dumb laws
Good enough for government work
Sep 2nd
The Blagojevich trial (and subsequent mistrial) has provided plenty of fodder for discussion among the press, the blogosphere and the nation in general. But it seems as though a bit of the madness that allows him to polish his hair using shoe-polish has seeped into the rest of the world as well. Take this Time article for instance, which uses the fact that the government was unable to convince 0.004% of the population of Chicago, to describe the ill that ails our criminal justice system: hung juries
After coming up with only a single conviction on 24 counts of corruption, federal prosecutors eager to send former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich to prison will in January 2011 begin his second trial with what they hope will be a more effective strategy. What won’t change is the fact that the 12 jurors who will hear the case will be bound by the same ancient — and some argue outdated — rules for criminal juries that have changed just a little since King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215.
So, just what are these “outdated” rules? Jury unanimity, juries not being allowed to take notes or ask questions and jurors not being permitted to discuss the case before all the evidence is complete.
I’ve written about the phenomenon of permitting jurors to ask questions during a trial before and I still disagree with the practice. But how bored are we with the concept of criminal trials – and how convinced are we that those who are arraigned, indicted and tried are guilty – that we are willing to forgo the simple notion that if society is going to convict, condemn and incarcerate on of its own, then it must be done only after a small representative sample of its members agree?
“Much of the elements of jury reform has reflected on the phenomenon of hung juries,” says Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard of the Indiana Supreme Court, a former trial judge in Evansville. “And what happened [in Chicago] is akin to what would have happened in most state courts 15 years ago — but wouldn’t happen in a great many places today.”
Even unanimity, the most cherished rule of all — and the one that spared Blagojevich on the charge that he tried to sell a seat in the U.S. Senate — is open for debate in the states. While the Supreme Court has insisted that federal criminal trials have a unanimous verdict, states have been permitted to experiment. Unless a defendant’s life is on the line, criminal juries in Oregon and Louisiana need only 10 votes or nine, respectively, to convict. “I describe this in general as treating jurors like adults,” says Shepard, who has helped lead major changes in Indiana but credits the states of Arizona and New York with giving momentum to jury reform. “We want to give them room to make decisions like adults typically make decisions.”
That quote made my head spin when I first read it and I’m not sure it’s stopped spinning yet. In other words, Justice Shepard, we can’t be bothered that the State’s evidence is so flimsy that it can’t convince 6 or 12 people of a man’s guilt, but heck, he’s probably guilty anyway, so we’ll take 5, because you really can’t account for that lone crazed juror.
Close enough for government work.
The underlying theme in this non-unanimity movement seems to be that mistrials are an inconvenience. An inconvenience to the court, to the prosecutors, to the staff and to everyone but the one person to whom a trial matters most: the defendant.
How are we to have faith in a system where you are tried by a large governmental entity, your guilt or innocence to be decided by a not-really representative portion of “your” community and then that very government tells the representative portion: it doesn’t matter if you all agree or not, as long as a majority does.
Most of these “reforms” seem to miss the fundamental (and cherished) aspects of our criminal justice system – save perhaps the one about note-taking, which seems like common sense. We require jurors to not deliberate until the end of evidence so they don’t make up their minds in advance, so they can be fair and balanced and consider all the evidence in its entirety. We don’t permit them to ask questions during testimony because it isn’t their burden to prove or disprove anything at all. It is the State’s burden and their burden alone. Jurors are not investigators; they’re arbiters of evidence.
And we ask for unanimity in their decision making because that unanimity reflects the soundness of the decision to prosecute an individual. A conviction and subsequent incarceration is one of the harshest actions taken by the abstract Government against its citizens. If we can’t get a miniscule portion of the citizens that it purports to represent to agree on the guilt of a man, then the government has failed.
It may be close enough for government work, but when it comes to justice, there should be no such thing.
Gun-waving cop has right to privacy
Aug 2nd
is that a gun in your hand or are you just happy to see me?
This incident occurred back in April, but is back in the news with an ACLU press release. The ACLU is representing Anthony Graber…well, you know what? Just watch:
That’s Graber, on the motorbike, and that’s Joseph David Uhler, gun-waving, taking-too-long-to-identify-himself, plain-clothed, unmarked-car-driving, off-duty, state police officer.
Graber got a ticket for speeding, which he gladly accepted, but was then subject to some Apple Gestapo tactics, with police getting a warrant to search his home and seize his computers.
He’s charged with illegally recording the conversation he had with the officer in public and thus violating the officer’s right to have a private conversation while waving a gun at a suspect and yelling at him on the offramp of an exit off the major interstate in the country, which is nonsense code for cops are above the law. Plus the fact that there’s a damn video camera stuck to the guy’s helmet.
Popehat (and the multitude of comments) covered this back in April, with an in-depth analysis. I won’t repeat it here, but I’ll give you this extract:
Allegedly, Graber is being charged with “interception of an oral communication” under Maryland’s “wiretap” law, Md. Cts. & Jud. Proc. §10-402. The law makes it a felony to “intercept” with an “electronic device,” in this case the microphone attached to Graber’s prominent helmet camera, an oral communication in private conversation.
But that isn’t what Graber’s really being prosecuted for. He’s being prosecuted for contempt of cop. For embarrassing a cop. A cop, and a department, that richly deserve the embarrassment they’ve gotten, and the embarrassment they’re going to receive.
Because the charge against Graber is utterly unfounded. The definition of “oral communication” under Maryland’s wiretap law requires that the conversation be “private,” which is to say that it must be one in which the party being recorded has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Fearnow v. C & P Telephone Co., 104 Md. App. 1, 33, 655 A.2d 1 (1995), aff’d, 342 Md. 363, 676 A.2d 65 (1996). According to the Maryland Attorney General’s office, it is not a crime to record a very public conversation, such as a political party meeting, even in secret.
It seems that Graber is not alone in this. Here‘s another recent arrest for the same charge, also in Maryland. Of course, law enforcement types are always good for some lulz:
Remarkably, the state Attorney General has already opined that when police record in public, that is not a private conversation subject to the same laws. In other words, in any public interaction between a police officer and a member of the public in Maryland, it is private for one of them but not the other.
I know most law enforcement agencies are opposed to videotaping interrogations, but this is a little ridiculous.
Innocence on a clock
Jul 7th
When I first turned my eye toward law school and the criminal justice system, the echoing refrain was that we, in this country, were the best. The criminal justice system, the jury system, the resources, the level of intelligence on both sides of the aisle on the bench all combined to create the best that the world had to offer. Law school, immersing us in the vagaries and nuances of Constitutional and criminal law, making us read and learn awe-inspiring quotes from Justices past, only served to reinforce that notion.
We were fooled. Years later, with years of practice and actual experience under my belt, I’ve come to the conclusion that while the system may still be the “best” in the world, it is only so by comparison to the others that are currently in existence (and even that I doubt, but since I’m no comparative law scholar, what do I know?). That makes me sad, both for the systems of other countries and our own.
There are two indelible truths about the system here in the US: it is the criminal conviction system and finality is king (an idea that deserves a fuller post; upcoming).
And when you combine those two inescapable conclusions, you get Lee v. Lampert (pdf). Lee, you see, got stuck in that quagmire that is AEDPA. Lee, you may also see, has proven that he is actually innocent of the crimes of which he stands convicted. And yet, because he missed the statutory, non-jurisdictional, arbitrary deadline for filing a federal habeas corpus petition, he will get no justice.
Twice in jeopardy, 40 years apart
May 17th
Back in 2007, when the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania announced its intent to prosecute William Barnes for the death of officer Walter Barclay, eyebrows were raised. Barnes, you see, had already been tried for the 1966 shooting of Barclay and had been found guilty of attempted murder. Why was he not charged with murder at the first trial? Because Barclay wasn’t dead yet.
He died in 2007, more than 40 years after the shooting. The Commonwealth, already having exacted 26 years from Barnes, now 74, for the attempted murder, now seeks to exact some more for the eventual death of Ofc. Barclay.
Barnes’ second trial for the act of shooting Barclay began today in Philadelphia. The Commonwealth will attempt to prove that the gunshot wound suffered by Barclay in ’66 – which left him wheelchair bound – caused the urinary tract infection in 2006 that ultimately killed him.
The defense will seek to show the jury that the Commonwealth cannot prove the causal link, relying in part on the fact that Barclay, despite being confined to a wheelchair:
was able to drive a specialized car, walk with braces, earn a college degree, marry and divorce three times and perform sexually, had been in three car accidents and had fallen out of his motorized wheel chair twice during the 41 years that he lived after being shot
Mark Bennett, in a comment to Scott’s post above, asked in 2007:
I must be missing something, because those articles don’t even discuss this question: How does a conviction for attempted murder not jeopardy-bar a prosecution for murder when the victim dies?
Every day is Caturday
Apr 29th
Cats are popular. They’re even more popular on the internet, which was, as we all know, invented just for cats. Every day is Caturday [here's the ED version of Caturday, which means it's totally NSFW. I mean it, really. Not. Safe. For. Work].
Sometimes, though, the internet bleeds into real life (shocking, I know). And such has been the case the past week, with three stories – two local – involving cats and crime.
First, this tragi-comic tale of Gregory Lesco, who killed the family cat after it ate his pet bird (no, I”m not making that up):
Police say Lesco told them he was doing dishes when the bird flew from his cage to join him and the cat, named Pepper, jumped up and grabbed it. He said he hit the cat in the head with a baseball bat and then suffocated it with a rug.
He says he struck the cat to try to get it to drop the bird, and then suffocated it because he couldn’t afford to take it to a vet to treat its injuries.
Mr. Lesco, not to be confused with the equally bizarre Matthew Lesko, is charged with one count of Animal Cruelty, which happens to be a class D felony, punishable by 5 years in jail.
Then yesterday, I saw this post by Rick Horowitz about a Michigan law that makes it a crime for cats to fight. Since there’s no room in cat jails, they stick the owners in human jails instead:
The City of Kalamazoo, Michigan, apparently has some fairly weird laws on the books regarding animals. For example, it is apparently a misdemeanor — not an infraction, but a misdemeanor with a real criminal record and a real jail sentence as a potential punishment — not that a simple thing like a criminal record could ever impact anyone’s ability to get a job or a professional license — a misdemeanor to own a cat that fights with other cats. In addition to making it apparently illegal to have a cat that fights with other cats, Kalamazoo also charges owning a dog that barks as a misdemeanor.
I don’t know if that last bit is true, but the charges will be dropped if the cat behaves herself. The cat’s plan is working. Next step: world domination.
And finally, this morning, we get news of a honest-to-goodness cat burglar. No, I mean that literally. A woman who burgles cats (and there’s another awesome cat picture after the jump so don’t you dare not click through):
Vengeance at its most shameful
Mar 29th
Jordan Brown, a resident of western Pennsylvania, is charged with shooting Kenzie Marie Houk and her unborn child. Police say that Brown shot her once at point blank range. Today, a judge ruled [thanks to Doc Berman via Gamso] that the prosecution against Brown can remain in his court and denied the defense’s motion for transfer of venue.
Jordan Brown is 12. At the time of the death of Houk, he was 11.
I repeat. Jordan Brown is 12. And a judge ruled that he can be tried as an adult. A state in these United States is about to prosecute an eleven year old as an adult murderer.
Here is a file picture of him, taken from CNN. Look at it. This cherubic 12 year old now faces life in prison. The rest of the post after the photo and the jump.
A few stray thoughts
Mar 23rd
the metaphor, stupid
Monday was a marathon day at the state legislature, with several criminal justice bills being considered. Two of the most important, in my view, were the bills to eviscerate The Great Writ (see prior post here) and Connecticut’s first attempt at residency restrictions (see previous post here). For those who want to brave through the public hearing, the entire video is here and written testimony submitted can be read here.
[A warning: this post is long, repeats some arguments I've already made and is extremely rude and vitriolic. But if you don't read it, you support terrorists.]
The habeas corpus effective suspension and evisceration bill
Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane testified at length (almost an hour, I think) on the habeas corpus “reform” bill. There were many, many problems with his testimony, but a few things really stuck in my craw. The entire basis for the State’s “suggestions” in the habeas reform bill seemed to be premised on two things: 1) that there is a glut of “frivolous” petitions and courts are overburdened; and 2) by moving the restrictions on the filing of habeas corpus petitions to the “front end”, rather than during the process itself, there will be a lot of weeding out and the load will be lightened.
Both are unfounded. CSA Kane went on for the better part of an hour, trumpeting the vast number of “successive petitions”, before someone on the committee had the good sense to ask him for some numbers. Just what constitutes a successive petition and what does he consider frivolous? Certainly not all petitions that are denied are not frivolous and eventually he had to admit that. Later on, during the testimony of the Deputy Chief Public Defender, we heard that a meager 4 1/2 % of all petitions were “successive”, in that petitioners had filed a prior habeas corpus petition.
But the State’s argument was premised on this straw man (if not outright lie) that the courts were dealing with a deluge of repetitive, frivolous and time consuming merit-less habeas petitions where petitioners were on their 9th or 10th bite at the apple. From what I’ve been told, there is maybe one inmate who is on his 7th or 8th petition, but that’s about it.
The second premise of the state’s position is all the more confusing and confounding.
Come with me…to jail for 20 years: an alien abduction
Feb 10th
It seems that the Supreme Court of the good state of Connecticut (SCOC, which you may pronounce S-Coc if you so please) is having fits. Specifically fits with our kidnapping statutes. Almost from the day they, in a moment of rare weakness, decided to bring some sanity back to the overbroad application of the statute, they’ve been backpedaling furiously, as if to atone for their one sin.
In that original decision, they decided – rightly in my opinion – that kidnapping is more than just mere restraint required for the commission of another felony. So if I held you down and forced you to read this post, I’d be guilty of torture, but not kidnapping.
Then they tinkered with the remedy, because how could one justify letting defendants go? Of course you can’t.
And now, this past week, comes the granddaddy of them all: State v. Winot (leave the why not? jokes for later, please).
This is a case that has been two years in the making. It was argued in January of 2008. Yes, that’s TWO-THOUSAND-EIGHT. And what perplexed them so? Judging by the decision, the vexing question was how to uphold this conviction with a straight face. 730 days later, I don’t think they’ve managed it.
The facts
She began to walk faster, but the defendant forcibly took her right arm. When she asked him to let go, he refused, yelling, ‘[n]o, it’s too wet out here; you’re getting in my car today.’ He tried to pull her toward his car, but she resisted, pulling back in the opposite direction. To get him to release her, the victim then leaned over to bite the defendant, at which point he quickly let go and rushed back to his car. In doing so, the defendant was almost hit by a maroon car. Upon being released, the victim ran home and told her mother what had transpired. The entire incident lasted only a few seconds.
That’s less time than it took you to read that first sentence. He took her right arm, she pretended to bite him, he let go. A matter of seconds. Got that?
The challenge
The Constitution is a wet blanket
Jan 31st
The Constitution was intended to be many things: a guide, a charter, founding principles and at the very least a set of instructions for those that sought to build a just and fair country from the ashes of rebellion.
What it was never intended to be was a blanket, and a wet one at that. Unfortunately, state Sen. Tim Burchett, R-Knoxville, TN (hey! stop rolling your eyes) didn’t get that particular memo.
So, in his Tennesseean way, he has introduced a bill making it a felony for criminal defense lawyers to make “unproven insinuations” about crime victims during the course of a trial.
Lawmakers said it isn’t fair for attorneys to try to make criminals out of victims during a trial. However, some attorneys believe this notion is unconstitutional.
The discussion for the new law came about after a couple in Knoxville was tortured and killed in 2007. The parents of Channon Christian listened to the graphic details in court last year and said defense attorneys insinuated their daughter used drugs.
“They criminalize the victims. They are in the grave. They have no defense,” said state Sen. Tim Burchett, a Republican from Knoxville.
If you’re black and you smoke pot, get arrested
Dec 29th
I'm not as think as you stoned I am
(Title sung to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it…” What? It’s 11:00pm. Buzz off.)
While much of the news media and indeed the blawgosphere has been preoccupied with the news that NYC isn’t really a big, bad and dangerous place, curious little attention has been paid to another story out of New York: that under Mayor Bloomberg, drugs arrests have spiked and that blacks are 7 times more likely to be arrested for drug offenses than whites.
Thanks to Matt at Change.org (a blog you should be following if you aren’t already), we learn that a new study (and a related NYT article) has been published analyzing the incidence of drug related arrests in the Big Joint:
Is a battle on sex offender registration brewing?
Dec 29th
Silly sex offender registration laws have long been a bone that I’ve been itching to pick. If you asked me to list the ten worst decisions by SCOTUS in the last decade, Smith v. Doe and Dept’ of Public Safety v. Doe would make the top 5 of that list.
But I’ve always had the nagging feeling that both those decisions didn’t preclude future challenges to sex offender registration laws and their retroactive applications as violations of the Ex Post Facto clause. Now, we may just find out, because Maine’s Supreme Court has held that its sex offender registration law (SORNA) does violate the EPF.
The Maine decision is State v. Letalien, in which the defendant challenged the change in registration requirements from 15 years to lifetime and from change in address notifications to proactive 90 day reporting requirements. Interestingly, the ME court finds that the Federal and Maine Constitutions provide the same EPF protections and so the EPF violation is of the Federal Constitution.
Just like SCOTUS in Smith, the Letalien court concludes that SORNA is civil in nature and then engages in a discussion of the seven Mendoza-Martinez factors to determine if a statute that is intended to be civil will be found to be an ex post facto law. It will be so only if the “party challenging the statute provides ‘the clearest proof’ that ‘the statutory scheme [is] so punitive either in purpose or effect as to negate [the State’s] intention’ to deem it ‘civil.’” Kansas v. Hendricks. The factors are:
Between a void and a hard place
Dec 20th
You are Paul Clarke. You live in a small town in England. You’ve had a run-in or two with the law, but nothing serious. One day, you find a black bag a the end of the garden. You think it’s a bag of rubbish (garbage, for you non-Brits). You open it and inside find a shotgun. Being civic minded (plus a little lazy), you take the gun to the police a few days later and turn it in.
Fast forward a number of months. Where do you think you are now, Paul?
Awaiting sentencing for possession of a shotgun Sentenced to 12 months suspended, that’s where. An offence which carries a mandatory-minimum penalty of 5 years. Jack of Kent, a British blougger, has written extensively on this case and it’s well worth the read (via the deadly Charon). As with all strict liability crimes and crimes that involve mandatory-minimum sentences, the befuddling question here is the exercise of discretion to prosecute Mr. Clarke. While the police were unwilling to comment on the case, Jack of Kent was able to enter into a lengthy e-mail exchange with the Crown Prosecution Service, who explained their decision to prosecute thusly:
Paul Clarke claimed that he found the shot gun in his garden and decided to bring it to the police station. Evidence showed that he was in possession of the gun and the cartridges for some days earlier and that at that time he did not try to contact the police, for them to collect the weapon. He could not explain why he waited some days before bringing the gun to the police station and why he did not contacted the police for them to come and collect the gun.
So long, farewell, don’t let the door hit you on your way out
Nov 10th
[Alternate post titles: So long and thanks for all the blog fodder; This just in: The Law now has a weak pulse]
So, it’s probably unnatural and unhealthy to be so giddy upon learning that Gov. Rell has decided not to seek re-election, but as most of you know, I can’t stand the woman. And that’s putting it mildly. I let out an audible yell yesterday when Ann Nyberg tweeted that she wasn’t going to run. My colleagues looked at me, much like they always do, like I had three heads. So maybe my disdain of the American Idol Governor knows no bounds.
But there’s good reason. After all, she has singlehandedly done so much to create such a disregard for the law and the rule of law, that sometimes I wonder who is worse: the law-breaking “criminals” she sought to protect our white community from or the law-ignoring bureaucrat.
She was the most dangerous of the “tough on crime” pols: sweet, nurturing, grandmotherly. She would lull everyone into sleep with her gentle affect and then decree the most outrageous acts of lawlessness this State has seen this decade.
First, there was Cheshire. Oh boy was there Cheshire. The brutal crimes in a white suburban neighborhood served not only to rouse the Governor from her mid-term siesta, but also had the side-effect of completely blinding her to common sense, and well, the rule of law. So the first thing she decided to do (well, sort of) was ban parole. That lasted for 4 months and resulted in severe overcrowding and a tremendous burden on state resources. That’s when Colin McEnroe coined the moniker “The American Idol Governor“. I still can’t get enough of that. She then proposed some truly scary and not very well thought out “reforms” of the criminal justice system, some of which unfortunately made it into law. Then she wanted CT to have a three-strikes law, in the face of all scientific research on its uselessness. Then came the unhinging, aka, “The David Pollitt Project“. I’m not even going to touch that. And finally, the veto of the death penalty abolition bill.
I write all of this, not to disparage her, but to remind myself and you – voters all – of the absolute effing nonsense we’ve had to put up with these past few years. Will any of the people who’ve announced they’re running for Governor be any better? They almost have to, don’t they, because it can’t get much worse than this.
So while I wish her well in her personal life and hope that her health remains strong, I will not be sad to see her become former Governor Rell. I’m not sure there was a person less equipped to take on that job.
And now, on to the big question. What needs to be done? The first response is obvious: abolish the death penalty. But there are so many more things that need to be changed about the criminal justice system in our State. In my mind, there’s only one candidate who is qualified to do that. So, you guys can be the first to hear it: I am hereby announcing my candidacy for the Governor of the State of Connecticut and I will be running on the Smart on Crime platform for the “It must be easy; she did it for so long” party.
More details about the, well, details of my platform will follow in subsequent posts. I’m now going to go and do a cartwheel.
Get off my lawn and into my jail, damn meddling kids
Aug 24th
I’m a little late in “reporting” on this, but it’s worth pointing out. The esteemed Heritage Foundation has issued a new report/study/propaganda piece/Robert Ludlum laugh-a-thon titled “Adult Times for Adult Crimes: Life Without Parole for Juvenile Killers and Violent Teens”. That title is just as long and unwieldy as some of my titles, which tells you much about the substance (hint: it’s useless).
There’s so much rhetoric in this report that misses the point of not sentencing kids to life in prison that it makes my head spin (and as a by-product, makes the report very difficult to take seriously).
Here’s a sample:
All for $53
Apr 12th
Down under, the very curious tale of Judge Marcus Einfeld is unfolding in tragic fashion. The judge, a 70 year old champion of human rights, is now facing 2 years in jail – all for thinking that he could get out of paying a $53 (£36, really) fine for going 6 miles above the speed limit (yes, they have “strict” cops in Australia to0).
It wasn’t even really about the money – it seems he could afford that – but rather about those dastardly points that get added to one’s license for traffic infractions. Apparently he was close to whatever limit there is and risked losing his license. So he did the simplest thing he thought of at that moment: told the judge that someone else was driving his car:
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