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.

A WAR ON COPS?

When police officers are murdered, in addition to the unbearable hole it leaves in the lives of family, fellow officers and friends, it is a blow to all the rest of us, a deeply painful wound to the community at large. Police officers and firefighters are the one’s taking risks to keep the rest of us safe. When they are killed, we should take it personally. We should grieve for those fallen officers as our own.

That’s why so many people tuned in to watch such funerals as those of Riverside officer, Michael Crain, and San Bernardino Sheriff’s Deputy, Jeremiah MacKay, both killed in February of this year, and for LAPD SWAT officer Randal Simmons killed in February 2008, for Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Deputy Juan Abel Escalante, killed in August 2008, and for Santa Cruz Police Department detectives, Detective Sgt. Loran “Butch” Baker and Detective Elizabeth Butler, both fatally shot in late February when we were still reeling from the trauma of Christopher Dorner and all the havoc he wreaked.

All that said, let us allow these most recent 2013 deaths to be the tragedies they are, and not make them into something they are not—namely a so-called war on cops.

In 2011, when after a mostly steady decrease in officer deaths at the hands of another, there was a perplexing spike, causing journalists and public figures to warn that a war had been declared against law enforcement, despite facts to the contrary. In addition to not being—you know—true, such rhetoric was hardly helpful to the state of mind of officers facing genuine dangers on patrol.

Huffington Post criminal justice reporter Radley Balko wrote about the issue in 2011. And he has written a new essay on the matter in Tuesday’s Huff Post.

Here are some clips:

The recent killings of two prosecutors in Texas, a Colorado Department of Corrections official and a sheriff in West Virginia have law enforcement groups and the media once again buzzing about an alleged “war on cops” or, in some instances, a broader trend toward violent anti-government sentiment. Over at The Atlantic, Philip Bump does a good job debunking that idea. (He also quotes me.)

Unfortunately, thorough and skeptical analyses of police fatality statistics like Bump’s are rare. The “war on cops” talk heats up every time that one or more high-profile police killings hit the news. But there’s just no evidence that it’s true.

I’ve pointed out a number of times that the job of police officer has been getting progressively safer for a generation. Last year was the safest year for cops since the early 1960s. And it isn’t just because the police are carrying bigger guns or have better armor. Assaults on police officers have been dropping over the same period. Which means that not only are fewer cops getting killed on the job, people in general are less inclined to try to hurt them. Yes, working as a police officer is still more dangerous than, say, working as a journalist. (Or at least a journalist here in the U.S.) But a cop today is about as likely to be murdered on the job as someone who merely resides in about half of the country’s 75 largest cities.

You can read the linked pieces above for more evidence that police officers today are as safe as they’ve been in decades. But I want to discuss why it’s important to push back against this “war on cops” narrative.

It should go without saying, though I will: This has nothing to do with trying to diminish the tough job that police officers do or to cast aspersions on those who have been killed. But there are other reasons why journalists need to do a better job of reporting this story accurately. (Beyond the hopefully obvious value of reporting things accurately for the sake of reporting them accurately.)

[SNIP]

But there’s a more pernicious effect of exaggerating the threat to police officers. In researching my forthcoming book, I interviewed lots of police officers, police administrators, criminologists and others connected to the field of law enforcement. There was a consensus among these people that constantly telling cops how dangerous their jobs are is affecting their mindset. It reinforces the soldier mentality already relentlessly drummed into cops’ heads by politicians’ habit of declaring “war” on things. Browse the online bulletin boards at sites like PoliceOne (where users must be credentialed law enforcement to comment), and you’ll see a lot of hostility toward everyone who isn’t in law enforcement, as well as various versions of the sentiment “I’ll do whatever I need to get home safe at night.” That’s a mantra that speaks more to self-preservation than public service.

When cops are told that every day on the job could be their last, that every morning they say goodbye to their families could be the last time they see their kids, that everyone they encounter is someone who could possibly kill them, it isn’t difficult to see how they might start to see the people they serve as an enemy….

Read the rest here.

WHEN ANTI-BULLYING POLICIES HURT MORE THAN THEY HELP

On Tuesday’s Air Talk, Larry Mantle talks to Susan Porter, Ph.D, author of “Bully Nation: Why America’s Approach to Childhood Aggression is Bad for Everyone.“

Here’s a clip from the blog post about the segment on KPCC. When the audio goes up, I’ll link to that too.

Educator Susan Eva Porter said that the nation considered the shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as victims of bullying, and the nation quickly and fearfully adopted zero-tolerance policies to prevent future victims of bullying.

In “Bully Nation…” Porter argues that labeling children as bullies is equivalent to calling them “stupid” because it gives them a “fixed mind-set” about how they perceive themselves.

Do anti-bullying programs cause more harm than help? Is bullying in schools a problem? What’s the best way to help victims of bullying? Are children more aggressive today than in the past?

SHOULD JOURNALISTS EVER BE FORCED TO REVEAL THEIR SOURCES?

Mantle also has an intriguing and smart segment on Tuesday’s show about when—if ever—journalists should reveal their sources.

This relates to a story that broke Tuesday morning about an instantly controversial recording that Mother Jones obtained, an audio that was made of a conversation between Republican leader Mitch McConnell and his staff talking about actres Ashley Judd and what kind of op research might be used against her, should she run for office.

(For the record, everyone we know or respect in the field would go to jail before revealing a source.)

REFORMING LAUSD’S POLICY OF “TEACHER JAIL” GAINS SUPPORT

It has been widely reported over the last couple of years, how public school teachers accused of serious of wrongdoing can be held in what is known colloquially as “teacher jail” for a startling amount of time without any appropriate action—which, among other things, costs the distract a lot of money. A new proposal put forth by school board member Tamar Galatzan wants to streamline this ridiculously broken process.

Hillal Aron at the LA School Report has the story.

Here’s a clip:

Normally, when a teacher is accused of physically and seriously harming a child (i.e., hitting them or touching them inappropriately), law enforcement officials investigate.

During the investigation, the teacher is removed from a classroom and placed in a so-called “teacher jail” or “rubber room” pending investigation of alleged misdeeds .

The time teachers spend there can be lengthy — most of it due the time it takes for law enforcement to do its investigation, according to Galatzan.

According to a November 2012 audit, LAUSD has been required to pay $3 million in salaries to 20 teachers who have been ‘housed’ (removed from site) the longest while being investigated for misconduct – including one who’s been housed for 4.5 years.

In most cases, teachers do not end up returning to the classroom. Last year, only 16 returned, and only 14 have been reassigned as of December this year.

However, sometimes law enforcement, for a variety of reasons, determines that there is no criminal act or decides it can’t make the charges stick.

That’s where Galatzan’s resolution comes in….

JURY AWARDS $1.1 MILLION TO PALMDALE TEENAGER SHOT BY LASD DEPUTY WHILE ON BIKE WITH TOY GUN

This week a jury awarded 19-year old William Fetters $1,127,600 in medical bills and damages for pain and suffering, after Fetters was shot on May 10, 2009 by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy, Scott Sorrow.

Fetters, who was then 15-years -old, was riding his bicycle, and playing a tag-like game with his brother and friends, when he was shot.

Deputy Sorrow testified at trial that Fetters was brandishing a realistic looking toy gun that he refused to drop. This, the deputy said, caused him to fear for his life and that of his partner so he fired a single shot at Fetters.

The teenager was hit in the rear of the side of his chest.

According to Fetters, matters went as follows: he was riding his bike down the street toward a local baseball diamond, playing “cops and robbers” with his brother and friends as they went. As the boys rode, Sorrow approached in his car and asked Fetters to stop riding and drop the toy gun he was holding, and that he dropped it right away. After that, Fetters said, the deputy shot him. Then, as he lay on the ground wounded, yelling that the gun was just a toy, Sorrows handcuffed him.

(Sorrows also testified that he handcuffed the wounded boy after shooting him and seeing that the gun was on the ground and out of his reach.)

At the trial—and according to interview transcripts—-Sorrows insisted that Fetters did not drop his toy gun when ordered to do so, while Fetters said the opposite. The teen said he was scared, and when the deputy barked the order, he dropped the gun immediately, then tried to get off his bike, at which point Sorrows shot him.

Oddly, according to Fetters’ attorney Bradley Gage, in an earlier version of an interview transcript that was presented at a hearing for the case in 2012, Sorrows appears to say that that Fetters did drop the gun.

But for this month’s trial, said Gage, the same transcript was amended to read that Fetters did not drop the gun. When questioned about the discrepancy in trial, Gage said that Sorrows discribed the first version as a “typo.”

(Here is the first version of the interview with Sparrow: EXHIBIT 35 – 1st INTERVIEW)

About the matter of whether Sorrow shot Fetters “with malice,” which the court was also asked to consider, the jury as unable to not a verdict. Thus a mistrial was declared for that part of the case. The question of “malice” is due to be tried again in mid April.

Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said that the department strongly disagrees with this week’s jury judgment, and that Fetters was holding what appeared to be a real handgun which he pointed at the deputies when he was shot.

WHY ARE PEOPLE ARE DYING LIKE CRAZY IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY JAIL?

Reporters Dave Maas and Kelly Davis, have a startling story in San Diego City Beat showing that the jail death capital of California is….San Diego County.

Didn’t see that coming.

Maas and Davis note that jail inmate deaths have been tracked nationally only since 2000, when Congress passed the Deaths in Custody Reporting Act (DCRA) to “help address increasing reports of neglect and abuse in U.S. jails.”

According to Department of Justice statistics tracked from the period of 2000 to 2007, for that time period, San Diego was second in the state, for jail deaths. (Alameda county was first.)

Then when the reporters began gathering stats from 2007 to the present through public records act requests, things got worse for SD, not better. In this newer period, San Diego County was at the top of California’s list—based on a calculation of deaths per 100,000 people (the standardized metric that is most often used for this kind of calculation so that one may compare apples to apples).

Riverside County, Alameda and Los Angeles ranked 2nd, 3rd and 4th, respectively, behind San Diego.

Next the reporters plan to drill down into the county’s figure so try to determine if any of those deaths were preventable.

SCOTUS JUSTICE RUTHIE’S VERY POWERFUL WHISPERS

One of the most to-the-point remarks in this week’s gay marriage hearings was said so softly that many in the court gallery didn’t hear Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s words when she talked about “skim milk.”

Greg Stohr at Bloomberg has a nice story about the physically diminutive, but intellectually and strategically powerful Miz Ruth.

Here’s clip:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sometimes barely audible when she speaks at the U.S. Supreme Court. That doesn’t mean she isn’t heard loud and clear.

As the court took up same-sex marriage this week for the first time, the 80-year-old justice offered a reminder that she remains a force, the anchor of court’s liberal wing. At various points, she served as the hard-hitting questioner, the voice of experience and a source of wit.

Ginsburg delivered one of the most memorable lines of the two days of arguments when she said yesterday that a federal law limiting benefits to married gay couples would create “two kinds of marriage — the full marriage, and then this sort of skim-milk marriage.”

The quip drew chuckles throughout the packed courtroom. The laughter would have been louder except that many of the 500 onlookers couldn’t hear Ginsburg, whose soft speaking style means her words often get lost in the corners of the courtroom.

Her quiet manner and diminutive stature make Ginsburg an easy justice to underestimate — for those not familiar with her work.

“It is clear that she is respected and even somewhat feared by her adversaries on the bench,” said Garrett Epps, a University of Baltimore law professor who attended the argument.
The skim-milk analogy was her way of “explaining in clear terms — terms that will be remembered and carried forward to judges and citizens outside the court — what is wrong with the idea that the federal government can withhold the title of marriage to couples legally wedded in their states,” Epps said….

The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin has a terrific profile of Ginsburg in the New Yorker earlier this month, but regrettably it’s hidden behind their paywall. However, if you don’t have your own subscription and can’t snatch a friend’s magazine, Toobin was interviewed on Fresh Air with Terry Gross about his profile, and it’s very good (and covers many of the same points as he did in the profile).

SUPES VOTE TO GIVE SHERIFF ASKED FOR $22 MILLION FOR PATROLS

At Tuesday’s LA County Board of Supervisors’ meeting the board voted to give the sheriff’s department $22 million to help shore up the LASD budget. The money is reportedly slated to pay for officers to adequately patrol the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County—namely the areas that the sheriff’s department is legally obligated to patrol. (But why quibble.)

Christina Villacourt of the Daily News has the story on the board’s vote. Here’s a clip:

….Short on cash at the beginning of this year, Sheriff Lee Baca reduced patrols in unincorporated areas but not in cities and agencies where his department is contractually obligated to maintain a certain level of service.

An audit revealed residents of unincorporated areas ended up having to wait 17 percent longer — a minute more — for deputies to respond to their 9-1-1 calls, compared to people in contract cities and agencies.

At a tense board meeting, Supervisor Gloria Molina accused Baca of “stealing” from unincorporated areas to serve contract cities and agencies.

Baca restored the patrols by pulling dozens of deputies out of gang enforcement and other units and sending them to monitor unincorporated areas.

Speaking of audits, wasn’t there going to be some kind of audit of the LASD budget when this whole thing came up a month or so ago? Or did we all just get tired and forget about that? (I’m just curious.)

MORE BAD PRESS FOR PASADENA PD AROUND THE TRAGIC DEATH OF KENDRIC MCDADE

The Pasadena Star’s Brian Charles continues to vigorously report on this hydra-headed story of alleged Pasadena Police misconduct, misadventure and, in the case of Kendric McDade, a series of tragic mistakes—or worse. Here’s a clip from the latest sad wrinkle.

In the final moments of his life, Kendrec McDade was handcuffed and “began to twitch” on the ground after being shot by two Pasadena police officers, according to a civil rights lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court.

McDade, a onetime standout football player at Azusa High School, tried to talk to officers as he lay dying, the lawsuit reads.

Instead, Pasadena police officers left McDade handcuffed in the street late Saturday night “for a protracted period of time without administering first aid,” the lawsuit filed by McDade family attorney Caree Harper reads.

The 19-year-old Citrus College student died later at Huntington Memorial Hospital.

Pasadena police spokeswoman Phlunte Riddle denied that McDade was left to die, but would not comment on the specifics of the case.

Named as defendants in the lawsuit are Pasadena police Chief Phillip Sanchez, Officer Mathew Griffin, Officer Jeffrey Newlen and detective Keith Gomez. It seeks unspecified damages.

Read the rest. And note that off to the right side of the story there are links to Charles’ other stories.

ERICA AGUILAR OVER AT KPCC reports that one of the officers involved investigating the McDade shooting is already being investigated for a hefty string of allegations of misconduct.

Here’s a clip from her story:

Pasadena’s police chief said he’s investigating two officers on accusations that they intimidated suspects and witnesses. One of those officers is a detective investigating the officer-involved shooting of Kendrec McDade.

Pasadena police shot and killed 19-year-old McDade in March after they said he reached for his waistband. Police say they thought he had a gun because of a false emergency call, but McDade was not armed. Keith Gomez, a corporal with the Pasadena department, is looking into the incident.

Last week the Pasadena chapter of the NAACP filed a complaint with the police department alleging that Gomez intimidated a suspect and witnesses and manufactured evidence in a 2006 murder case he investigated.

“Sometimes officers may do things that are inappropriate,” said Joe Brown, the chapter president, “and there appears to be sometimes patterns that certain officers are using that are really going over the line.”

A ROUND-UP OF THE SUPREMES AND DOMA

Here’s a clip from Adam Liptak at the New York Times writing about the justices’ doubts about DOMA.

The Supreme Court appeared ready on Wednesday to strike down a central part of a federal law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman, as a majority of the justices expressed reservations about the Defense of Marriage Act.

On the second day of intense arguments over the volatile issue of same-sex marriage, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who most likely holds the decisive vote, returned again and again to the theme that deciding who is married is a matter for the states. The federal government, he said, should respect “the historic commitment of marriage, and of questions of the rights of children, to the states.”

That suggests that he is prepared to vote with the court’s four liberal members to strike down the part of the 1996 law that recognizes only the marriages of opposite-sex couples for more than 1,000 federal laws and programs. Such a ruling would deliver federal benefits to married same-sex couples in the nine states, and the District of Columbia, that allow such unions.

If the 1996 law stands, Justice Kennedy said, “you are at real risk with running in conflict with what has always been thought to be the essence” of state power, which he said was to regulate marriage, divorce and custody.

All four members of the court’s liberal wing questioned the constitutionality of the law, though they largely focused on equal protection principles rather than on the limits of federal power.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for instance, said the law effectively created “two kinds of marriage: the full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage.”

David Souter and David Savage of the LA Times also think that the liberal justices and Justice Kennedy are in favor of striking down DOMA. Here’s a clip:

The Supreme Court wrapped up a second day of arguments on gay marriage, as Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and the court’s liberal justices appeared headed toward striking down the part of the Defense of Marriage Act that denies federal benefits to legally married gay couples.

Kennedy repeatedly said the states, not the federal government, have the primary role in deciding who is married. The question is “whether the federal government has the authority to regulate marriage,” he said.

Meanwhile, the court’s four liberal justices said the 1996 law is flawed and discriminatory because it treats married same-sex couples differently than other married couples.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she too found the discrimination troubling. Some couples can have “full marriage” under the law, but others who are gay are left with “skim-milk marriage,” she said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the law creates two classes of married couples. “You are treating married [gay] couples differently,” she said. “You are saying that New York’s married couples [who may be gay] are different than Nebraska’s,” she said, even though both are legally married under state law.

She questioned whether the government “can create a class they don’t like — here homosexuals –and … decide they get different benefits on that basis.”

The ATLANTIC WIRE has a transcript of Wednesday’s hearing that is nicely laid out so your eye can skip over the less interesting parts, in order to read and assess what the SUPREMES said for yourself.

On Monday, the National Sheriffs’ Association announced their choice of Sheriff Lee Baca as “Sheriff of the Year.” The award—which is given “to recognize a sheriff who has shown unusual initiative and imagination in the performance of his/her duty”—will be presented to Sheriff Baca in June at the NSA’s annual conference in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Given the deluge of problems and bad publicity that have bedeviled Baca and his department in recent years, many were perplexed by the announcement.

In Monday’s statement announcing Baca’s selection, the Association cited his progressive reputation and pointed to such model programs as the Baca’s Clergy Council and his Education-Based Incarceration program (EBI), which Baca believes can help inmates better turn their lives around when they return to the their communities—and which, indeed, has gotten glowing reviews from the inmates who have graduated from EBI classes.

The Office of the Los Angeles County Sheriff manages the nation’s largest local jail system housing nearly 20,000 inmates. Sheriff Baca developed Education-Based Incarceration (EBI) to address the high rate of offender recidivism in Los Angeles County. EBI uses innovative, evidence-based strategies to deliver education and life skills that provide hope and opportunity to offenders who want to live a better life and become contributing members of their communities. The Office also protects the largest court system in the nation.

Sheriff Baca is the Coordinator of Mutual Aid Emergency Services for California Region 1, which includes the County of Orange. Region 1 serves 13 million people.

Sheriff Baca is the founder of Public Trust Policing that includes diverse advisory councils; a Clergy Council of more than 300 ministers, pastors, priests, rabbis, imams, and leaders of every faith community. He also operates sixteen nonprofit youth centers; ten at-risk regional training centers for at-risk youth ages 10-18, and provides dozens of deputies to 240 elementary and middle schools who teach 50,000 children about positive solutions to the problems of drugs and gangs. He operates one of law enforcement’s largest prevention and intervention programs in the nation.

Yet, despite Baca’s long-term interest in progressive projects, and his latest steps toward some reform, critics found the timing of the honor baffling given the sheer number and seriousness of the scandals that have plagued Baca and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department in the last few years—including a “persistant pattern” of abuse of inmates by deputies in the county’s jails, accusations of favors doled out to the sheriff’s friends and donors, a possible quid pro quo system of promotions run by the undersheriff, a rash of deputy gangs whose members may or may not engage in worrisome rites and rituals—and more. Several of the scandals have triggered what appears to be an ever-widening federal investigation, and have caused an unusual number of department captains and other high-ranking LASD supervisors to be relieved of duty and/or pushed into retirement ahead of probes into their conduct. Added to all that, a surprisingly lengthy list of supervisors with otherwise good records are suing the department.

“Jaw-dropping,” was the word used by an LA County Board of Supervisors insider in reference to the award.

Robert Faturechi at the LA Times has written a longer story on Baca’s selection. Here’s a clip from its opening:

His department is being investigated by the feds. A county commission examining abuse in Baca’s jails found him to be disengaged and uninformed, saying he probably would have been fired in the private sector. Secret deputy cliques with gang-like hand signs and matching tattoos have surfaced. And Baca has been accused of using his office for the benefit of friends, relatives and donors.

Despite those challenges, Baca has been awarded “Sheriff of the Year” by the National Sheriffs’ Assn.

His spokesman said the honor was appropriate given Baca is “the most progressive sheriff in the nation” and “a guy that works seven days a week.”

“This is his best year because people do their best when they face their biggest challenges and he is excelling,” said sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore.

Baca’s critics disagreed.

“You gotta be kidding,” said Peter Eliasberg, legal director of the ACLU of Southern California. “The years of malfeasance in the jails and the blatant failure of the sheriff to address the problems make his winning this award mind-boggling.”

One must apply/be nominated for the award, and have a recommendation from one’s state sheriffs’ organization. Winners are selected by a committee of three made of up of two past winners, and a civilian with knowledge of law enforcement.

Photo credit/Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department

WHAT DOES CALIFORNIA PRISON “SHU” REALLY LOOK AND FEEL LIKE?

Monday, California state legislators began discussing the issue of isolation policy in the state’s prisons. The U.S. Congress has begun examining the same growing controversy about the use of Special Housing Units—or SHUs—in the nation’s federal lock-ups.

KQED’s Michael Montgomery had a conversation with—and video taped—an inmate named Jeremy Beasley, while he was in Pelican Bay State Prison’s SHU. Beasley is, by his own admission, not the most angelic of guys, but does that mean it is moral or wise or constitutional to house him in the kind of isolation that more and more people, including some prominent conservatives, regard as torture.

Below you’ll find clip from Montgomery’s story. But be sure to watch at least the first 2 or 3 minutes of the full half hour video with Beasley, which you can find here.

(NOTE: Montgomery is arguably more expert on the issue than any other reporter in California. So his dispatches are always worth your time.)

Here’s the clip:

“I haven’t seen the moon since 1998.”

That’s inmate Jeremy Beasley, talking to me while sitting–shackled–in an interview room at Pelican Bay State Prison, California’s highest security lockup.

Beasley, a convicted murderer, was clearly surprised by my presence—-he told me he hadn’t met with a visitor since 1994, when he was incarcerated.

It’s not just the moon Beasley hadn’t seen in 15 years. During that time, in fact, Beasley rarely glimpsed the outside world. Before being transferred to another prison, he was held in Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit, a windowless, bunker-like facility that houses more than 1,000 California inmates.

For 22-and-a-half hours a day, each inmate here is locked, usually alone, in an 8-by-10 feet cell. For 90 minutes the inmate is allowed to exercise in an adjacent room with 25-30 feet high walls. And that’s their entire day — every day.

“I’ve seen guys lose their minds back here,” Beasley tells me.

LAPD LIEUTENANT SUES DEPARTMENT FOR ALLEGED RETALIATION AFTER HE REPORTED ILLEGAL GUN SALES BY METRO OFFICERS

According to the Courthouse News Service, Lt. Armando Perez, a 25-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department is suing the LAPD for retaliation after Perez allegedly discovered that officers from the department’s Metro division were buying special SWAT–labeled guns through the armory that Perez oversaw, and then selling the guns for profit to other LAPD officers, civilians and gun dealers.

Here’s a clip from the story by Elizabeth Warmerdam:

Los Angeles police officers bought and sold guns from the police armory for profit, and told the lieutenant in charge of the armory to “watch his back” after he reported it, the 25-year LAPD veteran claims in court.

Armando Perez sued the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Police Department in Superior Court.

Perez, who joined the LAPD in 1987, claims he was retaliated against, suspended and threatened after he discovered, through his job as “Officer in Charge of the Armory,” that officers in the Metropolitan Division were buying and reselling guns to other officers, civilians and gun dealers….

Perez also alleges that, when the department investigated the matter, no one ever bothered to interview him, but later, he himself was investigated in relationship to his reports on tthe gun sales, and on the subsequent harassment, and was suspended for five days.

Last August, the LA Times ran a story bout the possible gun dealing. Perez alleges that after the publication of the Times story, the retaliation against him got worse.

Read the rest here.

WHAT CONGRESS LEARNED ABOUT GUN VIOLENCE BEFORE THE NRA PRESSURED CONGRESS TO KILL ALL RESEARCH FUNDING

Reasonable people might argue over what kind of gun regulation is helpful and appropriate. But it is difficult for any but the most partisan to defend the intense lobbying by the NRA that, in 1996, persuaded a fearful congress to strangle research into gun violence by the Center for Disease Control, and by the National Institute of Health—both of which, rightly, viewed the nation’s approximately 30,000 gun deaths per year as a public health issue.

The NRA, however, evidently viewed fact-based information as a threat.

Reporters at ProPublica wondered what exactly the CDC had found out with its research before the door to science got slammed. With this in mind, Joaquin Sapien interviewed Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who led the agency’s gun violence research in the nineties when he was the director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.

You can find the interview here.

CALIFORNIA SUPREMES SAY PARENTS OF WOMAN KILLED BY JEALOUS LAPD DETECTIVE LOST RIGHT TO SUE DEPARTMENT OVER MISHANDLING THE CASE DUE TO STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

The California Supreme Court declined to take the case of Nels and Loretta Rasmussen, whose daughter, Sherri Rassmusen was murdered in the Van Nuys townhouse she shared with her husband, by former LAPD Detective Stephanie Lazarus. Although Sherri Rassmusen was murdered in 1986, police concluded that she was killed in a home robbery gone bad—despite the fact that, according to the Rasmussens, they provided investigators with information that pointed to Lazarus and, at the very least merited investigation. Instead, the allege, they were rebuffed and deliberately intimidated. It was only in 2009, when DNA left at the scene was matched to Lazarus, that the detective was arrested. Lazarus was convicted of murder in 2012.

Lots of people have the story (like the Daily News) , but the legal-leaning Metropolitan News-Enterprise has a good explanation from a legal perspective.

Here’s a clip:

Sherri Rasmussen, was murdered in 1986. Lazarus was charged following a DNA match to a bite mark on the body, and was convicted in March of last year.

The Rasmussens sued in July 2010, while Lazarus was awaiting trial. They alleged that they had told the LAPD the day after the murder that they suspected their son-in-law’s ex-girlfriend was the killer, although they did not know her name at the time.

The dead woman’s husband, John Ruetten, identified Lazarus as his ex-girlfriend and told the investigators that she was an LAPD officer. The LAPD, the Rasmussens alleged, ignored evidence that Lazarus had stalked and confronted Sherri Rasmussen, focusing instead on an untenable theory that the killers were two unknown Hispanic men who had committed burglaries in the area.

That theory, they said, was discredited in 2005 when DNA obtained from the bite mark was tested and determined to have been left by a woman, although it took another four years before Lazarus was linked to the bite mark.

The Rasmussens sued the LAPD for civil rights conspiracy and sued Lazarus for wrongful death.

There’s more, so read on.

PHOTO CREDIT: The above photo is a screen capture taken from Michael Montgomery and KQED’s video accompanying the story about the Special Housing Units (SHUs) in California’s prisons.

Next week, Monday-Thursday—February 25-28—California Pizza Kitchen has kindly offered to give 20 percent of your dinner check, drinks included, to the families of Riverside Police officer Michael Crain, and San Bernardino Sheriff’s Detective Jeremiah MacCay, both of whom were allegedly killed by Christopher Dorner.

Detective MacKay was killed in a shootout with Dorner in Big Bear. Michael Crain and his partner were ambushed by a man assumed to be Dorner. As Dorner had no particular beef with Riverside PD, there seemed to be no reason behind the shooting, other than the fact the men were police officers.

Detective MacCay and Officer Crain each leave behind a wife and two kids.

The fundraising offer will be honored at any California Pizza Kitchen anywhere in the state, from February 25-28—all day.

The deal is you have to print out the flyer I’ve linked to here and present it to your server.

Pizza and generosity. A good combo.

NOTE: The money raised is being overseen by the Riverside Police Officers’ Association and the Sheriff’s Employee Assistance Team.

WILL DORNER’S CASE BRING A RETURN TO OPEN BOARD OF RIGHTS HEARINGS FOR THE LAPD?

LAPD Board of Rights disciplinary hearings used to be open to the public-–until 2006 when a famous California Supreme Court ruling shut them down. In 2007, then state senator Gloria Romero tried to get them opened again through a bill in the state legislature, a move that was supported by Mayor Antonio Vilaraigosa and then Chief of Police Bill Bratton. But a push back from the law enforcement unions eroded support and the bill went down to defeat.

Now with the strong feelings and concerns over the case of Christopher Dorner, the issue is coming up again. An LA Times editorial votes for seizing this painful moment as an opportunity to reopen the hearings for the good of all concerned. (WitnessLA strongly agrees.)

The Times writes:

Police disciplinary boards, where the most serious charges of misconduct are considered, were open to the public for years, and that helped the Los Angeles Police Department on its long trip back from ignominy to esteem. Their closure in recent years, as well as the department’s refusal to release the names of officers involved in shootings, threatens to undermine that slowly recovering public confidence.

Those arguments might be easy to dismiss coming from a newspaper — it’s natural for an editorial page to favor openness over secrecy. This past week, however, L.A. has been reminded in the starkest terms that the price of closure is not just inconvenience for journalists; it’s the threat that the public won’t trust the institutions protected by such secrecy

A story by Michael Juliani and Brianna Sacks of Neon Tommy explains the history of the matter.

NOTE: By the way, we are told an individual officer may wave his or her right to privacy and open his own hearings.

A FORMER LAPD OFFICER TURNED AUTHOR SPEAKS ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCE WITH RACISM IN THE LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT

Former LAPD Cop Brian Bently says he lived a lot of what Dorner described. Here’s a clip from the story by Jasmyne Cannick in EurWeb.

…Brian Bentley left the LAPD in 1999 after serving ten years with the Department. He was a police officer in 1992 during the uprising and was assigned to guard O.J. Simpson’s house in Brentwood during the infamous trial. He served under police chiefs Daryl Gates, Bayan Lewis, Willie Williams, and Bernard Parks. However, he was fired for writing the book One Time: The Story of a South Central Los Angeles Police Officer that detailed the massive misconduct and racism he witnessed during his time at the LAPD’s Southwest and West L.A. divisions.

But don’t settle for the clip. This requires a full read.

WRITER STEVEN IVORY WRITES ABOUT THE RACIAL DIVIDE THAT KEEPS WHITE AMERICANS FROM UNDERSTANDING WHAT BLACK AMERICANS FEEL IN READING THE DORNER MANIFESTO

In his essay, also in EurWeb, writer Steven Ivory makes in clear that he abhors Christopher Dorner’s actions:

I believe Christopher Dorner is a cold-blooded murderer. The young couple he is charged with killing as revenge on LAPD had their whole lives ahead of them, and he took that. It’s just horrible. And chances are, the officer whose life he took didn’t even know the particulars of Dorner’s situation; he was simply doing his job. I don’t know a single soul who doesn’t say that what Dorner allegedly did was absolutely, unequivocally wrong. He flipped. He’s gone mad.

But then he writes:

However, much of the contents of Dorner’s now infamous manifesto, labeled rhetoric by LAPD, the press and the white general public, is all too familiar to black America.

Again, this requires a full read.

TWO AUDIOS GIVE THE CONFUSING IMPRESSION THAT POLICE MAY HAVE DELIBERATELY SET FIRE TO THE CABIN WHERE DORNER WAS BARRICADED, BUT SAN BERNARDINO SHERIFF SAYS FIRE NOT PURPOSELY SET

Although on Wednesday, San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon specifically said that there was no attempt on the part of law enforcement to set the Dorner cabin alight, although some still feel that law enforcement audios suggest otherwise.

The LA Times reports on McMahon’s press conference:

McMahon denied speculation that officers intentionally set the fire, saying officers first used traditional tear gas to flush the man out. When that didn’t work, they opted to use CS gas canisters, which are known in law enforcement parlance as incendiary tear gas. These canisters, filled with more potent gas, have a significantly greater chance of starting a fire.

“We did not intentionally burn down that cabin,” McMahon said.

Here’s the audio from a period shortly after the firefight that resulted in the death of SBSD deputy Jeremiah MacKay, and the serious wounding of deputy Alex Collins, when emotions were understandably running extremely high.

And there is this audio from right before and during the period when the fire broke out.

NOTE 1: We’re told that the colloquial expression for the incendiary tear gas is “burner,” thus the use of the term in the audio does not necessarily mean that burning the cabin was the intention, but just a discussion of tactics.

NOTE 2: WLA takes no position on the audio confusion. In fact we think what McMahan says makes sense. We’d simply like someone to definitively clear it up so all the conspiracy theorists would go away.

And finally here is an edited dispatch recording from much of the early half of the Dorner standoff— courtesy of Law Officer magazine. It has nothing to do with the audio controversy. It is simply interesting to listen to the laudably calm and professional San Bernardino County dispatch people during those extremely difficult hours.

SAN BERNARDINO DA’S OFFICE AND THE TWEETING PROHIBITION

Around 3:30 pm-ish on the day of the Dorner standoff, the San Bernardino DA’s Office tweeted that the SB Sheriff’s Department wanted all news media to stop tweeting immediately, that it was endangering officers.

Now keep in mind, no such blanket prohibition had gone out to TV and radio reporters, which were merrily broadcasting anything they could get their hands on. (Although, the SBSD had asked the TV folks to back off a bit with their helicopters, for the safety of all concerned)

So if broadcast was fine, what was with tweeting ban?

Certainly all reporters understand the need for certain kinds of information to be embargoed—for the safety of officers, to protect the privacy of victims or minors, and myriad other reasons. Everyone routinely complies.

But an across-the-board blackout on tweets and only tweets?

A few media outlets observed the tweet ban—most notably the Riverside Press-Enterprise and KCBS. (Of course, KCBS was the one station that had a reporter very close to the action, Carter Evans, who was able to send back cell-phone recordings of the shootout, so what did they care about tweets?) Most LA print and online reporters ignored it, but appeared to take care to modulate their tweets so as not to give anything away that might compromise anyone’s safety.

There were, however, some snarky remarks from some quarters involving the First Amendment, et al..

Eventually, the SD DA’s office quietly took its STOP TWEETING tweet down.

But not before Kim Bui at KPCC managed to document it and the rest of the tweet kerfuffle. Her story provides a glimpse of a slightly lighter moment in the midst of Tuesday’s tragic drama.

AND IN NON-DORMER-RELATED NEWS, OFFICIALS CALL FOR PROBE OF LASD BULLETPROOF VESTS

Normally, we’d lead with this update on last week’s LA Times story regarding the weird mystery of the LASD bulletproof vests shipped on the down-low to Cambodia…..but this week other dramas hold the high card.

In any case, here’s a clip from the story by Robert Faturechi and Jack Leonard reporting that local officials such as Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and Gardena Mayor Pro Tem Rachel Johnson are concerned by the whole matter.

Local officials Tuesday called for investigations into the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department funneling hundreds of bulletproof vests to Cambodia through the city of Gardena.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas requested an audit to determine whether officials violated the law in shipping the vests a decade ago to the Southeast Asian country. A Gardena official also said she would be asking for an investigation into her city being used as an intermediary for the unusual transaction.

The announcements Tuesday were prompted by a Times investigation published over the weekend that found that sheriff’s ballistic vests were shipped to Cambodia and not declared to customs officials, as required by federal law. Instead, they were stuffed inside one of a number of patrol cars that the Sheriff’s Department was shipping directly to Cambodia, avoiding the rigorous vetting process the U.S. government requires to prevent body armor from getting into the wrong hands abroad.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Flogging Molly’s song below was the first piece of music played under the montage honoring the life of Michael Crain, a much-beloved officer, ex-Marine, husband and father of two, a tall, strong, big-hearted guy who was also willing to show up to dance next to his young daughter at her ballet class, when that was the task called for.

The song was clearly a favorite of Crain’s, and seemingly fitting for the larger, very complex and sorrowful mood of this day.

In the days to come, we must find the clarity to sort through the many painful facets of these events, some less comfortable to look at than others.

But today we simply grieve.

UPDATE: THE SAN BERNARDINO DEPUTY KILLED IN THE DORNER FIREFIGHT IS JEREMIAH MACKAY

MacKay, 35, has 2 children, a 7-year-old daughter and a 4-month old son. Heartbreakingly, MacKay, an expressive, well-liked, genial man expressed to several reporters the natural worry that officers felt going into such a fluid situation as that with Dorner. A few hours later, he died of gunshot wounds in the firefight with the man believed to be Dorner.

FINAL TUESDAY UPDATE 11:00 pm: San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Dept says investigators have located charred human remains within the cabin. Forensic ID comes next. And so the tragic and exhausting day for law enforcement and others ends, and likely this is the end of the story for Christopher Dorner.

More, no doubt, shortly. The updates below show the evening’s confusion. For the unfolding of Tuesday’s events in Big Bear, see the earlier post below this one.

For a complete narrative, the LA Times team has the best coverage I’ve seen.

AN EVENING OF CONFUSION…NEWS WHIPLASH…AND MEDIA ERRORS—AS NEWSPAPER HEADLINES WERE POSTED THEN HASTILY YANKED DOWN. WLA’S CHANGING UPDATES POSTED BELOW ARE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE JITTERY TONE OF THE LATE AFTERNOON, EARLY EVENING COVERAGE.

UPDATE 1: UH, THE CONFIRMATION IS…. NO CONFIRMATION At first everyone reported a body was found and ID’d then all that vanished.

UPDATE 2: NEVERMIND: Yikes. LAPD’s Andy Smith says no body has been located and brought out, so no body has been ID’d. #DisinformationAbides.

UPDATE 3: The LA Times reports that LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said it was really, really almost but not really for sure certain that Dorner is dead. “People on the scene are as confident as they can be without seeing the body that it is Dorner inside,” Beck said.

UPDATE 4: The wounded San Bernardino deputy will reportedly need several surgeries. This has been a sad and costly day.

UPDATE 5: Fish and Wildlife officers played a major role in Dorner drama.

The report is: whoever is inside the cabin [see live blogging post below], was not taken out of that structure, alive, dead or wounded.

It is assumed that Dorner was inside, that a single gunshot was heard as the structure began to burn, and that Christopher Dorner is dead.

None of this is confirmed.

So we wait. And, while we wait, we mourn the four people—two of them law enforcement officers—killed in this whole terrible and tragic mess.

WLA is signing off to watch POTUS deliver the State of the Union address.

For additional reporting on the Dorner issue, the LA Times is doing a fine job. The Daily News has some good material too.

We’ll have deeper thoughts on the matter Thursday morning.