In an effort to combat Oklahoma’s increasing prison population, the state will soon to allow some nonviolent prisoners nearing the end of their sentence to be released from prison under supervision, The Frontier reports. Corrections Director Joe Allbaugh told a state board that he is taking action because legislators have done little to stem the growth of the state’s record prison population. “We have to start somewhere,” Allbaugh said. “In the past, we’ve waited around for other folks in authority to help us address our population problems. The time for us waiting is over.” The state’s prison system is at 109 percent capacity, with a record 63,171 individuals either incarcerated or under supervision. The new Community Supervision Program would allow some nonviolent, minimum-security prisoners who are within 18 months of completing their sentences to be released under GPS supervision and by a probation and parole officer. Offenders will be required to report to a probation and parole officer within five days of release, and must contact their parole officer at least twice a month. Allbaugh stressed that the program was not a “release” program that sets offenders free without supervision. About 1,400 offenders might qualify but least half of those are expected to be screened out. “It will be a slow trickle,” Allbaugh said. “We won’t be letting folks out on ankle bracelets overnight.” While a debate over professional football players kneeling during the national anthem consumed much of the nation, demonstrators in St. Louis protested the acquittal of a white former police officer in the fatal 2011 shooting of a black man, marching inside a mall and through the streets in daily protests for more than a week. Racial justice activists are concerned that the essential issues they have spent years trying to highlight — police brutality and systemic racism — could get lost in the growing national dialogue emerging from football stadiums, reports the New York Times. When former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick first made headlines last year by sitting during the national anthem, he made his motive clear: He was protesting racial injustice, especially the police killings of black people, an issue that began drawing increased national attention after the 2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson. Now, with President Trump criticizing kneeling players, leading many players, owners and league officials to band together, motivations have become murky, racial justice advocates and protesters say. Are they fighting for free speech or against police brutality? Is the anti-racism message of kneeling being co-opted by a league and owners more concerned about their bottom line than black lives? “This new wave of everyone kneeling, it means absolutely nothing,” said L’lerrét Jazelle Ailith of Black Youth Project 100, an activist organization. “It’s become very basic and watered down.” Ailith and other activists fear that the latest debate involving football players could cause the focus of the activism started by Kaepernick to stray from its original intent. Trump urged football team owners to fire players who did not stand for the anthem, saying they should “get that son of a bitch off the field right now.” Ailith said the protests should not focus on the president, but on achieving racial justice in areas like policing, education, health care and the economy. Millions of U.S. drivers have lost their licenses for failing to pay court debts, according to a new report from the Falls Church, Va.-based Legal Aid Justice Center. Advocates say the practice unfairly punishes the poor, the Washington Post reports. The center says 43 states and the District of Columbia suspend driver’s licenses because of unpaid fines and fees, trapping people in a “vicious court debt cycle.” The study indicates that the licenses of more than 4.2 million people were revoked in the five states it studied: Virginia, Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Michigan. Thee states were chosen because of pending litigation or because the numbers were readily available. Texas led the list, with 1.8 million licenses suspended for failure to pay. North Carolina was second with 1.2 million, and Virginia was third with 977,000. Only four states require officials to determine whether defendants can afford to pay fines before suspending their licenses. Some 19 states require that licenses be suspended for unpaid fines. “Millions of people have lost their licenses simply because they are too poor to pay, effectively depriving them of reliable, lawful transportation necessary to get to and from work, take children to school, keep medical appointments, care for ill or disabled family members, or, paradoxically, to meet their financial obligations to the courts,” the report says. The center issued the report a year after filing a class-action suit that alleged that the licenses of more than 940,000 Virginians were suspended in an “unconstitutional scheme.” The suit cited four plaintiffs, including Damian Stinnie, who became homeless after failing to pay about $1,000 in traffic fines. A federal judge dismissed the class action in March, saying the issue should be decided by a state court, a ruling under appeal. Similar cases were filed in Michigan, California, Texas and elsewhere. Prosecutors in Baltimore have decided to drop dozens of additional criminal cases that relied on the testimony of eight city police officers indicted on federal racketeering charges, bringing the total to more than 100, said Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s office, the Baltimore Sun reports. They have dropped still more cases that relied on the testimony of officers in police body camera footage that critics say showed improper or questionable behavior. More than 850 criminal cases in Baltimore “have been or potentially will be impacted” as a result of the federal racketeering case and three separate body-camera investigations, Mosby’s office said. Hundreds of cases are still being reviewed. The updated figures reflect the growing fallout from scandals that have cast the Baltimore Police Department in a negative light in recent months, just as it seeks to implement sweeping reforms under a court-enforced consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice. Mosby’s office said the figures are the result of local prosecutors’ efforts to “thoroughly evaluate” not only cases in which questionable police activity arises, but also every other criminal case that is dependent on the word of officers who have been involved in questionable activity. Deborah Katz Levi of the Baltimore public defender’s office, which helped uncover some of the body-camera footage, said that while she applauds the “initial efforts” by Mosby’s office to address alleged police misconduct, prosecutors haven’t gone far enough. “[We] believe their numbers are far too low and there are still far too many individuals incarcerated on tainted convictions,” Levi said. Acting Drug Enforcement Administration chief Chuck Rosenberg, who was chosen two years ago to bring stability to an agency riven by controversy, will step down Oct. 1, USA Today reports. Rosenberg, a long-time Justice Department official who also served as a two-time U.S. Attorney and a chief of staff to former FBI Director James Comey, was appointed after scandals forced the ouster of his predecessor, Michele Leonhart. Rosenberg worked closely with Comey, the FBI director Trump fired in May. Rosenberg also once served as a counselor to former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who is now directing the investigation into Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election. As the Trump administration ramps up its response to the opioid crisis and formulates a harder line policy on marijuana, it has been considering other nominees DEA slot, including New Jersey State Police Superintendent Rick Fuentes. Fuentes has discussed the job with top Justice officials. A career New Jersey law enforcement official, Fuentes was appointed to lead the state police in 2003 and is the state’s longest serving superintendent. His candidacy is supported by the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union. The U.S. Supreme Court, in what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls “a stunning turn of events,” granted a stay of execution Tuesday night to Georgia killer Keith Tharpe, three and a half hours after he was scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection. In a 6-3 decision, the justices were apparently concerned about claims that one of Tharpe’s jurors was racist and sentenced Tharpe to death because he is African American. Chief Justice John Roberts agreed to grant the stay along with Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented. The high court will now decide whether to hear Tharpe’s appeal. Kristina Roth of Amnesty International USA said the case “is a chilling example of how callous the state can be in matters of life and death.” Tharpe’s lawyers are appealing both state and federal court rulings that rejected claims that a racist juror voted for a death sentence because Tharpe is African American, and that Tharpe is ineligible to be executed because he is intellectually disabled. Tuesday afternoon, the Georgia Supreme Court, in its own 6-3 ruling, declined to hear Tharpe’s appeals, explaining that other courts had already ruled against him on those issues and that his new claims were barred on procedural grounds. On Monday, the state Board of Pardons and Paroles turned down pleas from Tharpe and about 20 friends and relatives to spare his life. They insisted the 59-year-old is not the same man who murdered his sister-in-law, Jacquelyn Freeman, 27 years ago. After the government built fences in San Diego, drug smugglers turned to the ocean, underground tunnels and, most commonly, the ports of entry. Last year more than 90 percent of the drug seizures happened in the port of entry, where millions of cars drive into San Diego from Mexico every year, reports the USA Today Network. David Shaw of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations heads a unit investigating cross-border crimes such as human trafficking, money laundering and drug smuggling. Cartels “operate like a business,” Shaw says. “If you put up one wall, they find a way to get around it.” Current and retired law-enforcement experts who have patrolled the border on a daily basis, asked about President Trump’s proposed border wall agree that San Diego, at least, would benefit more from additional personnel, training and investment in investigative tools like wiretaps and paid informants. Drug smuggling along the border is like a balloon, experts say. If you squeeze one part, the air simply shifts to another. The San Ysidro Port of Entry, which connects Tijuana, Mexico, to San Diego, is the busiest land crossing in the world. Every year, more than 14 million vehicles and 23 million passengers cross through one of 26 inspection lanes to get into the United States. During the 2016 fiscal year, Border Patrol agents in San Diego confiscated nearly 83,000 kilograms of marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin from the three ports of entry in the area. A federal appeals court threw out the 2015 public-corruption conviction of former New York state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and his son, Adam, but prosecutors said they would retry the case, the Wall Street Journal reports. The move comes after Sheldon Silver, the former Democratic New York state Assembly Speaker, had his corruption conviction vacated in July. Prosecutors vowed to retry that case, too. In both instances, an appeals court cited the Supreme Court ruling that voided the conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who had accepted loans and gifts from a businessman. Prosecutors argued McDonnell performed official acts, including arranging meetings and contacting government officials. The McDonnell case, which was decided after Silver was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison, clarified what counts as official acts of government power. The court said the jury instructions could criminalize ordinary behavior such as setting up meetings or hosting events for constituents. In the Skelos case, a jury found Skelos and his son guilty of eight criminal counts—including conspiracy, bribery and extortion—in what prosecutors described as a wide-ranging scheme to leverage the senator’s political power for his son’s financial benefit. The former legislator was sentenced to five years in prison. Joon Kim, acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney, said: “We look forward to a prompt retrial where we will have another opportunity to present the overwhelming evidence of Dean Skelos and Adam Skelos’s guilt.” Investigators will not say if the four guns recovered after a mass shooting Sunday at an Antioch, Tn., church are legally owned by the accused attacker. It is one of several unanswered questions that likely will rekindle the polarizing debate on gun regulation in Tennessee and across the nation, The Tennessean reports. “High-profile shootings like this often lead to calls for reform, but those calls for reform can come from different directions because Americans have such different views on how to promote public safety,” said UCLA law Prof. Adam Winkler, a Second Amendment specialist. “In many states, there is the push for new gun control laws. But in other states, you’ll see efforts to loosen laws in response to these shootings because in some states the view of the people is that the way to promote public safety is to have more guns.” In Tennessee, where lawmakers have honored a sniper rifle as a state symbol and regularly give away guns as campaign door prizes, legislative efforts tend to roll back regulations on gun ownership. This year, legislators approved several gun laws, including allowing loaded weapons to be stored in boats without permits and eliminating background checks for gun dealers selling personal firearms. Gun control advocates point to Sunday’s attack at Burnette Chapel Church of Christ, which killed one person and wounded seven others, as a call for more oversight of who is allowed to own and carry deadly weapons. “What the answer is, whether it’s gun control (or) … more closely scrutinizing people who obtain guns, keep in mind that would only be feasible or workable for people who obtain guns lawfully … This is going to be a continuing struggle for years,” says Metro Police Chief Steve Anderson. Gunman Emanuel Kidega Samson had a .40-caliber handgun and 9 mm handgun with him in the church and a .22-caliber handgun and semi-automatic AR-15 in his vehicle. Congress may be unable to provide job protection for special counsel Robert Mueller, whose wide-ranging investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election continues to anger President Trump, McClatchy Newspapers reports. Experts offered the Senate Judiciary Committee competing views on whether two bills designed to protect Mueller from firing by Trump or someone in the Justice Department would pass constitutional muster. A bill sponsored by North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis and Delaware Democrat Chris Coons would allow a fired special counsel to have his dismissal reviewed by a three-judge panel within 14 days. Another measure from Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) would require the Justice Department to clear such a firing with a panel of judges before it could take effect. “The bills … are unwise and unconstitutional,” said Akhil Reed Amar, a constitutional law professor at Yale Law School, who publicly opposed Trump in the election. University of Chicago law Prof. Eric Posner, also no fan of Trump, disagreed. “I’ve concluded they do not violate the principle of the separation of powers and on the contrary advance important constitutional values.” John Duffy, a law professor at the University of Virginia and former clerk of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, argued that parts of both bills were legally questionable, but said they could be tweaked to help pass judicial reviews. The complex legal issues and the scholars’ differing perspectives seemed to give senators pause about how, or whether, to move forward. Earle Farrell, spokesman for the Shelby County, Tn., Sheriff’s Office in Memphis, has been suspended for remarks on the agency’s Facebook page on the arrests of two Cuban immigrants on theft charges, reports the Memphis Commercial Appeal. With photos, the post said, in part, “BUSTED! These two recent immigrants from Cuba found out you don’t take merchandise from a store in America and not pay!” The material was taken down, and Sheriff Bill Oldham “apologized for those comments which did not represent his sentiments or those of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office,” his deputy said. Farrell, a former television reporter with WHBQ-TV Channel 13, was hired last year. After the post, many called it racially insensitive for pointing out the nationality of the two people arrested. The post emphasized the suspect’s nationality “and had a different tone that we think was disrespectful and unacceptable,” said Fabiola Granada of Latino Memphis. The sheriff’s office bans employees from using “forms of speech that ridicule, malign, disparage, or otherwise express bias against any race, any religion, or any protected class of individuals.” |
