Most Long Overdue Crime News Ever?

CONGRESS PASSES BILL TO REDUCE DISPARITY IN CRACK, POWDER COCAINE SENTENCING DISPARITY

From WaPo:

Congress on Wednesday changed a 25-year-old law that has subjected tens of thousands of African Americans to long prison terms for crack cocaine convictions while giving far more lenient treatment to those, mainly whites, caught with the powder form of the drug.

The House, by voice vote, approved a bill reducing the disparities between mandatory crack and powder cocaine sentences, sending the measure to President Obama for his signature. During his presidential campaign, Obama said that the wide gap in sentencing "cannot be justified and should be eliminated." The Senate passed the bill in March.

The measure changes a 1986 law, enacted at a time when crack cocaine use was rampant and considered a particularly violent drug. Under the law, a person convicted of crack cocaine possession got the same mandatory prison term as someone with 100 times the same amount of powder cocaine. The new legislation reduces that ratio to about 18 to 1.

The bill also eliminates the five-year mandatory minimum for first-time possession of crack, the first time since the Nixon administration that Congress has repealed a mandatory minimum sentence. It does not apply retroactively.

This is exceedingly welcome news, even if it does mean I have to revise my cocaine unit for my drug policy class this fall!

I know that many folks are displeased that the ratio wasn't equalized at 1:1, but given the highly-charged political nature of the federal cocaine sentences, I think we should be happy that the disparity was cut by a factor of five. It's progress, no doubt.

I'm surprised not to find a lot of commentary on the legislation from around the blogosphere (save for this post from Outside the Beltway, a political science blog). I did find a related article about the War on Drugs and America's new racial caste system at The Crime Report that is worth a read.

I will update with more commentary as it becomes available.

Great NPR Story on Plea Bargains

Just a quick note to pass along a great Talk of the Nation segment from earlier this week about plea bargains. Not surprisingly, several callers (including defense attorneys who have counseled their clients to take pleas, as well as defendants who have accepted pleas) identified desire to avoid lengthy prison terms as a primary incentive for plea bargaining. The callers and panelists (Loyola Law School Professor Laurie Levenson and Barry Scheck, Co-Director of the Innocence Project) also discussed the leverage plea bargains offer to prosecutors, who often overcharge initial offenses in anticipation of a lesser charge being accepted during a plea deal. (Levenson likened it to haggling with the dealership over the purchase of a new car; I thought immediately of the classic "ask-your-parents-for-a-pony-when-all-you-really-want-is-a-bunny" strategy). Of course, the panelists also noted the absolute necessity of pleas, as the current system is simply incapable of sending to every case to trial.

I thought this was a great discussion, and it would be a great resource for a class discussion on plea bargaining.

Sanctioning the Severely Mentally Ill

My sister (hi, Megs!) sent me a link to this AP story about a case in which a Canadian court ruled that defendant Vince Li was not criminally responsible for stabbing and beheading fellow Greyhound bus passenger Tim McClean last year, due to Li's severe mental illness:

The judge said Li should not be held criminally accountable for stabbing McLean dozens of times last July and dismembering his body while horrified passengers fled.

Justice John Scurfield said Li's attack was "grotesque" and "barbaric" but "strongly suggestive of a mental disorder."

"He did not appreciate the actions he committed were morally wrong. He believed he was acting in self-defense," Scurfield said.

Both the prosecution and the defense argued Li can't be held responsible because Li was suffering from schizophrenia and believed God wanted him to kill McLean because the young man was a force of evil.

I'll spare you the "grotesque" and "barbaric" details, but McClean's death was indeed horrific. What I find most interesting about this case (and others like it) is the "what now?" question. According to the article:

[Li] will be institutionalized without a criminal record and will be reassessed every year by a mental health review board to determine if he is fit for release into the community.

While I think many of us can agree that people with severe mental illnesses are better served in institutions than in prisons, I don't know how many of us are comfortable with the idea that Li might one day return to the community. (I know I'm not, at least.) To put it into criminological terms, while the goals of retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence may not be particularly well served by sentencing mentally ill murder defendants to life behind bars, the goal of incapacitation clearly is. And in the case of someone who, unprovoked, savagely murdered another person, isn't lifetime incapacitation a reasonable expectation? The victim's family certainly thinks so:

McLean's family is vowing to turn their attention to fighting the law that allows people who are found not criminally responsible to be released into the community once they are deemed well, without serving a minimum sentence in jail.

Of course, this case raises broader questions about the impact of the de-institutionalization movement on the criminal justice system -- and the correctional system in particular. In the meantime, though, one has to put a whole lot of faith in the mental health evaluation process to keep Li (and others like him) permanently out of the community. That's a heavy burden for institutions to bear, and highlights the challenges of sanctioning severely mentally ill people who have committed murder.

Arizona Poised to Try 8 Year-Old as an Adult

Back in June Dr. Huginkiss blogged about Nathaniel Abraham, who shot and killed a man at age 11 in 1997. He was arrested again this past June, this time for drug distribution (carrying over 250 tablets of Ecstasy in his trunk). He plead guilty of possession rather than face trial for distribution, and his attorney thinks he'll probably get around three years in prison.

[A quick aside: I'm struck by the image of him in this article and how similar he appears to the sad, 13 year-old boy who was tried for murder in 1999.]

At that time, Nathaniel was the youngest person ever to be tried for murder. Sadly, that record may soon be broken as Arizona police are urging prosecutors to charge an 8 year-old as an adult for murdering his father and a family friend after he confessed to killing them. However, the same police department questioned the boy without an attorney or his mother present, so it is unlikely the confession will be admissable in court.

So, we have two potential truths to this crime:

First possible truth: the child really did kill his father and another adult (supposedly, the shooting was "execution-style"). If that is the case, what's the justification for trying an 8 year-old boy as an adult? Given that many states are repealing or increasing ages for juvenile waiver, it seems Arizona is out of touch with sentencing philosophy for juveniles. I just hope the justice system doesn't fail this young man as it has failed so many others in the era of "get tough" policies for juvenile offenders.

Second possible truth: the child is innocent. As the mother of a 7 year-old, this case makes me nauseous. I picture my son finding his father's body, arrested for the crime, sitting in jail awaiting trial, shackled in court... ugh. It's too much.

I can only hope the State of Arizona gets its act together for the sake of this child and all the others who come in contact with the justice system.

Spousal Rape

I got this information directly from Ted Gest, but I think that it is of great interest to many of the blog contributors.

Nashville Records First Spousal Rape Conviction

Tennessee passed a law in 2005 treating spousal rape the same as any other rape, reports the Tennessean. The husband was given an eight-year suspended prison sentence yesterday after pleading guilty to raping his wife, marking the first conviction in Nashville's Davidson County since the elimination of spousal exemptions for rape. The Tennessean is not identifying the man because he is married to his victim and the newspaper does not identify victims of sex-related crimes.

"This law is important," the victim said. "When you are intimidated, sexually, and forced to do it, it's not fair. It's not just. You are not a possession. It has to be mutual." Victims advocates and police say this case highlights what the law intended to do - give equal rights to spouses and protect them. Lawmakers had the right idea in passing the law, said police Det. Robert Carrigan. "A husband has no right to force sex," he said. "And the wife has the right to say, 'No.' Period. They have to protect themselves and they need to report it.''

See the story here at The Tennessean - It is about time.

Alleviating Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System

Today came news of two efforts -- one at the federal level and one at the state level -- aimed at alleviating racial disparities in the U.S. criminal justice system.

First, the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted unanimously yesterday to retroactively apply a recently-passed amendment to the federal sentencing guidelines reducing sentences for crack cocaine offenses. The goal of this amendment is to help bring some measure of parity to the federal sentences for crack and powder cocaine offenses.

The Commission’s actions today, as well as promulgation of the original amendment for crack cocaine offenses, are only a partial step in mitigating the unwarranted sentencing disparity that exists between Federal powder and crack cocaine defendants. The Commission has continued to call on Congress to address the issue of the 100-to-1 statutory ratio that drives Federal cocaine sentencing policy. Only Congress can provide a comprehensive solution to a fundamental unfairness in Federal sentencing policy. The Commission has consistently expressed its readiness and willingness to work with Congress and others in the criminal justice community to address this very important issue.

While not addressed specifically in the Sentencing Commission's statement, a key element of the fundamental unfairness of federal cocaine laws -- aside from the 100-to-1 ratio -- is racial disparities, with Blacks receiving a disproportionate number of the harsher crack sentences.

Talk of the Nation had a terrific discussion of this decision today. It's somewhat lengthy (30 minutes), but if you have time it's worth a listen. I was disappointed that race was not discussed more explicitly (the commissioner of the Sentencing Commission skirted the issue, in my opinion), but at the very least it was included in the broader conversation.

Second, the Michigan House of Representatives reviewed a proposal today to broaden the pool from which potential jurors are drawn, in an effort to increase the representation of racial/ethnic minorities (as well as people living in poor communities) on juries:

The bills could potentially add the names of taxpayers, registered voters and the recipients of government assistance to the pool of potential jurors; currently, jury pools are formed from lists of driver's license and state identification card holders.

One measure also calls for jury pools to be required to maintain proportional representation by ZIP code, to address what backers said was low participation by the poor concentrated in urban areas...

Wayne County Circuit Judge Deborah Thomas told the committee a 2006 study of the county’s jury selection system found the names of more than one million residents had been removed from consideration for jury duty because they had failed to respond to a jury questionnaire. Thomas also urged the committee to consider restoring the rights of convicted felons to serve on juries after they have finished their sentences and parole or probation.

In addition to jury composition, this proposal also addresses felony disenfranchisement, another criminal justice policy that disproportionately disadvantages people of color, particularly Black men. (According to the Sentencing Project, Black men are disenfranchised at a rate seven times the national average.)

I was pleased to read about both of these efforts, and curious to see what (if any) real-life changes occur because of them.