CrimProf Blog

Dallas DA Pushes for Criminal Justice Changes

From star-telegram.com:  After seeking the release of two wrongfully convicted men in about two weeks, Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins said he will lobby in Austin for criminal justice changes, including establishment of conviction integrity units across the state.

Watkins talked about the need to double-check the veracity of the system after a court hearing Tuesday in which James Lee Woodard, 55, was set free after serving more than 27 years behind bars for a murder in 1980 that he did not commit.

"This is a perfect time to do it," Watkins said. "We have to look at it. We have to balance that time when we are being a politician, and when we are a human being."

If the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agrees to vacate Woodard's sentence, he would be the 17th inmate to be cleared in Dallas County by DNA evidence since 2001 and the longest-serving inmate in the country to be cleared by additional testing of evidence.

Watkins this month asked for a similar resolution for Thomas McGowan, 49, who served 23 years behind bars for a sexual assault and burglary he did not commit.

Jeff Blackburn, chief counsel of the Innocence Project of Texas, which investigated Woodard's case, said other reforms should include a public defender's office, punishment of prosecutors who break the rules and opening the courts to inmates pursuing innocence claims.

"We like to pretend the system in this state works," Blackburn said. "But we've got to stop lying to each other." Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Federal Court Upholds College Aid Restrictions for Drug Offenders

From The School Law Blog: A federal appeals court has rejected a constitutional challenge to a federal law that restricts, and in some cases bars, students with drug convictions from participation in federal college aid programs.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, in St. Louis, ruled in Students for Sensible Drug Policy Foundation v. Spellings that the controversial sanctions do not violate the double-jeopardy clause of the 5th Amendment.

Read full article here. Sentencing Law & Policy post here. [Brooks Holland]

Students Put their heads Together to Fix Maryland's Crime Problem

From baltimoresun.com: In a city where leaders have for years tried and failed to curtail one of the nation's highest crime rates, a University of Maryland law professor has turned his classroom into a crime-fighting think tank.

University of Maryland professor Orde F. Kittrie is challenging his 13 students this semester to come up with workable ideas for making Baltimore and the rest of Maryland a safer place to live.

The proposals, due in the form of term papers, are not destined for burial in a dusty file cabinet, the product of mere intellectual exercise.

Instead, they will be submitted to public officials, including - at their request - State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy and Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, both of whom recently addressed Kittrie's class at the law school downtown.

The class, "Crime in Maryland: Problems and Proposed Solutions," has coalesced into a crusade to reduce crime, a seemingly intractable problem that has resisted most efforts at containment.

"Baltimore City is the one place that's not under control," Gansler told the students, noting that crimes committed by youths constitute the most crucial issue in law enforcement.

In that vein, four of Kittrie's students have chosen to focus on juvenile crime, and their chosen term-paper topics reflect their differing lines of attack. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Budget Cuts Put More Pressure on Public Defenders

From maysville-online.com: In response to the General Assembly decision to cut $2.5 million in Department of Public Advocacy funding in the next fiscal year, the DPA issued a three-page announcement regarding the future of public defender availability in Kentucky.

Already seeing a steady increase in case loads since 2000, the possibility of cutting attorneys and/or staff members, and increasing case loads is not something the department is looking forward to implementing, and has an alternative plan.

"The cut in DPA’s fiscal year 2009 budget is considerable, and cannot be justified in view of the inadequacy of past DPA funding and current increases in prosecutorial, law enforcement and corrections budgets. The Public Advocate has informed the Commission of a proposed plan to cut services in a way that would make every effort to minimize the impact on the liberty interests of most DPA clients," said Robert C. Ewald, DPA Commission Chairman in the announcement. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Public Forum on Preventing Wrongful Convictions

From newsli.com: On Friday, April 11th, the New York State Senate Democratic Task Force on Criminal Justice Reform will host a public forum at Stony Brook University on proposals to mandate electronic recording of custodial police interrogations.  This event will be the first of three forums across the state to address proposed reforms to our criminal justice system to prevent wrongful convictions of the innocent and convict the guilty. 

During these forums, Legislators and the public will hear testimony from experts and exonerees concerning reform measures that have been proposed in the New York State Legislature or by advocacy groups to help prevent wrongful convictions. Friday’s forum will focus on measures to address Mandatory Electronic Recording of Interrogations.

According to proponents of electronic recording of police interrogations, this protocol would save time and money, create undeniable evidence, resolve disputes involving allegations of police misconduct, and verify whether confessions are voluntary—benefits that might have contributed to the timely resolution of the 1990 People v. Martin Tankleff case if they had been in place at the time.

The confession obtained during Mr. Tankleff’s interrogation by police regarding the murder of his parents was called into question, and after 17 years in prison, his conviction was unanimously overturned by the New York State Appellate Court, 2nd Department in light of new evidence of his innocence. Mr. Tankleff will be present and his representatives are among those scheduled to testify. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Question from the Past: Death for Rape?

From abajournal.com: It was 44 years ago this spring that the state of Missouri put to death Ronald Wolfe for the crime of rape. Though no one could know it then, his execution would prove to be the end of an era. Rape had been a capital crime for much of Ameri­can history, and it remained so through the middle decades of the 20th century, almost exclusively in the South. About nine of 10 of those sentenced to death for rape during those years were black.

In 1977, a year after having restored the death penalty as a constitutional punishment for murder, the U.S. Supreme Court branded death a cruel and unusual pun­ishment for rape. The justices overturned a death sentence for three-time rapist Ehrlich Coker and strongly suggested that only homicide qualifies as a capital crime. Coker’s victim was just 16 years old, but she was referred to as an “adult woman” in Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584.

“We have the abiding conviction that the death pen­alty, which is unique in its severity and irrevocability, is an excessive penalty for the rapist who, as such, does not take human life,” wrote Justice Byron White.

On April 16, the court will reconsider that “abiding conviction” in the case of a convicted child rapist from Louisiana. Kennedy v. Louisiana, No. 07-343.

When Patrick Kennedy, a black man, was sentenced to die for the rape of his 8-year-old stepdaughter, he was the only person on death row in this country for a crime other than murder. In 1995, Louisiana became the first state to restore capital punishment for the rape of a child under 12. Since then, four other states—Montana, Okla­homa, South Carolina and Texas—have authorized capital punishment for child rape, albeit for a second conviction for sexual assault of a child. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

New Bill Passed in VA to Notice to Convicts when DNA Evidence is Found in Old Labs

From inrich.com: A state budget amendment would require the Virginia Forensic Science Board to notify felons when biological evidence is found in their old lab files.

More than 530,000 files from 1973 through 1988 -- before DNA testing was widely used in criminal cases -- have been searched in recent years to find biological material that might exonerate those wrongfully convicted.

The amendment, passed by the General Assembly, must be signed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine next month to take effect. It was drafted by Del. David B. Albo, R-Fairfax, chairman of the Virginia State Crime Commission and a member of the forensic science board.

Albo, a lawyer, said he believes no one notified will request testing because it would only confirm their guilt.

However, he added, if there is a chance that even one person is innocent, the effort must be made to make sure he or she knows of the newly discovered evidence.

At its January meeting, the board, which oversees the Department of Forensic Science, voted against a proposal to notify felons when biological evidence that may be suitable for DNA testing is found in their files. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

New Hampshire Agreed to Pay 1.85 Million to 30 Female Inmates

From concordmonitor.com: The state has agreed to pay $1.85 million to 30 female inmates and a corrections employee who accused former prison sergeant Douglas Tower of raping, assaulting or sexually harassing them.

The women will receive checks ranging from $6,000 to $228,000, said Assistant Attorney General Michael Brown yesterday. The payments settle the women's lawsuits against the state. They do not settle any claims brought against Tower personally.

Nor do they affect the 11 criminal trials Tower, 63, still faces over the sexual and physical assault of female inmates. Tower has already been convicted of six counts of rape and sexual assault against one female inmate and of physically assaulting another inmate.

Those assaults happened at Shea Farm halfway house in Concord. Tower is serving 20 to 40 years for the rape conviction alone.

The prison did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement reached yesterday. But Jeff Lyons, prison spokesman, said the prison has made several changes in light of the Tower investigation.

All office doors now have windows, so staff and inmates cannot be out of view. There are more cameras at Shea Farm, which has winding halls and remote living spaces. The department doubled security staff at Shea Farm and now has at least one female officer assigned to every shift, Lyons said.

Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

SCOTUS To Hear Self Representation Case

From USATODAY.com:  A shoe shoplifting incident that escalated into a lunchtime shooting in downtown Indianapolis nearly a decade ago is now the basis for the Supreme Court to decide how much latitude states have to determine if a defendant is capable of representing himself at trial.

The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments Wednesday in an Indiana case in which a Marion County judge decided a defendant with a history of mental illness was competent to stand trial, but not to represent himself as he requested.

When Ahmad Edwards appealed his conviction of attempted murder and other charges, the Indiana Supreme Court agreed Edwards had the right to represent himself and reversed his conviction.

The Indiana attorney general's office appealed, arguing that allowing mentally impaired defendants to represent themselves undermines fair trials and erodes public confidence in the system.

"The consequences often are disastrous for both the defendants and the integrity — not to mention dignity — of the criminal justice system," the Indiana attorney general's office wrote in its brief to the court. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Is Prison Food Punishment?

From boston.com: Savory it isn't: It's made of whole wheat bread, non-dairy cheese, raw carrots, spinach, seedless raisins, beans, vegetable oil, tomato paste, powdered milk and dehydrated potato flakes.

To prison officials, it's a complete meal. To inmates, it's a food so awful, they'd rather go hungry than eat it.

Now, in the latest legal battle over the prison cafeteria standard known as Nutraloaf, the Vermont Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether it's punishment or merely behavior modification.

On Monday, the court will hear arguments in a class action suit brought by prison inmates who say it's punishment and that anyone subjected to it should get a formal disciplinary process first.

Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

States Reconsider Life Sentences for Juveniles

From csmonitor.com:  How should a society treat its youngest criminal offenders? And the families of victims of those offenders?              

Half a dozen states are now weighing these questions anew, as they consider whether to ban life sentences for juveniles that don't include a option for parole – and whether those now serving such sentences should have a retroactive shot at parole.

      

Here in Illinois, proposed legislation would give 103 people – most convicted of unusually brutal crimes – a chance at parole          hearings, while outlawing the sentence for future young perpetrators.       

      

The proposal has victims' families up in arms, angry that killers they had been told were in prison for life might be given a shot at release and that they'd need to regularly attend hearings in the future, reliving old traumas, to try to ensure that these criminals remain behind bars.

      

Advocates of legislation, meanwhile, both in Illinois and elsewhere, note that the US is the only country in the world with anyone – nearly 2,400 across the nation – serving such a severe sentence for a crime committed as a juvenile. They criticize the fact that the sentence is often mandatory, part of a system devoid of leniency for a teenager's lack of judgment, or hope that youth can be reformed.

      

"Kids should be punished, and held accountable. The crimes we're talking about are very serious crimes," says Alison Parker, deputy director of the US program of Human Rights Watch and author of a report on the issue. "But children are uniquely able to rehabilitate themselves, to grow up and to change. A life-without-parole sentence says they're beyond repair, beyond hope."

      

The sentence is automatic for certain crimes in more than half of all states, part of a wave of "get tough" laws aimed at cracking down on rising crime rates during the 1980s and '90s. Which means judges often have little to no discretion when they mete out punishment. In many instances, they are prohibited from considering age or even whether the juvenile was the one who pulled the trigger. About a quarter of the juveniles serving life without parole sentences nationally were convicted of what is known as "felony murder," says Ms. Parker. They participated in a felony in which murder was committed, but they weren't the ones who did the actual killing. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Exnerated Florida Man Might Finally Be Compensated

From palmbeachpost.com: This time around, Alan Crotzer might get his money.

"From Al's perspective, finally having a glimmer of hope - to me, that's a hallelujah," said Michael Olenick, Crotzer's attorney.

Crotzer spent 24 years, six months, 13 days and four hours in prison for violent crimes he did not commit, and now Olenick is trying to get him compensated through a special bill in the Florida Legislature. These kinds of "oops, we're sorry" compensation votes are always touch-and-go, filled with emotion and politics and finger-crossing.

But this time, Olenick is pretty sure his client will see some money. They're asking for $1.25 million, and there seems to be the right support.

Initially represented by the Innocence Project of Florida, Crotzer got out of prison in 2006 after DNA showed he could not have committed the crimes. Then from St. Petersburg, Crotzer, 47, was in prison for the 1981 kidnapping and rape of a Tampa woman and a 12-year-old girl. He was 20 years old.

"When I think about Al, I swear, I could break down and cry," Olenick said Monday.

Crotzer's compensation case is being argued on its own because Florida does not have a law setting uniform paybacks for DNA exonerees. Each one has to be argued on its own.

Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

House Democrats Balk at Giving Legal Protection to Phone Companies in Wiretapping Cases

From NYTimes.com: In continued defiance of the White House, House Democratic leaders are readying a proposal that would reject giving legal protection to the phone companies that helped in the National Security Agency’s program of wiretapping without warrants  after the Sept. 11 attacks, Congressional officials said Monday.      

Instead of blanket immunity, the tentative proposal would give the federal courts special authorization to hear classified evidence and decide whether the phone companies should be held liable. House Democrats have been working out the details of their proposal in the last few days, officials said, and expect to take it to the House floor for a vote on Thursday.

The Democrats’ proposal would fall far short of what the White House has been seeking.

President Bush has been insisting for months that Congress give retroactive immunity to the phone companies, calling it a vital matter of national security. The Senate gave him what he wanted in a vote last month that also broadened the government’s eavesdropping powers.

But House Democratic leaders have balked at the idea. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Arizona Considers Allowing Guns On Campus

From nytimes.com:   Horrified by recent campus shootings, a state lawmaker here has come up with a proposal in keeping with the Taurus .22-caliber pistol tucked in her purse: Get more guns on campus.

The lawmaker, State Senator Karen S. Johnson, has sponsored a bill, which the Senate Judiciary Committee approved last week, that would allow people with a concealed weapons permit — limited to those 21 and older here — to carry their firearms at public colleges and universities. Concealed weapons are generally not permitted at most public establishments, including colleges.

Ms. Johnson, a Republican from Mesa, said she believed that the recent carnage at Northern Illinois University could have been prevented or limited if an armed student or professor had intercepted the gunman. The police, she said, respond too slowly to such incidents and, besides, who better than the people staring down the barrel to take action?

She initially wanted her bill to cover all public schools, kindergarten and up, but other lawmakers convinced her it stood a better chance of passing if it were limited to higher education.

“I feel like our kindergartners are sitting there like sitting ducks,” Ms. Johnson said last week when the bill passed the committee by a 4-to-3 vote. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

New Jersey Police Can Now Trace the Source of Guns

From NPR.com: Unable to stop the tide of violence from illegal guns, New Jersey's cities are getting new-found help from the state police to track where the weapons are coming from. It's the first state in the nation to devise a comprehensive program to trace the guns and provide the information to cities doing battle against street violence. Listen. . . [Mark Godsey]

Cali Law Forces Sex Offenders into Homelessness

From NPR.com: A new report finds more convicted sex offenders in California homeless because of a state law restricting where they can live. Tom Tobin, a psychologist specializing in sex offender treatment, talks with Jacki Lyden about the findings. Listen. . . [Mark Godsey]

Phone Firms Seek Immunity

NPR.com: Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell says phone companies that cooperated with government eavesdropping programs after the Sept. 11 attacks deserve retroactive immunity from civil rights lawsuits. But is the Bush administration, which is pressing Congress to extend the immunity, simply trying to avoid embarrassing disclosures? Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Sullofol County NY PLans to Videotape all Interrogations

From newsday.com: Suffolk, NY's plan to begin videotaping police interrogations of homicide suspects has been several months in the making, and largely prompted by jurors' requests for more transparency in the taking of confessions, Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota said yesterday.

The new protocol was announced Wednesday by County Executive Steve Levy. It should result in stronger evidence and fewer questions about what takes place in an interrogation room, Spota said.

"I just think that this is the natural evolution of the interrogation process," said Spota, who expects to have the new process in place by the end of the year. "And quite frankly, I'm aware that it will increase the public's confidence ... in the integrity of the police's interrogations and their tactics."

Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Utah Passes Wrongly Incarcerated Compensation Bill

From sltrib.com: While money would not erase the pain of being wrongly convicted and imprisoned for a crime, it could help exonerated individuals start new lives when they walk out of prison and re-enter society.

    Such is the motivation behind SB16, sponsored by Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights. The measure passed unanimously out of the House Judiciary Committee Thursday morning.

    "You can try to imagine what it means to these people" - some come out of prison to no Social Security benefits, family, retirement or career, Bell said.

    To inmates proved factually innocent, SB16 would provide $35,000 - the average annual income in Utah - for each year of incarceration up to a maximum of 15.

    Bell's legislation would establish the process whereby inmates, convicted of felonies, could petition for hearings to determine their factual innocence.

    New DNA techniques have opened the doors to an entire category of recent exonerees nationwide, Bell said.

    "We've worked hard with advocates from the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center toward a common goal, to help these few cases that are so compelling," said Utah Assistant Attorney General Creighton Horton.

    "We don't know when and if we'll have one in Utah," Horton said, noting that some states have already had several. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Federal Judge Denies Motion to Suppress in Obscenity Case

From post-gazette.com: A federal judge yesterday denied a motion to suppress statements made by a Pennsylvania woman charged with transmitting obscene materials.

Karen Fletcher, 56, is charged with six counts of sending lewd stories, depicting the rape and killing of children, on the Internet.

Ms. Fletcher ran what was known as the "Red Rose" Web site, where she posted her fictional stories.

She charged subscribers -- there were only 29 -- $10 per month to belong to the site.

At a hearing yesterday before U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti, Ms. Fletcher's defense attorney tried to argue that when his client was interviewed by FBI agents in February 2005, she should have been read her Miranda rights, warning her that what she said could be used against her.

But the two FBI agents who interviewed her said at the time that they weren't even sure what Ms. Fletcher was doing was a crime.

"She did ask as we were leaving if she was in trouble and about her First Amendment rights," testified Special Agent Christopher Cantrell. "I told her I didn't know, because I didn't."

Ms. Fletcher is the first person charged in this district in decades with obscenity related strictly to written materials. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Lawyer in Atkins Case Comes Forwards About Prosecutorial Misconduct

From NYTimes.com: For 10 years, Leslie P. Smith, a Virginia lawyer, reluctantly kept a secret because the authorities on legal ethics told him he had no choice, even though his information could save the life of a man on death row, one whose case had led to a landmark Supreme Court decision.

Mr. Smith believed that prosecutors had committed brazen misconduct by coaching a witness and hiding it from the defense, but the Virginia State Bar said he was bound by legal ethics rules not to bring up the matter. He shared his qualms and pangs of conscience with only one man, Timothy G. Clancy, who had worked on the case with him.

“Clancy and I, when we were alone together, would reminisce about this and more or less renew our vows of silence,” Mr. Smith told a judge last month. “We felt that there was nothing that could be done.”

But the situation changed last year, when Mr. Smith took one more run at the state bar’s ethics counsel. “I was upset by the conduct of the prosecutor,” Mr. Smith wrote in an anguished letter, “and the situation has bothered me ever since.”

Reversing course, the bar told Mr. Smith he could now talk, and he did. His testimony caused a state court judge in Yorktown, Va., to commute the death sentence of Daryl R. Atkins to life on Thursday, citing prosecutorial misconduct.

It was in Mr. Atkins’s case that the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that the Constitution bars the execution of the mentally retarded. But Virginia continued to pursue the death penalty against him, saying he was not mentally retarded. If Thursday’s decision stands, that issue may never be resolved.

Mr. Smith had represented Mr. Atkins’s co-defendant, William Jones. In a tape-recorded debriefing session with prosecutors on Aug. 6, 1997, Mr. Jones told his version of the 1996 killing of Eric Nesbitt, whom the two men had robbed and forced to withdraw money from a bank machine.

The crucial point was who had shot Mr. Nesbitt. Under Virginia law, only the triggerman was eligible for the death penalty.

“As he began to describe the positions of the individuals and the firing of the shots,” Mr. Smith said last month, referring to his client, a prosecutor “reached over and stopped the tape recorder.” According to Mr. Smith’s testimony and a memorandum he prepared soon after the debriefing, the prosecutor, Cathy E. Krinick, said, “Les, do you see we have a problem here?”

The problem was that Mr. Jones’s account did not match the physical evidence. “This isn’t going to do us any good,” Ms. Krinick said, according to Mr. Smith. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Man on Ohio's Death Row Freed After Pleading No Contest

From AP.com:A British citizen who spent two decades on Ohio's death row was released from jail Monday after pleading no contest to three charges related to a fire that killed a 2-year-old girl.

Ken Richey, who once came within an hour of being executed, walked free for the first time since he was convicted of setting a northwest Ohio apartment fire that killed the toddler in 1986.

"It's great to finally be free at long last, and I'm looking forward to going home to Scotland," said Richey, wearing a blue, yellow and green Scottish cap called a glengarry. "It's been a long time coming."

He spoke with a thick Scottish accent at an Applebee's restaurant, where he stopped to have a steak lunch with his family and attorneys.

"He's told me that for 15 years that when he gets out that's what he's going to get," said his attorney, Ken Parsigian.

Prosecutors approved the deal after an appeals court overturned Richey's conviction and death sentence last year. The deal lets Richey, a dual U.S.-British citizen, go home to Scotland without admitting that he had anything to do with the fire. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Improperly Withheld Evidence May Boost Actual Innocence Claim

From Denverpost.com: Fort Collins, Colorado authorities violated evidence-discovery rules when they withheld expert opinions that conflicted with their theory that a 15-year-old Tim Masters murdered Peggy Hettrick in 1987, according to special prosecutors.

In a Wednesday court filing that legal experts say should boost Masters' bid for a new trial, Adams County District Attorney Don Quick's office acknowledged that four sets of evidence were kept from Masters' original attorneys prior to his 1999 trial.

They include a plastic surgeon's comments to Fort Collins police Detective Marsha Reed about the surgical nature of Hettrick's wounds. "None of the information from that conversation appears to have been memorialized by Det. Reed," the pleading states.

Other improperly withheld evidence includes:

• An FBI profiler's memos criticizing the psychological theory that Masters' violent art renderings revealed a fantasy motive to kill Hettrick.

• Details of an unsuccessful week-long surveillance of Masters a year after the 1987 murder.

• Almost 300 pages of research compiled by the prosecution's star witness, some referring to the surgical precision of wounds inflicted on her genitalia and breast. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Self Styled Freedom Fighter Receives New Trial

NYTimes.com: It has been a quarter-century since a group of self-styled freedom fighters, including Judith A. Clark, carried out an armored-car robbery in Rockland County, N.Y.

On Sept. 21, a federal judge overturned admitted participant Ms. Clark’s conviction, in a decision that held that she effectively had no legal counsel at her trial in 1983, when she chose to represent herself and then boycotted some of the proceedings.

“We in the law enforcement community are pretty outraged that this has transpired,” said Robert W. Van Cura, chief of the South Nyack police department. “The trial judge at the time went to great lengths to warn her about the dangers of self-representation. She clearly understood the proceedings.”

But friends and relatives of Ms. Clark were overjoyed by the decision. They and her lawyers say that since her conviction, Ms. Clark, the daughter of a onetime Communist newspaper editor and a prominent marketing executive, has become a new person, accepting responsibility for her actions and forging a strong relationship with her daughter, who was a baby at the time of the holdup.

“She’s a changed woman,” said Leon Friedman, one of Ms. Clark’s lawyers, who is a law professor at Hofstra University. “She is very sorry for what happened. She realizes what a terrible mess she made. She has taken all kinds of constructive steps in her life, and she’s a different human being than the one who took part in those terrible events.” Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Egyptian Lawmakers Push to Allow Abortions for Rape Victims

From gulfnews.com: With an estimated 20,000 cases of rape annually, some Egyptian lawmakers are pushing for giving rape victims the right to abortion.

According to the semi-official newspaper Al Ahram, an MP has presented a draft bill to the parliament demanding an amendment to the Egyptian law to allow pregnant woman, who has been raped, to go for abortion. The aim, according to MP Khalil Qouta, is to curb an increasing number of children of unknown parents in Egypt.

“Any girl or woman, who is subjected to rape, has the right in Islam to have abortion at anytime, and she would not commit a sin for doing this,” said Egypt’s top Muslim cleric Mohammad Sayed Tantawi.

Giving his blessing to the pro-abortion bill, Tantawi, who is the Grand Shaikh of Al Azhar, demanded that women given the right to abortion should have done their best to resist the rapist. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

NY is Failing to Provide Effective Counsel for Indigent Defendants

From NYCLU.com: New York State is failing in its constitutional duty to provide effective counsel to New Yorkers accused of crimes who cannot afford to pay private lawyers, according to a landmark lawsuit filed today by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the law firm of Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP.

“Every day, in courtrooms throughout the state, New Yorkers are denied justice simply because they are poor. Justice should not depend on your ZIP code or the size of your wallet,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU. “We filed this lawsuit today as a last resort, in response to the constitutional deficiencies identified by a commission appointed by Chief Judge Kaye to evaluate our public defense system, and the failure of lawmakers to compel the state to repair what is clearly a broken and unjust system.”

The class action lawsuit charges that a lack of adequate funding, oversight and statewide standards is denying New Yorkers accused of crimes their lawful right to competent, qualified and timely representation at all stages of the justice process, a violation of the U.S. Constitution, the state constitution and the laws of New York. Plaintiffs are defendants in Onondaga, Ontario, Schuyler, Suffolk and Washington counties who have encountered these problems. The plaintiffs seek reform on behalf of all defendants who are or will be charged with felonies, misdemeanors or lesser offenses and who cannot afford a lawyer. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Wife of Execute Man Who Was Denied Appeal Files Federal Lawsuit

From chron.com: The wife of executed killer Michael Richard filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday accusing Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller of causing the inmate's Sept. 25 lethal injection.

Marsha Richard of Houston claims Keller had no authority to prevent what would have been a successful appeal to stay her husband's execution.

The lawsuit says Keller violated Michael Richard's due process rights when she ordered the court clerk's office to close promptly at 5 p.m. on Sept. 25 before his lawyers could file an appeal. Houston attorney David Dow had asked for more time after having computer problems.

The suit names Keller in her individual and official capacity, as well as other unnamed defendants in their individual and official capacities.

Through her secretary, Keller said she had no comment. The judge has served on the Court of Criminal Appeals since 1994.

Marsha Richard seeks a federal order that bars Keller, the Court of Criminal Appeals and its clerk from stopping emergency death penalty appeals from being filed in either paper or electronic form. She also seeks unspecified financial damages, attorneys' fees and court costs.

"He was on death row, so chances are he was going to be executed. But to have your appeal denied for no rhyme or reason? That's wrong," Marsha Richard, 43, said during a news conference outside the Houston federal courthouse Wednesday. The home health aide married Michael Richard in 2002. "No matter what side of the death penalty you fall on, we're still dealing with human beings. Their lives are in the balance."

This week, the state criminal appeals court said it would accept emergency e-mail filings in death penalty cases in order to avoid a repeat of Michael Richard's nationally controversial execution.

Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Wife of Execute Man Who Was Denied Appeal Files Federal Lawsuit

From chron.com: The wife of executed killer Michael Richard filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday accusing Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller of causing the inmate's Sept. 25 lethal injection.

Marsha Richard of Houston claims Keller had no authority to prevent what would have been a successful appeal to stay her husband's execution.

The lawsuit says Keller violated Michael Richard's due process rights when she ordered the court clerk's office to close promptly at 5 p.m. on Sept. 25 before his lawyers could file an appeal. Houston attorney David Dow had asked for more time after having computer problems.

The suit names Keller in her individual and official capacity, as well as other unnamed defendants in their individual and official capacities.

Through her secretary, Keller said she had no comment. The judge has served on the Court of Criminal Appeals since 1994.

Marsha Richard seeks a federal order that bars Keller, the Court of Criminal Appeals and its clerk from stopping emergency death penalty appeals from being filed in either paper or electronic form. She also seeks unspecified financial damages, attorneys' fees and court costs.

"He was on death row, so chances are he was going to be executed. But to have your appeal denied for no rhyme or reason? That's wrong," Marsha Richard, 43, said during a news conference outside the Houston federal courthouse Wednesday. The home health aide married Michael Richard in 2002. "No matter what side of the death penalty you fall on, we're still dealing with human beings. Their lives are in the balance."

This week, the state criminal appeals court said it would accept emergency e-mail filings in death penalty cases in order to avoid a repeat of Michael Richard's nationally controversial execution.

Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Judge Claims Vulgar Comments Were Intended to Theraputically Benefit Defendants

From seattleweekly.com: All right, what do you say to a career criminal who tells you to suck his dick? On Jan. 23, King County District Court Judge Mark Chow's response was: "I would, if you pulled it out—but you can't find it."

Chow now regrets that, but it seemed a fair enough rejoinder to someone he'd just sent back to jail with a record of more than 30 theft convictions and 10 assaults. Yet later that day, Chow moved from the jail court to the mental health court, and asked a female defendant, "What flavor are you?" Japanese, she replied. "No Chinese? See I'm Chinese," Chow shot back. No Chinese, she said. "That's OK," Chow replied. "My wife's Japanese; you've got some good." When another woman stepped to the bench, he said, "I think I know what flavor you are, so I'm not even going to ask."

The 53-year-old Chow, a judge for 16 years, now stands before the state Commission on Judicial Conduct facing ethics violations for lack of courtroom decorum and undignified comments. He's had a few run-ins before: a 1996 CJC admonishment for improperly involving himself in a relative's divorce case, and a 2002 lawsuit for sexual harassment filed by a mental health court worker (the case was later tossed).

His recent comments in the mental health court now seem to be the CJC's biggest concern. Chow has hired a high-profile attorney, Anne Bremner, and is mounting an unusual defense: His racial comments were intended to therapeutically benefit the defendants.

In a written response to the CJC, signed by Chow and authored by Bremner, he says "therapeutic jurisprudence" allows a judge to interact with mental health defendants through "purposeful engagement." That's a clinical way of saying that friendly racial banter reduces a defendant's anxiety. Bremner says it "therapeutically creates a non-adversarial environment. IT WAS IN THIS CONTEXT [caps hers] that Judge Chow was using such engagement" with the women in mental health court.

Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Defense Attorneys Move to Dismiss DUIs Due to Washington Lab Misconduct

From seattlepi.com: Defense attorneys will start arguing next week to dismiss hundreds of drunken-driving cases across Washington based on what they allege is a pattern of misconduct and incompetence at the state toxicology lab.

Already, 36 people arrested on suspicion of DUI had their licenses reinstated last month, after several Department of Licensing hearing examiners expressed a lack of confidence in the Seattle lab's test results.

One examiner allowed a 49-year-old Puyallup man to keep his license, despite a second DUI arrest five days before his hearing. A 50-year-old Yakima County woman with a prior DUI also got to keep driving.

A flurry of motions to dismiss pending criminal cases or suppress breath-test results have been filed after the resignation of lab manager Ann Marie Gordon in July amid allegations that she signed false statements about her work.

And the recent discovery of a two-year error in the way the lab calibrated its breath-test machines, which slightly skewed some results, has added new complaints.

State officials, however, said Wednesday that the calibration error significantly affected only eight DUI cases and has no bearing on the overall accuracy of breath tests.

"We still have confidence in our test results," said Jeff DeVere, spokesman for the Washington State Patrol, which oversees the lab.  Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law Presents a Film on a Wrongfully Convicted Man and Bill to Prevent the Problem

A film about wrongful convictions followed by a discussion with an Arizona man wrongfully imprisoned for eight years will be held on Sept. 27 at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.

In addition, a bill drafted by ASU law students to compensate wrongfully convicted Arizonans will be discussed. The bill soon will be introduced into the Arizona Legislature.

The film, After Innocence , tells the story of seven men imprisoned for decades and their efforts to rebuild their lives after DNA evidence proved their innocence.“The men are thrust back into society with little or no support from the system that put them behind bars,” according to the film’s Web site. “While the public views exonerations as success stories – wrongs that have been righted – After Innocence shows that the human toll of wrongful imprisonment can last far longer than the sentences served.” 

The film features Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, founders of the Innocence Project, which has helped to exonerate the more than 200 people freed through the use of DNA testing in the last decade. It also highlights the work of human-rights activist Dr. Lola Vollen, co-founder of the Life After Exoneration Program.

Following the film, Ray Girdler, a Prescott man who spent eight years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of arson and murder in the deaths of his wife and daughter, will discuss his experience. Girdler will be joined by his attorney, Larry Hammond, who eventually proved the fire was accidental, securing Girdler’s release.

Hammond, of Osborn Maledon, and others founded The Arizona Justice Project, which was established in 1998, making it the fifth organization in the United States set up to help inmates overturn wrongful convictions. Today, there are more than 40 similar organizations throughout the country.

[Mark Godsey]

Different Perspective on America's Growing Prison System

From boston.com: What if America launched a new New Deal and no one noticed? And what if, instead of lifting the unemployed out of poverty, this multibillion-dollar project steadily drove poor communities further and further out of the American mainstream?

That's how America should think about its growing prison system, some leading social scientists are saying, in research that suggests prisons have a far deeper impact on the nation than simply punishing criminals.

Fueled by the war on drugs, "three-strike" laws, and mandatory minimum sentences, America's prisons and jails now house some 2.2 million inmates - roughly seven times the figure of the early 1970s. And Americans are investing vast resources to keep the system running: The cost to maintain American correctional institutions is some $60 billion a year.

For years sociologists saw prisons - with their disproportionately poor, black, and uneducated populations - partly as mirrors of the social and economic disparities that cleave American life. Now, however, a new crop of books and articles are looking at the penal system not just as a reflection of society, but a force that shapes it.

In this view, the system takes men with limited education and job skills and stigmatizes them in a way that makes it hard for them to find jobs, slashes their wages when they do find them, and brands them as bad future spouses. The effects of imprisonment ripple out from prisoners, breaking up families and further impoverishing neighborhoods, creating the conditions for more crime down the road. Prisons have grown into potent "engines of inequality," in the words of sociologist Bruce Western; the penal system, he and other scholars suggest, actively widens the gap between the poor - especially poor black men - and everyone else. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Due to Tougher Gun Laws, Criminals Turn to Knives

From boston.com: Despite a much-touted reduction in shootings in Boston, police are now confronting a troubling rise in the number of stabbings, which have jumped 10 percent over the same period last year and are on track to reach their highest point in four years.

Savvy criminals, aware of the tougher punishments levied for gun violations, have begun wielding blades instead, Boston law enforcement officials believe.

Gangs are instructing members to carry knives rather than risk an 18-month minimum sentence for possessing an unlawful firearm, Superintendent Daniel P. Linskey said, and more young people are carrying the weapons for protection, then using them to hurt rivals during fights.

"Carrying a knife is not going to expose anyone to a minimum of 18 months or beyond," said Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley. "And they're more easily accessible, too. You can pick up a knife at an army-navy store, or mom-and-pop variety store."

Police reported 350 stabbings from Jan. 1 to Sept. 10, which was 10 percent more than in the same period last year. Shootings, meanwhile, plunged nearly 18 percent, from 283 to 233 for the same time period. The number of stabbings through Aug. 26, the latest date for which year-to-year comparisons were available, is at the highest level since 2004. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Proposed Bills to Stop Wrongful Convictions

Three bills in the California Legislature would help prevent wrongful convictions, such as the wrongful conviction of Herman Atkins who recently posted a video telling his story:

• Senate Bill 511 (Alquist) will require the electronic recording of police interrogation in cases involving homicides and other violent felonies. 
• Senate Bill 756 (Ridley-Thomas) will require the appointment of a task force to draft guidelines for the conduct of police line-ups and photo arrays to increase the accuracy of eyewitness identifications. 
• Senate Bill 609 (Romero) will require the corroboration of testimony by jailhouse informants.  

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice—a group of law enforcement officers, prosecutors and defense attorneys—has recommended all three reforms.

Californians can take action to suport these bills by contacting the State Assembly at www.aclunc.org/justice. Watch Atkins video. . . [Mark Godsey]

Proposed Gun Stamp Law Could Lower Crime

From latimes.com: A proposed state bill requiring all new handguns to be stamped with microscopic identification tags could significantly decrease violence and shut down the illegal gun market if passed, proponents said in a news conference Tuesday.

The Crime Gun Identification Act, AB 1471, would require that lasers be used to create a "microstamp" of each gun's make, model and serial number that would become imprinted onto shell casings when a bullet is fired. The technology was demonstrated Tuesday by its co-inventor, Todd Lizotte, at the Los Angeles Police Academy.

The microstamp is designed to help law enforcement officials trace shell casings back to a gun's registered owner, said Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), who wrote the bill.

Opponents of AB 1471 -- mostly gun lobbyists, according to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa -- believe the technology is vulnerable to tampering and does not prevent unlicensed criminals from using the stamped guns.

"These bills come up every year and are under the guise of lowering crime but don't deal with the criminal element," NRA spokeswoman Ashley Varner told the Pasadena Weekly in March.

In letters to Assembly members, the Golden State 2nd Amendment Councilwrote that microstamping was "unproven technology" that could cause crime scenes to "easily be contaminated by a criminal throwing down a handful of shell casings he picked up from the local gun range." Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Ohio Judge Tries to Fight CSI Effect

From oxfordpress.com: Jurors in Butler County, Ohio Common Pleas Judge Patricia Oney's courtroom have limited television viewing choices until the verdict is in. In fact, the Disney Channel may be the best bet.

For nearly a decade, judges, prosecutors and detectives have been experiencing the "CSI blowback" in local courtrooms. This has created an unrealistic expectation of what can and cannot be done with evidence in the minds of jurors, said Oney, who was a defense attorney before donning the black robe.

Oney has upped her standard instruction for jurors. Media coverage of the case is a given and routine instruction for judges, but she also has a list of fictional viewing "no-nos."

"So many shows now are pulled in part from cases all over the country," Oney said. "I don't want jurors watching them while they are in deliberation."

Butler County Prosecutor Robin Piper said seminars in "dealing with the 'CSI' effect" are common in training conferences for attorneys, and last week before a murder case, Assistant Prosecutor Jason Phillabaum said "CSI" is to forensics as "Star Trek" is to space travel. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Justice Dept Grant to Stop Porn Brings Zero Prosecutions

From NYTimes.com: Tom Rogers, a retired Indianapolis detective, toils away most days in his suburban home office reviewing sexual Web sites and other Internet traffic to see whether they qualify as obscene material whose purveyors should be prosecuted by the Justice Department.

His work is financed by a Justice Department grant initially provided through a Congressional earmark inserted into a spending bill by Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia.

The grant, about $150,000 a year, has helped pay for Mr. Rogers and another retired law enforcement officer in Reno, Nev., to harvest and review complaints about obscene matter on the Internet that citizens register on the Justice Department Web site.

In the last few years, 67,000 citizens’ complaints have been deemed legitimate under the program and passed on to the Justice Department and federal prosecutors.

The number of prosecutions resulting from those referrals is zero.

That may help explain why no one — not Justice Department officials, not Mr. Wolf, not even the religious antipornography crusader who runs the program — seems eager to call the project a shining success. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

ABA Proposal Could Lead to the Loss if Record Access

From baltimoresun.com: The public could lose access to certain arrest and court records, even those of people convicted of serious crimes, under a proposal being considered by the nation's largest organization of lawyers.

An American Bar Association committee that drafted the proposal says ready access to court records has led to employment and housing discrimination against people who were arrested but never convicted of crimes or who have completed sentences and returned to society.

News media organizations say limiting public access to records, which would require changes to state and federal law, would violate the First Amendment and make it harder to expose misconduct by police and prosecutors. Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

The Jailhouse Conversion Story

From npr.com: The jailhouse conversion story has long been a part of prison culture. But there's now a movement converting inmates to religious and political extremists, embracing violent ideologies such as white supremacy, or so called "prison Islam." Mark Hamm, a professor of criminology at Indiana State University, talks about his research of so-called radicalized prisoners.

Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]

Christian Science Monitor New York Innocence Project Director Huy Dao

From csmonitor.com: Recently the Christian Science Monitor released an article spolighting New York Innocence Project Director Huy Dao.  Here is a portion of the article:

The prisoner's name is one that Huy Dao has never forgotten. For years, it would resurface amid the thousands of requests for free legal aid that flood his office – an annual, meticulously typewritten plea for help, a last-ditch effort from a man convicted of rape but convinced of his innocence.

Mr. Dao turned that case down in 1997, but he still can't put it out of his mind. Maybe it was the fact that the man was from Philadelphia, where Dao grew up as the son of Vietnamese refugees, knowing what it's like to have cops look at you askance because of your skin color. Or that it smelled like a faulty conviction, but the evidence that could have provided an indisputable forensic verdict had been destroyed.

"There was something from the letters that he wrote back to me, screaming, basically, 'I have to be innocent, this can't be the end,' " recalls Dao, whose organization uses post-conviction DNA testing to help wrongfully convicted prisoners gain freedom. "It's not fair. But it's my job to evaluate whether DNA can prove innocence, and the answer [in this case] is no."

Such are the difficult decisions that echo in the conscience of the case director of New York's Innocence Project, a 15-year-old nonprofit that recently won its 205th exoneration of an innocent prisoner.

"Many clients write to us as a last resort. If we say no to their cases, they may very well die in prison," says staff attorney Vanessa Potkin, a colleague of Dao's. "Huy has had to live with that burden for so many years." Rest of Article. . . [Mark Godsey]