Judgment Day

Excerpts from the San Francisco Chronicle story: 

Lawmakers from California to Kentucky are trying to save money with a drastic and potentially dangerous budget-cutting proposal: releasing tens of thousands of convicts from prison, including drug addicts, thieves and even violent criminals.

Officials acknowledge that the idea carries risks, but they say they have no choice because of huge budget gaps brought on by the slumping economy.

At least eight states are considering freeing inmates or sending some convicts to rehabilitation programs instead of prison, according to an Associated Press analysis of legislative proposals. If adopted, the early release programs could save an estimated $450 million in California and Kentucky alone.

A Rhode Island proposal would allow inmates to deduct up to 12 days from their sentence for every month they follow rules and work in prison. Even some violent offenders would be eligible but not those serving life sentences.

A plan in Mississippi would offer early parole for people convicted of selling marijuana or prescription drugs. New Jersey, South Carolina and Vermont are considering funneling drug-addicted offenders into treatment, which is cheaper than prison.

In California, where lawmakers have taken steps to cut a $16 billion budget deficit in half by summer, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed saving $400 million by releasing more than 22,000 inmates who had less than 20 months remaining on their sentences. Violent and sex offenders would not be eligible.

Gov. Steve Beshear has said Kentucky must review its policies after the state's inmate population jumped 12 percent last year - the largest increase in the nation.

Kentucky spends more than $18,600 to house one inmate for a year, or roughly $51 a day. In California, each inmate costs an average of $46,104 to incarcerate.

The prison budget in Mississippi has nearly tripled since stricter sentencing laws took effect in 1994.

More proof that it's imperative we make changes to our current sentencing laws and policies.

SCOTUS blog provides this:

Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on Thursday turned aside a plea by California officials, and cleared the way for the release of a state prison inmate who was convicted of a 1982 murder in Los Angeles. Kennedy had blocked a federal judge’s release order in the case of inmate Fred McCullough last Sunday, but on Thursday nullified his stay order and denied the state’s application “in all respects.”

McCullough has twice won rulings by the state parole board that he was suitable for release after becoming rehabilitated in prison.  Both times, however, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger overruled the board, and found that the nature of the original crime justified McCullough’s continued imprisonment.

Kennedy’s order on Thursday can be found here.  The Justice gave no indication of his reasoning.

McCullough is thus eligible for release while the state appeals to the Ninth Circuit Court a federal judge’s release decision.

The LA Times provides an update on federal retroactive crack sentence reductions in California here. The article begins with the following:

New federal sentencing guidelines designed to end the racially tinged disparity between prison sentences for powder and crack cocaine dealers went into effect a month ago, and so far more than 3,000 inmates have had their prison terms reduced.

Dozens have been released, including at least 15 in California, but many others who should have been released have not. Attorneys involved in the process blame bureaucratic delays as well as opposition from the Justice Department.

The title above is from an article in today's New York Times discussing “surreptitious sampling,” a practice used by law enforcement whereby police collect discarded items—straws, cigarette butts, tissues, etc.—discarded by a suspect and used by law enforcement for DNA analysis and, in some cases, evidence.

On March 25th, Adam Liptak, legal columnist for the New York Times, wrote this article discussing the rate at which innocent people are convicted of felonies. Yesteday, Capital Defense Weekly had this article titled "Another one: North Carolina sees the release of another innocent man", which provided in part:

[Glenn Edward] Chapman [sentenced to death for the 1992 murders of Betty Jean Ramseur and Tenene Yvette Conley in Hickory] becomes, according to the DPIC list, number 128 [found innocent of the crime for which he was convicted]. Not to sound too psychic or that much of an insider, 129 & 130 aren’t that far behind, and we may even see 131 this year. Two of the three are purportedly potential DNA exonerations, the other is just a matter of when, not if, the DA will concede error.

It seems as if Capital Defense Weekly is "psychic or that much of an insider." Number 129 could quite possibly be Michael Clancy, who was released from Rikers on Monday, when Bronx Supreme Court Justice Denis Boyle handed down a decision vacating Clancy's 1999 murder conviction.  The New York Daily News has more here.

The Morning News for northwest Arkansas has this story today:

[The Arkansas] Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected a Drew County man's claim he should have been granted a mistrial after the prosecutor at his rape trial made an improper argument that prejudiced the jury.

Tilton Rhodes was charged with raping and sexually assaulting a pre-teen girl.

During the trial, jurors heard testimony from the victim and from a second girl who said Rhodes raped her under similar circumstances. After the jury returned verdicts of guilty on the charges of rape and sexual assault, but before it began deliberating on a sentence, the prosecutor argued that justice required a sentence of 20 years, "ten for each girl."

The defense moved for a mistrial on the grounds Rhodes was on trial for offenses against one girl, not two. Circuit Judge Sam Pope denied the motion and instructed jurors to disregard the prosecutor's remark.

The jury fixed Rhodes' sentence at 10 years in each count and recommended that the sentences run consecutively. Pope followed the jury's recommendation, giving Rhodes a total prison sentence of 20 years.

The Sentencing Project has this today:

In an opinion piece published in the annual report of the Open Society Foundation of South Africa, Marc Mauer cautions policymakers to avoid the U.S. model of massive prison expansion as a means of coping with the nation's crime problem. He argues that “such a strategy is not only harmful to public safety interests, but diverts resources and attention from more constructive approaches.” After assessing the limited impact of rising incarceration on crime, he suggests that “a variety of approaches in the areas of preschool education, drug treatment, and high school completion are more effective than expanding the use of incarceration.”

The full article is here.

Many thanks to Kent Scheidegger who posted this interesting piece today on Crime and Consequences:

The Ninth Circuit today decided Osborne v. District Attorney's Office (Anchorage), No. 06-35875

William Osborne, an Alaska prisoner, brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to compel the District Attorney’s Office in Anchorage to allow him post-conviction access to biological evidence—semen from a used condom and two hairs—that was used to convict him in 1994 of kidnapping and sexual assault. Osborne, who maintains his factual innocence, intends to subject the evidence, at his expense, to STR and mitochondrial DNA testing, methods that were unavailable at the time of his trial and are capable of conclusively excluding him as the source of the DNA....

[U]nder the unique and specific facts of this case and assuming the availability of the evidence in question, Osborne has a limited due process right of access to the evidence for purposes of post-conviction DNA testing, which might either confirm his guilt or provide strong evidence upon which he may seek post-conviction relief.

That's the headline from SCOTUSblog, which provides this intro:

The Justice Department, in a new brief in the pending Supreme Court cases on detainees’ legal rights, argued that any reopening of the prisoners’ right to habeas would not be swift, but would face a variety of “fundamental and unprecedented issues” complicating that process. The brief, filed on Monday, was a response to added written arguments that the Court on March 17 had allowed detainees’ lawyers to make in Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. U.,S. (06-1196).  Those cases were argued Dec. 5, and are awaiting a decision.

The rest of the article is here and SCOTUSblog provides the brief here.

The Times-Dispatch of Richmond, Virginia has this article today: "Governor Kaine postpones Bell execution; Executions will be stayed till U.S. high court rules in lethal-injection case." Here are the highlights:

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine granted a temporary reprieve to condemned killer Edward Nathaniel Bell yesterday, pending a challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court to the way lethal injections are conducted.

Bell, 42, murdered Sgt. Ricky Lee Timbrook, a Winchester police officer in 1999. Timbrook was shot in the head while pursuing Bell on foot. Bell's new execution date will be July 24.

Click to read more ...

The Chicago Tribune article here begins with the following:

Anyone who violates an order of protection could be forced to wear a satellite tracking device that would issue an electronic warning if the offender gets too close to the victim, under legislation introduced Tuesday in Springfield.

The Washington Post has this article today about a 12-year old boy who killed a man attacking his mother. The article provides, in part:

The 12-year-old boy had finished his homework and was playing a video game when he heard his mother cry out. Rushing to her aid, he found her on the kitchen floor, straddled by a fellow resident of their Prince George’s County boarding house, the man's hands wrapped tightly around her neck, the boy said yesterday.

"I kept saying, 'Stop! Stop! Stop!' " the boy said, describing the events of Monday night. "But he just ignored me. He didn't stop. He just kept hurting her."

The boy said he grabbed a knife and swung, slashing 64-year-old Salomon Noubissie across the neck and opening an artery. Noubissie was fatally wounded.

The case presents exceedingly unusual circumstances: Rarely is a 12-year-old implicated in a homicide, and even less often does a child that age take a life to protect his mother.

"In Maryland, there can be a legitimate defense of third parties in the event of a violent attack," State’s Attorney Glenn F. Ivey said. "That is a possibility in this case."

"'Mumia Exception's' ugly head again" : The Philadelphia Inquirer has this story about Third Circuit Judge Thomas Ambro’s dissent in the Mumia Abu-Jamal case which reads, in part, "Our court has previously reached the merits of Batson claims . . . where the petitioner did not make a timely objection during jury selection . . . and I see no reason why we should not afford Abu-Jamal the courtesy of our precedents."

"[Enhanced] Sentence of man who solicited teen upheld in appeals court":  The Sioux City Journal reports here Eighth Circuit upholds district court’s enhanced sentence where defendant provided false testimony at his sentencing hearing and denied attempting to recruit a fellow inmate to kill the victim.

From today's LA Times, this article reports the U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a case asking whether judges may take into account "acquitted conduct" when they determine the length of a prison sentence.  Here are the key points:

[Mark Hurn's] case began in 2005 when police in Madison searched Hurn's home and found drugs. They seized 450 grams of crack cocaine, about 50 grams of powder cocaine and $38,000 in cash. Hurn admitted to being a drug dealer, but at his trial he testified the crack belonged to other people who lived in the house.

A jury convicted him of possessing powder cocaine but acquitted him of the crack cocaine charges. Nonetheless, prosecutors said he should be punished for both the crack and powder cocaine offenses, and recommended a sentence of about 20 years in prison.

U.S. District Judge John Shabazz agreed with the prosecutors and said there was good reason to think Hurn was guilty of the crack cocaine charges. He imposed a sentence of nearly 18 years.

Click to read more ...

Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals launches investigation into District Judge Nottingham's conduct ; The Denver Post reports here that the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals is investigating allegations that Chief U.S. District Judge Edward W. Nottingham Jr. spent $3,000 on strippers and got into an argument with a woman in a wheelchair because she says he illegally parked in a handicap spot.

Fifth Circuit to hear Williamson use-of-force case ; The Austin American-Statesman reports here that Fifth Circuit judges will hear arguments today in a case involving a Williamson County deputy to determine if he used excessive force when he shot a man who was threatening suicide in 2004.

Here's the intro from the New York Times article:

For 10 months, a section of this city’s North Side has had no alderman at City Hall. Michael McGee Jr., the man its residents elected to the Common Council, has been behind bars, awaiting trials on federal charges of extortion and soliciting bribes from business owners in his district and state charges including paying for votes and conspiring to have a man beaten.

Still, when Mr. McGee’s seat comes up for election on Tuesday, he may win once more: without knocking on a door, he received more votes than any of his eight challengers in a February primary. That outcome baffled some here, particularly those in white neighborhoods and suburbs far from his mostly black Sixth District.

Capital Defense Weekly has this interesting piece about a host of cert denials from Texas in the aftermath of Medellin.

7 Mexican-born inmates on Texas’ death row lost their bids for appeal Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court, following the court’s ruling last week that another Mexican-born inmate’s case couldn’t be reopened despite an order from President Bush.

Click to read more ...

The Daily Report has this interesting article today about a 2007 North Carolina Law Review article written by a Professor at the University of Georgia and she caught the eye of of one Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court. Here are the highlights:

Eight years ago, Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court put out a call for answers. In a concurring opinion in a case about the right of criminal defendants to represent themselves on appeal, Breyer noted the lack of data on the subject of pro se defendants.

Click to read more ...