| | |
Today In Criminal Justice
Prosecutors call for "Beyond Reproach" Standards on Cop Force Probes
Some Pro- Reform Prosecutors Are Facing a Backlash
Is Plea Bargaining Color Blind?
Dying Young in Prison
Democrats Face Risk If They Filibuster Gorsuch
Trump Focus on Drugs: Treatment or Enforcement?
Grassley Meets With Kushner on Sentencing Reform Bill
NYC Mayor Backs Rikers Island Closing
Sheriffs Fear Legal Liability Holding Inmates For ICE
Some States Seek to Curb Sharing of Immigration Data
Slight Drop in Chicago Violence; Totals Remain High
Organized Crime Drove 22 Percent Surge in Mexico Homicides Last Year
Who Should Probe Nashville Police Shooting?
Two Men Arrested in Cincinnati Mass Nightclub Shooting
Top Story
Prosecutors call for "Beyond Reproach" Standards on Cop Force ProbesThe Association of Prosecuting Attorneys released guidelines for investigations of use-of-force incidents that it says should ensure they are “transparent, objective and beyond reproach.” The Crime Report Some Pro-Reform Prosecutors Are Facing a BacklashA new vanguard of prosecutors has jettisoned the traditional lock-’em-up approach, embracing alternatives to harsh punishment. In their eagerness to enact changes, some are facing a backlash from law enforcement groups and conservative politicians, reports the New York Times. Tampa’s top prosecutor says too many children are charged as adults. Houston’s district attorney will no longer press charges in low-level marijuana cases. Chicago prosecutors will no longer oppose the release of many nonviolent offenders who cannot afford to post bond. Newly elected prosecutors in Denver and Orlando have vowed not to seek the death penalty, even for the most egregious killers.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, warned that failing to punish drug crimes would make Houston akin to a “sanctuary city” for illegal enterprise. In Chicago, a suburban police chief called a move to classify more shoplifting cases as misdemeanors “a slippery slope.” In Florida, a battle over the death penalty shows just how volatile an issue capital punishment remains, especially when the death of a police officer is involved. Aramis Ayala, the new chief prosecutor in Orlando, announced March 16 that she would no longer seek the death penalty. Gov. Rick Scott moved to replace her in the case of Markeith Loyd, who is charged with killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend and an Orlando policewoman. “Every citizen should be outraged,” Scott said of Ayala’s decision. This week, state legislative committees proposed cutting her budget by more than $1 million to cover the costs of other jurisdictions that are assigned her capital cases. Some lawmakers are calling for her suspension. Yesterday, Ayala supporters from across the state traveled to Tallahassee for a rally, while her opposition protested in Orlando. New York Times Is Plea Bargaining Color Blind?A guilty plea is likely to win you less leniency in sentencing if you’re an African-American male, according to a study published in Justice Quarterly this month. With 95% of all convictions the result of guilty pleas—many of them arranged through plea bargaining—the study authors argue that more attention needs to be paid to potential bias in the early phases of case processing. The Crime Report Dying Young in PrisonThe tragic suicide of Ben Van Zandt, a youth tried as an adult, adds pressure on NY legislators to raise the age of criminal responsibility, reports the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. New York is one of the few remaining states which still treats offenders as young as 17 as adults. The Crime Report Democrats Face Risk If They Filibuster GorsuchDemocrats could be taking a big risk if they filibuster President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, reports The Hill. Republicans have threatened to invoke the “nuclear option” to change the Senate rules so that Supreme Court nominees cannot be filibustered. After that, Gorsuch would only need 51 votes to get confirmed. Because the rules change would apply to future Supreme Court nominees, it could ease the way for President Trump to nominate another justice who is further to the right than Gorsuch, a possibility that is weighing on some Democrats.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.) warned Democratic donors at a fundraiser that filibustering Gorsuch could backfire on Democrats if “God forbid Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies, or Anthony Kennedy retires or Stephen Breyer has a stroke or is no longer able to serve.” Ginsburg and Kennedy are in their 80s, and Breyer will be 79 in August. All three justices are reliably liberal votes. “Then we’re not talking about [the late conservative Justice Antonin] Scalia for Scalia, which is what Gorsuch is, we’re talking about Scalia for somebody on the court who shares our values,” McCaskill said, according to audio the Kansas City Star obtained from the Missouri Republican Party. At the fundraiser McCaskill called Gorsuch “one of the better ones.” She is up for reelection in 2018 in a state Trump won. The Hill Trump Focus on Drugs: Treatment or Enforcement?As the Trump administration shapes its policy on drugs, tension is growing between a treatment-focused approach, embodied in a new opioid commission headed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and the aggressive prosecution of drug crimes promised by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Wall Street Journal reports. President Trump signaled support for a less-punitive strategy toward opioids by assigning the task force to Christie, who has focused on drug rehabilitation. At a White House event announcing the commission, two former addicts choked up while telling their recovery stories. “We’re very proud of you,” Trump said. Christie said, “I think the president and I both agree that addiction is a disease, and it’s a disease that can be treated.”
That sympathetic tone contrasted with Trump’s vow last month to a police group to be “ruthless’’ in stopping the drug trade and Sessions’ pledge to “hammer” drug dealers. The attorney general has said publicly that treatment comes “too late” for many addicts and has hinted at stepping up prosecutions of marijuana sales. “We have too much of a tolerance for drug use,” Sessions said. “We need to say, as Nancy Reagan said, ‘Just say no.’ …Lives are at stake, and we’re not going to worry about being fashionable.” The tug of war reflects two different constituencies: traditional conservatives, who favor a crackdown on crime that the president frequently links to illegal immigration and urban areas, and the white, working-class and rural communities who welcome a compassionate focus on the opioid epidemic that has ravaged their areas. The administration announced this week that Richard Baum, who has worked in the Office of National Drug Control Policy for nearly 20 years, will serve as its acting chief. Wall Street Journal Grassley Meets With Kushner on Sentencing Reform BillSenate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) met with White House adviser Jared Kushner about criminal justice reform yesterday, the Associated Press reports. The session gave supporters a small sign of encouragement that the issue could be revived under President Trump. The bipartisan effort would revise 1980s and ’90s-era federal “tough on crime” laws by reducing some mandatory sentences for low-level drug offenders and given judges greater discretion in sentencing.
A bill died in the Senate last year over conservative opposition, and its future is unclear Attorney General Jeff Sessions, then a senator from Alabama, was a fierce opponent. Former President Barack Obama was an enthusiastic backer. Supporters were skeptical that Trump would be as well, after he dubbed himself a “law-and-order candidate” and talked about with terrorism in big cities and attacks on police. On whether the bill could be revived, Grassley said, “We’re trying to reach some accommodation, if there needs to be any adjustment to the bill we had last year.” Associated Press NYC Mayor Backs Rikers Island ClosingNew York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has agreed on the broad contours of a plan to eventually close the city’s troubled jail complex on Rikers Island, telling those working on the issue that his position had changed, the New York Times reports. The details of his plan to do so were not immediately clear. They were expected to hew closely to recommendations in the 97-page report by an independent commission chaired by Judge Jonathan Lippman and created by the City Council to study the issue. The panel wants to move inmates off Rikers Island and into a system of smaller, borough-based jails, at a cost of $10.6 billion.
“The commission believes that the use of Rikers Island must be phased out over the next 10 years and its facilities demolished,” the report recommends. The jails there would be replaced with new jails built in each of the five boroughs that “would vary in size, on the expected population in each borough.” There would be 5,500 beds across the borough jails, under the commission’s plan, with the largest in Manhattan and the smallest on Staten Island. Lippman and the speaker of the City Council, Melissa Mark-Viverito, were expected to announce the findings of the report on Sunday at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The apparent about-face by de Blasio, who is up for re-election this year, comes amid public pressure on the issue from Gov. Andrew Cuomo — who last year appeared to goad the mayor into supporting closure, calling it a “big solution” — and at a time when the mayor has been hounded by prison reform advocates at his events, including at town halls around the city and outside a fund-raiser in Fort Lauderdale, Fl. New York Times Sheriffs Fear Legal Liability Holding Inmates For ICEAdam Christianson, sheriff of Stanislaus County, Ca., near San Francisco, gives Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents unfettered access to his jails, where they interview inmates and scroll through computer databases. The information allows the agents to find and take custody of people they suspect of living in the country illegally before they are released from jail. There is a line he won’t cross, reports the Los Angeles Times. ICE officials routinely ask local jailers and state prison wardens to keep inmates behind bars for up to two days longer than they would otherwise be locked up. Christianson refuses to honor such “detainers.” None of the sheriffs in California’s 58 counties are willing to hold inmates past their release dates for ICE.
The refusal to comply has drawn fire from the Trump administration, which sees detainers as a key component to carrying out its aggressive plan to find and remove millions of people living in the country illegally. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security started issuing a weekly report that aims to identify and publicly shame law enforcement agencies that released people from custody despite an ICE detainer request. And U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions went a step further this week, promising to withhold federal funding from law enforcement departments that don’t get in line with ICE. Sheriffs said their defiance is not rooted in ethical or political opposition but legal concerns. Federal court rulings, including one in Oregon where a judge found that police violated a woman’s constitutional rights by keeping her in jail at ICE’s request, have left California’s law enforcement officials worrying that they could expose themselves to legal troubles for doing the same. The same is true throughout the U.S., where a majority of sheriff’s departments have stopped honoring ICE hold requests, according to the National Sheriffs’ Association. Los Angeles Times Some States Seek to Curb Sharing of Immigration DataAs the Trump administration cracks down on illegal immigration, several states dominated by Democrats are pushing laws and regulations that would prevent sharing data about immigration status with federal authorities, NPR reports. When people apply for driver’s licenses or pay taxes, they share personal information with the government. Now, many immigrants are concerned about how that information could be used against them. California is one of several states moving to tighten privacy laws.
One bill from the Senate leader would prohibit state and local law enforcement agencies from using their resources for immigration enforcement purposes. That bill is moving rapidly through the Democratic-controlled legislature and stands a good chance of passing. At least half a dozen states mostly dominated by Democrats have adopted or proposed similar policies. The law enforcement community opposes these measures. Bill Johnson of the National Association of Police Organizations says, “There’s a great risk of the delegitimization of laws in general where legislatures or judges can kind of pick and choose which laws they want to enforce, which laws they want to obey.” He adds that states “have no problem sharing data with the federal government if it means more money for the state.” NPR Slight Drop in Chicago Violence; Totals Remain HighAs the first quarter of 2017 draws to a close, Chicago police are encouraged by a slight drop in violence in the city’s traditionally most violent pockets of the South and West sides long plagued by poverty, gang activity and drug-dealing, the Chicago Tribune reports. While the numbers are down from a disastrous 2016 when in excess of 4,300 people were shot, more than 760 of them fatally, the first three months of 2017 still rank as one of the deadliest starts to a year in nearly two decades. Through Wednesday, 124 people were slain in Chicago, 9.5 percent down from 137 a year earlier. Over the same period, 685 people were shot, almost 13 percent down from 786 a year earlier.
A spate of shootings yesterday showed how volatile those numbers can be. Within four hours, five people were found fatally shot in the South Shore neighborhood, and four others were injured in shootings across the city. With the exception of 2016, the 124 homicides police have officially logged through Wednesday still mark the most for the first three months of a year in at least 17 years. New York City and Los Angeles, both far more populous than Chicago, continue to experience far less violence. Through March 19, New York posted 55 homicides and 138 shooting victims, while Los Angeles reported 56 homicides and 226 shooting victims through March 18. Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson pointed to a sharp rise in gun arrests so far this year — 937 through Sunday, a 47 percent increase over 637 a year earlier — as proof officers are not sitting on the sidelines after the fallout over the release of video from the Laquan McDonald shooting was believed to have caused a pullback by officers. Chicago Tribune Organized Crime Drove 22 Percent Surge in Mexico Homicides Last YearHomicides in Mexico spiked 22 percent in 2016 over the previous year, from 18,650 nationally to 22,932 last year, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. That followed a three-year decline in homicides from 2012 to 2014, before rising again starting in 2015, according to an annual report on violence in Mexico issued by the University of San Diego’s Justice in Mexico program. Ater a brief period when the number of killings in Tijuana declined measurably, the border metropolis has seen a steady rise in killings and is the second-most violent city in Mexico.
A total of 871 homicides occurred in the city. Only the resort city of Acapulco had more, recording 918 murders last year. David Shirk, director of USD’s Justice in Mexico program, said the national increase can largely be attributed to a well-known cause: violence among drug cartels. “The biggest factor driving increased violence in Mexico is conflicts among organized crime groups,” Shirk said. “If we are going to solve this problem, we have to deal with organized crime.” He estimated that 30 percent to 50 percent of all homicides appear to be related to violence among drug gangs and organized crime. San Diego Union-Tribune Who Should Probe Nashville Police Shooting?Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) leaders have suggested that the agency should pull out of a deadly police-involved shooting inquiry in Nashville amid an ongoing, behind-the-scenes battle over who should investigate when the city’s police kill civilians, reports The Tennessean. Since the Feb. 10 shooting of Jocques Clemmons by a Nashville police officer, whether the Metro Nashville Police Department should continue to investigate at all has created a rift among law enforcement brass. A draft agreement has been shuttled back and forth between Police Chief Steve Anderson, Davidson County District Attorney General Glenn Funk and TBI Deputy Director Jason Locke. They ended at an impasse.
The apparent sticking point: Anderson wants officers to be able to continue an investigation, even as TBI agents conduct their own. TBI says that’s not a true independent investigation. “It will be impossible for TBI to conduct an independent investigation while another agency simultaneously conducts the same investigation, potentially interviewing and creating multiple statements from the same witnesses, which is contrary to standard practices of investigations,” Locke wrote in a Feb. 22 email to Funk. Two sides have emerged: Funk and Locke, pushing that TBI should be the exclusive investigator when Nashville police use deadly force, versus Anderson. “I remain convinced that there can be separate, parallel and independent investigations,” Anderson wrote in a March 20 email to Locke, Funk and others. “More importantly, I cannot look the other way or turn a blind eye when something of this magnitude occurs in Nashville.” The Tennessean Two Men Arrested in Cincinnati Mass Nightclub ShootingTwo men are facing murder charges stemming from Sunday’s mass shooting inside Cincinnati’s Cameo nightclub, and Police Chief Eliot Isaac said, “there will be more arrests to come.” The investigation continues into the worst mass shooting in the city’s history, in which 17 people were shot, one of them fatally. One suspect was arrested at a home yesterday. The second suspect, was injured in the shooting and remains hospitalized in critical condition, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.
Isaac said an altercation started inside Cameo nightclub and turned into a gun battle involving more than two people. Most of the victims were patrons of the club and not involved in the fight. The arrests are “very good news out of a very bad situation,” Mayor John Cranley said. “This is a tragedy of epic proportions. It’s the worst mass shooting in the history of the city… we have to figure out a way to get guns off the street and teach people not to resolve disputes with guns.” Cincinnati Enquirer | |
| | On every business day, The Crime Report (TCR) and Criminal Justice Journalists (CJJ) provide a summary of the nation's top crime and justice news stories with links, commentary, and New & Notable research in the field. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the Langeloth Foundation and the Urban Institute. Today's report was prepared by Ted Gest and Victoria Mckenzie. Please send comments or questions to victoria@thecrimereport.org. | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| |
|
|
