ADDRESSING THE ISSUE OF LOCKING KIDS UP IN SOLITARY

While severe and overused in the adult justice system, solitary confinement is most destructive for still-developing youths. There have been numerous reports on the devastating effects of locking kids up for twenty-three hours a day (and WitnessLA has linked to them often), yet California still hasn’t defined what constitutes solitary, much less regulated it.

In an LA Times editorial, our pal Rob Greene lays out in unusually clear terms the consequences of putting kids in solitary confinement and what we need to do adequately address the issue. Here’s a clip (but be sure to read the whole thing):

Juvenile justice officials should at the very least have to certify that mental health evaluations were part of the decision-making process for each juvenile, and they should document all instances of solitary lockdown, under consistent standards and definitions. SB 61 by state Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) would require such standards and documentation. It’s a bill that deserves to move forward.

The Senate has been wary, and appropriately so, of moving forward on any bill that could impose costs on counties — costs that would be passed along to the state. The budget has been cut year after year, and now, when there may be some funding available, lawmakers must decide carefully what to do with it.

In making that decision, they should keep in mind that the state’s failure to meet the mental health needs of so many Californians has led directly to the prison overcrowding crisis, and that the failure to meet the mental health needs of inmates for decades has resulted in the court order to beef up in-prison care (at enormous cost) and to release tens of thousands of prisoners. The juvenile justice system is inextricably linked to the adult system and must deal with a similar, although more vulnerable, population.

GOV. BROWN’S OFFICE BEGINS APPEAL PROCESS TO GET SUPREME COURT INTERVENTION ON PRISON POP. CAP

Monday, California officials appealed the federal court decision to uphold an order that, by the end of 2013, the CA prison population must be further reduced by 9,000 inmates.

KPCC’s Julie Small has the story. Here’s a clip:

Deborah Hoffman of California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said Monday the state has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court because the panel of federal judges “did not fully or fairly consider the evidence that with our greatly reduced prison population, prison health care now exceeds constitutional standards.”

In 2011, the legislature enacted California’s Criminal Justice Realignment law, which diverts lower level felons to the counties. Today the prisons hold 30,000 fewer inmates than they did when the federal judges ordered the state to reduce the prison population.

Monday’s filing is a notice of appeal to the district court stating California’s intention to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. It’s the first step in an appeals process that could take years — if the nation’s highest court decides to take up the case.

BRADY V. MARYLAND…FIFTY YEARS ON

Fifty years after Brady v. Maryland—the SCOTUS ruling that dictates prosecutors must present defendants with any and all known exculpatory evidence—there is little incentive and still no real accountability in place to keep prosecutors from breaking the Brady rule.

The Atlantic’s Andrew Cohen breaks down why Brady is flawed, and what can be done to reinforce it. Here’s how it opens:

Last Thursday evening at a dinner in New Orleans, Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson came together again to bestow an award on John Thompson, the noted death row exoneree, who was being feted by the Innocence Project New Orleans after nearly two decades of false imprisonment. The names of the presenters probably don’t ring a bell to you until you put them together and separate them with a “versus,” as in Plessy v. Ferguson. The descendants of the litigants of one of the worst Supreme Court decisions ever wanted to pay homage to a litigant who had belatedly benefited from one of its best. Who says irony is dead?

The timing of the Project’s 12th anniversary “gala” was propitious. It came just four days before the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Brady v. Maryland, decided on this day in 1963, in which the justices unanimously declared that prosecutors have a constitutional obligation to share with criminal defendants all “exculpatory” evidence officials may have. “Society wins not only when the guilty are convicted but when criminal trials are fair,” wrote Justice William O. Douglass, for the Warren Court, as it again sought in those progressive days to enhance individual rights at the expense of government power.

Thompson is a free man today because of the so-called “Brady” rule. But he likely would have been a free man all along — without spending 14 years on death row — had his prosecutors obeyed the law in the first place. That dichotomy is what makes Thompson such a poignant symbol of the Brady rule. He proves both that it works and that it is deeply flawed; that it saves innocent people from being railroaded by prosecutors and that countless others are wrongly convicted and imprisoned anyway. The sad truth is that 50 years after Brady, in an increasingly complex criminal justice system, too many prosecutors still hide exculpatory evidence, and too few judges do anything about it.

AND MINNESOTA MAKES TWELVE…

The Minnesota Senate voted Monday to legalize gay marriage, and Governor Mark Dayton immediately announced he would sign the bill, allowing gay couples to marry by August. Go Minnesota!

The NY Times’ Monica Davey has the story, if you missed it today.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT SEX OFFENDERS WHO SNIP THEIR ANKLE MONITORS? ROB GREENE AT THE LA TIMES STARTS A SMART & INFORMATIVE CONVERSATION

In the last month or so there’s been a string of news stories about sex offenders snipping off or disabling their ankle monitors after they get out of prison. It turns out there is not much of a legal penalty for messing with one’s monitor.

Unfortunately, much of the reporting on the topic has tended toward the sensational, and many reporters have uncritically repeated the opinions of those who wrongly blame the problem on California’s new prison realignment system.

Since sex offenders are most people’s least favorite brand of law breaker, the news of all this monitor untethering has triggered outrage and calls for speedy solutions—which has predictably, caused lawmakers to hastily trot out half-cooked bills to “fix” the matter.

It is just this sort of knee-jerk urge to find quickie legislative fixes in response to public pressure that has, in the past, given us some very bad laws and a disastrously over-crowded prison system.

Thus it was enormously relieving to read in Sunday’s LA Times, Rob Greene’s smart, thoughtful and very fact-drivin editorial on the matter. (Although the essay is signed by the whole editorial board, it is written by LAT ed board member Robert Greene.)

Greene lays out all the puzzle pieces that formed this ankle-bracelet snipping problem-–and suggests ways that it might be fixed.

He also makes clear how very little the issue has to do with realignment.

Here’s a clip. But I urge anyone interested in this matter to read to whole thing. It clears up a lot, I promise.

California already had what were arguably the nation’s toughest sex offender laws in 2006 when voters, spurred on nightly by fear-mongering television hosts such as Nancy Grace and Bill O’Reilly, adopted this state’s version of Jessica’s Law. Proposition 83 required all convicted sex felons, whether violent or not, whether still on parole or not, and whether at high or low risk of reoffending, to wear electronic monitoring devices for the rest of their lives. Drafters ignored the fact that there was virtually no evidence that global positioning satellite tracking reduces the number or severity of sex crimes, and they didn’t consider whether to allocate the high costs of perpetual monitoring to the state or to county governments. They didn’t think through how to penalize parolees and post-parole registrants who cut off or disabled their ankle monitors.

A proposal that might have made for an instructive pilot program that revealed flaws and allowed for course corrections was instead rushed onto the ballot and then onto the books, and California has been dealing with the consequences ever since.

Now, parolees and post-parole sex registrants are cutting off or disabling their ankle monitors in increasing numbers each year. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have introduced bills intended to toughen oversight (or at least the appearance of oversight) of sex offenders and others who violate the terms of their release. They tend not to criticize the disastrous but still-popular Proposition 83 but focus instead on public safety realignment under AB 109, another law that was passed hastily, this time by the Legislature in 2011 as part of a budget package to cut costs and prison overcrowding.

AB 109 sends many newly convicted felons to county jails instead of state prison and redirects oversight of some felons, as their incarceration ends, from the state parole agency to county probation departments, under a program with the cumbersome title of post-release community supervision, or PRCS.

PRCS violators who formerly would have been returned to prison for up to a year are now returned to county jail, and for only up to six months — including those whose violations consist of disabling their monitoring devices. Some lawmakers claim that county sheriffs release such violators immediately, or never even take them in, because their jails already are overcrowded. Some lawmakers have responded with bills to send such people back to state prison instead of county jail. Some of those bills would commit them to prison for the one-year period they formerly would have served; some would commit them for as long as three years — far longer than such violators ever would have served before AB 109 was adopted. Some would make sex offenders ineligible for county jail in the first place and require them to be housed in prison even on new non-sex-related offenses.

In other words, these bills would roll back realignment and restock state prisons with sex offenders, low-risk and high-risk alike, in some cases at a greater rate and for a longer period than they were ever imprisoned before, and it would do so just as the state is making headway in its effort to comply with federal courts and ease prison overcrowding. California prison overcrowding had become so bad, and medical and mental health services for inmates was so inadequate, that federal courts found the state to be violating constitutional strictures against cruel and unusual punishment.

But lawmakers need to slow down and take a breath. This is how we got into trouble in the first place — with swiftly passed, knee-jerk laws in reaction to sensational headlines. California must use its deliberative, legislative hearing process to gather data, air views and clarify just what the problems are that we are trying to solve, and what the best ways are to solve them….

Do read the rest.

DO THE LAPD’S INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS NEED SOME WORK?

The Nation Magazine has published a very critical report by Uzma Kolsy about the LAPD’s ability to appropriately investigate its own use of force incidents. Kolsy writes that Chief Beck and the LAPD’s leadership clearly want constitutional policing, but questions whether the higher ups are holding officers who step over the line with use of force as unwaveringly unaccountable as is needed. Kolsy and the Nation think the answer is No.

Here’re a couple of clips:

Last year, Alecia Thomas died in LAPD custody after a violent arrest in which a policewoman kicked her in the groin after having trouble restraining her. Thomas died in the back of a patrol car that was fitted with a camera, but the LAPD did not release the surveillance footage. In a news release detailing the incident, the LAPD made no mention of the fact that the officer assaulted Thomas before forcing her into the car. In another incident last fall, LAPD officers found a suspect hiding under a vehicle, dragged him out by his ankles, and believing they saw a metallic object in his hands, shot him in the back, critically wounding him. The news release following the incident omitted the fact that the suspect was handcuffed and face down when they fired at him. No weapon was found on the suspect.

[SNIP]

….LAPD officer Joseph Cruz fired several fatal rounds at Mohammad Usman Chaudhry, when he allegedly pulled out a folding knife in a threatening way. Even Cruz’s partner said he never saw Chaudhry with a knife, yet an internal investigation cleared Cruz of any wrongdoing. Later, he was fired from the force for lies regarding an unrelated matter. In 2011, a federal jury rejected Cruz’s account of the shooting. Evidence used at trial included the knife in question, which was tested for DNA. The results did not match Chaudhry.

[SNIP]

A 2010 report by the CATO Institute found that Los Angeles had one of the highest concentrations of credible reports of police misconduct in the country. And in 2011, LAPD had a reported sixty-three officer-involved shooting incidents, a roughly 50 percent increase over the shootings in any of the previous four years. Belligerent officers’ using unwarranted deadly force is a serious concern the department still faces.

A WELL-LIKED SINGLE FATHER WORKING AT CITY HALL AT THE HOMEBOY DINER BREAKS HEARTS WITH A FATAL CRASH

The tragic story was all over the news last month, about how a 9-year-old girl had hiked alone at night in the desert to try to find help for her father who was badly injured—fatally as it turned out—when the family SUV went down an embankment and crashed in the desert.

The father was Alex Renteria, an extremely well-liked 35-year-old who had turned his life around with the help of Homeboy Industries and had been working in the Homeboy Diner in LA’s City Hall.

Renteria’s death shocked many of those working in City Hall who’d gotten to know the kind, smiling man who was proud of his work and talked so lovingly about his daughter. One of those affected was LA Times reporter Kate Linthicum, who has written a fine and affecting first person account about her day-to-day friendship with Renteria and how his death hit her.

Here’s a clip:

Like a lot of people who spend time at Los Angeles City Hall, I knew Alex. He worked at Homeboy Diner, the small cafe on the second floor run by Homeboy Industries, a nonprofit group that provides counseling, tattoo removal and job training for former gang members.

When the diner opened two years ago, I wrote about Alex and his story of transformation. He had been in prison and had battled addiction. Through Homeboy, he found work and the 12-step program.

During our interview, as he stacked bags of chips at the diner, he told me: “I’m just happy to be here.”

If this had been any other news story, that would have been the last time I saw him. This is one of the odd qualities of the journalism profession: It’s your job to ask probing questions of strangers you may never speak to again.

But I worked at City Hall, so I encountered Alex every time I went to Homeboy for a salad or a cup of coffee. He was a real charmer, always quick to tell me how nice I looked, and never failing to ask about my day. When I was going through a hard breakup, he made me hot chocolate and offered advice.

Alex had expressive eyebrows that arched comically when he told jokes. He loved old-school R&B and freestyle music and was proud of his weekend job as a mover. He adored his daughter, Cecilia, and was saving up to take her to Disneyland for her birthday next month.

Alex, 35, a single dad, often brought Cecilia with him to work. She got to know a number of city workers who would sometimes take her on tours of their offices.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by the number of City Hall employees who made the trek to San Fernando for Alex’s funeral Friday. Or by the proclamation sent by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Capri Maddox, the president of the Board of Public Works, gave Cecilia a commemorative egg from the White House Easter Egg Roll a few weeks ago….

Read the rest here.

A PHOTO NOTE: Due to an untimely hardrive crash WLA’s chief photo scribbler is without her beloved Adobe Photoshop for a day or two. So bear with us as we use other, clumsier means.

As we near the end of 2012, we at WitnessLA believe there is quite a bit to be thankful for within the social justice sphere–breakthroughs, big wins (and smaller wins), opened doors, and steps in the right direction. Here are fifteen items on our list, in no particular order:

1. We’re thankful to Senator Leland Yee for drafting SB 9, the Fair Sentencing for Youth Act, and to Gov. Brown for having the good sense to sign the bill that gives certain juvies serving life-without-parole the possibility of a second chance.

2. We’re thankful that Californians passed Prop 36, the three-strikes reform legislation.

3. We’re thankful that California’s education system will not have to find out what would have happened if Prop 30 had not passed.

4. We’re thankful for the rigor with which the members and staff of the Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence approached their task, which led to a strong set of findings, and a thorough list of recommendations.

5. We’re also thankful for the many LASD people—present and former— who have courageously come forward: to us, to the LA Times, to the commission and to those guys and girls on Wilshire Blvd.

6. We’re thankful to Judge Michael Nash for shining light on Child Dependency Court proceedings by allowing media access, and to the 2nd District of the California Court of Appeals for denying petitions against Judge Nash’s decision.

7. We’re thankful for the passage of marijuana laws in Washington and Colorado as steps toward rectifying the harm done by a failed drug war.

8. We’re thankful for SCOTUS’ ban of mandatory juvenile life-without-parole sentencing. (It’s one step in the direction of banning juvie LWOP altogether.)

9. We’re also thankful to SCOTUS for ruling preposterously long sentences for youth unconstitutional.

10. We’re thankful for the wise and important findings of the California State Assembly Select Committee on the Status of Boys and Men of Color created by Assembly speaker John Perez, and chaired by Assemblyman Sandré Swanson.

11. We’re thankful that, slowly but surely, the US is making progress toward equal rights for the LGBT community (shout out to Washington, Maryland, Maine, and Minnesota).

12. We’re also thankful to Gov. Brown for making CA the first state to ban gay conversion therapy for youth.

13. We’re thankful for all those who are pushing for zero-tolerance reform in LAUSD schools and across the nation.

14. We’re thankful to SCOTUS for striking down most of the harsh AZ immigration law, SB 1070.

15. We’re thankful that, a year after the program commenced on Oct. 1, 2011, people are finally starting to talk sense about California’s prison realignment process—rather than painting it counter-factually as a plot to endanger public safety by releasing prisoners early. (We are particularly grateful to the LA Times Rob Greene for snapping some of the worst fact-offenders out of their stupor.) We’re also thankful for the programs that are starting to spring up in various counties that see realignment as an opportunity, rather than a burden.

With voting day looming on Tuesday, a quickie rundown of our thoughts and recommendations.

THE BALLOT PROPOSITIONS

30 – YES! Jerry Brown’s must-pass initiative is a desperately needed budget patch providing funds for California’s educational system—both K-12 and higher education—while also funneling fiscal aid to other crucial state programs.

Prop 30 looked like it would pass easily, mainly because most Californian’s understand that our schools and other essential programs are in need of $$$, and the governor has devised the least painful way to raise the necessary bucks.

Unfortunately, wealthy Californian Molly Munger muddied the water by floating a competative ballot proposition (Prop. 38) then, along with her brother, using tens of millions of her own money to blast voters with TV ads designed to shake confidence in 30, in the hope of getting voters to embrace 38. Now, while 38 looks unlikely to pass, it has managed to erode just enough of Prop. 30′s support to put it in serious jeopardy.

So here’s the deal: Not only should you vote for Prop 30, but you should threaten, cajole, emotionally blackmail everyone you know, are related to, or pass randomly on the street into voting for it. Otherwise, we’re in for some dark days in terms of public education. (Not to put too fine a point on the matter.)

31 – NO. A messy and badly conceived attempt to reform the way the state legislature behaves. Heaven knows some serious reform is needed, but this ain’t it. Prop 31 will cut money from schools and other vital programs and create a pile of bureaucracy. Read what the Courage Campaign has to say here.

Even CA’s conservative newspapers are fleeing from this badly written item.

32: NO WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE – If you loved Citizen’s United then you’re going to adore Prop 32. Listen, many of us are furious when certain unions (cough) CCPOA, prison guards (cough, cough) swing their weight around to ill effect. But this proposed law is a union-hating, Koch Brother’s special that pretends to rein in corporate campaign spending and special interests. Instead, it favors big corporate interests and hobbles everybody else.

For a humorous (and kinda scary) look at Prop 32 supporters read our own Matt Fleischer’s account of what he heard when he parachuted in behind the lines of Prop. 32 central—namely the Lincoln Club.

33: NO! – This creepy little piece of work is auto insurance bait and switch that is the baby of Mercury Insurance founder George Joseph, and does not have your and my best interests at heart. Run!

34: YES – Replaces the death penalty in California with life without the possibility of parole.

I’ll let Jeanne Woodford (the former head of the CDCR and former Warden of San Quentin who oversaw four executions), plus my friend Frankie Carrillo speak on the topic, as they each are uniquely qualified to do so.

35: NO – The sex trafficking and slavery initiative is extremely well meant but is a morass of unintended consequences. Yes, of course, we must do everything possible to take the predators it targets off the streets and put them behind bars. But this problematically-structured law, the project of former Facebook privacy officer, Chris Kelly (who would like to ride this law into the office of CA Attorney General), causes more problems than it solves—sadly.

The good news is that it opens the dialogue on this pressing issue, where victims remain tragically unprotected.

36: YES – Reforms 3-Strikes so that bad guys get put away, and the people who don’t need to be the guests of the state for the rest of their lives (on our tab) don’t. Even LA DA Steve Cooley & SF DA George Gascon like this prop that fixes the flaws in a well-intentioned but overbroad law.

37: YES– Requires that genetically engineered foods (GMOs) be labeled before being sold in California.. The LA Times is against it. We disagree.

The issue is not whether GMOs are good or harmful. Many likely are not, and may have great benefit. The point is that, as a consumer, I’d like the right to know what’s in my food and whether or not the items I buy contain GMOs. Wouldn’t you?

Alice Waters of Chez Panisse and some of the most famous chefs in America are in favor of GMO labeling.

So is the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.

Monsanto, Dupont, Pepsico and Dow are not and have thrown upwards of 40 million to try to persuade you that their opinion is the righteous one.

For a lengthier and highly informed counter-opinion to that expressed by the LAT and some of the other CA papers that are urging a NO vote, read what NY Times food writer Mark Bittman has to say about Prop. 37—and the missinformation put out by its mega-buck-funded opposition.

You also might want to read this also from the NY Times, by Michael Pollan (one of the gurus of the food movement, and author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, among other food-related books)

Oh, yeah, and if you don’t believe those guys, you might want to see what Bill Moyers has to say on the topic.

38: NO/YES.or WHATEVER. This prop, which has set itself up as the alternative to Jerry Brown’s Prop 30, is a scheme to raise some taxes in order to fund the state’s ailing public school system. The prop, as mentioned above, has been almost exclusively funded by wealthy civil rights attorney Molly Munger. Munger is the co-head of the Advancement Project, along with the excellent Connie Rice, and we really, really like Munger for that, and for her many other accomplishments as a lawyer and an advocate. However, we are extremely vexed at her I-know-better-than-all-of-them-Sac’to-fools-do attitude in this instance, which could mean that neither prop passes, and that California schools suffer terribly as a result.

Karin Klien, the editorial board writer for education lays the matter out perfectly:

Proposition 30 is a superior measure on several fronts. It would avoid trigger cuts that would cause immediate and drastic harm to schools, which would probably be forced to cut the school year by up to three weeks, as well as $250 million in cuts to the University of California and an equal amount to the California State University system.

Beyond that, one aspect of Proposition 30 that has been little noticed is that it also provides money for community colleges; right now, more than 200,000 students at those colleges cannot find a seat in a single class, let alone enough courses or the courses they need to graduate. There’s little point to rescuing only K-12 schools when the graduates would have nowhere to go.

Polls suggest that Prop 38 doesn’t have a chance. And, yet, Munger’s ads and those of her conservative brother, wrongly claiming, as Klien writes, “…’politicians’ would get their hands on money intended for schools..” are still running. The non-passage of 30, once a sure thing until the Mungers threw tens of millions at the issue, is now hanging by a thread.

So vote for 38, don’t vote for it. Just make sure you vote for Prop. 30.

39: YES – Would remove a tax break that mainly benefits multistate companies based outside of California, a tax loophole that has actually encouraged these companies to take their jobs out of state. As KCET points out, Prop 39 would level the playing field by making multistate companies play by the same rules as companies that employ Californians, and would produce an extra $1 billion for the state coffers.

That’s the short version. If you want more, KCET has the details.

40: YES - Basically re-approves California’s newly redrawn state Senate districts. Every major newspaper in the state, whether conservative leaning or liberal leaning, urges a YES vote. A few disgruntled politicians urge otherwise, but most of them have quietly gone away.

THE RACES:

In terms of candidates, we favor Janice Hahn, Howard Berman, Julie Brownley, Henry Waxman, if you’re in an area where they are on the ballot.

FOR DISTRICT ATTORNEY…..

We firmly recommend Jackie Lacey.

Look: Alan Jackson is a skilled prosecutor, but he does not appear to have the temperament or the experience to manage the District Attorney’s office effectively. During the campaign, he has consistently tailored his message to the crowd, rather than giving us a clear idea of what his policies would be, if elected.

Lacey is more conservative than we would like, but she’s a listener, and has already appeared to grow in the course of the campaign. In short, she’s up to the job now and we believe would become stronger and better, while in office.

For more, read the very smart LA Times endorsement that I’m guessing was written by our pal Rob Greene.

OH, YEAH, AND FOR THE OFFICE OF PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, WE RECOMMEND: Barak Obama.

(But you probably knew that.)

In any case, whatever and whomever you vote for: PLEASE VOTE

EDITOR’S NOTE: While we keep an eye on the safety and well being of our family and friends on the east coast who are wrestling with Sandy, here are a few criminal justice stories from this end of the world.

AFTER A DECADE IN PRISON FOR MURDER, MARIO ROCHA CELEBRATES 4TH YEAR OF FREEDOM

As of Monday, Oct. 29, it has been four years that 33-year-old Mario Rocha finally knew he was really and truly, no kidding —- free. His double life sentence was overturned in March of 2005 after Mario had spent 10 1/2 years in prison for murder and attempted murder. But although he was out of lock-up, it wasn’t clear for how long. While Rocha had been released, he had not been cleared. The judge had merely determined that the young man had received unconscionably lousy legal representation by his asleep-the-wheel lawyer. This meant the DA’s office had the option of refiling charges. And while the hot shot lawyers who had taken on his case pro bono believed he was factually innocent, the prosecutor didn’t. Or, said he didn’t, at the very least. It is worth noting that the LA DA’s office has been notoriously loath to admit it may have screwed up on a case, and put away an innocent person.)

The legal battle that ended four years ago, had its genesis on the night of February 16, 1996, when Rocha was sixteen-years-old and attended a keg party in Highland Park where a bunch of high school kids were celebrating a win for Cathedral High School’s basketball team.

Here’s a clip from WLA’s coverage at the time:

There was drinking at the party, and eventually a fist fight broke out. An extremely well-liked 17-year-old honors student named Martin Aceves, tried to break up the fight, but matters escalated fast. Two kids had guns. Aceves was shot and killed. Another kid was shot in the hand.

A week later, police burst into Mario’s bedroom, guns drawn, yelling: “Don’t move! Hands up! Get down!”

Mario Rochas was tried as an adult and, although the case against him rested on the word of one eyewitness, he was defended by an attorney who spent little time on his case, and failed to call other witnesses who had exculpatory evidence. By the trial’s end, although Mario had no previous record or gang affiliation, he was convicted of murder and attempted murder, together with two other party goers—gang members who had been seen to flash weapons in the crowd.

Unlike most young men in such a position, Mario turned out to be lucky. When he was in Eastlake Juvenile Hall awaiting trial, he participated in a new writing program called “Inside Out,” that had been set up by juvenal hall chaplain, Sister Janet Harris. Although Mario had not been an underachiever during his time in high school, he was clearly very bright, with an intellectual bent and a real talent for writing—all of which the writing class at juvie seemed to bring out in him.
After reading some of his writing, Sister Janet became interested in Mario’s personal story. Although she meets kids on a regular basis who swear they are innocent, the more she looked into Mario’s case, the more convinced she became that Mario was the real deal. She couldn’t imagine he would be convicted. When he was, she said she was too stunned to cry.

“With Mario it was so egregious,” she told ABC News much later, “so horrible that I said to myself whether I win or lose, I am going to fight for justice,” Sister Harris said. “His life was stolen by a system that’s flawed. A system where we need to look out and say: Have we lost our moral compass?”

A slender woman in her 70′s with enough nervous energy to light several medium-sized cities, Sister Janet began working on Mario’s case on her own. She reviewed thousands of pages of trial transcript, and tracked down new witnesses. Armed with what she’d found, Sister Janet managed to interest others in Mario’s case, including the high-powered LA legal firm of Latham & Watkins, whose lawyers agreed to take the case pro bono after Mario passed a polygraph, and a review of case documents, plus Janet’s personal discoveries, indicated that his original attorney did not pursue evidence that indicated Mario was innocent….

Here, also, is a link to Jack Leonard’s 2008 story for the LA Times about the DA’s decision not to retry Mario for the crime.

Mario Rocha’s ordeal was portrayed in an award-winning and deeply affecting documentary, that you can check out here.

Right now Mario Rocha is a social justice activist living in Washington D.C. while he gets his degree in organization science from George Washington University. He will graduate in 2013.

ONE WEED ARREST EVERY 42 SECONDS

On Monday, marijuana activist organizations like L.E.A.P. (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) latest FBI stats show that there were 1.2 million reported drug arrests in the U.S. in 2011.

Of those arrests, according to the FBI, 81.8% were for possession only. And of those possession arrests, by far the largest portion (just under half, or 49.5% to be exact) were for marijuana.

Seriously.

Does this seem smart?

This is from LEAP’s Monday announcement:

“Even excluding the costs involved for later trying and then imprisoning these people, taxpayers are spending between one and a half to three billion dollars a year just on the police and court time involved in making these arrests,” said Neill Franklin, a retired Baltimore narcotics cop who now heads the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). “That’s a lot of money to spend for a practice that four decades of unsuccessful policies have proved does nothing to reduce the consumption of drugs. Three states have measures on the ballot that would take the first step in ending this failed war by legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana. I hope they take this opportunity to guide the nation to a more sensible approach to drug use.”

A-a-a-aaannnd we wonder why we have overcrowded jails and prisons.

FACTS R GOOD: STANFORD GETS MAJOR GRANTS TO FUND ITS RESEARCH ON THE EFFECTS OF CALIFORNIA’S PRISON REALIGNMENT

So, beyond all the political rhetoric on CA’s prison realignment and the often lousy reporting on same (with some bright spot exceptions like Rob Greene on the LA Times Editorial Board and Michael Montgomery for KQED), it is refreshing that the Department of Justice and a list of other folks have forked over some bucks to Stanford’s stellar Criminal Justice Center in order for them to assess, measure, and analyze how this whole realignment thingy is really working, county by county. In other words, the SCJC folks are gathering the facts of the matter.

Whatta concept.

Here’re are some clips from the announcement from SCJC:

Realignment puts the onus back on counties to make decisions about how they wish to punish their local convicted offenders,” said Joan Petersilia, Adelbert H. Sweet Professor of Law and faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. “Counties can decide to expand jail capacity. They can expand drug treatment programs or mental health courts. They can hire new staff. They can expand the ranks of probation officers or sheriff’s deputies. We want to know what approaches are working best in California counties and why.”

[SNIP]

“California has the largest prison system in the country,” said Robert Weisberg, Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr. Professor of Law and faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center. “And California Realignment represents the biggest change in sentencing and corrections in the last six decades. Through our research, we want the data to tell us exactly what the effects are of shifting responsibility and discretion from the state to the county— how that impacts rates of incarceration versus probation supervision versus community programs, and so on. We want our research to help California get Realignment right.”

…..

Well, yeah.

$650,000 is not a lot for this kind of painstaking work. And the SCJC team is absolutely the best in the business, beginning with the amazing Dr. Joan Petersilia, who is the Center’s co-director.

It is essential, when the state (or the county or the city) makes a big policy change like the prison realignment program that the new systems be evaluated by competent outsiders (who know what they’re doing and can be trusted to keep politics out of it).

Fortunately, thanks to these grants and some others like them, that’s precisely what the SCJC is doing.

REALIGNMENT TRUTHS AND MISINFORMATION—A YEAR LATER

In a sharply-worded essay, LA Times editorial-writer Robert Greene explains why realignment doesn’t let anyone out early despite common misstatements by law enforcement unions and even some journalists. Greene expresses righteous indignation at the misinformation still being spread by the CA GOP and others a year after the realignment bill AB109 was signed. Here’s a clip:

“No Happy Anniversary for the Democrat Early Release Program,” reads a statement from the California state Senate Republican Caucus. I can understand why they’d be unhappy at the early release of Democrats, but I don’t think that’s what they mean. They’re referring instead to criminal justice realignment under last year’s AB 109. It took effect Oct. 1, 2011.

The narrative is familiar to anyone on the email list of police unions or California Republicans and it goes like this: Democrats adopted realignment, Gov. Jerry Brown signed it into law, inmates got out of prison early, and many of these people who should still be behind bars committed new crimes, including rape, attempted murder, kidnapping and robbery.

Ten of the Senate’s 13 Republicans offer their own comments as part of their caucus’ official statement. Former GOP leader Bob Dutton, of Rancho Cucamonga, refers to “letting dangerous criminals out of prison early.” Ted Gaines of Rocklin, near Sacramento, says realignment “essentially means the early release of some very dangerous individuals.” Tony Strickland of Thousand Oaks talks about “hundreds of offenders released early.” Mimi Walters of Irvine mentions “early release of many dangerous criminals.”

There are links to news stories that detail crimes allegedly committed by felons who got out of prison early because of realignment.

It sure sounds like they’re saying realignment lets felons out of prison early, right? How can Dutton’s statement, for example, be interpreted as saying anything else? How can the caucus’ collective statement about “the Democrats’ early-release program for prison inmates” mean anything else?

The problem with this narrative is pretty basic. Under AB 109 realignment, no one is released from prison any earlier than he or she would have been otherwise.

Before realignment, a felon was sentenced to prison for, say, 10 years, and after five – 50% of time served – was released on parole. The 50% is a result of credit for good behavior and for work, and has been part of California law for years. Realignment hasn’t changed that.

[SNIP]

It should be pretty easy to be able to document whether new felons are being released early from local jails, and if so whether they are committing new crimes. But police groups, the state GOP and others who criticize realignment and have a knack for citing anecdotes never quite seem to be able to find those numbers. At least a third of the state’s new so-called non-non-nons have been sentenced in Los Angeles County Superior Court and have gone to Los Angeles County jail. According to the Sheriff’s Department, not one such person has been released from jail early. The department also reports that it has not changed its early release criteria. Yes, the sheriff has long released inmates early in order to manage crowding and keep beds available, but it has not sped up releases to make room for the newly convicted felons.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I love my pal Robert Greene’s writing anyway, but it is particularly satisfying to see him yank apart the mendacious, fact-phobic pronouncements that are routinely advanced by sloppy reporters, with the help of a slew of public officials and law enforcement spokespersons who are seemingly convinced that it is to their advantage to prove realignment a ghastly, public safety-endangering failure—factual reality be damned. It has driven me mad, mad, I tell you!

Go, Rob!

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FALL OF THE CA PUBLIC COLLEGE

In Tuesday’s Huffington Post, Mother Jones’ staff writer Andy Kroll maps out the history of California’s higher education from a time (not so long ago) when it was affordable and available and the best of its kind in the nation. Then he fast-forwards its current condition where budget cuts and tax breaks have hacked and chopped it into a horribly diminished version of its former self that also happens to be a lot more expensive. Kroll also explains the correlation between the missing CA education funding and the state’s affinity for over-incarceration.

The Huffington Post’s Andy Kroll has the story. Here’s how it opens:

It was the greatest education system the world had ever seen. They built it into the eucalyptus-dotted Berkeley hills and under the bright lights of Los Angeles, down in the valley in Fresno and in the shadows of the San Bernardino Mountains. Hundreds of college campuses, large and small, two-year and four-year, stretching from California’s emerald forests in the north to the heat-scorched Inland Empire in the south. Each had its own DNA, but common to all was this: they promised a “public” education, accessible and affordable, to those with means and those without, a door with a welcome mat into the ivory tower, an invitation to a better life.

Then California bled that system dry. Over three decades, voters starved their state — and so their colleges and universities — of cash. Politicians siphoned away what money remained and spent it more on imprisoning people, not educating them. College administrators grappled with shriveling state support by jacking up tuitions, tacking on new fees, and so asking more each year from increasingly pinched students and families. Today, many of those students stagger under a heap of debt as they linger on waiting lists to get into the over-subscribed classes they need to graduate.

California’s public higher education system is, in other words, dying a slow death. The promise of a cheap, quality education is slipping away for the working and middle classes, for immigrants, for the very people whom the University of California’s creators held in mind when they began their grand experiment 144 years ago. And don’t think the slow rot of public education is unique to California: that state’s woes are the nation’s.

KIDS EXIT JUVIE SYSTEM WITH WORSE PSYCHIATRIC PROBLEMS THAN WHEN THEY ENTERED

A high percentage of kids who have a run-in with the juvenile justice system come into lock up with emotional troubles that are likely transitory but tend to leave with problems that are much more intractable. Specifically the study from Northwestern University researchers says that, among kids who have been locked up in a juvenile detention facility, almost 50% of males and 30% of females had at least one psychiatric disorder following incarceration.

Red Orbit’s Connie Ho has the story. Here’s a clip:

“For some youth, detention may coincide with a period of crisis that subsequently abates. Many youth, however, continue to struggle: five years after detention, when participants were ages 14 to 24 years, nearly half of males and nearly 30 percent of females had one or more psychiatric disorders with associated impairment.”

The scientists looked at evidence gleaned from the Northwestern Juvenile Project, a longitudinal study consisting of 1,829 youths between the ages of 10 and 18 who were based in a Chicago detention center. They believe that the study is the first longitudinal study to measure psychiatric disorders in young people following detention.

“Our study addresses a critical hole in the research,” remarked the study’s lead author Linda A. Teplin, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in a statement.

Among the 657 females and 1,172 males, the abuse of substances like alcohol and drugs was the most common and long-lasting form of psychiatric disorder.

“These findings demonstrate the need for special programs – especially for substance use disorders – not only while these kids are in corrections but also when they return to the community,” noted Teplin in a statement.

At the start of the study, the male participants had an approximately one-third higher chance of displaying signs of substance abuse compared to females. At the five-year mark, however, males were at a 2.5 times higher risk of developing the disorder compared to their female counterparts.

“People think these kids are locked up forever, but the average stay is only two weeks,” continued Teplin in the statement. “Obviously, it’s better to provide community services than to build correctional facilities. Otherwise, the lack of services perpetuates the revolving door between the community and corrections.”

You can access the abstract here, but it appears as if the full report can only be read with a subscription to the Archives of General Psychiatry journal.

MOST CA THIRD-STRIKERS ARE ADDICTS, BUT POSE NO HIGHER THREAT THAN OTHER INMATES

And while we’re on the topic of the relationship between incarceration and emotional/psychological problems, while people incarcerated under the three-strikes law are twice as likely to have substance abuse issues, they are no more likely to engage in dangerous “criminal-thinking” than regular inmates, according to research by the California Watch and the SF Chron.

California Watch’s Marisa Lagos and Ryan Gabrielson have the story. Here’s a clip:

The psychological, substance abuse and education profiles of thousands of inmates – obtained and analyzed by California Watch and the San Francisco Chronicle – reveal that the state imposes especially lengthy sentences on felons with substance abuse problems who have not necessarily committed violent offenses.

But according to their profiles, these inmates would pose no more a threat to public safety than a non-three-strikes inmate.

The never-before-released data could play an important role for critics and supporters of California’s three strike’s law, amid a dramatic year for criminal justice reform. Thousands of inmates are being transferred to county jails under a realignment plan championed by Gov. Jerry Brown, and voters are being asked to alter the state’s three strikes initiative with a ballot measure in November.

The act of judging a person’s criminal proclivity is steeped in a long and controversial history of guesswork and junk science. But modern social scientists and criminologists say California’s prisoner surveys ranking “criminal thinking” – which have been verified through rigorous studies of recidivism rates – are reliable tools to gauge risk factors and psychological makeups.

The data shows that about one-third of all prisoners – including second- and third-strikers – need cognitive therapy to deal with their criminal tendencies, the impulse that drives them to break the law. But the need for substance abuse rehabilitation is overwhelming among inmates serving two- or three-strike sentences.

LA HAS A NEW, MUCH NEEDED EDUCATION BLOG

There are few things of more consequence in this city and county than education. And yet, although we have good education reporters in LA (Tammy Abdollah at KPCC, Howard Blume at the LA Times, plus various people at the LA Weekly), for whatever reason, the cumulative coverage has not had the depth, rigor and edge that the subject demands.

Not since Bob Sipchen ran the School Me blog for the LA Times (that the Times, in it’s infinite wisdom, chose to drop) has there been anything approaching the fine grain work we really need here on an day-in-day-out basis.

That’s why it is such very good news that we now have a new player on the field in the form of an independent education blog called: THE LA SCHOOL REPORT

The extremely smart and talented Hillel Aron will be writing it. Highly respected veteran education wonk and journalist/author, Alexander Russo, is editing. Journalist and television news producer and executive, Jamie Alter Lynton is the founder/ publisher.

And may I say in response to this bit of info: WOOOO-HOOO!

I don’t know Ms. Lynton, except by reputation. But I do know Hillel and Alexander, and—I promise you—this is a good team.

The timing could not be better. As cuts to education continue to go ever deeper, there can be no business as usual. Innovative solutions are needed. And good reporting will help to separate the wheat from the chaff.

The need for a watch-dogging press that holds the various facets of our educational system accountable has never been greater. Ditto a press that points to small, promising green shoots of progress.

The LA School Report is also surfacing at a time when the State Assembly Select Committee on the Status of Boys and Men of Color wrapped up its year’s worth of hearings with a report that revealed—among many other things— that African-American and Latino school kids are more likely than white kids to be suspended, and to drop out, and kindergartners of color are more than three times as likely as their white playmates to believe they lack the ability to succeed in school.

So how do we address those problems on which the health of our communities and our city depends? Good education reporting can help.

And so…. Welcome LA School Report! We’re very glad to see you!

KQED EXAMINES CALIFORNIA’S REALIGNMENT STRATEGY, AND EXPLAINS IT TO THE REST OF US – PART 1

Last October, California began the grand experiment known as realignment, a strategy that shifts responsibility for a certain slice of our convicted law breakers away from state custody and oversight, transferring the responsibility for oversight instead to California’s various counties.

The immediate purpose of realignment is to lower the population of the state’s overcrowded prison system, in response to last year’s Supreme Court decision, which demanded that our policy makers find a way to drop said population or the court would do it for us (and we likely wouldn’t like their strategies).

The secondary purpose is to lower our dreadful state prison recidivism rates (which would, in turn, over time, lower the prison population), the assumption being that the counties can do a better job at rehabilitation and reentry than the beleaguered state.

So, after less than a year, how’s it going?

KQED, together with the Center for Investigative Reporting, have just launched a series that aims to tell us just that.

First, KQED’s Matthew Greene gives us a mini-primer on the in’s and outs’ of the R word.

Then my very smart pal, veteran criminal justice reporter, Michael Montgomery, has a report on the differences in the way that San Francisco is responding to the added jails population, as compared to Fresno County.

For instance, in Fresno Nontgomery finds the system already getting overwhelmed. Some of the realignment inmates he talks to tell him they wish they could got to state prison instead of doing their time closer to home, in the county jail. They said that in jail, there is far less opportunity to better one’s self.

“There are no programs here,” one heavily-tattooed young man says. “No school, no education. There’s no jobs. This yard is once a week, every Monday, for one hour. That’s it. No sunlight, no fresh air.”

When asked where would they prefer to be, prison or jail, one Fresno inmate answers, “I’d rather go to prison myself.” All the other inmates agree. They’d rather be in state prison.

The theory behind realignment is that putting non-violent offenders closer to home increases their chances of rehabilitation. But for now at least, Fresno’s jail is stretched to capacity. Margaret Mims, the Fresno County sheriff, says they weren’t prepared for the influx.

“It was disappointing that we were hit so hard so fast with many more inmates, says Mims. “And we’re all scrambling to figure out how we’re going to deal with it.”

Yet here is what Montgomery heard from San Francisco inmates:

Unlike some other counties such as Fresno, San Francisco is investing most of its realignment money in rehabilitation.

Randy Nichols is serving time for drug charges. He says he spent 27 years in and out of prison, only to end up at the San Francisco county jail because of realignment.

“When I go to state prison I don’t know if I’m getting out…alive,” says Nichols. “When I come here I’m able to work on myself, be myself.”

The next installment will look at Los Angeles.

AS WE PREDICTED LAST WEEK, THE MUCH STALLED SB9—THE BILL THAT WOULD GIVE LWOP KIDS AT LEAST AN OUTSIDE CHANCE AT ONE DAY GETTING PAROLED—GOES TO JERRY BROWN’S DESK

After three years of being shot down in California’s Assembly, State Senator Leland Yee’s bill that would allow some kids convicted of murder as juveniles to at least apply for parole, passed in the assembly last week, and sailed through the state senate on Monday, 21-16. It is now headed to the governor’s desk for his signature.

Here’s a clip from the Sac Bee’s quickie rundown on what the bill means:

The bill by Democratic Sen. Leland Yee of San Francisco would allow some murderers to petition for a hearing to have their sentence changed to 25 years to life, allowing them to later petition for parole. Several conditions would apply: They would have to have been under 18 when they committed a murder that got them life in prison with no possibility of parole. They also would have to have already served at least 15 years of their sentence, and wouldn’t be released until they had served at least 25 years. And they would have to have been convicted with at least one adult co-defendant.

Some criminals would not be eligible — those with a history of violence before the murder conviction, those who had tortured their victims, and those who had killed a firefighter or law enforcement official.

Yee said the bill would only apply when offenders showed remorse and when “it is a very clear case where an individual has made amends and demonstrated that they are not going to re-offend.”

Again, this perfectly sensible bill took three years to pass. But pass it has.

Now it’s up to Jerry.

OH, AND OAKLAND’S POLICE DEPARTMENT MAY GO INTO FEDERAL RECEIVERSHIP AND THEIR EXISTING FEDERAL MONITOR IS UNDER INVESTIGATION

I was in the Bay Area last week, part of that time in Oakland, where I learned that, not only is the Oakland Police Department laboring under a federal consent decree (a circumstance that LA knows well), things have gotten so weird that they’re actually teetering on the edge of being forced into federal receivership—which would make Oakland the first U.S. city to have its police department snatched from its control.

AND if that wasn’t trouble enough, Monday the news broke that the federal monitor (the person who keeps an eye on the department to see if the requirements of the consent decree are being met) is being investigated for….oh…just read the story yourself.

It’s a mess. as Matthew Artz from the Oakland Tribune points out. Here’s a clip:

….Deputy City Attorney Jamilah Jefferson wrote that the city is “duty-bound” to review the “potentially damaging” allegations concerning “communications between the court monitor and city officers” and asked U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson to seal all documents in connection with the investigation.

On Monday, the city filed a revised motion and asked that Friday’s motion be withdrawn and sealed because it contained “confidential and sensitive information that … should not be part of the court’s public record.”

Speculation is that the accusations stem from one or more meetings that included Warshaw, a former deputy drug czar in the Clinton Administration, and City Administrator Deanna Santana. Santana said she couldn’t comment on what happened because it is part of a personnel investigation. Warshaw could not be reached for comment Monday.

Henderson has tentatively scheduled hearings for December to consider stripping the city control of the police department because of its failure to fully comply with reform measures spelled out in a 2003 agreement that settled the Riders police misconduct case…

It’s not at all clear what the monitor did, as no one will say, but Artz quotes one source as telling him that he knows of no problem with Warshaw, the monitor, other than the fact that city officials really don’t like his reports.

Photo by SteveCof00 licensed under Creative Commons

SANITY PREVAILS! JUVENILE LIFE-WITHOUT-PAROLE BILL SB 9 PASSES CA STATE ASSEMBLY

EDITOR’S NOTE: Since I’ve been tracking this issue for quite a while, the first item is from me. Then I’ll pass you over to Taylor for the rest of the post.

At around 10 am on Thursday morning, juvenile justice advocates across the state were frantically sending out texts and emails urging everybody—anybody—to call a particular shortlist of California State Assemblypersons—or email them, fax them, or walk in their damned offices if need be—and tell the three to please, PLEASE vote for SB 9, Senator Leeland Yee’s bill that, if signed into law, would allow kids who have been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, to have at least a tiny outside possibility of one day being freed from prison.

The bill was just one measly vote short, the advocates’ messages said. Just one.

As close as the proposed legislation was to passage, however, a lot of those tracking the matter were too jittery to hope for a victory.

After all, twice before over the past three years, a form of Yee’s bill had passed through the state senate only to die a disheartening death in the assembly because a cluster of moderate Democrats were made so jumpy and spineless by the threats and dark predictions of victims lobbies and the state’s district attorneys’ organizations, that they couldn’t bring themselves to vote for the bill.

(WitnessLA covered 2010′s ignominious defeat of the bill here.)

On the other hand, many advocates believed that this time the hoped-for miracle might happen, mainly because of the June ruling by the US Supreme Court, Miller v. Alabama, which stated that LWOP—life without parole—could no longer be a mandatory minimum sentence for kids.

The court avoided banning juvenile LWOP altogether. But it took a big step in that direction by making clear, as it had begun to do in an earlier ruling, that kids are different than adults. Thus, SCOTUS implied, we need to consider their actions—even their worst possible actions—- in a different light than we do those of adults.

Juvenile advocates hoped that the Miller ruling would give the nervous assembly members the political cover to finally stand up straight and do the right thing.

Now here it was, do or die time. The advocate emails named Assemblypersons Alejo, Campos, and Mendoza as the three Dems who hadn’t yet voted. Call them now! urged the emails. All we need is one!

A few minutes later, the needed vote arrived. State Assemblyman Tony Mendoza was the breakthrough lawmaker.

Within seconds, a new set of email and text announcements flew around the Internets, and this time they were nearly ecstatic in tone: SB 9 had been passed by the California State Assembly.

Not a single Republican assembly member voted in favor of the bill.

Yes, the proposed legislation still needs to be passed by the state senate. But versions of this bill have made it through the state senate twice before without too much trouble. So with just a modicum of luck, and the added impetus of June’s SCOTUS ruling, SB 9 could be on Governor Brown’s desk before Labor Day.

To get an idea of the uphill battle that has taken place to get SB 9 to this point, take a look at Rob Greene’s LA Times editorial from this past January, in which he quoted with sorrow and fury from all the other editorials he and the Times had written on the topic over the past 3 years—to no avail.

Until now.

But first clip from the story by Human Rights Watch, which has been a strong advocate for the bill from the beginning.

The vote came just weeks after a United States Supreme Court decision barring the mandatory sentencing of juvenile offenders to life without parole. The Senate and governor should now act to bring California in line with the Supreme Court ruling, Human Rights Watch said.

“The Supreme Court decision highlighted the need for the California leaders to act,” said Elizabeth Calvin, senior children’s rights advocate at Human Rights Watch, based in Los Angeles. “Laws now on California’s books allow youth to be condemned to a lifetime in prison, with no hope or possibility of release. The bill that the assembly just passed finally recognizes children’s capacity for change and would enable California to comply with the Supreme Court’s recent ruling.”

The bill, Senate Bill 9, is to go to the state Senate for a vote. If the governor signs it into law, it will allow people who were under age 18 at the time of their crimes to ask the sentencing court to review their sentences after serving up to 25 years in prison. The passage of time puts the court in a better position to assess whether the person merits the possibility of parole, Human Rights Watch said.

Here how Robert Greene’s January editorial opens:

We’ve said it before — more than a dozen times. A child, even a bad one, should not be sent to prison for life without any chance at parole. It’s a mark of societal fear and a lust for revenge. Some younger criminals may indeed be so incorrigible that they should never go free, but after he or she has been behind bars for a quarter of a century, a judge, and a parole board, should be able to consider release.

On Tuesday, the state Assembly is reconsidering SB 9, a bill to put California among the ranks of civilized societies by ending juvenile life without parole sentences. Finally, Assembly, put this matter to rest, pass the bill and send it to the governor.

Or, as we have said previously:

Jan. 16, 2008:

But of all the inequities of a dysfunctional penal system and harsh state laws, few can touch our predilection for discarding the lives of children who commit crimes before they’re old enough to fully understand the consequences of their actions….

And he goes on from there with nine more snippets of nine more Times editorials on the topic—all of them impassioned and all particularly satisfying to read today— in the light of Thursday’s good news.

Obviously, we’ll be tracking this bill the rest of the way—with our fingers firmly crossed for a sane outcome.

Okay, now back to Taylor for the rest of today’s postings.

NO MORE LETTERS TO SD JAIL INMATES

A new policy to extend to all seven San Diego jails bans inmates from receiving letters. Inmates will be restricted to postcards and email communications beginning September 1st.

CBS has the AP story. Here’s how it opens:

San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore has a message for jail inmates: No more letters.

The sheriff announced Wednesday that letters for inmates at the department’s seven jails will be returned to senders starting Sept. 1. It is an effort to prevent contraband from entering cells.

Cmdr. Richard Miller says drugs, weapons and needles have been hidden in letters. He recognizes that letter-writing is an inexpensive way to communicate, but says safety concerns prevailed.

CA REALIGNMENT UPDATE: NINE MONTHS IN….SOME INTERESTING QUESTIONS ARISE

A new report by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice reported that in the first quarter of realignment there were 39% less prison admissions than when realignment began, and 26,480 fewer total prisoners. However the CJCJ notes that, in the second quarter, things begin to get more complicated as, in some counties. admissions rose—with the biggest increase in non-marijuana drug offenses.

Here’s a clip that describes what they found:

New quarterly figures released by CDCR show that during the first 9 months of realignment there has been a 39% overall reduction in new prison admissions as of June 30, 2012, and a drop of 26,480 in the prison population as of August 8, 2012, compared to October 1, 2011. Realignment was designed to redirect non-serious, non-violent, non-sex offenders from incarceration in state prison to the supervision of local jurisdictions. Within the first 9 months of realignment, CDCR has already progressed two-thirds of the way toward the goal of reducing inmate populations by 40,000 by 2017.

However, the initially steep reductions in prisoners may be almost over, and further cuts may prove harder to achieve. The second quarter of 2012 actually brought an increase in new admissions. From March through June 2012, 8,352 inmates were admitted to California prisons, an increase of 306 over the 8,046 admitted in January through March. A contributing factor to the increase was an additional 2 days in the 2nd than in the first quarter.

[SNIP]

The biggest increase in admissions, by far, was in new felon admissions for non-marijuana drug offenses, which rose by 22%, while property offender numbers rose by 6% and violent offender numbers remained the same.

So how to account for those admissions increases?

In the report’s conclusion, CJCJ explores possible explanations for this small but curious reversal of trends, and offers one explanation that their analysts believe is the most plausible—and that assuredly deserves further investigation:

Here’s a clip from that section:

….prosecutors in certain jurisdictions could be exploring
ways to avoid realignment mandates by charging more defendants with those offenses still eligible
for state imprisonment. For example in November 2011, Los Angeles District Attorney, Steve
Cooley, announced he was teaching his staff “to ‘scour’ criminal records to make sure they note any
prior offenses when they file new charges, and to make sure that new charges include offenses
categorized as serious, violent or sexual when possible” (Lagos, 2011). Whether as a result of
deliberate policy or for other reasons, Los Angeles’s prison commitments rose by 135 from the first
to the second quarter of 2012, reversing the county’s previous decline.

Definitely worth exploring further.

GRAY WOLVES MAY RECEIVE PROTECTION AS A CA ENDANGERED SPECIES

With the arrival (and extended stay) of OR-7, the lone wolf who wandered into CA from Oregon in December, has come concern that gray wolves need to be given California endangered species status. The Department of Fish and Game commission will vote on the issue in October, and hopefully pave the road for future CA wolves.

Summit County Voice’s Bob Berwyn has the story. Here are some clips:

Responding to a petition from wildlife conservation advocates, the California Department of Fish and Game last week recommended the endangered species status to the state’s fish and game commission, which will vote on the issue in October.

California is grappling with the issue against an interesting backdrop. A lone wolf that wandered from Oregon continues to roam the wild northeastern quadrant of the state, and wildlife advocates say there’s room for more. At the same time, the federal government is considering removing wolves from the endangered species list on other parts of the country.

[SNIP]

“We’re glad the Department of Fish and Game agrees that the gray wolf deserves consideration for protection under the California Endangered Species Act,” said Noah Greenwald, the Center’s endangered species director. “California has hundreds of square miles of excellent wolf habitat, but if wolves in the state are going to increase from one to many, they need the protection of the California Endangered Species Act.”

“California needs a road map for recovering wolves,” said Greenwald. “Wolf populations in neighboring states will continue to expand, and more wolves will almost certainly show up in California. These wolves will need protection when they arrive.”

Yesterday, while thinking about the race for Los Angeles District Attorney, I happened to reread the following statement written by Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater this past March. Prater wrote it as part of a press release he put out after he very publicly fired a couple of his longtime Assistant DAs. It seems that the two ADAs failed to disclose to the defense counsel in a first degree murder case a potentially exculpatory statement made to them by an important witness.

Here is what Prater wrote:

Prosecutors must be different than any other type of attorney. We are not simply advocates, but are charged with a ministerial duty within the criminal justice system. We are duty-bound to seek justice, period. That duty includes protecting the constitutional and substantive rights of criminal suspects and criminal defendants, We must never abrogate that duty to the justice system that we are privileged to serve.

“We are duty bound to seek justice, period.”

Indeed. The prosecutor’s job is, in fact, very different from that of a defense attorney, whose task it is to put on the best possible case for his or her client, guilty or not.

The sacred task for a DA’s office—any DA’s office—is “to seek justice, period.” End of story. There is no wiggle room in that mandate.

Yet too often of late it seems that prosecution is a competitive sport and seeking justice takes the hindmost if it conflicts with….you know…winning.

Surely, we want LA’s chief prosecutor to be tough, when toughness is called for. We want someone who isn’t afraid to go after lawbreakers fairly but aggressively, when need be, even when it’s politically unpleasant to do so. And, we want our DA to have public safety firmly in mind.

But we also want a DA who will empower his or her deputies to drop a case that turns out not to be righteous—even if it is winnable.

We want a DA who thinks long and hard before direct filing on a teenager as an adult, even for serious crimes, remembering that the juvenile justice system was founded more than a century ago on the precept that kids are different than adults; they are still forming, and they can be redeemed.

We want a DA that won’t press for all juvenile “wobblers”—charges against kids that could be designated as either misdemeanors or felonies—to be shoved to the felony side of things, just because the DA’s can, thus closing out the dreams of, say, joining the U.S. Navy, for an otherwise decent kid with no priors, as I saw done not too long ago in a situation where nobody gained, everybody lost. And they didn’t have to.

We want a DA who doesn’t always push for the maximum bail, the maximum sentence, the maximum enhancements for that sentence—-just because, like Mt. Everest, those legal possibilities are there.

And so on.

Seek justice, period.

So in the light of all this, whom should one vote for?

JACKIE LACEY

WitnessLA’s choice is Jackie Lacey, who is also Steve Cooley’s choice, and was his senior deputy. She’s bright, experienced, very capable, personable, and seems to have moved in a more progressive direction over the years. The LA Times, whose editorial board has spent a lot of time interviewing and just generally thinking about the various DA candidates, has endorsed Lacey. Their endorsement editorial and Jack Leonard’s story on the candidates’ collective move away from a one-note tough-on-crime message is worth reading.

Lacey’s had a stumble as a candidate, as the LA Weekly and the Times note. (We’re still a bit bothered by Lacey’s my-diving-blood-sugar-made-me-do-it excuse for a union busting-sounding statement she made at a 2009 hearing then later tried to walk back.) But nobody on the list is without stumbles, and most of the social justice types we asked were, like WitnesLA, firmly going for Lacey.

She’s long been a fan of alternative courts, the women’s reentry court, veterans’ courts, and so on. And seems to understand that, for many offenses, there are more constructive courses of action for all concerned than simply tossing everybody in prison for extended periods.

At the same time, she gets along well with law enforcement, but doesn’t seem to be too beholden to them.

THE DANETTE MEYERS OPTION

The California Democratic Party, a bunch of key democratic clubs, and others have endorsed Danette Meyers, who is not bad either. She is also endorsed by the deputy district attorneys’ union (the former heads of which loath Cooley, and Lacey, by extension).

Meyers too is experienced and capable. Yet Lacey appears stronger. I was, for example, put off when, in a video interview with the LA Times, Meyers was asked her opinion about realignment and she gave some dippy answer about getting victims of crime more money, which had zero to do with the topic at hand, and simply made her sound unprepared, uninformed, and pandering—not an encouraging sign. Realignment is not as sexy and sound-bite ready as, say, the death penalty. But however well or poorly it is handled by the various agencies that have a part in it—the DA’s office included—will have great impact on the county, and it behooves a DA candidate to get his or her facts straight.
Lacey, by contrast, was far better prepared and more knowledgeable in her answer, which she has since improved upon and expanded—moving distinctly away from Cooley’s unhelpful the sky is falling stance on the issue.

All that said, Meyers is a candidate with many strong qualities who is worth a look too.

Rob Greene has a good rundown on Meyers here.

And you can find the video interviews here.

THE “NUCH” FACTOR

And then, of course, there is Carmen Trutanich—AKA “Nuch”—the existing City Attorney. Trutanich is obviously experienced, tough-minded, and can be a charmer. He has, by far, the highest profile of the field, which also includes able and experienced prosecutors Alan Jackson and Bobby Grace—and the all-but-ignored, John Breault III.

Plus Trutanich has the most money, and the backing of Governor Jerry Brown, Sheriff Lee Baca, former mayor Richard Riordan, and a long list others. But he has lost the town’s two biggest newspapers, the LA Times, as mentioned above, and the Daily News, which basically took an ABC approach, anybody but Carmen.

We at WLA have a problem with Trutanich’s truthiness. Plus he spent a lot of his first year or two in the City Attorney’s office with bombastic stunts like threatening to arrest LA City Council persons, talking judges into setting million dollar bails for super sign scofflaws, and trying to get gang injunctions for taggers. Oh, yeah, and in a bizarre moment of power grabbiness, he decided he wanted his own grand jury—which no city attorney, or equivalent, in big cities elsewhere in the nation felt they wanted or needed. (We know this because we called around and asked.)

Plus he’s known to be on the snappish and vengeful side when crossed or criticized. Not ideal qualities for a DA.

But, as mentioned above, he has strengths, and he could very well be the next District Attorney.

The LA Weekly’s Gene Maddeus has done a bunch of reporting on DA issues and has some very intriguing articles on aspects of the race here and here.

KPCC’s Frank Stoltz, who is also covering the race, and has spent time with the candidates, has a good overall story on the race here, to give you some additional insight.

FYI: One of the candidates must get 50 percent of the vote or there will be a runoff in November.

So look at it this way; unless you’re 100 percent sure that Trutanich is your guy for DA, vote for somebody else this time around. That way a run-off will give us time to further vet the the top two in the field of candidates who wish to take on this crucial task of seeking justice in our behalf.

INSIDE THE GRAY BOX – THE INCONVENIENT FACTS ABOUT SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IN AMERICA

Right now approximately 80,000 Americans are living in solitary confinement in this country’s prisons. Many of them have no record of violence either in or out of prison, says a new investigative report by The Dart Society.

Here’s a clip from the report, written by Susan Greene:

Among the misperceptions about solitary confinement is that it’s used only on the most violent inmates, and only for a few weeks or months. In fact, an estimated 80,000 Americans — many with no record of violence either inside or outside prison — are living in seclusion. They stay there for years, even decades. What this means, generally, is 23 hours a day in a cell the size of two queen-sized mattresses, with a single hour in an exercise cage, also alone. Some prisoners aren’t allowed visits or phone calls. Some have no TV or radio. Some never lay eyes on each other. And some go years without fresh air or sunlight.

Solitary is a place where the slightest details can mean the world. Things like whether you can see a patch of grass or only sky outside your window – if you’re lucky enough to have a window. Or whether the guy who occupies cells before you in rotation has a habit of smearing feces on the wall. Are the lights on 24/7? Is there a clock or calendar to mark time? If you scream, could anyone hear you?

In the warp of time and space where [Osiel] Rodriguez lives, the system not only has stripped him of any real human contact, but also made it unbearable to be reminded of a reality that has become all too unreal. It’s ripping him apart. [Rodriguez robbed a bank and a pawn shop when he was 22 years old.]

“Looking at photos of the free world caused me so much pain that I just couldn’t do it any more,” writes Rodriguez, 36. “Time and these conditions are breaking me down.”

This is what our prisons are doing to people in the name of safety. This is how deeply we’re burying them.

SHOULD FREE SPEECH PROTECT THE RIGHT TO LIE?

William Bennett Turner writes for the NY Times about the alarmingly slippery slope presented by the Stolen Valor Act.

Here’s a clip:

XAVIER ALVAREZ is a liar. Even the brief filed on his behalf in the United States Supreme Court says as much: “Xavier Alvarez lied.” It informs us that he has told tall tales about playing hockey for the Detroit Red Wings, being married to a Mexican starlet and rescuing the American ambassador during the Iranian hostage crisis. But as the brief reminds us, “none of those lies were crimes.”

Another of his falsehoods, however, did violate the law. In 2007, while introducing himself at a meeting of a California water board, he said that he was a retired Marine who had been awarded the Medal of Honor (both lies). He was quickly exposed as a phony and pilloried in the community and press as an “idiot” and the “ultimate slime.”

But his censure did not end there. The federal government prosecuted him under the Stolen Valor Act, which prohibits falsely claiming to have been awarded a military medal, with an enhanced penalty (up to a year in prison) for claiming to have received the Medal of Honor. Mr. Alvarez was convicted but appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which held that the act violated the First Amendment.

The government has taken the case to the Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear arguments this week. The question before the court is not whether there is a constitutional “right” to lie. Rather, it’s a question about the scope of the government’s power over individuals — whether the government can criminalize saying untrue things about oneself even if there is no harm to any identifiable person, no intent to cheat anyone or gain unfair advantage, no receipt of anything of value and no interference with the administration of justice or any other compelling government interest.

Read the rest. It’s extremely interesting—especially when you start to consider the implications. (Hint: One of them involves Steven Colbert.)

THE SUPREMES, CITIZENS’ UNITED, THOSE CRANKY MONTANANS CHALLENGING THE LAW—AND THE MEANING OF RUTH GINSBURG’S REMARKS

On Friday of last week, the Supreme Court agreed to a stay on the Montana Supreme Court’s ruling of last fall,—one that upheld its own state law and thus basically made the US Supreme Court’s extremely controversial (and truly hideous) Citizens United decision inoperative in the Big Sky state.

Tom Goldstein over at SCOTUSBlog explains the significance of the message conveyed in the statement made by Justice Ruth Ginsburg (joined by Justice Breyer) at the hearing’s conclusion.

Or, if SCOTUSBlog is too wonky for your taste, the story at the Washington Post, addressing the same issue, lays things out more directly. Here’s how it opens:

Two Supreme Court justices suggested Friday that the court reconsider its controversial 2010 decision that allowed unlimited corporate and union spending in elections.

The suggestion came as the court blocked a Montana Supreme Court decision upholding a century-old ban on corporate campaign spending in the state.

The Montana ruling seems squarely at odds with the court’s 5 to 4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which allowed unlimited corporate spending. The U.S. Supreme Court majority had said such independent spending did not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.

In Friday’s order, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer said the upheaval in the world of campaign finance since the Citizens United decision does not bear out the majority opinion.

“Montana’s experience, and experience elsewhere since this court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, make it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations ‘do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption,’ ” Ginsburg wrote.

“A petition for certiorari [from those challenging the Montana court’s decision] will give the court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway.”

Most experts think that the chances of Citizens United being modified or undone by the Supremes are worse than slim, as that would require Justice Kennedy (or someone more conservative than he) switching sides, which is unlikely. But the fact that the discussion will likely be raised may lay down tracks for a future court’s consideration.