Fighting to Save Juvenile Life Without Parole
Published October 20, 2009 @ 10:30AM PT
The Heritage Foundation is worried that the playing field isn’t level in our criminal justice system. Juveniles sentenced to life without parole have the upper hand, the group says in a new paper, and the “activists” who oppose juvenile LWOP are threatening to take away this uniquely American punishment.
In a defensive, pro-punishment paper released this summer and by the conservative think tank, authors Andrew Grossman and Charles Stimson argue that its fine for the U.S. to be the only country with juvenile life without parole because we have a uniquely serious teen crime problem. They complain that irresponsible activists have monopolized the debate in favor of giving teens a second chance, and suggest that an important tool to “express society’s disapproval” of heinous crimes is in danger.
Are We Moving Toward Marijuana Decriminalization?
Published October 19, 2009 @ 04:20PM PT
It was a good day for marijuana reformers:
The Obama administration today clarified its already-sensible position on medicinal marijuana.
A judge ruled that the city of Los Angeles didn't follow state law when it banned new medical marijuana dispensaries.
And, a new Gallup poll (above) found support for legalization at a 40-year high in the U.S. at 44%. The poll over time is above, those two lines are moving mighty close together.
What does it all mean?
The Right to (Competent) Counsel
Published October 18, 2009 @ 10:29AM PT
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week in the case of Jose Padilla, a legal U.S. resident originally from Honduras who was challenging a guilty plea in a drug case because his attorney incorrectly told him the guilty plea couldn't lead to deportation.
In oral arguments, the court's right-wingers immediately challenged Padilla's attorney on whether a decision in favor of Padilla might open what the sage Antonin Scalia called a "Pandora's box" of burdens on attorneys to make clients aware of every possible outcome of a conviction -- from child custody to driver's license. Padilla's advocate before the Supreme Court, Stephen Kinnaird, responded - correctly, I think -- that deportation is one of few ancillary punishments "so severe and so material in a high number of cases" that should qualify for special consideration. Also, it wasn't just that Padilla's original lawyer failed to advise him of the impact. Padilla asked, and the lawyer advised him incorrectly. He pled guilty based on false information.
This is a critical issue, because deportation adds an extra layer of punishment in many thousands of convictions each year, and the legal issues around this double-sentence have not been fully explored. An editorial yesterday in the LA Times agrees with Kinnaird:
Do 2/3 of Americans Really Support the Death Penalty?
Published October 17, 2009 @ 10:47AM PT
A new Gallup poll this week shows that support for the death penalty in the U.S. remains steady at about 65 percent. Is capital punishment impenetrable in the U.S., or are there cracks beneath the surface of this data?
The stats break down in some expected ways, like along party lines -- 81% of Republicans support capital punishment in murder cases while those weakling Democrats break down at 48% for and 47 against. But there are some surprising results here as well.
Despite growing awareness of DNA exonerations and increasing certainty that an innocent person has been put to death, support for executions hasn't dropped in this century. It did plummet in the 90s (from a high of 80% in support of the death penalty in 1993), and the advent of DNA testing could have been a factor in that. But the Gallup poll approached this issue directly, and one-third of Americans said innocent lives are a natural cost of an important punishment. Digging even deeper, of those who said they believed an innocent person was executed in the last five years, 57% support capital punishment.
Ending the Cocaine/Crack Disparity
Published October 16, 2009 @ 07:30AM PT
A bill introduced in the U.S. Senate yesterday by Dick Durbin is aiming to end the sentencing disparity between cocaine and crack, an advocacy group says all of pieces are finally in place to make it happen, and Gawker missed the point.
Durbin's bill, the Fair Sentencing Act, was introduced with nine co-sponsors and would increase the amount of crack that triggers a five-year mandatory sentence. Under current law, possession of five grams of crack requires judges to hand down the five-year sentence, while 500 grams of cocaine carries the same penalty. This 100:1 ratio has long been pointed to by reformers as unnecessary, unfair and racially biased. A parallel bill has been introduced in the House.
Families Against Mandatory Minimums immediately released a statement supporting Durbin's legislation -- and asserting that we have the right policy environment for this reform to finally happen this year:
"The picture is now nearly complete – the White House and the Department of Justice have endorsed the complete elimination of the cocaine sentencing disparity, the Sentencing Commission has found the disparity unreasonable, and the House of Representatives and now the Senate have introduced legislation that would equalize crack and powder cocaine penalties," FAMM said in a statement.
An IRA Bomber and a Victim's Daughter
Published October 15, 2009 @ 11:06AM PT
On Tuesday, former Irish Republican Army (IRA) activist Pat Magee, who was convicted of the Brighton bombings in 1984, met Jo Berry, daughter of Sir Anthony Berry, one of the five victims killed in the blast.
Though Magee had been given eight life sentences, he was freed in 1999 under the negotiated terms of the Good Friday Agreement of 1999. Magee's conviction was based on his planning of the bomb and for attempting to kill British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was attending a conference at the Grand Hotel in Brighton (above), where the bomb was planted.
Magee and Berry met at the House of Commons, a high profile meeting place, hosted by The Forgiveness Project and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues. The intention of the meeting was to open up a dialogue related to the blast. What took place is fascinating in light of what the ex-offender said publicly and also what the victim's daughter said. Did this public meeting bring healing of any kind to the victims or their family members? Is this an example of restorative justice at work?
For more about this event read the following articles, including coverage by The Times, a generic wire story posted by CNN News, and an article written before the event by The Forgiveness Project also printed by The Times. Each article is interesting in what is covered, what is not covered, and what is emphasized.
Green Prisons, Reentry and the New Economy
Published October 15, 2009 @ 07:37AM PT
Today is Blog Action Day, and 8,624 bloggers around the world are writing about climate change -- covering this critical issue from countless perspectives, telling stories from the personal to global. I was happy to see climate change as the focus for today’s day of action, because it’s an issue that affects absolutely every one of us. Prisons, and prisoners, are not immune.
I’ve written before about green initiatives at prisons across the country and around the world -- from an urban farm at a Chicago jail to ecological practices and alternative energy production at prisons in Washington, California and elsewhere.
We shouldn’t only be green inside our prisons, however. We should create a green path out of our prisons. Corrections departments and facilities around the world offer many kinds of training for prisoners, including GEDs and college degrees, vocations like carpentry and plumbing and artistic talents like painting and video production. But prisons are too far behind the curve. Green jobs -- including earth-friendly construction and solar panel manufacturing and installation among many, many other specialties -- are certain to be booming in the years ahead, and prisons are a perfect place to teach these trades. Not only could prisoners work to retrofit prisons for lower energy consumption, but they can learn skills in the process.
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