The Senate hearing on allegations that Brett Kavanaugh committed sexual assault as a teenager provoked a flood of social media posts from women on their anguished decisions about reporting such assaults. Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court and the ferocious backlash against accuser Christine Blasey Ford has fueled worries among sexual assault survivors, advocates and prosecutors of a longer-term chilling effect on women’s willingness to report, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports. “This is really damaging. I feel like some women will go back into the shadows and not come forward,” said Michelle Kelty of the Kentucky Attorney General Survivor’s Council, who saw Ford endure death threats and ridicule from President Trump. “Reporting is important. That’s the only way we’re going to stop these guys and say it’s not OK.” Elizabeth Wessels-Martin of the Center for Women and Families in Louisville said victims’ most common fears — ‘If I report it, will I be retaliated against? Will anyone believe me?” — were laid bare in the hearings in a way that could dissuade victims from reporting. “We’re all worried,” said Kristi Gray, a Louisville sex crimes prosecutor. “If people feel (Ford) was not believed, I think it’s much harder for them to want to come forward and disclose.” Sexual assault survivors and their advocates say sex assault is already vastly underreported. An estimated one-third of sexual assaults nationally are reported to police, compared to about two-thirds of robberies, said Brad Campbell, a University of Louisville criminologist. That can be attributed to a range of factors, from fears of stigma or retaliation to traumatic investigations or a life turned upside down, advocates said. “You may put your relationships at risk. Your job, your housing,” said one victim said. “It’s like being assaulted twice.” Survivors must weigh the difficulties of pursuing charges when there is no corroborating witnesses or DNA evidence. Conservatives have been at the forefront of Washington’s effort to help rehabilitate federal prisoners recently. An effort to restore convicted felons’ voting rights in Florida is pitting the party’s new position on the issue against its future prospects in a key presidential swing state, McClatchy Newspapers report. Miami attorney Marlon Hill says that Florida’s Amendment 4 — which would effectively create 1.3 million new voters in a state of roughly 13 million registered voters — is drawing unusual support from both parties’ voters in a state that’s played host to some of the closest presidential contests. “When you go to the water cooler or the lunchroom table in many offices across Florida, this is the one amendment where there is full clarity,” said Hill. “I would be shocked if it does not make the 60 percent [needed to become law].” Fear that the end result could result in more Democratic voters is scaring off some Republicans who have supported other criminal justice reform efforts in the past, including GOP gubernatorial hopeful Ron DeSantis. Conservatives in Washington back a proposal to bolster the federal prison system’s rehabilitation programs, a move expected to help the GOP improve its standing with voters in urban Democratic strongholds. DeSantis was among the Republicans who voted to advance that proposal from a Congressional committee this year. Hill said Florida’s ballot initiative would force candidates in both parties to compete for a large number of new voters in a state where Republicans have held a narrow advantage. More than 4,000 prisoners with serious mental illness are being held in solitary confinement in U.S. prisons, despite the knowledge that holding people in isolation exacerbates mental problems and can even trigger them, says new research reported by The Guardian. A survey by Yale law researchers with the Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA) found the prevalence of solitary confinement among prisoners struggling with profound mental health issues. They are kept in isolation for at least 22 hours a day for 15 continuous days or more. ASCA and Arthur Liman Center at Yale found that most states are holding mentally-ill individuals in isolation. Of the 33 states that responded to the survey with details, only Texas said it had no such inmates in solitary confinement. Thirteen of the states that replied – more than a third – said that at least 10 percent of their male prisoners with mental health problems were in isolation. Missouri had the highest number – 703 – while New Mexico had the highest proportion, with 64 percent of mentally ill prisoners being kept in solitary. “This is tragic,” said Judith Resnik, a Yale law professor. “Solitary confinement is a disabling setting that is harmful for human health and safety. It can do harm for people who are mentally okay and inflict terrible damage on people who are already mentally ill.” A 2014 study in New York City’s jails found that the prevalence of self harm among inmates held in isolation was seven times that of those in general population. American Correctional Association standards forbid states from holding mentally-ill prisoners in isolation for prolonged periods. On Tuesday, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in a case that the court declined to hear that she was “deeply troubled” by the on-going practice. She wrote that “solitary confinement imprints on those that it clutches a wide range of psychological scars”. The U.S. Justice Department will oppose a pending agreement to overhaul Chicago Police Department operations that was set in motion after the 2014 fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Tuesday that such agreements “undercut proactive policing” and have contributed to recent surges in violence, reports USA Today. “It is imperative that the city not repeat the mistakes of the past — the safety of Chicago depends on it,” Sessions said, adding that Justice would file a “statement of interest” in federal court this week formally opposing the proposed, court-monitored pact. The sweeping plan, among other things, would require officers to document each time they draw their weapons. The provision has prompted opposition from the police officers union, which contends that such a requirement could put officers at risk. DOJ will meet a Friday deadline for written comment on the plan to be reviewed by U.S. District Judge Robert Dow. Public hearings are scheduled later this month. The developments come nearly a week after a jury convicted officer Jason Van Dyke of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery, one for each shot he fired at McDonald. The incident was one of several deadly confrontations between African Americans and law enforcement that touched off a national debate about policing in black and Latino communities. The Trump administration has adamantly opposed federal court oversight of policing, a policy aggressively pursued by the Obama administration. Gary Tuggle, Baltimore’s interim police commissioner — the third person to hold the post this year — has withdrawn from consideration for the permanent job. Tuggle, a former Drug Enforcement Administration veteran who joined the police department this year, decided he couldn’t make the necessary commitment, reports the Baltimore Sun. “The problems are a heavy lift, but they’re not insurmountable,” said Tuggle. His decision was disclosed in a hearing on the police department’s consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice. “I’m confident it can be fixed, without a doubt, but it’s going to take an extended commitment — I’m going to say five to seven years — based on everything that needs to be done, including re-establishing the public’s trust in the department. And I just don’t have that five to seven years to give,” he said. City Solicitor Andre Davis told U.S. District Judge James Bredar that the city remains on track to name a new police commissioner by month’s end. The selection process has been kept under wraps. Davis said more than 50 applications have been received, and a panel of three experts from around the country is helping in the search. The city entered into a consent decree with the Justice Department last year after a federal investigation found widespread unconstitutional and discriminatory police practices. That investigation was launched after the 2015 death of Freddie Gray from injuries suffered while in police custody. Former Police Commissioner Kevin Davis was fired in January. His replacement, Darryl De Sousa, lasted just a few months before he was charged with failing to file federal taxes and resigned in May. De Sousa had recruited Tuggle to be one of his deputies. Baltimore has had 10 police commissioners since 1989. Baltimore is in the midst of its deadliest 30-day stretch since 2015, with 43 people killed in the past month. In his first day on the bench as a U.S. Supreme Court justice, Brett Kavanaugh was not the most frequent questioner but showed he was fully prepared for the vexing ambiguities of a federal sentencing law despite little time to get up to speed, reports the National Law Journal. With his wife, two daughters and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy watching, Kavanaugh appeared relaxed and engaged before and during two hours of oral arguments. Mike Davis, chief counsel to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who led the confirmation push, attended. Sitting at the far right corner of the bench, Kavanaugh chatted and laughed with his seatmate, Obama appointee Elena Kagan, before arguments began on what Justice Samuel Alito later would call a statute that “a majority of the court really hates,” the Armed Career Criminal Act. The night before, speaking at the White House, Kavanaugh said he would join the bench with “no bitterness” about confirmation proceedings at which his credibility and temperament were questioned. Despite the intense emotions surrounding Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, at which he was accused of sexual misconduct in his high school and college years—he denied the claims—there were no attempts to protest inside the courtroom. The new justice’s debut was in marked contrast to Justice Neil Gorsuch’s first argument day. Gorsuch, who like Kavanaugh was nominated by President Trump and attended the same suburban Maryland high school, jumped right into questioning in his first case. Kavanaugh asked eight questions in two hours in a businesslike, straight-forward manner, pressing the advocates at times for more complete answers to his questions. Alito’s frustration with the Armed Career Criminal Act boiled over in one argument when he said, “we have made a royal mess” of the law. Soon after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein suggested using a wiretap to record President Trump, then-acting FBI director Andrew McCabe went to the bureau’s top lawyer seeking advice on what he had heard. Rosenstein, McCabe told the lawyer, wanted to furtively record the president to help explore whether Trump had obstructed justice. The lawyer, James Baker, dismissed the idea, according to people familiar with the episode who described it the Washington Post. Baker told congressional investigators last week that the deputy attorney general’s suggestion was presented to him by senior FBI officials as being serious — raising questions about Rosenstein’s assertions to the contrary. Rosenstein is expected to talk to congressional investigators about the 2017 episode, which nearly cost him his job after it was disclosed last month. It was not clear when the session would occur. The high-stakes interview with some close Trump allies could again put the deputy attorney general in the hot seat, especially if those lawmakers are unconvinced of Rosenstein’s testimony and relay their concerns to the president. His testimony also could give Trump supporters more ammunition to criticize the special counsel probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, an investigation Rosenstein supervises. “Really, we want to give the deputy attorney general the chance to clarify what was said and what was not said,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), a Trump ally who has been critical of Rosenstein. Baker said the proposal to wear a wire was dismissed by senior FBI and Justice Department officials “within a couple of days.” At the time of the meeting, tensions were running high between Rosenstein and McCabe, and according to participants, it was clear that both men were on edge. A sudden influx of Guatemalan families into Arizona has overwhelmed detention facilities there and forced the government to release hundreds of parents and children over the past several days, says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reports the Washington Post. Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe, an ICE spokeswoman, said the agency can no longer conduct basic reviews of migrants’ case files and travel plans without running the risk of exceeding court-imposed limits on how long children can be held in immigration jails. As a result, ICE has been dropping off busloads of families at church shelters and charities, some with ankle monitoring bracelets, others with little more than notices to appear in court. “In light of the incredibly high volume of [families] presenting themselves along the Arizona border, ICE no longer has the capacity to conduct [case] reviews” without the risk of violating child-detention rules, O’Keefe said. “To mitigate that risk, ICE began to curtail such reviews in Arizona.” The U.S. Border Patrol has arrested soaring numbers of Central American families in the three months since President Trump halted the practice of separating migrant parents and children who enter the U.S. illegally. Groups of 100 or more have been turning themselves in to agents and requesting humanitarian refuge. “We are seeing record numbers of family units coming across,” said one Department of Homeland Security official. The department has not published border arrest totals for September, but the number of parents who arrived with children is expected to significantly exceed the 12,774 family members apprehended in August. Most families have been crossing into the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, but border agents have seen a surge in the deserts of southern Arizona, where the government has even less ability to hold families in child-appropriate conditions. The vast majority are processed and let go. After a third inmate in three months was accidentally released from jail last week, King County Executive Dow Constantine in Seattle appointed an outside investigator to review the county’s inmate-release policies at both the county jail in downtown Seattle and the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, the Seattle Times reports. The latest incident involved what officials called the “inadvertent release” of Marc-Eugene Larson, who had been jailed since February on two counts of first-degree assault, accused of shooting two men. After a week of freedom, Larson, 38, was re-arrested on Monday and is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail. “The scope of the review will include examining how court documents are processed and release procedures followed by the commitment officer, the release officer and sergeant that oversees the process,” said county spokesman Alex Fryer. “The investigator will also provide recommendations on best practices for inmate processing and release, and how best to coordinate with courts, prosecutors, and law enforcement agencies.” On Oct. 1, a judge ordered the release of a material witness in the criminal case against Larson. The witness, one of Larson’s alleged victims, spent three weeks in jail before he was let go. Based on the judge’s order to release the material witness, jail staff also released Larson. Willie Hayes, director of the King County Department of Adult & Juvenile Detention, said the jail became aware of Larson’s “inadvertent release” on Sunday from the prosecutor’s office and has started an investigation Former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), who went to prison last year after admitting to sexting with a minor, will be released from federal detention next May because of “good conduct,” Politico reports. Weiner was sentenced to 21 months in prison for sending sexually explicit material to a teenage girl. He was set to be released in August 2019. Currently at the Federal Medical Center in Devens, Ma., Weiner is now set to be released May 14. Before his sexual abuse scandal roiled New York and national politics, Weiner was a popular Democrat, winning several terms in the U.S. House of Representatives by wide margins. When Weiner was outed for sending an explicit image to an adult via his Twitter in 2011, the congressman resigned in shame. Weiner announced a brief and unsuccessful 2013 bid for mayor of New York City, which came to a halt when he was again revealed to be sending sexually explicit photographs under the pseudonym “Carlos Danger.” In 2016, the Daily Mail reported that Weiner had been sending sexually explicit messages to a teenage girl, prompting a criminal investigation and the seizing of his laptop. After he pleaded guilty in May 2017, his wife, Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton, sued for divorce. Despite Weiner’s emotional pleas for probation, he was sentenced to federal prison, which does not allow parole. Federal prisoners can get up to 54 days per year off of their sentences for good behavior. |
