. (2012) and (2013)) performs better than the simple expected utility theory model in explaining CAP-consistent-behavior. The analysis reveals that the answer is negative unless the probability of punishment is unreasonably high. This finding suggests that we should exercise caution in incorporating salience -- a la Bordalo et al.-- in simple law enforcement models.
June 8, 2016 in Offense Characteristics, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (1)