CrimProf Blog

Lawyers to aid DNA project

Virginia's Forensic Science Board will rely on volunteer lawyers to assist in one of the largest and most unusual DNA investigations ever undertaken.

The project has combed through half a million 20to 35-year-old forensic case files on the chance someone wrongly convicted of a murder, rape or other serious crime before DNA testing was widely available might be cleared.

So far, biological evidence has turned up for at least 941 felons, 47 of them now dead. As directed by the General Assembly this year, the board must make sure -- when possible -- they are notified the evidence exists.

That's where the volunteer lawyers come in.

"This is a dream pro bono project for any attorney, firm, or association," said Steven D. Benjamin, a Richmond-area criminal defense lawyer on the Forensic Science Board.

Benjamin said he has had informal talks with statewide bar groups and the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project to determine the level of interest. Formal letters requesting help will be sent out soon.

Then-Gov. Mark R. Warner ordered the project in 2006 after a sample testing of material found in 31 old case files cleared two men who had already completed their prison sentences for rapes they did not commit.

Five men wrongfully convicted of rape have been cleared by DNA testing of biological evidence -- samples of blood, semen or other material -- kept in the files of the late Mary Jane Burton, a former state forensic serologist, and her colleagues.

It is largely being left up to authorities to determine whether DNA testing is warranted in each case and to interpret whether the results have any bearing on innocence.

This year, however, the assembly ordered the Forensic Science Board, which oversees the Department of Forensic Science, to notify any felon who has biological material found in their old files.

James Towey, executive director of the Virginia State Crime Commission and a member of the board, said, "I'm fairly optimistic that most of these people can be located and notified." [Mark Godsey]

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Public hearing in Yolo deputy slaying case closed to public

A public hearing – in which murder suspect Marco Antonio Topete was to be formally charged Wednesday in the slaying of a Yolo County sheriff's deputy – was closed to just about everyone except the slain deputy's survivors and his law-enforcement colleagues.

Barred from the hearing were the defendant's wife, mother and sister, and members of the general public, including the media. They waited outside the court building in Woodland because deputies had locked the door and kept it locked during the hearing.

Afterward, when reporters asked the prosecutor and public defender what transpired in the hearing, they said that Superior Court Commissioner Janene Beronio, who presided, had placed a gag order on them, preventing them from discussing anything about the case.

Initially, Yolo County Sheriff Ed Prieto blamed the commissioner for excluding the public from the hearing. Later, Prieto said his deputies kept the doors locked on their own and that was "a huge mistake."

In Yolo County, Superior Court Judge David Rosenberg presides over the Woodland court operation.

Rosenberg told The Bee the arraignment hearing should have been open to the public and media.

"The doors are supposed to be unlocked when court is in session. This kind of hearing should have been open to the public. There are no excuses. It shouldn't have happened," Rosenberg said.

The defendant, Topete, 35, is accused of killing Sheriff's Deputy Jose Antonio Diaz after a high-speed chase Sunday night.

Diaz, 37, died at Woodland Memorial Hospital from a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle that had pierced his protective vest, authorities said. [Mark Godsey]

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Crime fighters hoping you'll get on board

A citywide campaign encouraging residents to report crimes was launched Wednesday with community leaders unveiling a new billboard conveying the message: "It's not snitching -- it's caring."

The billboards are a key component of Peace in the Streets, a movement started in 2004 by a group of young people affiliated with Christamore House in an effort to curtail violent crimes in the city through marketing initiatives such as armbands and T-shirts.

Although city leaders always have embraced the movement, this is the first year it has become a "major city initiative," said Marcus Barlow, a spokesman for Mayor Greg Ballard.

"It's important that people understand in this city we need the support of neighborhood associations and all the people on the streets to help the Police Department," Ballard said during the event. "That's why this message is so important."

The message this year is new and is aimed at combating the common perception in crime-ridden communities that reporting a crime carries a connotation of snitching.

Police have handled premeditated crimes that could have been prevented if people who knew they were going to occur had reported them, said Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Chief Michael Spears.

He encouraged residents to report crimes through Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana, an anonymous tip line, or to inform police through calls, e-mails, letters or visits.

"What we want within the Police Department more than anything is a relationship of trust," Spears said. "Through that relationship, we'll receive information, suggestions and ideas that will let us do a better job with our work."

Spears said violent crimes in the city this year have declined from 2007, which saw lower rates than the near-record high of 2006. Meanwhile, there's been an increase in crimes such as theft.

About 15 billboards, which are funded by Crime Stoppers and Peace in the Streets with support from Clear Channel, will go up throughout the summer. The first one is at 914 E. Michigan St., just east of Downtown.

Peace in the Streets Director Aaron Williams said the goal is to put them in neighborhoods with high crime rates. If a violent crime occurs, he said, he hopes a billboard can be put in that area within 24 hours. [Mark Godsey]

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Mentally ill lose right to self-representation

Filed at 10:19 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that criminal
defendants with a history of mental illness do not always have the
right to represent themselves, even though they have been judged
competent to stand trial.

The justices, by a 7-2 vote, say states can give trial judges
discretion to prevent someone from acting as his own lawyer if they
are concerned that the trial could turn into a farce.

The decision comes in the case of an Indiana man who was convicted of
attempted murder and other charges in 2005 for a shooting six years
earlier at an Indianapolis department store.

The case is Indiana v. Edwards, No. 07-208. NACDL filed and amicus
curiae brief in support of neither party arguing that if an
unrepresented defendant is incapable of presenting a reasoned defense
due to mental infirmity, then he is not competent to represent
himself. The opinion is here:
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/07-208.pdf
NACDL's amicus brief, authored by Keven P. Martin, Abigail K. Hemani
and Dahlia S. Fetouh, of Goodwin Proctor LLP in Boston, and William F.
Sheehan in Washington, is here:
http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/newsissues/amicus_attachments/$FILE/IndEd_Amicus.pdf

The justices, by a 7-2 vote, say states can give trial judges
discretion to prevent someone from acting as his own lawyer if they
are concerned that the trial could turn into a farce.

The decision comes in the case of an Indiana man who was convicted of
attempted murder and other charges in 2005 for a shooting six years
earlier at an Indianapolis department store. [Mark Godsey]

The case is Indiana v. Edwards, No. 07-208. NACDL filed and amicus
curiae brief in support of neither party arguing that if an
unrepresented defendant is incapable of presenting a reasoned defense
due to mental infirmity, then he is not competent to represent
himself. The opinion is here:
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/07-208.pdf
NACDL's amicus brief, authored by Keven P. Martin, Abigail K. Hemani
and Dahlia S. Fetouh, of Goodwin Proctor LLP in Boston, and William F.
Sheehan in Washington, is here:
http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/newsissues/amicus_attachments/$FILE/IndEd_Amicus.pdf

CrimProf Hashimoto Cited in Indiana v. Edwards

Georgia Law Professor Erica Hashimoto's article Defending the Right of Self-Representation: An Empirical Look at the Pro Se Felony Defendant, 85 N.C. L. Rev. 423 (2007), is cited on p.13 of today's slip op. in Indiana v. Edwards.  Kudos!

SCOTUS Decides Indiana v. Edwards

The Supreme Court decided Indiana v. Edwards today.  In a 7-2 decision, the Court held that the standard for competency to stand trial is not the same as the standard for competency to waive counsel and go to trial pro se.

For many of the reasons discussed by Justice Scalia (joined by Justice Thomas) in dissent, I think it is a pretty poor decision.  While the Court tells us that a State does not necessarily deprive a competent defendant of the right to self-representation by forcing him to accept counsel, the Court provides no guidance as to what the standard is to determine competence to go pro se.  I think that the upshot of this will be, as the dissent predicts, that trial judges will routinely reject a defendants' requests to go pro se whenever he has any kind of mental illness.

The Court invokes fairness -- that a competent but mentally ill defendant will suffer an unfair trial if he is allowed to represent himself -- but it seems to me that the decision is more about efficiency.  The question is:  how can we process as many mentally ill criminal defendants through the system as possible?  The Court has hit upon the answer:  find them competent to stand trial but incompetent to act as their own attorneys.  Though my own experience representing the mentally ill is brief and anecdotal, it has always struck me that the standard for competence to stand trial is simply too low.

And that is the real problem with today's decision:  the standard for competence to go pro se should be the same as the standard for competence to stand trial, but the latter should be higher than it is currently.  [Mike Mannheimer]

Man's Confession Is Impossible

An inmate who confessed a 14-year-old Knoxville slaying was in a mental health facility at the time of the killing, according to records unearthed by a defense attorney.Ronald E. Greene faces a second-degree murder charge for a 1994 slaying committed while Greene was in the Middle Tennessee Mental Health Institute undergoing a court-ordered evaluation, records obtained by defense attorney Steve Sams show.

Sams is asking Knox County Criminal Court Judge Kenneth Irvine Jr. to dismiss the murder charge, filed by Knoxville Police Department Sgt. Tim Snoderly in 2007 after Greene claimed he killed Richard Allen Sweat 13 years earlier.

"It matched up perfectly," Snoderly told the News Sentinel earlier this year in an unrelated interview. "(Greene) even told us about the kind of graffiti on the wall and what he killed him with."

Records filed in court by Sams make it a virtual impossibility for Greene to have been the killer, however.

Sweat, a homeless man, was released from the Knox County Jail on a public intoxication charge on Feb. 15, 1994. He was found beaten to death under a viaduct on Woodland Avenue in Northwest Knoxville on Feb. 24, 1994.

A discharge report from the state Department of Mental Health shows that Greene was transferred from the Knox County Jail to the mental health facility in Middle Tennessee on Feb. 8, 1994. He was discharged March 3, 1994.

"I realize a motion to dismiss is an unusual move at this juncture, but given the obvious strength of the alibi Mr. Greene has, I found it important to get this information in front of the court as quickly as possible," Sams said. "I am very grateful we have had to use state resources to prove to (prosecutors) what they probably already knew." [Mark Godsey]

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DNA sample identifies attacker from 1985 rape case

DALLAS — A DNA sample that freed a wrongly convicted man who spent nearly 23 years behind bars implicated another man already in prison who has confessed to the crime, Dallas County prosecutors said Tuesday.DNA evidence collected after the 1985 rape of a Richardson woman matches convicted felon Kenneth Wayne Woodson, the Dallas County District Attorney's Office said. Thomas McGowan was originally convicted of the crime and served nearly 23 years in prison before being released in April."The truth is out there. There's no more doubt about anything," McGowan told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Woodson will not be charged because the five-year statute of limitations has expired, said Mike Ware, who heads the Conviction Integrity Unit in the DA's office.

Woodson was convicted in a separate case of aggravated sexual assault after a 1986 rape and burglary and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He served 20 years before being paroled in January 2006.

Fourteen months after being paroled, Woodson robbed a bank in Richardson, prosecutors said. His parole was revoked and he was sent back to prison to serve out the remaining 10 years on his original sentence, along with a concurrent 10-year sentence for the bank robbery.

The match to Woodson came by running the DNA evidence taken from the rape through a national database of DNA profiles of convicted sex offenders. Last Wednesday, a county investigator and a Richardson police officer traveled to a state prison in Brownfield to collect a cheek swab from Woodson.

Woodson confessed after learning that his DNA profile matched the DNA evidence taken from the sexual assault, prosecutors said. Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said his office has notified the Board of Pardons and Paroles "so that they can take this offense into consideration when making future parole decisions."[Mark Godsey]

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CSI: Anchorage -- great expectations

Police, frustrated by an uncooperative suspect, get a court order for his DNA. They throw on a pot of coffee, and, before the first cup is gone, the lab has results: a perfect match to the atom-sized sample collected at the crime scene. A full confession will be coming right after these messages.Too bad it's not that easy in real life. Ideally, forensic scientists would test every fiber, every drop of blood they find at a crime scene. But if they did, it would be all they did. A DNA case, for example, can take up to 60 days to close because of the screening, extraction and replication process -- a far cry from TV-land testing.

Still, television-educated jurors are increasingly demanding impeccable evidence before they'll lock someone up. It's the so-called "CSI" effect -- juries that are overly reliant on physical evidence, thinking state-of-the-art science offers investigators nearly magical abilities to solve any crime.

"The 'CSI' effect is a real phenomenon in the courtroom," said Anchorage District Attorney Adrienne Bachman. "(A jury's) expectations might be too high in a given case -- that's certainly a possibility -- but that's something that prosecutors have to face head-on. We can't ignore it or avoid it."

Its effects have influenced all aspects of the criminal case, from selecting the jury to deciding which witnesses to question.

"Juries are so impressed with scientific evidence," said Rex Butler, a prominent Anchorage defense attorney. "And, of course, scientific evidence is so much harder to challenge than the statements of witnesses and things of that nature." [Mark Godsey]

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State needs to preserve trial evidence

The defense said it wanted to do more extensive testing than that performed by the prosecution.

It couldn't. The blood evidence had already been discarded by doctors at the Medical University of South Carolina. It had been stored for about two years but was trashed because the medical school needed the storage space.

No one knows if the conviction of Wesley Smith in his homicide-by-child-abuse trial would have been affected had the tests been performed. No one knows if it would have proved the defense's contention that maybe Smith's 4-month-old baby's 17 fractured ribs resulted from a rare disease that causes brittle bones. MUSC said the baby likely didn't have the disease, but it didn't test for it.

No one knows if it would have made the prosecution's argument stronger. If the defense tests came back negative, that would have eliminated one of the defense's key assumptions, making things easier for the jury to maybe find Smith guilty of homicide by child abuse instead of having to settle for a last-minute aiding and abetting charge.

At least one juror said she needed more information, saying she didn't feel good about the process.

She was left with too many "ifs" and "maybes."

And part of the reason is that South Carolina has yet to pass a preservation of evidence law, something the Innocence Project says is vital to making our criminal justice system more just.

Such a law has been considered this legislative session but is lost somewhere in the abyss of a House committee in Columbia. It's part of a bill that would allow DNA samples to be taken from those arrested for certain crimes and tested to prove innocence or guilt.

But this isn't a sexy law, not like a "Jessica's Law," in which advocates rely on the emotional tug that comes with the murder of a child.

The public instantly sees the value in that. It's harder to get worked up over something as bland as preserving evidence. I didn't even realize my native state lacked such a law until I researched the details of my oldest brother's murder conviction. That evidence had been discarded.

But a lack of such a law in South Carolina is wrong on multiple levels. The state generally doesn't uphold a defendant's right to a speedy trial, which is why Smith remained in prison for four years before being convicted, which is why MUSC felt it was OK to throw away key evidence.

Why should we be proud of a justice system which relies on a process that isn't all that just? [Mark Godsey]

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The rights of the accused after killing the accuser

WASHINGTON -- Can a man who admitted killing his girlfriend, but who claims he did so in self-defense, prevent a jury from hearing her prior reports to the police that she feared for her life? The Supreme Court is due to decide that question in a Los Angeles case that has alarmed advocates for victims of domestic violence. They fear that the justices, determined to protect the fair-trial rights of defendants, are in danger of creating an incentive to kill.

The case of Giles vs. California began six years ago when Dwayne Giles shot and killed Brenda Avie after a brief quarrel at his house in South Central Los Angeles. He testified in his own defense and "portrayed her as a violent, aggressive, foul-mouthed, jealous and volatile person," according to the state court. The jury convicted him of first-degree murder.

In his appeal, he says the trial violated his right to confront his accuser in court: Because she was dead, she was not available to testify. According to testimony from a police officer who had responded to a domestic disturbance four weeks before Avie's death, Avie told the police officer Giles had threatened to kill her.

The Giles case is the third in four years before the Supreme Court that tests whether out-of-court statements such as a police officer's report can be used as evidence in a trial when the witness does not testify and is not available for cross-examination.

In two rulings, Justice Antonin Scalia set down a firm rule barring use of such evidence from absent witnesses. He cited the 6th Amendment, which says in part, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted with the witnesses against him." [Mark Godsey]

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Courts Putting Hot-Button Words on Ice

Call it the age of the Loaded Word. A steadily increasing number of courts across the United States are prohibiting witnesses and victims from uttering certain words in front of a jury, banning everything from the words "rape" to "victim" to "crime scene."

Prosecutors and victims' rights advocates nationwide claim the courts are going too far in trying to cleanse witness testimony, all to protect a defendant's right to a fair trial. Concerns and fears over language restrictions have been percolating ever since judges in Nebraska and Missouri last year banned the word "rape" during rape trials.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg, claim critics, who say courts telling witnesses what words they can and can't say is a much larger trend than they had realized. In addition to "rape," courts also have banned the terms "homicide," "drunk," "victim," "murderer," "killer" and "crime scene."

"I've gotten a flood of e-mails saying, 'Wow, you should see the number of times that this is happening in our jurisdiction,' " said Joshua Marquis, vice president of the National District Attorneys Association, who strongly objects to censoring witnesses, especially victims. "It's absurd. It's dangerous. And it's growing." [Mark Godsey]

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Rare Form of Grand Jury Used to Investigate Abortion Providers

From N.Y. Times.com: WICHITA, Kan. — Opponents of Dr. George Tiller and his clinic here, one of the nation’s few providers of late-term abortions, have tried many ways to stop him over three decades. They have held protests, lobbied lawmakers and complained persistently to state regulators and prosecutors. There have also been several acts of violence, including one in which Dr. Tiller was shot in both arms.

Now his opponents are using a legal tactic that some find startling and others consider inspired. They have turned to an unusual state statute, adopted in 1887, that allows ordinary citizens who gather enough signatures on a petition to demand that a grand jury investigate an alleged crime, a decision usually left to a prosecutor.

Inside a courthouse along Main Street here, 15 grand jurors have been meeting for months, convened under the statute by ordinary Sedgwick County residents to investigate whether Dr. Tiller’s clinic has illegally performed second- and third-trimester abortions. Their deliberations are scheduled to end next month.

Kansas is one of a few states that have laws that allow residents to force a grand jury investigation. Over all, the practice is seldom used, but grand juries by petition in Kansas have recently taken on new life, new targets and a host of new critics who say a law once meant to check official corruption is being twisted into a political weapon.

“This is an abuse of the grand jury system,” said Senator John L. Vratil, a Republican who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee in Topeka. “It’s being used in a political way to further a political cause, and that was never the purpose of the grand jury system in Kansas.”

The grand jury meeting here is at least the 10th ordered by petition in the state in recent years: two investigated abortion providers, including Dr. Tiller, and the rest investigated misdemeanor obscenity violations by stores selling explicit videos, magazines and other items. Only one has led to a conviction.

Kansas lawmakers adopted the provision allowing grand juries by petition in the late 19th century when state politicians were fighting over which towns would be named county seats and the lucrative railroad industry was blossoming. The law was seen as a check against abuse by those in power.

In those early years, it required the signatures of 200 taxpayers to call a grand jury; now it requires the signatures of 2 percent of a county’s turnout in the most recent governor’s election, plus 100 more signatures.

“This is a measure for the people to get some justice if law enforcement doesn’t do its job, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” said David Gittrich, of Kansans for Life, which was involved in both grand jury petitions involving Dr. Tiller and helped collect nearly 7,000 verified signatures, more than double the required number, for the current investigation.

Dr. Tiller, 66, who has performed abortions since the 1970s, has long been a focus of controversy in Wichita, where the bland building that houses his clinic belies the debate that has centered around it. Abortion opponents blame Dr. Tiller for drawing women from around the country to have abortions. Abortion-rights advocates point to him as a physician who has persisted even as protesters have gone to his home and church.

His lawyer, Lee Thompson, said such critics were “using the grand jury, I believe, as a tool to harass.” Dr. Tiller declined to be interviewed.

Several legal experts wonder where this will all end — how many more grand juries will be created by petition in response to social or political issues, and at what price to the taxpayers?

Continue reading article here. [Brooks Holland]

Ending a cycle of crime: Ex-cons get a helping hand

A new approach to parole in Arizona began with thousands of colored pushpins and a large state map. In 2003, prison officials set out to find new ways to keep released inmates from going back behind bars. So they began to map where the more than 30,000 Arizona inmates had lived before they were locked up and where they might return.

What they found were a handful of hot spots around the state, including south Phoenix - home to about 1 percent of the state's population but nearly 6.5 percent of state prisoners. The authorities reasoned that if they started in one ZIP code area, they could help stop the cycle of incarceration and slow soaring criminal-justice costs. They decided to revisit the old parole rules and find ways to change lives.

"Once you realize that a lot of people come back to a certain place, then every traditional rule about community supervision has to be challenged, and many we flat-out tossed away," explained Dora Schriro, director of the Arizona Department of Corrections. "It is not about us making it easier. It is about us getting smarter about what is necessary to succeed on supervision."

Last year, the Department of Corrections launched the Legacy Project, a pilot program in south Phoenix's 85041 ZIP code area, changing the way that parole officers supervise recently released prisoners. It was followed by a similar initiative, Maricopa County's 85041 Project, which has changed how people are supervised while on probation. [Mark Godsey]

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Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of the Use of DNA in the Investigation of High-Volume Crimes

The study compared traditional crime solving to biological evidence techniques in hundreds of cases where biological evidence was available. When conventional investigative techniques were used, a suspect was identified 12 percent of the time, compared to 31 percent of the cases using DNA evidence. In eight percent of cases built on traditional evidence alone a suspect was arrested, compared to the 16 percent arrest rate in DNA cases. The average added cost for processing a single case with DNA evidence was about $1,397. Each additional arrest—an arrest that would not have occurred without DNA processing—cost $14,169.

The study’s main findings are that:

• Property crime cases where DNA evidence is processed have more than twice as many suspects identified, twice as many suspects arrested, and more than twice as many cases accepted for prosecution compared with traditional investigation;
• DNA is at least five times as likely to result in a suspect identification compared with fingerprints;
• Suspects identified by DNA had at least twice as many prior felony arrests and convictions as those identified by traditional investigation;
• Blood evidence results in better case outcomes than other biological evidence, particularly evidence from items that were handled or touched;
• Biological material collected by forensic technicians is no more likely to result in a suspect being identified than biological material collected by patrol officers. [Mark Godsey]

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Cops use force - from restraint to drawn guns - in 20% of stops, data show

One in five New Yorkers stopped by police in 2006 encountered some use of force, from simple restraint to facing a drawn service weapon, a Daily News analysis of new data found. In 102,000 of the more than 500,000 police stops - about 20% - cops did things such as restrained people, threw them to the ground or against a wall or pointed a gun at them, the newly released data show.

The NYPD has refused to release use-of-force data in previous and subsequent years.

In nine out of 10 police stops involving use of force in 2006, the suspects were not arrested.

"Force is liberally defined to include such things as placing the individual on a wall for a pat down, or on a car, or on the ground or handcuffing whether an arrest is made [or] not," NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.

The data make clear that cops appear to pull their weapons fairly frequently without making arrests, The News found.

About 2,700 police stops wound up with an officer pulling his weapon on a suspect, records show. Of those stops, only 553 ended with an arrest. That means in four out of five stops where a weapon was drawn, no arrest was made.

Until now, the NYPD has released only limited information on why, where and how its officers stop and question citizens suspected of unlawful activity. Use-of-force details have never been made public.

They surfaced in internal data the NYPD turned over to researchers at the University of Michigan. In recent days, researchers posted much of the information on the Web. [Mark Godsey]

Continue Reading "Cops use force - from restraint to drawn guns - in 20% of stops, data show"

ACLU Challenges Texas Juvenile Inmate Conditions

From Jurist (with links): The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a class action lawsuit [complaint, PDF; press release] Thursday against the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) [official website], alleging that five girls imprisoned at the Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex [official website] were subjected to punitive solitary confinement, physical abuse and invasive strip searches. The ACLU alleged that the treatment violated the girls' rights under the US Constitution and international law, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child [text]. TYC officials responded [press release] that the agency is working to address the issues raised in the lawsuit. AP has more.

Read full article here. [Brooks Holland]

This time, parolee has a plan -- a halfway house to help him stay out of prison

Ronald Eugene Williams, 44, signs forms for his release from San Quentin Prison last weekend as correctional officer Luis Med ina counts out $200 – the gate money given to all parolees as they leave.

Paroled out of San Quentin at 8 a.m. Saturday, Ronald Eugene Williams hopped two buses and by 4:45 p.m. had rolled into the Greyhound-Amtrak station in Old Town Roseville.

From there, the nine-time convicted felon got a ride to an Auburn halfway house for drug addicts and alcoholics that he will call home for the next six months.

On Monday, he checked in with his new parole agent and shocked her world.

"I was pleasantly surprised," agent Magdalena Cardona said. "Because when you look at his bio and his track record, it's not good. But he had a really good attitude when he showed up."

So far, it's been a good week of parole for the 44-year-old Williams. Just 155 more weeks like it, and he'll become one of the lucky few parolees in California who overcome their past to create promise for their future.

With California struggling to fix a parole system where only three in 10 offenders complete their three years of supervised release without returning to prison, Williams represents a case study on whether the state can turn those numbers around.

Stacked against the backgrounds of the 370 parolees who walk out of California prisons every day, Williams' record is typical – and horrid.

It sports 31 arrests, nine felony convictions – most on drug or domestic violence charges – and 11 parole revocations.

He's addicted to methamphetamine and takes lithium for bipolar disorder.

He smoked pot at age 10 but says he didn't really go bad until his older brother raped and murdered a woman 28 years ago.

He has six children by five mothers.

He's also unguardedly optimistic about his re-entry into freedom.

"I'm pretty relaxed," Williams said Saturday morning at 6, one of 14 prisoners caged in the Receiving and Release office at San Quentin. "I have a plan. This is the first time I've ever paroled with a plan. It's a plan I know is going to work."

His ticket to drug treatment, at a cost of $90 a day to taxpayers, makes Williams think he can make it this time.

"I have a great chance," he said. "I'm just going to follow through." [Mark Godsey]

Continue Reading "This time, parolee has a plan -- a halfway house to help him stay out of prison"

Facing 'Crisis,' Public Defenders May Refuse Cases

Faced with what they call severe budget shortfalls, several public defender offices across the country say they may soon begin turning away thousands of poor criminal defendants. Statewide public defenders in Kentucky and Minnesota and local offices in cities such as Atlanta and Miami say budget cuts are forcing them to fire or furlough trial lawyers, leaving the offices unable to handle misdemeanor and, in some instances, serious felony  cases. 

The cuts leave states scrambling to find a solution to a constitutional dilemma: The Sixth Amendment requires the government to either provide poor defendants with lawyers or release them.

"It is an impending legal crisis in our state," Joseph Lambert, the chief justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court, told ABC News. [Marl Godsey]

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Bratton and Baca disagree on role of race in gang violence

Baca sees major link with racial hatred, Bratton urges perspective. Los Angeles' two top lawmen are increasingly at odds over the extent to which gang violence is being fueled by racial hatred.
Police Chief William J. Bratton and his top deputies have long cautioned that race-motivated violence remains fairly rare and that gang feuds over turf and drugs are the leading causes of such violence. But over the last few months, Sheriff Lee Baca has publicly voiced a more ominous view of violence between Latino and black gangs. This week, he went further than ever, saying in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece that "some of L.A.'s so-called gangs are really no more than loose-knit bands of blacks or Latinos roaming the streets looking for people of the other color to shoot."

Baca's comments have prompted debate in law enforcement circles -- with some Los Angeles Police Department officials questioning some of his assertions.

"The sheriff is saying we need to examine this issue in the light of day to keep it from spreading because we won't be able to address or reverse it, if we deny it," said civil rights attorney Connie Rice. "Chief Bratton is saying something equally valid, which is if you overemphasize race, you may be pouring jet fuel on the fire." Baca, in an interview Thursday, said he was speaking out because he considers racial animus among various gangs a serious problem that is not being discussed enough. He acknowledged that the Sheriff's Department doesn't have statistics showing a major rise in race-related violence but believes it is a growing problem. Baca this week announced that his department would create a Gang Emergency Operations Center to better deal with such violence.

"We need to talk about this in a more public way," Baca said, adding he had heard about the tension from community activists, beat cops, gang intervention officers and deputies who guard the county's jails. "It's a small percentage but a significant percentage." [Mark Godsey]

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