CALIFORNIA PROSECUTORS WANT TO TRIM DEATH PENALTY APPEALS, GO BACK TO EXTREMELY PAINFUL FORM OF EXECUTION & BLOCK INFORMATION ON DRUG COCKTAIL ON DEATH BY INJECTION. SENATE COMMITTEE SEZ, “UH….NO.”

It used to be the CCPOA* PPOA, the prison guards’ union, that was the most reform-averse and law-and-order crazy lobbying group in the state. But now the the CCPOA PPOA* folks look positively bleeding heart next to the California District Attorneys Association that wants to lock everyone up for as long as possible, consequences be damned. They also really, really, really want to get some people executed in our state, and don’t seem to mind if it’s done very painfully.

So while Maryland’s governor signed a bill Thursday repealing the death penalty, becoming the 18th state to do so, in supposedly progressive California, the prosecutors are itching to kill somebody.

It should be noted that not ALL prosecutors feel this way. In fact, a number of the state’s leading prosecutors don’t. But the prosecutors who call the shots at the CDAA are quite the blood lusty, punishment lovin’ group—and they’re the ones either putting forth or blocking legislation.

Fortunately, in the most recent instance, the Cal Senate’s Public Safety Committee helped the DAs dial things back.

Bob Egelko at the San Francisco Chronicle has the story.

Here’s a clip that outlines the bill that the Public Safety Committee spiked:

Backers of SB779, including its author, state Sen. Joel Anderson, R-Alpine (San Diego County), said the bill would speed up executions in California, which have been blocked by court orders since 2006. It was introduced following the narrow defeat in November of a ballot measure to repeal the state’s death penalty law.

The bill would have limited most condemned prisoners to one round of appeals in the state court system and another in federal court. Other provisions would have eliminated public review of regulations on execution procedures, barred disclosure of the suppliers of drugs used in executions and authorized a new method of gas chamber executions.

California’s last execution by cyanide gas was in 1993. A federal judge ruled a year later that the gas chamber at San Quentin caused excruciating pain and violated the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Lethal injections at the prison were halted in 2006 when another federal judge ruled that the executions, carried out by poorly trained staff in a dimly lit chamber, posed an undue risk of a prolonged and agonizing death. The court-imposed moratorium is likely to remain in place at least through 2013 as the state tries to validate new regulations and cope with a shortage of execution drugs.

*NOTE: Please forgive the sleep deprived typo of PPOA instead of CCPOA. (sigh.)

JAIL DEPUTY ALLEGEDLY REPEATEDLY ASSAULTED CONFIDENTIAL INFORMANT OF WHISTLEBLOWER DEPUTY JAMES SEXTON

In the lawsuit filed last month by Deputies James Sexton and Mike Rathbun, [and reported by WLA here], among the many allegations listed in the legal complaint is the report that one of Sexton’s confidential informants was repeatedly assaulted and harassed by a deputy working in the jails, even after Sexton told the deputy that he was the inmate’s handler, that the man was a valuable informant, and to please leave him alone— Deputy Michael Camacho continued with his harassment, both physical and verbal.

Robert Faturechi has a story in Friday’s LA Times that reports more deeply on the alleged abuse of the informant by Deputy Camacho. Here’s a clip:

Prosecutors are considering whether to file criminal charges against a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy accused of assaulting an inmate who was helping federal authorities investigate a suspected international drug trafficker, according to records and interviews.

The inmate accused Deputy Michael Camacho of targeting him, at least in part, because he was cooperating with detectives as an informant, internal records show.

The records indicate that in July, the inmate told his sheriff’s handlers that Camacho punched him in his torso and ribs.
“Put me in a room by myself and your [sheriff's handler] and we will see what happens.”

The Sheriff’s Department, which runs the nation’s largest jail system, has been beleaguered by allegations that its deputies have abused inmates, often just for showing nonviolent acts of disrespect.

Records show the informant had been deemed “reliable” and was providing specifics on a drug smuggling ring’s operations, including a six-figure cash drop-off, escapes from law enforcement and kilos of cocaine hidden in warehouses.

A sheriff’s spokesman confirmed that the department completed an investigation into the allegations, and is waiting for the district attorney’s office to decide whether to file criminal charges. In the meantime, Camacho has been reassigned to a desk job.

“We don’t know if this had any effect on his ability to continue his service to the Sheriff’s Department and federal authorities,” spokesman Steve Whitmore said of the said of the inmate informant.

In the Sexton/Rathbun lawsuit, it is alleged that in August 2012, after Sexton had formally reported Camacho for abusing inmates a few weeks before, Camacho confronted Sexton and threatened him physically.

The alleged attacks and threats by Camacho took place in the Spring and Summer of 2012, after the Citizens Commissions on Jail Violence had, for months, been holding their well-publicized hearings investigating abuse of inmates by deputies, and also after Sheriff Baca had publicly and within the sheriff’s department made it clear that such abuse would not be tolerated.

AS REQUIRED, GOVERNOR JERRY BROWN AND THE CDCR SUBMITTED A LIST OF ADDITIONAL STRATEGIES DESIGNED TO LOWER CALIFORNIA’S PRISON POPULATION BY 9000 MORE INMATES BY DEC 2013

On May 3, Governor Jerry Brown and the California Department of Corrections submitted a list of additional strategies to lower the state’s prison population, but it did so unhappily and under protest.

Here is a summary of the state’s new suggestions, most of which require a vote of the state legislature:

The court-ordered list focuses on increasing capacity to house prisoners, but also includes provisions to increase good-conduct credit. Virtually every action identified on the list requires legislative approval with the exception of the expanded fire camp capacity. All legislative changes must be urgency measures in order to meet the December 2013 court-ordered deadline.

The list includes the following measures:
· Expanding the capacity of fire camps by allowing certain inmates who are currently ineligible to participate.
· Slowing the rate of returning out-of-state inmates to California.
· Leasing beds from county jails and other facilities where there is sufficient capacity.
· Increasing good-conduct credit for non-violent inmates.
· Expanding medical and elderly parole.

The increase in credits for good conduct will not impact realignment. Prisoners who are released under the new good-conduct rules would serve their parole under state supervision. If they violate parole prior to the end of what their sentence would have been without the increased good-conduct credits, they will return to state prison.

The full response to the court-ordered population reduction may be found here.

AND….WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT OF WAYS TO LOWER THE STATES PRISON POPULATION….A BILL PASSES IN CA SENATE THAT WOULD SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER PENALTIES FOR NON-VIOLENT DRUG OFFENSES

Aaron Sankin from the Huffington Post has the story. Here’s a clip:

A bill that passed the California State Senate earlier this week has the potential to fundamentally change the way the state deals with its non-violent drug offenders.

The legislation, introduced by State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), gives local officials more flexibility in how they decide to charge individuals convicted of non-violent drug crimes. This flexibility could ultimately lead to California incarcerating fewer of its citizens, the measure’s backers argue.

“One of the best ways to promote lower crime rates is to provide low-level offenders with the rehabilitation they need to successfully reenter their communities,” said Leno in a statement. “However, our current laws do just the opposite. We give non-violent drug offenders long terms, offer them no treatment while they’re incarcerated, and then release them back into the community with few job prospects or opportunities to receive an education.”

Current California law mandates that certain drugs be charged as either misdemeanors or felonies, while others are categorized as “wobblers,” in which prosecutors and judges decide for themselves on a punishment. For example, marijuana possession is always a misdemeanor and cocaine is always felony; however, meth is a wobbler. The bill, which does not apply to anyone selling or manufacturing drugs, would turn all simple possession cases in wobblers.

Leno expects that giving local prosecutors and judges the ability the charge and sentence some offenses as misdemeanors instead of felonies would both direct more people into rehabilitation programs rather than having them serve hard time and also free up about $159 million annually for said rehabilitation programs.

It could also help the long term life trajectories of some offenders….

It would be an excellent step forward if California were to do something so sensible as to pass this bill.

We’ll definitely be keeping an eye on the bill’s progress.

WWJD—WHAT WILL JACKIE DO? PATT MORRISON INTERVIEWS NEW D.A. JACKIE LACEY

Patt’s interview offers some brief but interesting glimpses into Jackie the D.A. and Jackie the person.

Regarding Jackie the person, there’s an affecting moment where Lacey talks about how her father died in 2008, and when she visits his grave, she keeps thinking how much she wishes he’d seen her take office.

In terms of Jackie the D.A., it is encouraging to hear that her views on realignment sound reasonably balanced. (How that translates into action is something we’ll be keeping an eye on in the future.)

Here are both those clips:

PATT M: Is your dad here to see what you’ve achieved?

JACKIE L. He died in 2008. When I’m at the grave site, the question that pops into my head is, God, couldn’t he have been here for this? While it’s important for my mother, this particular accomplishment would have been extraordinary for my father. He loved following politics. He had pictures in our dining room of Tom Bradley and Julian Bond and Kenny Hahn, Martin Luther King of course, Robert F. Kennedy, John Kennedy. So for him not to be here — I don’t want to say I’m angry; I just don’t understand it. But I feel my father’s presence.

AND…

PATT M: How is state prison realignment — pushing state prisoners to the local level — going?

JACKIE L: It happened so fast and local law enforcement just wasn’t ready for this shift. We have a limited amount of space and money to incarcerate people. We’ve run out of room at the state prisons. We have run out of room at the county jail. My office’s role is to figure out alternatives for some people, such as mental health programs or drug facilities. Let’s peel the lower-risk people off and save room for people who are very dangerous.

Right now, we have policies that mandate 10 days in jail, 15 days, 30 days. They’re not going to be in that amount of time. And for some of these people, some of these alternatives are cheaper to do, and the recidivism rate is something like 10% to 30%. We’ve got to not be fearful about having these discussions.

L.A.R.B INTERVIEW WITH PAUL M. BARRETT, AUTHOR OF GLOCK: THE RISE OF AMERICA’S GUN

An interesting interview in the Los Angeles Review of Books with Paul M. Barrett, author of Glock: The Rise of America’s gun, who, by the way, isn’t particularly enthusiastic about assault weapons bans, simply because he doesn’t think they’ll do all that much good. Here’s what he says about his preferred approach:

PB: We already have a system in place right now for which there is broad support, restricting not particular kinds of guns, but who’s allowed to buy and possess them. That should be our focus when it comes to new legislation: not on guns, but on keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and mentally unstable people. We already have laws on the books that do that, but they are not as effective as they could be, because they too have loopholes. I would be in favor of closing those loopholes.

Specifically, I’m in favor of there being a requirement for a federal background check on all sales of all firearms at all times, not just the sales by federally licensed firearms dealers. That would capture many, many thousands and thousands of transactions that today happen basically off the books.

SR: Is this the so-called “gun show loophole”?

PB: Just as some people are obsessed with — to their own detriment — assault weapons, people are obsessed with gun shows. Gun shows are not the problem. It’s not gun shows, it’s private sales of firearms. Forget about gun shows.

At gun shows you have both federally licensed dealers who do background checks, and you have so-called private collectors who don’t do the background checks. The problem is not the federally licensed firearm dealers, who are actually at most gun shows selling the majority of guns, it’s those other guys.

And even more to the point, it’s the guys who don’t even go to gun shows, because those guys publically set up their product, essentially saying, “Here I am selling guns out in public, where the police can see me, and the ATF can see me,” and so forth. It’s the guys who do that from their kitchen table or the trunk of their car who are selling, all too often, to criminals or to other people who shouldn’t be getting guns.

I would make all sales that are sneaky, where no one knows who is actually buying the gun, illegal. That would keep guns out of the hands of some number of people who right now are very purposefully avoiding the background checks. Those are people we should be very suspicious about.

Read the rest of this intriguing interview (conducted by critic and essayist, Shaun Randol) here.

(Go, LARB!)

PROSECUTORIAL ABUSE & AARON SWARTZ, THE SEQUEL

While Aaron Swartz was an extraordinary young man, the story of relentless prosecutorial zeal aimed at Swartz for more than two years before he killed himself is depressingly ordinary.

And usually it is directed people who do not have the support and resources that Swartz had.

I am particularly aware of this as I prepare, this Wednesday morning, to attend the latest hearing in Federal Court pertaining to the case of Alex Sanchez, a RICO case in which the Feds reportedly lied to the grand jury, misidentified witnesses, all to bolster a murder conspiracy charge, which appears to have had nothing in the way of real evidence to justify it.

Writing for the Atlantic, Wendy Kaminer (who is one of many writing on the topic) points out the depressing ordinariness that Swartz’s case represents. Here’s a clip:

Federal prosecutors wanted to make an example of Aaron Swartz and they succeeded. Their wildly disproportionate treatment of his victimless trespasses exemplified the Justice Department’s disregard for fairness, decency, and the fundamental rights of the citizens it’s supposed to serve. Swartz’s prosecution was notable not because of its cruel over-zealousness, which is horribly routine, but because it involved a gifted, idealistic, emotionally vulnerable defendant, with a sophisticated and relatively powerful constituency that has the means to make itself heard.

He was not the first person to hang himself in the wake of abusive, even sadistic federal prosecution, and he may not be the last. (You can read about the case of the “posthumously vindicated” Dr. Peter Gleason here.) But Swartz’s suicide may be the first to generate widespread sorrow and outrage over common prosecutorial tactics that put ordinary as well as extraordinary citizens at risk.

MARILAND GOVERNOR O’MALLY SAYS TUESDAY HE WILL PUT EVERYTHING BEHIND A NEW BILL TO REPEAL CAPITOL PUNISHMENT

Andy Brownfield of the Washington Examiner has the story. Here’s a clip:

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is giving a repeal of his state’s death penalty another shot, announcing on Tuesday that he will file a bill to do away with the ultimate punishment.

“The death penalty is expensive and it does not work,” O’Malley said during a news conference. “And for that reason alone, I believe we should stop doing it.”

The governor said the state should instead focus on measures that have proven to reduce crime rates, such as deploying police forces strategically, collection and use of DNA evidence, and using modern policing technology.

He also tied the abolition of capital punishment to a moral imperative, pointing out that the U.S. was among the seven countries that oversaw the most state executions: Iran, China, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United States.

“In whose company do we choose to walk forward?” he asked. “Will we be a society guided by the notion that two wrongs somehow make a right? Or will we be a society that’s guided by the fundamental civil and human rights that we understand are bestowed on humankind by God?”

O’Malley was flanked by members of the legislative black caucus, county executives and NAACP officials.

The NAACP has made it a priority to scrap capital punishment in Maryland this year, with the ultimate goal of abolishing it nationwide.

LOS ANGELES DISTRICT ATTORNEY-ELECT JACKIE LACEY’S HISTORIC WIN (AND WHAT’S NEXT)

Newly elected LA District Attorney Jackie Lacey appeared on KCRW’s Which Way, LA? with Warren Olney Wednesday night to discuss the significance of her win, both as the first African American and first woman LA DA, and what made her the most qualified contender for the position.

KPCC’s Frank Stoltze also has a great piece on Lacey’s first press conference after the election. Here’s a clip:

At her first news conference the day after her historic election as L.A.’s top prosecutor, District Attorney-elect Jackie Lacey was asked about becoming the county’s first female and first African-American D.A. But before she could answer, her boss suggested a response.

“Tell ‘em it was on the merits,” said L.A. District Attorney Steve Cooley as he stood next to Lacey on the 18th floor of the downtown criminal courts building. It was kind of a whisper, but everyone in the D.A.’s conference room could hear him.

“I’m sorry Steve, I think I’ve got this one,” Lacey retorted. Everyone laughed. Lacey and Cooley are friends, and his endorsement was key to her election. She serves as his second-in-command.

It’s probably not the first time Lacey’s wrangled a white man butting into her business. And Cooley did not shut up when Lacey indicated she was prepared to give her own answer about why voters elected her.

“Its not about race or gender,” Cooley said. “This was the best candidate.”

“I could not have said it better,” Lacey said, chuckling at her soon-to-be ex-boss. “I have worked hard to get where I am today. I’ve tried a tremendous amount of cases. I never turned down an assignment.”

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: THE BATTLE’S NOT OVER YET, SAY PROP 34 SUPPORTERS

Prop 34 advocates say the fact that Prop. 34 did not lose in a landslide shows that death penalty repeal is steadily gaining ground. Alternately, the measure’s defeat means that the current appeals and execution processes may now be accelerated.

The San Jose Mercury’s Howard Mintz has the story. Here’s a clip:

“A lot of things slowed down with this initiative on the horizon,” said Douglas Berman, an Ohio State University law professor [and editor of WLA's favorite Sentencing Law & Policy]. “The pregnant question going forward in California is, OK, with (Proposition 34) cleared out, do we get a serious progression toward executions and, then, what’s the public response to that going to be?”

Death penalty foes may not wait. In their view, the 53-47 percent vote against Proposition 34 showed that California is moving toward abolition, given the fact more than 70 percent of the voters put the law on the books in 1978. While not pinpointing when the issue could return to the ballot, they made it clear Wednesday there could be a repeat campaign — and this one raised more than $7 million compared to a few hundred thousand Proposition 34 opponents gathered.

“Fifty-three percent is not a mandate for carrying out executions,” said Natasha Minsker, Proposition 34′s campaign manager.

Law enforcement officials and victims’ rights groups disagree. They say the vote shows the public wants executions and that they may push for a ballot measure to streamline the appeals process as soon as 2014.

OBAMA WIN MAY CHANGE SHAPE OF SCOTUS

With four justices past seventy years old and eligible for full-salary retirement, SCOTUS watchers contemplate the ways in which President Obama might change the face of the sharply divided US Supreme Court during his second term.

The Wall Street Journal’s Jess Bravin has the story. Here’s how it opens:

With the incoming leadership of the executive and legislative branches nearly a carbon copy of the current versions, Tuesday’s election could have the biggest effect on the sole unelected branch of government: the federal judiciary.

President Barack Obama will need help from the Republican-controlled House to enact legislation, but he needs only the Senate, where Democrats strengthened their majority, to approve judicial nominations. Should vacancies arise on the narrowly divided Supreme Court, Mr. Obama, who appointed two justices during his first term, could leave a lasting imprint on constitutional law.

No current justice has indicated a desire to surrender his or her lifetime post. But with four justices older than 70 and eligible to retire at full salary, a single departure could buttress the court’s liberal wing—or end the tenuous conservative majority that Republicans have labored to build since the Nixon administration.

(Forbes’ Daniel Fisher also assesses the impact Obama’s reelection could have on the U.S. Supreme Court.)

PASSAGE OF PROP 36 BRINGS HOPE TO CALIF. INMATES SERVING LIFE TERMS FOR MINOR THIRD STRIKES

Potentially thousands of 3-strikes cases could be up for review following the passage of Proposition 36. The LA Times’ Jack Leonard and Maura Dolan have the story.

Here’s how it opens:

A day after California voted to soften its three-strikes sentencing law, defense lawyers around the state Wednesday prepared to seek reduced punishments for thousands of offenders serving up to life in prison for relatively minor crimes.

The process of asking courts to revisit old sentences could take as long as two years and benefit roughly 3,000 prisoners. They represent about a third of incarcerated third-strikers.

Proposition 36 garnered about 69% of the vote. The initiative won in all 58 counties, amending one of the nation’s toughest three-strikes laws, one that had overwhelming voter support when it was approved in 1994 amid heightened anxiety over violent crime.

“People want a fair and just criminal justice system,” said Michael Romano, who helped write the proposition and runs a Stanford Law School project that represents inmates convicted of minor third strikes. “The passage of Proposition 36, especially by its margin, has given some hope … to people behind bars who have been forsaken by their families and society.”

Courts can reject a request to reduce a sentence if they determine the prisoner is a danger to public safety. Inmates with prior convictions for rape, murder and child molestation cannot be released under the measure.

“This is not going to open the prison floodgates,” said Garrick Byers, a senior attorney with the Fresno County public defender’s office.

Read the rest here.

FAMILY OF EXECUTED MAN SEEKS PARDON EIGHT YEARS LATER

We are just over a week away from voting on California’s list of ballot propositions, among them Prop 34, the measure that would replace the death penalty in the state with a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Therefore it is interesting timing that the now famous case of Todd Willingham, the Texas father of three who was executed in Texas in 2004 for setting a house fire that killed his daughters, is back in the news again.

Willingham is believed by many to be the first provably innocent man executed in the US—at least in modern times. (We wrote about the Willingham case here and here. Also, be sure to read the original 2009 New Yorker story—here.)

Now, eight years after his death, members of Willingham’s family are requesting a public hearing to clear his name.

Ethan Bronner of the New York Times has the story. Here’s a clip:

The case of Cameron Todd Willingham of Corsicana, Tex., has drawn attention because it seems to offer evidence that an innocent man was executed based on flawed science. Spurred partly by this case, the Texas fire marshal recently agreed to re-examine questionable arson convictions.

The battle to clear Mr. Willingham’s name has symbolic value for those fighting to end the death penalty. Six years ago, Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court wrote that he was unaware of “a single case — not one — in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit.”

Mr. Willingham’s conviction was based heavily on testimony by the Texas state fire marshal, who asserted that the scene offered clear signs of arson. Recent research has raised substantial questions about his conclusions and led to a review of other arson convictions in Texas. That research is scheduled to be presented to a panel of fire experts by January, and advocates say it could lead to the reversal of several wrongful convictions.

“Todd’s last words were: ‘Please clear my name. I did not kill my children,’ ” said Stephen Saloom, policy director of the Innocence Project, which has led the work on this case, with the pro bono assistance of the New York law firm Schulte Roth & Zabel. The Innocence Project is affiliated with Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University.

“All the evidence against him has been disproven,” Mr. Saloom said. “There have been nine reports issued about this case over the years. We are saying to the board: you couldn’t have known before, but now you have all this evidence before you.”

By the way, Jimmy Carter has an op-ed for the LA Times on why he believes CA voters should pass Prop 34. In another LAT op-ed, former prosecutor and judge, James A. Ardaiz, tells readers why he thinks Prop 34 deserves a “no” vote.

JERRY BROWN DISCUSSES PROP 30 ON SOCAL CONNECTED

KCET SoCal Connected’s contributor Madeleine Brand will interview Gov. Jerry Brown on the first show of the season and Brand’s first outing since she left KPCC. Brand and Gov. Brown will be focusing on Prop 30, which would provide much-needed money for CA schools, including programs to keep kids from dropping out. Prop 30 would also provide money to the counties for reentry and rehabilitation under realignment, programs which aren’t adequately funded in many counties including Los Angeles. The show airs tonight, Monday, at 7:00p.m. and 10:30p.m. Here’s a clip from the KCET announcement:

They will talk about the propositions on the November ballot and the race for the presidency. Gov. Brown has been campaigning hard for Proposition 30, which would raise taxes to pay for funding gaps in the state, especially in education. Passage of Prop 30 seemed like a sure thing, but the latest polls indicate a very close contest. If Prop 30 fails, it automatically would trigger additional budget cuts to education. Political observers not only see Prop 30 as a referendum on whether California voters will support higher education through tax hikes, but a referendum on the Governor himself.

UNDOCUMENTED STUDENTS BANNED FROM GEORGIA COLLEGES ATTEND UNDERGROUND SCHOOL

A new underground (literally) school, Freedom University, has sprouted up in response to a Georgia law that bans undocumented students from attending the top five GA universities and requires out-of-state tuition be paid at other public colleges.

NPR’s Cathy Lohr has the story. Here’s a clip:

About 35 students meet every Sunday at an undisclosed location in Georgia to study. They are undocumented and banned from attending some of the most prestigious colleges in the state.

Georgia is one of three states to bar undocumented students from attending schools. But a group of professors at the University of Georgia has created a fledgling school to provide a place for students to learn.

They call it Freedom University, named after the schools set up during the civil rights era to teach African-Americans in the Deep South. University of Georgia history professor Pam Voekel is one of the volunteer instructors.

“They really do see this as a civil rights struggle,” she says. “They are being excluded from higher education, and so we went with that as part of that kind of tribute to that prior struggle.”

LET’S HEAR FROM THE POLLS

According to the latest CA initiative poll, 42.9% are in favor of Prop 34 abolishing the death penalty, while 48.1% surveyed are against it. (By the way, Prop 36, the three-strikes reform initiative, currently has 72% support, with 17.1% opposition.)

PROP 34 IN THE MEDIA

The Prop 34 campaign launched TV and radio ads Monday in a final push to sway undecided Californians before voting begins two weeks from now. Narrators for the ads include Franky Carillo, who was convicted of murder at sixteen and was exonerated by DNA evidence 20 years later, and Don Heller, the remorseful author of CA’s death penalty law who says he did not foresee the cost of implementing it.

The LA Times’ Maura Dolan has the story. Here’s a clip:

The ads emphasize how few inmates are executed — 13 since 1978 — and suggest the money would be better used for schools and crime fighting. California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office has said the state could save as much as $130 million a year if the death penalty is abolished.

“Death row inmates get special legal teams that work for them, but they don’t work or pay 1 cent to the victim’s families, like other inmates do,” Olmos says. “They just sit in private cells, watching TV.”

The campaign’s television ad focuses on Francisco “Franky” Carrillo, who served 20 years in prison for a murder he said he did not commit. A judge overturned his conviction and released him last year.

“It took 20 years to prove he was innocent,” Olmos said, in English and Spanish ads. “With the death penalty, we always risk executing an innocent person.”

THOUGHTS FROM AN EXONEREE

Franky Carillo, in an Op-Ed for the Huffington Post, talks about the ad campaign, his story, and why he believes voting yes on Prop 34 is so important. Here’s a clip:

Freedom.

It’s hard to imagine it being taken away without just cause. But it happens — more often than you might think.

When I was just 16 years old, I was stripped of my freedom, wrongfully convicted of a murder I did not commit. I spent twenty years behind bars before I was finally able to prove my innocence.

But I always wonder, if I had been sentenced to death, would I have been able to prove my innocence in time?

This is why I believe so strongly in Proposition 34, which will replace California’s death penalty with life in prison without possibility of parole. With the election just two weeks away, it’s a critical time to make sure California voters hear about the true costs of the death penalty.

[SNIP]

Voting Yes on Proposition 34 makes sense for California. We can save $130 million every single year by replacing the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole. This money can be better spent on education and on tools that actually improve safety in our communities, like testing DNA evidence and investigating unsolved murders. We can also make sure that California never makes an irreversible mistake.

PRISON GUARDS UNION STAYS NEUTRAL

CA Correctional Peace Officers Association—CCPOA—an organization that has given millions of dollars in the past to defeat similar initiatives, has not so much as given an opinion on Prop 34 and 36 (three-strikes initiative).

Sacramento Bee’s Jon Ortiz has the story. Here’s a clip:

In a bygone era, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association would have unleashed a campaign carpet-bombing on a Nov. 6 ballot initiative that repeals the state’s death penalty and another that softens the “three-strikes” sentencing law that has become the union’s legacy.

But this year CCPOA has spent relatively little on politics. It hasn’t even taken a stand on the three-strikes measure, Proposition 36.

“We’ve taken some different positions than we’ve taken in the past,” said union spokesman JeVaughn Baker. “It’s not like the old days, when CCPOA championed every bill that was tough on crime.”

The union’s lower-profile political posture was shaped by a federal court mandate to shrink California’s prison population, and reinforced by CCPOA’s strained finances. With the prison population on the decline, the union’s long-standing strategy of advocating stiffer sentences and more prisons – stances that resulted in more jobs for correctional officers – has been upended.

Moreover, the state’s political climate has cooled to the lock-’em-up politics that fueled a prison-building boom in the 1980s and 1990s, swelled CCPOA’s ranks and gave it leverage to push on a range of issues, from higher pay to tougher sentencing laws.

LISTEN IN…

This Thursday at 11:00a.m., the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) will be hosting a live online discussion on the death penalty with what looks to be a very interesting panel:

Join us for a fascinating discussion addressing the question, “does the death penalty actually keep us safer?” with Charles Ogletree, Harvard University and founder of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, Ron McAndrew, former warden of Florida State Prison who conducted that state’s final electrocutions, Kirk Bloodsworth, the first person exonerated from death row using DNA evidence, and Jerry Givens, former corrections officer from Virginia who put 62 men to death during his 17 years as an executioner.

San Jose Mercury’s Howard Mintz will also host a live discussion this Thursday, Oct 25th at noon to discuss Prop 34. Jeanne Woodford, former San Quentin warden and CDCR director (now the Prop 34 campaign co-chair), will square off with former Sacramento U.S. attorney and No on 34 co-chair.

NEW TROUBLING JUVENILE JUSTICE INFOGRAPHIC

Despite recent juvenile justice victories—SB9, and the Supreme Court’s ruling against mandatory life-without-parole for juvies—there is still a long road ahead for youth advocates. Campaign for Youth Justice has created an excellent infographic illustrating the harsh reality of kids in the adult justice system.

The Chicago Bureau’s Lorraine Ma has the story. Here’s a clip:

Almost five years ago, Missourian Tracy McClard’s 17-year-old son, Jonathan, was tried, convicted and sentenced as an adult for a shooting that seriously wounded the victim. While incarcerated in an adult prison, Tracy McClard said, her son suffered from abuse, depression, and ultimately took his own life.

McClard, who said she believes all kids deserve a second chance, created the National Youth Justice Awareness month where non-profits, community organizations and families would gather to raise awareness about how youth are treated in the adult system.

In October – which McClard is hoping will turn into a nationally recognized month to assist juvenile offenders – there will be various events to mark the effort. There will be, among other things, service days, 5K walks and film screenings across 20 states in the country to generate support and, backers hope, give speed to recent gains made by juvenile advocates.

Just this year, the United States Supreme Court ruled it was not legal to sentence juveniles to life in prison without the possibility of parole in homicide cases. That built on earlier decisions where life without parole was ruled out in non-homicide cases and where death was taken off the books for all juveniles no matter the charge.

The rulings were widely seen as a nod to the notion that children’s minds are not developed to the extent that adults’ are, and that imposing some adult sanctions on youngsters, even in the most heinous of cases, was cruel punishment.

MAJORITY OF KIDS IN SF JUVIE SYSTEM AVOID OUTDOOR EXERCISE

Surprisingly two-thirds of kids in San Francisco’s Juvenile Justice Center don’t enjoy spending time exercising outdoors according to an anonymous survey conducted by the SF Youth Commission, although an hour per day is the state minimum. Advocates were perplexed and concerned by the results, which they suggested may point to a larger problem of depression and other emotional issues.

The Bay Citizen’s Trey Bundy has the story. Here’s a clip:

Of the survey’s 53 respondents, only 10 said they participated in outdoor exercise every day. When they did participate, nearly a third reported spending less than an hour outside.

The survey comes after months of debate between the San Francisco Youth Commission – which conducted the poll – and the Department of Juvenile Probation over whether detainees get enough fresh air, sunlight and exercise to satisfy state regulations. By law, detainees are entitled to one hour of outdoor “large-muscle” exercise each day.

“It’s pretty clear that young people are not getting their hour a day outdoors,” said commission director Mario Yedidia after reviewing the survey results. “The culture of the institution seems like it’s not really encouraging of outdoor exercise.

Despite the survey’s findings, Chief of Juvenile Probation William Siffermann has insisted for months that the hall is in compliance with all state regulations. “Some kids don’t want to go outside,” he said at one point, “and I can’t force them out there.”

[SNIP]

Youth commissioners said that the lack of interest in outdoor recreation indicated in the new survey results took them by surprise.

“The results were not what we were expecting, but they speak to the gravity of the situation,” said Paul Monge-Rodriguez, a 23-year-old youth commissioner. “Kids at this age should want nothing more than to go outside and engage with their peers.”

The results demonstrated the hall’s need for more recreational programs, he added.

“There’s a limited number of recreational activities to fulfill the state’s large-muscle exercise requirements,” he said. “The survey shows there’s a lot of basketball, but it’s like being offered the same one meal every day, and people get sick of the lack of variety and lose interest.”

COMING OF AGE…BEHIND BARS

Richman Em was sentenced to 50-years-to-life at age 15 after a fellow gang member shot a man during a car theft. Now Em is 21, and at the request of Youth Radio, has written a letter about the direction his life has taken, and what it has been like to grow up behind bars.

Youth Radio has Em’s story. Here’s a clip:

Richman Em was 15 years old when he was sentenced to 50 years-to-life in prison. According to testimony during his trial, Em’s friends decided to steal a car at a carwash while Em stopped in to use the bathroom. When Em returned and his friends told him of the plan, he allegedly responded, “It’s on you if you want to do it.” But he was wrong — because Em was in a gang whose members were about to commit a violent felony, what happened next affected him too.

Em watched as his friends approached the driver of the car, demanded keys and money, then shot. Em didn’t fire a bullet, but he was still convicted of “felony murder,” a legal provision that in California means a person can be charged with first-degree murder even when the act itself is committed by an accomplice.

Today Em is 21 and housed at the California State Prison in Corcoran. Youth Radio reached out to him as part of our coverage of the national legal battle over long juvenile sentences.

Here’s a clip from Richman Em’s response:

The neighborhood I resided in and the school I was attending in the 9th grade was fraught with gang activities and slight racism. I was oppressed by Hispanic kids often based on my ethnicity. Because Asian and Hispanic gangs were rivals. So I began to acquaint with people who I felt had my best interest at heart. But then so much came with that and I began to feel stuck and obligated. My world would begin its downward spiral from there.

Hanging with these people, later on they would forcefully urge me to be a part of them. I would later down the line find out I had a son on the way. So I switched schools and stop going around my current peers, but they would catch up with me and told me if I stoped (sic) coming around, then it was going to be “onsight” with me. Meaning physical altercation every time I crossed paths with them. So I gradually went back. So my mom had a plan to ship me off out of state with relatives, but it became too late.

The memories that stick out to me as a teen (are) being a kid lost of his true identity. Not knowing anyone to confide in, who’ll understand the impasse I was in. Always having to look over my back walking home from school. (They) stick out to me because they (were in) a period in my life being a kid and fearing the future. It was (an) everyday internal struggle.

My feeling at the time of the robbery was a combination of fear, powerless, and disbelief. It wasn’t something I consented to, or anticipated. So when it occurred a shocking fear ran through my body.

[SNIP]

Also I want people to know that we are more capable of change (than) what people think. So “to life” imparted to a kid is a heartwrenching dilemma. Being separated from family, and a life of normalcy forever. That hardship really changes a person. It’s not a slap on the wrist, our reality become(s) one with these concrete (walls) and to feel that “this is it,” “this is my whole life,” I only lived 15 yrs. (B)asically, it’s an indescribable pain.

UNLIKELY OPPONENTS OF PROP 34

And having nothing to do with youth justice, The Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL, the LAPD union), which is against Prop 34, has found a quirky well of fellow opponents among certain death row inmates. The prisoners’ reasoning is that if Prop 34 passes and the death penalty disappears, those condemned to death would lose access to guaranteed state-funded habeas corpus lawyers.

The LAPPL blog has the rest. Here’s a clip:

Now an attorney who has represented a number of death row inmates explains in a San Francisco Chronicle story how convoluted legal procedures surrounding capital punishment in California have caused most of the death row inmates to oppose Prop. 34 as well.

A recent survey by the Field Poll and the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley found that 42 percent of likely voters would repeal the death penalty while 45 percent would retain death as a punishment. Thirteen percent of likely voters are still undecided, giving interest groups on both sides of the measure incentive to press their cases through Election Day.

If Prop. 34 were to pass – and it is our fervent desire that it not – current death row inmates would have their sentences reduced to life. In the process, they would lose access to state-funded lawyers for habeas corpus. Habeas corpus allows inmates to challenge their convictions or sentence for reasons outside the trial record – typically, incompetent legal representation, misconduct by a judge or juror, or newly discovered evidence.

Therein lies the reason some death row inmates are urging would vote against Prop. 34 – had they not lost the right to vote when they were convicted.

Impressive infographic courtesy of Campaign for Youth Justice’s Jason Killinger.

FOUR ADDITIONAL VERY IMPORTANT BILLS (VIBs) THAT GOVERNOR BROWN ACTED ON AT THE VERY LAST MINUTE

This weekend, Gov. Jerry Brown acted on over one hundred pieces of legislation. Here’s what he did with some of the bills WitnessLA has been following: (WitnessLA posted Monday on the fate of SB9 and the sunshine law.)

Gov. Brown vetoed the TRUST Act, a crucial immigration bill, but signed the immigrant driver bill.

PBS’ Adrian Florido has the story. Here’s a clip:

The TRUST Act was passed by the state legislature in August and would have prohibited local police who arrest an illegal immigrant from holding that person for possible deportation at the request of federal immigration officials.

It would have made an exception for people who commit serious crimes.

The bill’s aim was to make it harder for federal immigration agents to use local police to help them deport people. Its supporters said it was needed to ensure that immigrant communities did not begin fearing police, as they have in states like Arizona, but it was opposed by federal immigration officials and many local sheriffs.

[SNIP]

At the same time the governor vetoed the TRUST Act, he signed into law Assembly Bill 2189, the driver’s license bill. Undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and meet other requirements, like schooling or military service, will qualify for a stay from deportation and work permits under the president’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The bill to grant them driver’s licenses will make transportation to and from their newly acquired jobs easier.

Brown also signed a bill making California the first state to ban gay conversion therapy for kids, dubbing it “quackery.” (Way to go, Jerry!)

San Jose Mercury has the AP story. Here’s a clip:

Effective Jan. 1, mental health practitioners are prohibited from performing sexual orientation change efforts — known as reparative or conversion therapy — for anyone under 18.

The therapies “have no basis in science or medicine and they will now be relegated to the dustbin of quackery,” Brown said in a statement.

Mainstream associations representing psychiatrists and psychologists have dismissed reparative therapy in recent decades. A number of mental health associations in California — including the state’s Board of Behavorial Sciences, the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists and the California Psychological Association — supported the legislation.

But some organizations and ministries continue to use counseling and prayer to try to help conflicted Christians rid themselves of unwanted homosexual inclinations. Gay rights activists have said the damage they inflict on individuals can be deep and lasting and can put youth at higher risk of depression and suicide.

“We’re grateful to Gov. Brown for standing with California’s children,” the Human Rights Campaign said in a statement. “LGBT youth will now be protected from a practice that has not only been debunked as junk science, but has been proven to have drastically negative effects on their well-being.”

A bill that safeguards kids from being charged illegal educational fees also received Jerry’s stamp of approval.

KPCC’s Tami Abdollah has more on AB1575. Here’s a clip:

The American Civil Liberties Union of California and the law firm Morrison & Foerster announced Monday that in response to the new law they will dismiss their class action lawsuit, Doe vs. State of California, filed two years ago. The suit alleged that the imposition of such fees violated the California Constitution, which has provided for “free school” since 1879.

[SNIP]

The lawsuit was based on an online investigation the ACLU conducted during August 2010. It found that at least 32 schools throughout California required students to pay for educational materials. [You can read WitnessLA's 2010 post about this ACLU lawsuit here.]

The suit alleges that requiring students to pay discriminates against lower-income children and results in an unfair system that favors wealth.

“There are budget problems in the state and it’s having problems ensuring schools get the money they need [but] you can’t pass that cost along to school children and their families,” said David Sapp, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California. “In tough budget times, it’s tough budget times for families as well,” said Sapp.

KIDS WITH PARENTS BEHIND BARS AND THE “COLLATERAL CONSEQUENCES”

A new publication from the Sentencing Project presents crucial data on incarcerated parents and their children. (We realize that the Sentencing Project was unable to obtain figures past 2007, but the incarceration numbers have only gone higher. The effects of incarceration on America’s kids is a very under-reported issue that affects our communities in a significant way.)

Here’s a clip from the fact sheet:

• The number of fathers in prison increased 76% and the number of mothers in prison increased 122%
between 1991 and 2007.

• In 2007, 1.7 million children had a parent in prison on any given day.

• The number of children with parents in prison increased 80% between 1991 and 2007.

• 1 in 15 black children, 1 in 42 Latino children, and 1 in 111 white children had a parent in prison in 2007.

EXECUTION HALTED FOR TERRY WILLIAMS

A Pennsylvania judge stayed death row inmate Terrence William’s execution and vacated his sentence Friday. (We’ve been following the stories by the Atlantic’s Andrew Cohen on Terry Williams because they point beyond themselves to yet another view of the problems with the death penalty. Go here and here for the back story.)

Andrew Cohen has the most recent developments in Terry William’s story. Here’s how it opens:

Twenty-six years after the fact, too late but just in time, a measure of justice finally found Terry Williams on Friday when a Pennsylvania judge, a former prosecutor, stayed his October 3 execution and vacated a death sentence that had been unfairly imposed upon him in 1986. No reasonable review of Williams’ case — no evaluation of the evidence, no respect for his trial jurors or the victim’s widow, no fealty to the Sixth Amendment’s fair trial guarantees — can sustain, in law or fact, the imposition of capital punishment here.

And yet today, seeking to defend an indefensible verdict, unapologetic about the misconduct of his predecessor, impervious to the dynamics of child sex abuse cases, tone-deaf to local politics and morality in the Age of Sandusky, unrepentant about misstatements to the state’s parole board, Williams’ prosecutor pushes on. I have been covering capital cases like this for 15 years and I can rarely remember an instance where a district attorney fought so willfully for so long for the right to do an injustice. It’s a risible offense.

In 1984, Williams savagely murdered a man named Amos Norwood. No one disputes that. At Williams’ 1986 trial, however, prosecutors had evidence that Norwood was a sexual predator — a man who preyed upon boys, including Williams himself. But prosecutors did not disclose this evidence to Williams’ lawyers even though they have an obligation to do so under the United States Supreme Court’s Brady v. Maryland precedent. Instead, the district attorney portrayed Norwood as an innocent victim of Williams’ evil mind. The state cheated.

Read on, as the entirety of Andrew Cohen’s article is worthwhile. Here’s one more clip from near the end we thought you shouldn’t miss:

But even this is not good enough for prosecutor Williams. He immediately appealed Judge Sarmina’s ruling. Want to know why more and more Americans are skeptical of the death penalty, why the constitutional guarantees of due process and fair trials so often go unmet? It’s because of cases like this one, where prosecutors cheat at trial and where their successors, decades later, cannot then admit, to themselves or the world, that such behavior undercuts confidence in the accuracy and integrity of the criminal justice system.

Photo taken from Sutter Brown’s facebook page.

A PUSH TO REIN IN THE HIGH COST OF INMATE CALLS

Because of the type of reporting I do, for over two decades, I have gotten occasional collect calls from prison and jail inmates.

With the exception of maybe the cost of using certain satillite phones, these are the most expensive phone calls in the world.

I can call China less expensively than the cost of accepting the average call from a California state prison.

And even with the already usurious per minute rates in place, the phone companies seem to find ever more devious ways to levy additional charges.

Take, for example, the experience I had last week when I wanted to be able accept a collect call on my cell phone while I was out of state in Montana.. The call was coming from inmate in the LA County Jail system whom I’d heard wanted to talk to me.

In order to accept the call, the Globel Tell Link operator cheerily informed me I had to prepay a minimum of $25 just to have the possibility of accepting a single call on my cell, no matter how short that call might end up being. (My landline is set up to accept collect calls on a normal basis, with a extra charges tacked on to my monthly phone bill for any collect calls I might receive. However, my cell phone isn’t. But since I was away from my home office, the cell was the only alternative if I wanted to accept this guy’s call.)

I explained to the operator that I only would be accepting a single call on a single occasion, and that it was unlikely to be long. And I wasn’t 100 percent sure, that the call in question would come through at all anyway. Plus I was already a Globel Tel Link customer on my home phone. Surely, I said, I could buy maybe $10 worth of prepaid minutes, instead of $25?

Nope, said the operator. It was $25 or nothing. She further informed me that if I failed to use up that $25 credit in, I think it was 90 days, the credit went dead and could no longer be used to cover calls at all. Globel Tel Link would simply keep the money.

Part of the problem is that, since each county or state contracts with a single phone company, there is no competition; it’s a take it or leave it situation for mothers, fathers, wives and husbands, sons and daughters hoping to keep in touch with their incarcerated family members, but for whom the cost of accepting calls quickly becomes prohibitive.

(Did I mention that the states and counties are getting multimillion dollar legal kick backs from the phone companies that have these big bucks contracts?)

Now, however, there is finally some real movement to change all that.

Sunday’s NY Times has an editorial calling for those changes in clear, no-nonsense terms.

Here’s a clip:

Members of Congress and civil rights groups are pushing the Federal Communications Commission to rein in telephone companies that, in many states, charge inmates spectacularly high rates that can force their families to choose between keeping in touch with a relative behind bars and, in some cases, putting food on the table.

The time is long past for the F.C.C. — which has been weighing this issue for nearly a decade — to break up what amount to monopolies and ensure that prisoners across the country have access to reasonably priced interstate telephone service.

The calls are expensive because they are placed through independent telephone companies that pay the state a “commission” — essentially a legalized kickback — that ranges from 15 percent to 60 percent either as a portion of revenue, a fixed upfront fee or a combination of both. According to a new report by the Prison Policy Initiative, a research group based in Massachusetts, depending on the size of the kickback, a 15-minute call can cost the family as little as $2.36 or as much as $17.

Prison officials and phone companies that defend the system of commissions say that extra charges are necessary to pay for the security screening required when inmates make calls. But this presents no problem in New York State, which banned the kickbacks several years ago and required its prison telephone vendor to provide service at the lowest possible cost to the inmates and their families…..

Read the rest. It’s ridiculous that these policies are still in place—punishing the families in our communities who can least afford it.

NEWT GINGRICH AND OTHER CONSERVATIVES URGE JERRY BROWN TO SIGN SB9, THE JUVIE LWOP BILL

As the clock ticks down on the bills that remain on Governor Brown’s desk, late-ish last week one piece of legislation got some welcome support from some unexpected sources when the San Diego Union Tribune ran an op ed by former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich and Pat Nolan, a former Republican leader of the California State Assembly, and president of Justice Fellowship, urging the governor to sign SB9, the bill that would allow the possibility of eventual parole after 25 years for some of those inmates who’ve been locked up for life for a crime committed when they were kids as young as 14 years old.

The governor has until the end of this month to sign—or not.

Here’s a clip from Newt and Pat’s excellent essay:

…Teenagers often don’t make very good decisions. Our laws take this into account in many ways: We don’t let young people drink until they are 21, and they can’t sign contracts, vote or serve on juries until they are 18.

But there is one area in which we ignore teens’ youth and impulsiveness: our criminal laws. Our laws often ignore the difference between adults and teens, and some youngsters are sentenced to life in prison without parole (LWOP). Despite urban legends to the contrary, this law has no exceptions: A teen sentenced to LWOP will die in prison as an old man or woman. No exceptions for good behavior, no exceptions period. No hope.

You might expect that these LWOP sentences are limited to the “worst of the worst,” but that is not the case. A young teen can be a bit player in a crime, e.g., act as a lookout while his buddies go in to steal beer from a convenience store. None of them is armed, and there is no plan for violence. Then it all goes haywire. The clerk pulls a gun, and one of the kids tries to grab it away. In the struggle that ensues, the gun goes off and the clerk dies.

Under California’s “felony murder” rule, every person involved in that crime, no matter how minor their role, is equally guilty of murder, even if they did not plan or expect a murder to occur. According to the fiction of our law, the lookout is as much to blame as the person who pulled the trigger. About 45 percent of the inmates serving LWOP for a teenage crime were not the person who caused the death. Yet they will die in prison of old age, with no chance for release.

But should these youngsters die in prison for something they did when they were so young? Wouldn’t it be better to re-evaluate them after serving a long stretch in prison and consider whether they have matured and improved themselves?

We are conservative Republicans, and we believe that some people are so dangerous that we must separate them from our communities. That is what prisons are for. But sometimes we overuse our institutions. California’s teen LWOP is an overuse of incarceration. It denies the reality that young people often change for the better. And it denies hope to those sentenced under it…..

Such common sense is refreshing. Let’s hope that the governor sides with facts rather than the fact-challenged diatribes of those lobbying against this bill that is a long time coming.

AND IN A RELATED STORY, MONTANA CONSERVATIVES WORK FOR THE END OF THE DEATH PENALTY

The Great Falls Tribune has the story. Here’s how it opens:

A conservative political group opposed to the death penalty is calling for an end to capital punishment in the wake of a recent court ruling that found the state’s method of execution unconstitutional.

“Conservatives dislike waste and inefficiency. That is why we should cast a critical eye when the state is involved with the business of executing people,” said former Republican state Sen. Roy Brown of Billings.

Brown is on the advisory committee of Montana Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty.

“When it takes over 20 years and hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars for extra legal fees and court costs, it is obvious that the process is full of waste and inefficiency,” Brown said.

Brown worked across the aisle with Democrats in the state Senate in past legislative sessions to try to end the death penalty in Montana.

REACTIONS TO THE LATEST JAILS COMMISSION HEARING

In the wake of the findings presented at the most recent hearing of the Citizens Commission on Jail Violence there have been a series of responses. (You can find WitnessLA’s story on the hearing here.)

The strongest is an editorial by the Daily News. The DN article doesn’t quite call for Baca to step down, but it comes pretty close. Here’s a clip:

It may be time for Baca, 70, to consider resigning his post. It’s hasn’t quite reached the point where the public should demand his removal, but he’d likely have been fired already for such a failure of leadership if the county supervisors had that kind of power over an elected sheriff.

Granted, running the Los Angeles Men’s Jail is no more a picnic than being incarcerated in it. The most dangerous murderers, thugs and crooks from not only L.A. County but practically every corner of the world are booked into it on a daily basis. The Hilton, it’s not.

But it’s also not a place in which those incarcerated should expect to be the victims of a cabal of deputies who hide behind a code of silence about violence. Who have their alleged crimes announced to the general jailhouse population and then are tossed into it. Who are strip searched not because the deputies expect to find any weapons but as a routine tool of humiliation – deputies who use heavy force not as a last resort, as regulations require, but as a first resort.

These are the charges brought against Baca’s administration by the county’s Citizens Commission on Jail Violence last week. Its members are all prominent attorneys and retired judges. [WLA NOTE: Actually, the commission is made up of four retired federal judges, one police chief, one famous former church pastor and a former federal prosecutor who is now a member of various policy groups. But, okay, we take their point.] Baca’s response is, as ever, certainly one of concern – but it’s also the administrative equivalent of that old street cop’s line to the crowds: “Move along; there’s nothing to see here.”

The LA Times also ran a post jails commission editorial. Here’s a clip:

… The commission must decide whether reform of the long-troubled county jails is possible under Sheriff Lee Baca, who has emerged in the testimony as an out-of-touch figure overly reliant on his command staff. The sheriff has proved ineffective, at best, at running the jails. He blames his staff for keeping him in the dark about inmate abuse and other misconduct by deputies, yet despite repeated complaints over a period of years, he hasn’t held anyone accountable or made significant staff changes.

He failed to file inmate complaints in the personnel records of deputies accused of misconduct, making it nearly impossible for such evidence to be used by inmates in criminal defense trials. Although Baca says he’s taken steps to reduce abuse in recent months, there’s no way to know whether the reduction will continue once he and his office are out of the spotlight.

The commission should also consider whether the current department structure makes sense in a county as vast as Los Angeles. Can a single sheriff manage the largest jail system in the nation as well as providing public safety to dozens of cities and unincorporated areas?

On the same day as the LAT editorial, Sherriff Lee Baca wrote his own Op Ed response to the Commission findings. Here’s how it opens:

Last week, the Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence issued a report sharply critical of my department with regard to violence at the Los Angeles County Jail. But the report neglected to mention a number of important initiatives my management team and I have put into place since allegations of problems at the jails surfaced. These measures have resulted in a record low use of force in county jails in recent months.

Here are just some of the initiatives investigators neglected to mention in their report to the jail commission on Friday.

When the American Civil Liberties Union first raised allegations of excessive force being used by deputies, I launched a full-scale investigation into each and every one. Because allegations and anecdotes are not the same as facts, it was important to discover what was true, and I think that when these investigations are completed, which I believe will be soon, the public will be surprised by the factual findings.

PRIVATE DEBT COLLECTORS THREATENING JAIL TIME ON DISTRICT ATTORNEY STATIONERY

Debt collection companies have been sending out notices to check-bouncers, threatening them with jail time, using the local district attorney’s seal and signature. DA’s offices allow the private companies to use their stationary with the understanding that the debt collectors will also try to wrangle an additional $180 from the debtors for a “financial accountability class” from which the DA’s office reaps a portion of the fee. (While we haven’t looked into this, on first glance, we’re made slightly queasy here.)

The NY Times’ Jessica Silver Greenberg has the story. Here’s how it opens:

The letters are sent by the thousands to people across the country who have written bad checks, threatening them with jail if they do not pay up.

They bear the seal and signature of the local district attorney’s office. But there is a catch: the letters are from debt-collection companies, which the prosecutors allow to use their letterhead. In return, the companies try to collect not only the unpaid check, but also high fees from debtors for a class on budgeting and financial responsibility, some of which goes back to the district attorneys’ offices.

The practice, which has spread to more than 300 district attorneys’ offices in recent years, shocked Angela Yartz when she was threatened with conviction over a $47.95 check to Walmart. A single mother in San Mateo, Calif., Ms. Yartz said she learned the check had bounced only when she opened a letter in February, signed by the Alameda County district attorney, informing her that unless she paid $280.05 — including $180 for a “financial accountability” class — she could be jailed for up to one year.

“I was so worried driving my kid to and from school that if I failed to signal, they would cart me off to jail,” Ms. Yartz said.

Debt collectors have come under fire for illegally menacing people behind on their bills with threats of jail. What makes this approach unusual is that the ultimatum comes with the imprimatur of law enforcement itself — though it is made before any prosecutor has determined a crime has been committed.

A DEATH ROW INMATE’S TRAGIC ARGUMENT FOR MERCY

Lawyers for Pennsylvania prisoner Terrence Williams will go before the PA Board of Pardons today to request that his death sentence be transmuted to life without parole. Terrence’s case for clemency is an extremely interesting one. After a suffering abuse and a series of violent rapes beginning in childhood, Terrence snapped and beat to death a man who sexually assaulted him. Even the victim’s wife

The Atlantic’s Andrew Cohen has the story. Here’s how it opens:

On Monday afternoon, before the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons in Harrisburg, lawyers for a man named Terrance Williams will attempt to convince state officials that his life should be spared– that instead of being executed by lethal injection on October 3rd Williams (shown at left) should instead be permitted to spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. Despite the deadly violence of Williams’ crime, despite no questions about his guilt, it’s an unusually compelling clemency request– and because of its timing, in the midst of two local sex abuse scandals, a vivid test of the nature of Pennsylvania’s clemency process itself.

Williams’ lawyers will make their case to five officials who will then make a recommendation to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, who signed Williams’ death warrant on August 8th. The vote of the Board of Pardons must be unanimous in Williams’ favor and, even then, under state law, Gov. Corbett is free to disregard it and push on with the execution. It would be the first contested execution in the state in nearly half a century (three executions between now and then occurred when the defendants in the cases all agreed to waive their appeals). And it’s clear that the governor will be a tough sell.

This is so despite the fact that the widow of Williams’ victim now believes that his sentence should be commuted to life. It is so despite the fact that eight former judges — federal and state — now believe his trial was unjust. It is so despite the pleas of 28 former prosecutors — federal, state and local — who have gone on the record saying that justice would be served by clemency. It is so despite the fact that five of Williams’ trial jurors have come forward and declared, under oath, that they never would have recommended a death sentence for him had they known of material facts his defense attorneys did not introduce at trial.

At its core, clemency is an act of mercy, an official acknowledgment that justice will be best served in a particular instance by the granting of relief to someone who is not, technically speaking, entitled to it. There are many legitimate legal reasons why Williams ought to be given a new trial– just yesterday a state judge agreed to hear more about the new evidence in the case– but clemency is not about law. It’s about equity. It’s about the power of the state to put to right an unjust result. Below are some of the facts that were not introduced at Williams’ long-ago murder trial. Judge for yourself whether he deserves to die at the hands of the state.

Be sure to read on!

NEW POLICIES FOR CALIFORNIA PRISONS’ ISOLATION UNITS GET BOTH YEA’ED AND NAY’ED BY ADVOCATES

In response to last year’s hunger strikes, the CA Dept. of Corrections (CDCR) plans to institute new policies dictating how inmates are assigned to the systems controversial isolation units, or Secure Housing Units (SHUs) and, conversely, how inmates can get out of them. Advocacy groups embrace some of the new ways inmates will be able to work their way out of isolation, but they are concerned that some of the other policy changes will shove more inmates into the SHUs unnecessarily.

California Watch’s Michael Montgomery has the story. Here’s a clip:

Under the plan, inmates are eligible to work their way out of the special units in three to four years if they complete special programs alongside prisoners from rival groups and do not engage in gang “behavior or activities.” McDonald said inmates will not be required to divulge inside information about the gangs in order to earn transfers out of the units, a controversial practice known as “debriefing.”

Other changes include new criteria to determine who can be sent to the units.

Under current rules, an inmate is automatically placed in a Security Housing Unit if he is identified as a member or associate of one of seven prison gangs. According to a policy draft released by the corrections department in March, prison gang associates would be sent to isolation units only if they were “engaged in serious criminal gang behavior or a pattern of violent behavior.” The department also would target dangerous members of any group considered a threat to prison security, including street gangs and extremist groups.

The changes will give prison staff more flexibility in dealing with a range of “security threat groups,” according to an Aug. 30 corrections department notice sent to the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the powerful union representing prison guards.

The new policies will put California more closely in line with “recognized national standards and strategies,” staving off the “inevitable litigation and court mandated changes the State would face by remaining exclusively reliant on the current … system,” according to the document.

But revisions in a June 29 corrections document obtained by California Watch suggest that officials are moving away from the narrower focus on specific criminal or violent acts. Rather, they appear to be reviving controversial guidelines that have allowed authorities to send inmates to the special units for violations such as gang-related tattoos and drawings.

LOS ANGELES SCHOOL OFFICIALS AND OTHERS MEET WITH EXPERTS TO FIND ALTERNATIVES TO ZERO TOLERANCE POLICIES

LAUSD, law enforcement and LA County officials are meeting today with an Atlanta group that has initiated serious shifts in the way schools deal with minor offenses, greatly reducing suspensions and on-campus arrests. (In the same vein, Matt Fleischer’s reported Wednesday on a state-wide hearing exploring alternatives to CA’s broken school discipline system.)

KPCC’s Tami Abdollah has the story. Here’s a clip:

Rather than focusing on punishment, these methods focus on looking at bad behavior as a symptom in kids, who are still mentally and emotionally developing, and trying to deal with the root causes of their actions.

The technical assistance team is headed by Judge Steven Teske of Clayton County, Georgia, who has worked on changing the response to low-level juvenile offenses since 2003. He has helped officials in counties across the country drop their arrest rates. In his own county, Teske’s efforts dropped the fighting offenses in schools by 87 percent between 2002 and 2010; graduation rates rose by 20 percent.

CA POLLS ON ABOLITION OF DEATH PENALTY AND THREE STRIKES REFORM

According to the most recent CA polls, Prop 34, the initiative to repeal the death penalty, is losing (currently by 8%), but there is staggering support for reforming the three-strikes law under Prop 36.

The polls have caught Doug Berman’s attention over at Sentencing Law and Policy.