FW: Our Weekly Highlights
Dianne Tramutola-Lawson
From: The Marshall Project [mailto:info=themarshall...@mail136.suw14.mcdlv.net] On Behalf Of The Marshall Project
Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2016 7:09 AM
Subject: Our Weekly Highlights
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Closing Argument |
Edited by Andrew Cohen |
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Closing Argument features highlights from the past week in criminal justice. To change how often you hear from us, update your preferences. |
How Donald Trump could undo (at least a part of) President Obama’s legacy on criminal justice. Congressional inaction these past eight years, on everything from gun control to sentencing reform to solitary confinement to “Banning the Box,” prompted Barack Obama to authorize a series of executive actions. If Donald Trump — the professed law-and-order candidate — becomes the 45th president, he could, with the stroke of a few pens, undermine or erase many of these efforts. TMP’s Eli Hager filed this report on how a Trump Administration could reshape the landscape of our federal justice system. “I’m a judge and I think criminal court is horrifying.” Shelley Chapman thought she had seen it all as a bankruptcy judge in Manhattan. Turns out she was unprepared for what she saw during a day of arraignments at the Bronx Criminal Court — on a Sunday, no less. “I was shocked at the casual racism emanating from the bench,” she says in this first-hand look at what the criminal justice system is like for many of the defendants who pass through it. Here is the latest in our “Life Inside” series. Hold the phone. The proposed merger between Prisoner Transportation Services and its closest rival is on hold with federal regulators after an advocacy group complained about the health and safety of the inmates who might be affected by the deal. The new complaint cited our recent coverage of abuse and neglect toward transported prisoners by PTS and the company’s failure to comply with federal law. TMP’s Alysia Santo and Eli Hager continued their coverage. Related: Last week, the company said it would hire a compliance monitor and install cameras in its fleet vehicles. “All judges are human beings under that robe.” In the past week or so, a little-known Kentucky trial judge, Amber Wolf, has twice become an Internet sensation for memorable episodes caught on camera in her courtroom. In one, she expressed outrage at the mistreatment of a female prisoner who appeared to not be wearing pants. In the other, she showed mercy to a father who had never seen his infant son. Our Alysia Santo interviewed Wolf about her career, the art and science of judging, and her new star turn. Why is Arkansas so tough on kids? Because its “unique network of service providers” is so entrenched and unaccountable. And the problem isn’t likely to change anytime soon so long as the state’s current infrastructure remains the same. Here is original TMP commentary from Dick Mendel, an independent writer and editor on juvenile justice and other youth, poverty and community development issues.
Criminal justice stories from around the web as selected by our staff. I’ve been haunted by this Village Voice story on John Mackenzie, a 70-year-old man who committed suicide in a New York prison after the state parole board denied him for the tenth time. He had killed a police officer in a case that was closely followed by the tabloids, a stigma his rehabilitation in prison never fully erased. His death is a reminder that prisoners are often denied parole due to the nature of the crime — which calls into question why they are even allowed to apply for it — but also a reminder hope can be a rare and fleeting thing in prisons. — Maurice Chammah South Carolina is “uniquely deadly to women” — a statistic born of domestic discord and cheap guns. Reporter Sonja Sharp investigates how mass shootings often are not random acts of violence, not public and not unpredictable in this VICE deep dive. “The term ‘mass shooting’ often inspires visions of chaos, of armed men raining bullets indiscriminately on schools or nightclubs,” Sharp writes. But many of these deaths are “intimate executions carried out in quiet homes by ordinary men who murder the women and children closest to them.” — Simone Weichselbaum Lonnie David Franklin, Jr., aka the “Grim Sleeper” was sentenced to death Wednesday in Los Angeles. Hearing the news made me want to re-watch Nick Broomfield’s remarkable, underappreciated documentary, “Tales of the Grim Sleeper.” Franklin targeted poor black women, some of whom were addicts and prostitutes, all of whom were easy for the police and media to ignore. Broomfield, who lets the chilling story unfold from the perspective of those living in the blighted communities where the crimes took place, shows how the LAPD’s structural racism combined with broader societal indifference, allowing Franklin to hide in plain sight — and continue to murder — for years. — Ruth Baldwin The primary focus of the Drug Enforcement Administration is combating drug smuggling, but the agency’s work in the nation’s airports and train stations focuses mostly on seizing people’s money. An investigation published this week by USA Today reveals that while federal agents have seized hundreds of millions of dollars from travelers, whom they discover via a secret network of “travel-industry informants,” they rarely bring charges against those they suspect of crimes. A one-way ticket alone can be used as grounds for detainment, questioning, and asset seizure. If it’s about law enforcement, then why not prosecute those suspected of committing crimes? “We want cash. Good agents chase cash,” said one former drug task force supervisor. — Alysia Santo Three years ago, when a federal judge ruled NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy unconstitutional, the New York Daily News warned the ruling “threatens to push the city back toward the ravages of lawlessness and bloodshed.” This week, the paper took a look back at its earlier editorial and made a remarkable pronouncement: “We were wrong.” Their earlier dystopic vision was “too little informed about the potential of smart new strategies, our fears were baseless.” Also this week, The Washington Post reports that 52% of victims of violent crime believe prison makes people more likely to commit crimes again, and would prefer to see investments in treatment and prevention. A law-and-order editorial board and a group traditionally trotted out to support ever-harsher criminal penalties — two votes against a criminal justice system based on aggressive policing and incarceration. — Beth Schwartzapfel |
— Our reader Jo Brown, on the damning DOJ report on the Baltimore Police Department.
— Our reader Jane Fox, on what a bankruptcy judge found visiting a criminal justice court in the Bronx. |
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Dianne Tramutola-Lawson
From: The Marshall Project [mailto:info=themarshall...@mail3.suw13.rsgsv.net] On Behalf Of The Marshall Project
Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2016 7:05 AM
Subject: Our Weekly Highlights
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Closing Argument |
Edited by Andrew Cohen |
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Closing Argument features highlights from the past week in criminal justice. To change how often you hear from us, update your preferences. |
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So about those crime rates. Every city, even every neighborhood, has its own unique crime trends. To present a fuller picture of violent crime in America — and to help shape the national debate over whether crime is rising or falling — we collected and analyzed more than 40 years of data on the most serious, violent crimes, city by city, in 61 major jurisdictions. Our analysis found that violent crime rose 4 percent last year in those cities, but they still had one of the lowest crime rates since 1975. Check out the trends in your home town. “Lunacy in an urban environment.” Even before his city erupted in flames and violence this weekend in the wake of a controversial police shooting, Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn was complaining that Wisconsin’s permissive gun laws make the work of his officers more difficult. A sample: “Legislatures that pass these laws could not care less about the violence in the cities. Couldn't care less, because they perceive cities to be populated by people who wouldn't vote for them anyway.” TMP’s Simone Weichselbaum brought us the interview. Will the next Chicago Civilian Review Board do any better at holding police accountable? The civic push for policing reform in Chicago this summer includes recalibrating the controversial review boards, which foundered for years because they lacked independence. But even the revamped panels, charged with identifying episodes of police misconduct and holding officers accountable, won’t work without buy-in from police officials, union members, and local politicians. TMP’s Deonna Anderson brings us the story. The case of the do-nothing judge. Convicted over 40 years ago for a rape he claims he didn’t commit, Louisiana inmate Wilbert Jones has been waiting for five years now for a judicial “commissioner” to issue a ruling on potential new evidence that points to another man as the culprit. The pending claims are explosive: Baton Rouge police and prosecutors may have actively protected another man who was more likely to have committed the crimes for which Jones was charged. Here is the latest in our “Case in Point” series. What it’s like to be blind in prison. Burl Washington was not blind when he went to prison for 30 years on a drug sentence in South Carolina. But his glaucoma progressed, and now he cannot see a thing. He long ago stopped going to the law library to work on his case for an early release, and when he asked prison officials if he could be taught Braille, they said no. So now he’s virtually helpless, in a place where it is particularly hard to be helpless. Here is the latest in our “Life Inside” series. |
Criminal justice stories from around the web as selected by our staff. |
The Pew Charitable Trusts examined what it’s like to go to court when you don’t speak English. In many states, there is little in the way of regulation to make sure courtroom interpreters are good at their jobs and what regulation exists is routinely ignored by judges just trying to rocket through their docket. In one case, which leads this story, a man is mistakenly led to believe he’s being accused of rape, when really all he is facing is a traffic violation charge. — Maurice Chammah Why is this man in prison for his friend’s shooting when he never fired a single bullet? The Chicago Reader this week delves into an under-discussed angle to police shootings: how the “felony murder” rule can convict another civilian for the murder of someone actually killed by cops. If the shooting happens while co-defendants are committing another felony, like robbery, then they’re liable for “setting in motion the chain of events that lead to another’s death.” The case they explore is one of ten such prosecutions in Cook County in the last five years. — Christie Thompson Is Florida State Attorney Angela Corey “the cruelest prosecutor in America?” She first gained national attention when she unsuccessfully charged George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin. She charged Marissa Alexander with aggravated assault — a charge that carries a 20-year prison sentence — for firing a gun at her abusive husband, in an incident where no one was hurt. In a devastating report, The Nation looks at the myriad ways Corey’s jurisdiction is an outlier. One of the counties in her circuit has the highest incarceration rate in Florida, hands down 25 percent of the state’s death sentences, and tries more juveniles as adults than any other jurisdiction in the state — like 12-year-old Cristian Hernandez, whose story may break your heart. — Beth Schwartzapfel The life of the Chicago Tribune's overnight crime reporter is not an easy one. Peter Nickeas recounts the traumas of covering the city's shooting epidemic during a three-year span. Most of his stories involve African-Americans who cross his path as they, or their loved ones, struggle to survive gun crimes. Nickeas’ memories, recounted in Chicago Magazine, include the time that he and a photographer fled from a man who threatened to shoot them at a crime scene. And the time he watched the shocked mother of a shot child, her clothes soaked with blood, vomit outside the hospital as she awaited updates from doctors. "Work had become something that I lived and not just something that I did," he writes. — Simone Weichselbaum After John Hinckley was acquitted by reason of insanity for his assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, Idaho eliminated the “insanity defense” entirely from its criminal procedure. Instead, severely mentally-ill defendants must simply hope for mercy from a judge, reported the Los Angeles Times this week, including people like Kyle Odom, a Marine veteran who shot a pastor because he believed he was part of an alien conspiracy aimed at enslaving people. — Alysia Santo |
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— Our reader Ginger Lyons, on evangelicals ditching the death penalty. |
Dianne Tramutola-Lawson
From: The Marshall Project [mailto:info=themarshall...@mail125.atl31.mcdlv.net] On Behalf Of The Marshall Project
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2016 7:05 AM
Subject: Our Weekly Highlights
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Closing Argument |
Edited by Andrew Cohen |
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Closing Argument features highlights from the past week in criminal justice. To change how often you hear from us, update your preferences. |
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How New York failed its prisoners after Attica. A new book reopens debate over the bloody 1971 prison uprising and siege that spurred landmark prison reform efforts. Reporters from The New York Times and TMP’s Tom Robbins take a look at some of the specific measures promised by state officials to inmates, many of them unrealized or half-heartedly imposed in the 45 years since the smoke cleared. Some bail reformers aren’t waiting for official bail reform. State lawmakers and judges may finally be turning their attention to the inequities in the nation’s bail system, and the Justice Department is pressing the case from Washington. But in communities all over the country, critics of the bail industry are raising money to help poor people get out of jail while awaiting trial. TMP’s Alysia Santo examines the promise and challenges of “bail funds.” TMP context: When freedom isn’t free. How college hazing defies the laws designed to stop it. In the next few weeks, 20 million students will be going off to college. For many, joining new groups, including sororities or fraternities, will involve hazing in one form of another. There are plenty of anti-hazing laws on the books around the country but those laws are rarely used by police, prosecutors, or campus officials. “They are basically a symbolic gesture,” says the professor who has been tracking this corner of the law for the past 30 years. TMP’s Josiah Bates filed this report. What I learned cutting hair in prison. It’s safe to say that few customers are ever as happy to see a barber as Andre Lyons’ “customers” are to see him. An inmate in a Washington, D.C. jail, he cuts hair for his fellow prisoners, who are eager to see themselves in a mirror, and to get as much information about the outside world as he is able to share. He’s about to be transferred to a prison but hopes he’ll be able to cut hair there, too, because “every prison is full of guys who would love to feel more human.” Here is the latest in our “Life Inside” series. |
Criminal justice stories from around the web as selected by our staff. |
Last week, an execution was halted in Texas over the testimony of a psychiatrist named James Grigson, who had a tendency to embellish the truth on the witness stand, diagnosing murder defendants as psychopathic serial killers without ever having examined them. The definitive account of Grigson’s long and bizarre career — “Travels with Dr. Death” by Ron Rosenbaum for Vanity Fair — is sadly not online, but to learn more about Grigson, check out Dr. James Knoll’s 2010 account of meeting Grigson and watching him mesmerize a room. — Maurice Chammah Unlike defendants in criminal court, those in immigration proceedings have no right to a public defender. That means migrant children, many fleeing gang violence in central America, are left to represent themselves in court, arguing against government lawyers why they should be allowed to stay in the country. A class-action lawsuit filed by the ACLU, detailed in this New York Times story, aims to provide kids with attorneys to guide them through such complicated hearings. As one youth recalled, “When the judge asked me questions, I just shook my head yes and no. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing.” — Christie Thompson The way country songs portray domestic violence is changing, following shifting perceptions of laws and gender roles, according to this thoughtful analysis in The Economist. If Reba McEntire sang in 1987 that a woman must “pretend that she fell down the stairs again,” now superstar Carrie Underwood’s chart-topper single cheers for a wife celebrating her husband’s demise: “How he died is still a mystery / But he hit a woman for the very last time.” Only 15 percent of those who died by domestic violence had contact with support agencies in the five years before their deaths, so “hearing someone on the radio singing about your experience, when you feel like no one else has gone through this or can understand, can be life-changing,” said one advocate. — Pedro Burgos In Baltimore, a plane equipped with the equivalent of 800 video cameras surveils an area roughly 30 square miles. Employees of the private company in charge of the program, which the public neither knew about nor consented to, scroll back and forth through the video to witness crimes they then report to the police. The tension between privacy and security represented by this new form of civic spying was explored this week by Bloomberg. An ACLU analyst says Big Brother “is finally here.” — Alysia Santo |
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— Our reader Ryan Kail on the limits of the federal private prison phase-out. |
