The Positive Side of a Poor Economy

Because of revenue shortfalls, states are taking another look at the prison
population and re-evaluating the type of criminal who requires incarceration.

The end result is that prison populations (except in Florida) are dropping along
with lower national crime rates. This has not happened for the last FOUR DECADES.

To read more about this, click here for a Los Angles newspaper article.

The next consideration is going to revolve around the death penalty, in my opinion.
The many needed types of appeals and habeas petitions that are required
for a death penalty inmate cost a state millions of dollars. Remember that the state
invariably pays for the inmate's legal expenses as well as those of the prosecution.

Contrast this with the cost of keeping someone incarcerated for life
without possibility of parole and any cost/benefit analysis will lead to
the life sentence.

While the death penalty may not be stamped out, those eligible for
it will probably be more narrow (terrorist, serial killers, and child rapists).

It should prove interesting to see whether the public's vengeance
will be lessened by economic realities.

Wishing all readers a healthy and Happy New Year

Willing to give up some privacy to fly safer?

There is a screening unit available in Amsterdam that CANNOT be used on passengers flying into the United States because of privacy issues. The machine is a whole body xray type device that would show up anything taped to the body. The pictures are not saved and anything that would prevent a terrorist from boarding a plane is fine with me.

INSTEAD you can read this article about the ease of getting a device on board a plane

I copied the article from http://www.jsonline.com/news/80244882.html

Experts say anyone who's determined to smuggle bomb components onto a flight can do so

By Meg Jones of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Dec. 29, 2009

Smuggling explosives onto a plane - as happened on a Detroit-bound flight Christmas Day - is not difficult, aviation security analysts say. If someone really wants to bring bomb-making components onto a commercial plane, it can be done.

Perhaps bomb-sniffing dogs or a pat-down or the new high-definition screening devices might have detected the chemical explosive Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab secreted on his body. Then again, they might not have caught him, considering passengers can bring 3-ounce containers of liquids on board.

"You don't have to be James Bond to figure this out," said Todd Curtis, an aviation industry security expert.

One security analyst says only two changes have made flying safer since Sept. 11, 2001 - stronger cockpit doors and passengers more willing to resist terrorists, which is just what happened in the skies near Detroit.

Bruce Schneir, a security expert and author, pointed out that Chechen terrorists used the same method to bring down two Russian airliners on the same day five years ago when female passengers smuggled the same type of chemical explosive aboard in their underclothes.

"Anyone who thinks they couldn't do this isn't paying attention," said Schneir, who has been an adviser to the Transportation Security Administration.

"There's no way to prevent this, absolutely not. The way you become safer is through investigation and analysis," Schneir said. "Clearly there was a breakdown, and the breakdown happened long before he got to the airport."

Though some airports overseas may appear to have lax security screening standards compared with the United States, all passengers traveling on U.S.-bound flights must go through security screening that's as strict as that in American airports. Security screening at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, which is where Abdulmutallab boarded the flight to Detroit, is similar to American security procedures.

It's possible high-definition screening devices, which clearly show body contours, will be used in more U.S. and overseas airports.

"You can say 'Well, he got through Nigeria's screening and Amsterdam's security.' He probably would have gotten through ours, too," said Tom Bunn, a retired Pan Am and United pilot who is president and founder of SOAR, a program that helps people who fear flying. "If they do such a good job of lining his underwear (with explosives), it's not going to show up except for this high-definition screening device."

Security rules in flux

Meanwhile, in-flight security rules appear to have relaxed after a clampdown that prevented passengers from moving around the cabin an hour before landing. At the captain's discretion, passengers can now keep blankets and computers on their laps. A Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman said the agency was "continually reviewing and updating" security measures.

Restrictions on in-flight entertainment systems that show the plane's path were also lifted.

For practical reasons, it's not possible to pat down every passenger or have bomb-sniffing dogs examine every suitcase and carry-on bag, said Curtis, a former Boeing airline safety engineer who founded an aviation safety Web site, AirSafe.com.

Bunn pointed out that the December 1988 explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, was caused by a radio packed with explosives. At the time, security screening was much more stringent at European airports than in the U.S. It wasn't until after Sept. 11, 2001, that security at American airports became just as stringent.

"Clearly it's a cat and mouse game. We can develop technology which will be very effective in staying ahead of what terrorists can do, but it will require a lot of money and public will to do it. We tend to do things like closing the barn door after the horses have bolted," Bunn said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Police in LA Oppose Financial Disclosure Rules

Following the scandals that involved police and members of the public in the Los Angeles Rampart Division (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rampart_scandal ), LAPD ordered that members of gang units be required to complete financial disclosure forms. The police union and some veteran officers opposed this and the Police Protective League has filed legal challenges that have to date been unsuccessful. What has resulted are vacant positions with gang units that some are blaming on the disclosure requirements.

Financial disclosure forms have been used and are being used by other police departments and federal agencies with seemingly no problems. The L.A. Police Protective League claims the other forms are not as extensive.

Both sides raise legitimate issues. It appears to an outsider that the actions of the veteran officers who are preaching to new recruits about the dangers of disclosure forms raises a multitude of questions. The forms are extensive and require officers to disclose outside income, real estate, stocks and other assets. They also have to report the size of bank accounts and debts, including mortgages and credit cards. And the disclosures apply to any financial holdings a cop shares with family members and business partners.

Read the article and decide for yourself why this is having such an impact on filling open positions.

A Prison In One's Home

If you are exceptionally wealthy, charged with a crime, and considered a flight risk, bail is no longer the only alternative. There are now companies who specialize in setting up security and guaranteeing the court that the individual will abide by all conditions of release within their own homes. These conditions can include not being allowed to open a window or go out on the balcony, no visitors who are not on an approved list, no Internet, ad infinitum.

Although one would assume that being confined within one's own home would be everyone's first choice, some find institutionalized is more appealing and less confining. Surprising but true.

This article provides some insight into what is involved when an outside company is your "jailer."

Taking away an individual's freedom causes mental anguish no matter how pleasant the surroundings. 

Kill Your Husband and face execution or freedom

Two women in similar circumstances killed their husbands and put forth battered woman's syndrome as a defense. A pastor's wife served less than 90 days in a mental health facility and the other woman is facing execution. Both cases were tried in Tennessee.

In an attempt to explain the different outcomes, a local reporter has put together an excellent article. You can read it here. This is another example of how uneven justice can be.

Court Fees Go Up

This is of general interest. It comes from a blog called
Grits For Breakfast:

Monday, December 21, 2009

I know, you're shocked: Texas fines, fees, court costs went up in 2009

Just in from the Comptroller:

• Court Costs, Fees and Fines for Justice, County, and District Courts: Summary of legislative changes made by the 81st Texas Legislature, Regular Session, 2009 (pdf)

Let's run through a few highlights from this rather dry document:

As usual, what we see here is for the most part a one-way ratchet: Only new fees are created and costs only ever go up. Fees charged for documents and routine job functions of the courts are increasing. (The only notable exception to that trend is the allowance for waiver of a fee for expunction related to an acquittal.)

There's a new fee for being arrested:

WARRANT FEE: A defendant convicted of a felony or misdemeanor shall pay $50 for a law enforcement agency’s execution of an issued arrest warrant, capias or capias pro fine, if the agency requests the court, not later than the 15th day after the date of execution, to impose the fee.

And there's another fee for not arresting you but instead writing a notice to appear in court:

Arrest Fee: $5 for issuing a written notice to appear in court following the defendant’s violation of a traffic law, municipal ordinance or penal law or for making an arrest without a warrant. (Art. 102.011, Code of Criminal Procedure)

There's a new $25 fee for anyone who elects to pay fines on a time payments, split 60-40 between the state and county courts..

The new veterans court program notably includes a "reasonable program fee not to exceed $1,000" along with "a testing, counseling and treatment fee in an amount necessary to cover the costs of any testing, counseling or treatment performed or provided under the program."

Adult probationers and parents of youth committed to TYC will be assessed a $34 fee to have their DNA swabbed for inclusion in the statewide database.

I also learned for the first time from this document about a bill that received little attention during the 81st Legislature (certainly by me) but which threatens to create a lot of mischief for folks caught up in the spiral of criminal fines and civil fees associated with unlicensed drivers and no-insurance tickets. Dubbed "Eric's Law," here's the comptroller's description:

House Bill 2012, effective Sept. 1, 2009, amends Section 521.457, Transportation Code, by enhancing the penalty for the offense of operating a motor vehicle without a valid driver’s license from a Class C misdemeanor to a Class B misdemeanor if it is shown at trial that the person was operating the motor vehicle in violation of the motor vehicle liability insurance requirement, and to a Class A misdemeanor if it is shown at trial that the person was operating the motor vehicle in violation of that requirement and caused or was at fault in a motor vehicle accident that resulted in serious bodily injury to or the death of another person.

With one in four Texas drivers still uninsured despite millions of no-insurance tickets given, I seriously doubt this new law will change the number of uninsured drivers on the road. And the reason Texas' has so many drivers without licenses is that after they get a no-insurance ticket, the state suspends their driver licenses if they can't pay their steep "Driver Responsibility Fee," which is a civil penalty paid for three years after the offense on top of any criminal fines.

(BTW, I learned last week that the Department of Public Safety will next month finally be releasing its long-awaited new rules on indigency and amnesty programs for the Driver Responsibility Program. Stay tuned on that score. State Rep. Sylvester Turner's staff is trying to convince DPS to share the proposed rules with stakeholders before posting them in the Texas Register.)

HB 2012 will discourage indigent drivers from complying with the law by increasing fees and fines so high they can never pay their fines and fees and also pay for auto insurance. If Texas cities had good public transportation, that might not be a problem. But with 25% of drivers uninsured, if starting tomorrow they all complied with the law and quit driving, it would actually disrupt the economy from so many people unable to work.

This change won't do any more than the old law to encourage drivers to buy insurance or renew their licenses. Instead it will jack up the fines they owe to an unreasonable amount, needlessly fill up the jails with more low-level cases, and, for indigent drivers, compel counties to pay for more attorneys for Class B misdemeanors. In other words, the new law creates a lot of problems with no real upside but squeezing revenue from a source (drivers who can't afford insurance) who already cannot pay for their basic obligations as a driver.

None of that's the Comptroller's fault, of course. She's just the messenger. It's just a bit of a Grinch-ish message to deliver every biennium, much less during a recession, that "fines and fees are going up."

Posted by Gritsforbreakfast at 11:38 AM

Death Penalty Given Less Often

A New York Times article reveals that fewer

defendants are receiving a death sentence

across the country. The numbers in Texas

were quite dramatic: 9 sentenced as opposed

to an average of 34 in the 1990s.

Two thoughts to consider:

1) As exonerations rise, fewer are willing to

sentence to death someone who may in fact

not be guilty

2) Life without parole is safer than death in

situations where the defendant might be innocent.

Does the lower number mean that the end of

the death penalty in the United States is

arriving?

Only time will tell. For many, the

idea of spending decades in a small cement

box knowing that you will not leave prison

until death is worse than actually being

sentenced to die with a known date of execution.

For now when the crime is heinous, capital

punishment remains a favored choice.

This is needed everywhere

http://tinyurl.com/yln8j37

Crime and Justice News today:

How Home Visitation Programs Can Reduce Aggression, Violence

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Children raised in violent homes are more likely to be violent themselves.

A growing body of science suggests there are critical stages

when intervention can interrupt the cycle, reports the Los Angeles Times.

New findings in brain development, human behavior, and

economics suggest that early childhood is the most critical

and cost-effective time. "Children model what they see. If

they see the parents using physical aggression, then the child

will learn that when they meet life's frustrations, the right thing

to do is use physical aggression," said Seth Scholer,

a professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University.

A program called Parents Too Soon sends "educators" into

homes to teach young mothers about the social, emotional,

and brain development of children. In the last 20 years,

research has shown that these programs can improve parenting

skills, boost children's cognitive, and emotional development,

keep mothers on track academically and lower the risk of

child abuse and neglect, said Neil Guterman, a professor

at the University of Chicago and an expert on home visiting.

"There's strong evidence to show these programs, if implemented

properly, can improve the life course of the mother and the child," he said.

Truly Disturbing

Often, much too often, native American tribal living

conditions were ignored and now they have become

breeding grounds for gangs. Recently a bill was signed

to deal with money that belonged to the tribes but

was never given to them. Using those funds to build

new homes and infrastructures on tribal lands would

provide work for the inhabitants and improved

conditions. But that is easier written than accomplished

since tribal leaders must agree and assure that fraud

and other problems are not allowed to tarnish a vision of

a brighter future. Breaking the hold that these gangs

have on tribal youth will be a difficult task. Only the

tribal councils and tribal police have the authority to

deal with enforcement problems on tribal lands; let us

hope they can succeed.

This was copied from: http://tinyurl.com/ya9hgr2

THE NEW YORK TIMES

December 14, 2009

Gang Violence Grows on an Indian Reservation

By ERIK ECKHOLM

PINE RIDGE, S.D. — Richard Wilson has been a pallbearer for at least five of his “homeboys” in the North Side Tre Tre Gangster Crips, a Sioux imitation of a notorious Denver gang.

One 15-year-old member was mauled by rivals. A 17-year-old shot himself; another, on a cocaine binge and firing wildly, was shot by the police. One died in a drunken car wreck, and another, a founder of the gang named Gaylord, was stabbed to death at 27.

“We all got drunk after Gaylord’s burial, and I started rapping,” said Mr. Wilson, who, at 24, is practically a gang elder. “But I teared up and couldn’t finish.”

Mr. Wilson is one of 5,000 young men from the Oglala Sioux tribe involved with at least 39 gangs on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The gangs are being blamed for an increase in vandalism, theft, violence and fear that is altering the texture of life here and in other parts of American Indian territory.

This stunning land of crumpled prairie, horse pastures turned tawny in the autumn and sunflower farms is marred by an astonishing number of roadside crosses and gang tags sprayed on houses, stores and abandoned buildings, giving rural Indian communities an inner-city look.

Groups like Wild Boyz, TBZ, Nomads and Indian Mafia draw children from broken, alcohol-ravaged homes, like Mr. Wilson’s, offering brotherhood, an identity drawn from urban gangsta rap and self-protection.

Some groups have more than a hundred members, others just a couple of dozen. Compared with their urban models, they are more likely to fight rivals, usually over some minor slight, with fists or clubs than with semiautomatic pistols.

Mr. Wilson, an unemployed school dropout who lives with assorted siblings and partners in his mother’s ramshackle house, without running water, displayed a scar on his nose and one over his eye. “It’s just like living in a ghetto,” he said. “Someone’s getting beat up every other night.”

The Justice Department distinguishes the home-grown gangs on reservations from the organized drug gangs of urban areas, calling them part of an overall juvenile crime problem in Indian country that is abetted by eroding law enforcement, a paucity of juvenile programs and a suicide rate for Indian youth that is more than three times the national average.

If they lack the reach of the larger gangs after which they style themselves, the Indian gangs have emerged as one more destructive force in some of the country’s poorest and most neglected places.

While many crimes go unreported, the police on the Pine Ridge reservation have documented thousands of gang-related thefts, assaults — including sexual assaults — and rising property crime over the last three years, along with four murders. Residents are increasingly fearful that their homes will be burglarized or vandalized. Car windows are routinely smashed out.

“Tenants are calling in and saying ‘I’m scared,’ ” Paul Iron Cloud, executive officer of the Oglala Sioux (Lakota) Housing Authority, told the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in July at a special hearing on the increase of gang activity.

“It seems that every day we’re getting more violence,” Mr. Iron Cloud said.

Perhaps unique to reservations, rivals sometimes pelt one other with cans of food from the federal commodity program, a practice called “commod-squadding.”

As federal grants to Pine Ridge have declined over the last decade, the tribal police force has shrunk by more than half, with only 12 to 20 officers per shift patrolling an area the size of Rhode Island, said John Mousseau, chairman of the tribe’s judiciary committee.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has proposed large increases in money for the police, courts and juvenile programs, and for fighting rampant domestic and sexual violence on reservations.

Christopher M. Grant, who used to head a police antigang unit in Rapid City, S.D., and is now a consultant on gangs to several tribes and federal agencies, has noted the “marked increase in gang activity, particularly on reservations in the Midwest, the Northwest and the Southwest” over the last five to seven years.

The Navajo Nation in Arizona, for example, has identified 225 gang units, up from 75 in 1997.

One group that reaches across reservations in Minnesota, called the Native Mob, is more like the street gangs seen in cities, with hierarchical leadership and involvement in drug and weapons trafficking, Mr. Grant said.

Many of the gangs in Pine Ridge, like the Tre Tre Crips, were started by tribal members who encountered them in prison or while living off the reservation; others have taken their names and colors from movies and records.

Even as they seek to bolster policing, Pine Ridge leaders see their best long-term hope for fighting gangs in cultural revival.

“We’re trying to give an identity back to our youth,” said Melvyn Young Bear, the tribe’s appointed cultural liaison. “They’re into the subculture of African-Americans and Latinos. But they are Lakota, and they have a lot to be proud of.”

Mr. Young Bear, 42, is charged with promoting Lakota rituals, including drumming, chanting and sun dances. He noted that some Head Start programs were now conducted entirely in Lakota.

Michael Little Boy Jr., 30, of the village of Evergreen, said he had initially been tempted by gang life, but with rituals and purifying sweat lodges, “I was able to turn myself around.” He is emerging as a tribal spiritual leader, working with youth groups to promote native traditions.

Mr. Grant said a survey of young men in South Dakota reservations found that the approach might be helping.

Mr. Wilson, the 24-year-old gang member, said he regretted not learning the Sioux language when he was young and now wondered about his own future.

“I still get drunk and hang with my homeboys, but not like I used to,” he said.

His car, its windows shattered, sits outside his house, so he cannot get to the G.E.D. class he says he would like to attend. His goal is to run a recording studio where his younger half-brother, Richard Lame, 18, could make rap songs. Mr. Lame is finishing high school and says he wants to go to college.

But he admits that he still joined 30 or so homeboys in town to party any chance he got — “for the rush, the thrill.” As he spoke, he was dressed in the dark colors of his set, the Black Wall Street Boyz; his tiny bedroom was decorated with movie posters of Al Pacino as the megalomaniacal drug dealer Tony Montana in “Scarface,” and he wore a black bandanna.

He pulled out a thick sheaf of his rap lyrics and gave an impromptu performance.

Ever since birth

I been waitin’ for death ...

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Should a murderer ever get parole?

An article in the LA Times raises the issue of

whether parole can be denied solely on the

basis of the crime itself. If the Parole Board

says a prisoner has been rehabilitated and

should be paroled, should the governor simply

say I do not let murderers out and that ends

the situation.

Parole is a privilege and not a right, but if we

let sex offenders who probably pose a greater

threat of re-offending out, why is the door

closed when it is murder? Interesting issue

that deserves debate.

False Confessions

The Psychology and Power of False Confessions

in the newest issue of the Association for Psychological

Sciences is well worth your time. Click here to read it

Sheriff Joe defies government and its order

Copied from URL below:

latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-joe-arpaio12-2009dec12,0,2123666.story

latimes.com

Arizona sheriff ups the ante against his foes

Joe Arpaio has escalated his tactics, not only defying the federal government on immigration but launching repeated investigations of those who criticize him.

By Nicholas Riccardi

December 12, 2009

Reporting from Phoenix

The day after the federal government told Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio that he could no longer use his deputies to round up suspected illegal immigrants on the street, the combative Arizona sheriff did just that.

He launched one of his notorious "sweeps," in which his officers descend on heavily Latino neighborhoods, arrest hundreds of people for violations as minor as a busted headlight and ask them whether they are in the country legally.

"I wanted to show everybody it didn't make a difference," Arpaio said of the Obama administration's order.

Arpaio calls himself "America's toughest sheriff" and remains widely popular across the state. For two decades, he has basked in publicity over his colorful tactics, such as dressing jail inmates in pink underwear and housing them in outdoor tents during the brutal Phoenix summers.

But he has escalated his tactics in recent months, not only defying the federal government but launching repeated investigations of those who criticize him. He recently filed a racketeering lawsuit against the entire Maricopa County power structure. On Thursday night, the Arizona Court of Appeals issued an emergency order forbidding the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office from searching the home or chambers of a Superior Court judge who was named in the racketeering case.

Last year, when Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon called for a federal investigation of Arpaio's immigration enforcement, the Sheriff's Office demanded to see Gordon's e-mails, phone logs and appointment calendars.

When the police chief in one suburb complained about the sweeps, Arpaio's deputies raided that town's City Hall.

A local television station, KPHO, in a 10-minute-long segment last month, documented two dozen instances of the sheriff launching investigations of critics, none of which led to convictions.

The most notorious case involves county Supervisor Don Stapley, a Republican who has sometimes disagreed with Arpaio's immigration tactics. Last December, deputies arrested Stapley on charges of failing to disclose business interests properly on his statement of economic interest.

Stapley's alarmed supervisor colleagues had their offices swept for listening devices. Arpaio contended the search was illegal and sent investigators to the homes of dozens of county staffers to grill them about the sweep.

A judge in September dismissed several of the allegations against Stapley, and prosecutors dropped the case. Three days later, Arpaio's deputies arrested Stapley again after he parked his car in a downtown parking structure near his office.

No charges were filed until County Atty. Andrew Thomas -- Arpaio's ally in his fights with the supervisor -- charged Stapley this week with misusing money he raised to run for president of the National Assn. of Counties.

"It's just extraordinary, the kind of thing that takes place in Third World dictatorships," said Paul Charlton, a former U.S. attorney who is representing Stapley. He predicted the latest charges would also be dismissed. "So many people are of one mind on a single issue -- illegal immigration -- that they are willing to ignore these misdeeds."

Arpaio brushes off suggestions that he's used his office to go after critics. Many of the complaints, as in the Stapley case, come from targets of anti-corruption probes that started with tips rather than the sheriff's personal intercession.

"We don't abuse our power," Arpaio said in an interview. "We do what we have to do."

Arpaio, a Republican, is highly popular in Arizona. He won reelection last year with 55% of the vote in the state's most populous county. Though he has said he's not interested in running for governor, a recent poll showed him crushing the presumptive Democratic nominee, state Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard, 51% to 39%.

The sheriff was not always at war with much of the region's political establishment. A former official with the Drug Enforcement Administration who was first elected sheriff in 1992, Arpaio had support from the majority-Republican county Board of Supervisors and from local Latino leaders.

"He had a very good relationship with the Hispanic community," said Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, the lone Democrat and lone Latina on the board.

But by 2005, central Arizona was seething over illegal immigration. Crime was rising in Phoenix, a key smuggling hub that was becoming the kidnapping capital of the country.

Arpaio received a federal waiver, known as a 287(g), that allowed his deputies to enforce federal immigration laws. He said he had identified more than 30,000 illegal immigrants through his sweeps and interrogations in the county jail.

In October, the federal Department of Homeland Security revoked the 287(g) for Arpaio's street operations, though he could continue to question jail inmates about their immigration status.

Arpaio, however, said state law permitted him to continue his street operations and is awaiting a legal opinion from Thomas, the county attorney.

Latino community leaders say Arpaio has become more aggressive since he was stripped of some authority in the 287(g) program.

"It's actually gotten worse rather than better," said Salvador Reza, an activist who added that some immigrants don't dare turn the lights on in their homes at night for fear that Arpaio's deputies would knock at their doors.

A Homeland Security spokesman declined to comment, referring a reporter to statements Secretary Janet Napolitano gave to a liberal advocacy group in Washington.

Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona, said Arpaio "was unwilling to accept that there were standards that needed to be met. He wanted to go off on his own. And so that's where we had a parting of ways." She acknowledged, however, that state law would allow him to continue making his arrests.

The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a civil rights investigation into Arpaio's tactics. The sheriff has refused to cooperate and has called for an investigation of the investigators.

As Arpaio has fenced with the Obama administration, he has become embroiled in a sometimes-surreal battle with the five county supervisors who oversee his budget. Amid the recession, they have cut the sheriff's budget by 12.2%.

Arpaio and Thomas filed a federal racketeering lawsuit against the county supervisors, administrators and several judges who have ruled against the two in prior cases.

Arpaio and Thomas contended there was a conspiracy to assign the Stapley prosecution to an anti-Thomas judge, part of an effort to cover up what they call a wasteful county effort to build a new courthouse.

County officials noted that Arpaio and Thomas have sued them six times in efforts to regain power over their budgets -- and they lost every time.

Tensions escalated this week when the county attorney filed criminal charges against the presiding judge of the county's criminal courts, alleging bribery and obstruction of justice for ruling against Arpaio and prosecutors in some of those previous legal battles.

Wilcox, whom Thomas charged this week with violating state laws by voting on government contracts for a charitable organization that gave one of her businesses a loan, said she had been stunned by the sheriff's conduct.

"They have made life hell on everybody," she said of Arpaio and Thomas."Every time you speak out, they investigate you."

"Racketeering? That's just crazy," she added. "We're becoming the laughingstock of America."

nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

100 Year Old Dangerous Sex Offender

At age 90, he molested little girls. Why he

was sentenced to any term that would allow

him to walk out of prison is hard to understand.

Buffalo is now facing a dangerous 100-year old

sex offender who looks like a harmless old gent.

If there ever was a situation where community

policing could help by personally telling all

neighbors about this newly arrived resident,

this is it. One must hope all in the area are

aware of who he is and what he looks like.

This Oct. 15, 2009 photo obtained from the New York State Sex Offenders registry web site shows Theodore Sypnier. Sypnier, 100, New York state's oldest registered sex offender, could be released from a halfway house soon, much to the dismay of a prosecutor who says he remains a threat to children." This Oct. 15, 2009 photo obtained from the New York State Sex Offenders registry web site shows Theodore Sypnier. Sypnier, 100, New York state's oldest registered sex offender, could be released from a halfway house soon, much to the dismay of a prosecutor who says he remains a threat to children. AP Photo Western NY frets as 100-year-old molester is freed By CAROLYN THOMPSON Associated Press Writer Updated: December 10, 2009, 5:20 PM / Everything that pedophile Theodore Sypnier has to show for his 100 years on Earth is packed in a single duffel bag as he prepares to begin a new chapter in life: freedom. It's a chapter that prosecutors, judges and others who know him never wanted - or expected - to see written. New York's oldest registered sex offender is scheduled to move by week's end out of a Buffalo halfway house for released inmates and into a place of his own, after completing his latest term in state prison for molesting little girls. The judge who sentenced him said at the time that she expected him to die behind bars. But 10 years after his last arrest, as Sypnier prepared to shed the closely monitored lifestyle of the halfway house, its director warned that the spry and active Sypnier has not changed from the manipulator who used his grandfatherly charm to snare and rape victims as young as 4. "Whether he's 100 or 101 or 105, the same person that was committing these crimes 10, 25, 30 years ago still exists today and has an unrepentant heart," said the Rev. Terry King, director of Grace House, which has twice taken Sypnier in from prison. "He is someone that we as parents, as members of the community, any community, really need to fear." Six months after marking his 100th birthday in the Groveland Correctional Facility - becoming the first New York inmate to reach the milestone while incarcerated- the retired telephone company worker now says he wants to get to know the youngest members of a family that has disowned him. "I'll tell them I never harmed any children," the father, grandfather and great-grandfather told his hometown newspaper, The Buffalo News. A former daughter-in-law said he is not likely to get the chance. "No one from the family plans to have any contact with him," Diane Sypnier said before ending a brief phone interview. Being grandfatherly was how the 5-foot-5, 150-pound Sypnier found his victims, authorities say. After his most recent arrest at age 90 on charges of raping and sodomizing a 4-year-old girl and her 7-year-old sister, his neighbors in the suburb of Tonawanda recalled what appeared to be a kindly Sypnier offering rides to adults, handing out money to children so they could buy candy, and baby-sitting. The victimized sisters called him "Grandpa," their mother said at the time, adding that it "was a total shock" when police showed her sexually explicit pictures of her girls found in Sypnier's apartment. Sypnier's convictions date to 1987, when he was given three years' probation for sex abuse. He spent a year in prison for sexually abusing a minor in 1994. His neighbors in Tonawanda never knew of Sypnier's background because he was convicted before the adoption of laws requiring sex offenders to register with police. A relative once came forward and said Sypnier had molested her while she was growing up, former Erie County prosecutor Frank Clark told the News. Authorities wonder what else might lie in Sypnier's past. "People don't start to become pedophiles at 78," Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita told the AP. "I call them vampires. ... This is something that's deep inside of them, and they won't want to stop doing this until they're dead." But Sypnier says he is the victim of a miscarriage of justice, despite twice pleading guilty in the case involving the sisters. "Those children crawled into bed with me because they were frightened, but there was never any sexual hanky-panky," Sypnier told the News. Sypnier initially pleaded guilty in 2000 to two counts of rape, 15 counts of sodomy and endangering the welfare of a child for molesting the Tonawanda girls, as well as three in Buffalo. An appeals court threw out the conviction in 2002 after Sypnier claimed he was confused at the time, leading to another plea the following year to a lesser charge. In sentencing Sypnier to as many as 10 years in prison, state Supreme Court Justice Penny Wolfgang told him she expected he would spend the rest of his life behind bars. "The sheer notion of him wandering the streets unattended or unsupervised is a scary proposition," King said. Sypnier was released on parole in 2007, only to be returned to prison in 2008 after failing to attend sex-offender counseling. He completed his term in November and will be on parole through 2012. Until then, he's forbidden from using e-mail, chat rooms or social networking sites, hanging around playgrounds or schools, or spending time in bars. Instead, he spends his days watching television, cooking, socializing in the halfway house and attending programming, King said. Sypnier's new address has not been disclosed, but the law requires him to enter it in the state's sex offender registry. Although his age makes him New York's oldest registered sex offender, there is at least one older offender elsewhere. Bert Jackson of Utah is 103 and living under home confinement.

http://www.buffalonews.com/nationalworld/national/story/889828.html

© 2008 The Buffalo News.

Elect or Appoint is One Really Superior

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra

Day O'Connor is leading an effort to change

the way in which judges are selected in our

country. The article copied below was

featured on the Crime and Justice News

If you consider a voting ballot in Texas,

the names of judges are lower down in

a ballot with many choices. Only a tiny

number of voters know anything about

the judges.

How does one decide who is

a "good judge"? Is it more important for

the judge to apply the law scrupulously

and toss tainted evidence that allows

a heinous offender to go free or be so

generous with "good faith" exceptions

that offender stays behind bars?

This is an important issue that is rarely

given consideration. Maybe that will

change LOL:)

TheNewsTribune.com Section: - NEWS UPDATES

---

Justices making new push to abolish elected judges

By KRISTEN WYATT
An old debate about whether judges should be elected or appointed is heating up again.

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and several state Supreme Court justices are planning a nationwide push during next year's state legislative sessions to end the practice of electing judges. Nevada already has such a proposal before voters on the 2010 ballot.

Many judges and the American Bar Association argue the legal system is tainted by judges seeking campaign donations.

"It doesn't support the fundamental principle of judges acting fairly and impartially," Ohio Chief Justice Tom Moyer told The Associated Press.

A judicial think tank at the University of Denver has assembled a group of prominent judges, including O'Connor, to push for the abolition of directly elected judges in the 33 states that have them.

They want state commissions made up mostly of non-lawyers to pick judges. Governors would appoint judges the commissions select, and voters would decide in future elections whether the judges keep their jobs.

Current judicial elections give a false impression that voters have much invested in court picks, O'Connor said.

"A voter goes into the voting booth on Election Day, and they have a long list of races to vote for," O'Connor told the AP. "When they come to the judges, they don't typically know any of them. How are they supposed to decide?"

Open judicial races lead to pricey television campaigns in some states. That requires fundraising, often from trial lawyers or businesses interested in who decides cases that affect them.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly ruled that elected judges must step aside if campaign donations are likely to create the perception of bias. That ruling was sparked by a 2004 West Virginia case in which a state Supreme Court judge ruled on a dispute that affected a company whose owner spent $3 million to help get the judge elected.

"It really highlights the need for a change," said former Arizona state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor. Arizona has long used the appointment and retention-vote system backed by the Denver-based initiative.

McGregor said the rising expense of judicial races, topping $1 million in some states, could lead more states to follow Arizona.

"Contributions have gotten so enormous that it causes voters to step back and say, 'Isn't there better way?'" McGregor said.

But history suggests the appointed-judge initiative faces long odds.

Even O'Connor concedes only two states - Ohio and Minnesota - are likely to put the question before voters in the near future along with Nevada.

One of the nation's most prominent backers of appointed judges, Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, concedes his state has little appetite to forgo partisan judicial races.

"You have to be realistic. We've been trying to change this for 30 years," said Jefferson, who has been on Texas' highest court since 2001.

In Ohio, voters have rejected appointment schemes as far back as 1938. In 1987, Ohio voters again declined to change the state constitution to do away with elected judges.

"It has sort of an elitist tinge to say that voters aren't sophisticated enough to make this determination," said Jeff Patch, a spokesman for the Alexandria, Va.-based Center for Competitive Politics, which opposes campaign finance limits.

Patch said voters don't buy the argument that appointed judges, even those who face retention elections and performance reviews, are somehow insulated from accusations of bias. He pointed out the possibility of a governor appointing a donor to the bench, or a commission choosing a popular lawyer.

"To say that merit selection is going to be more ethical is pretty misguided," he said.

Rebecca Love Kourlis, executive director of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System and a former Colorado Supreme Court justice, said a pending decision from the U.S. Supreme Court could boost interest in the elected-judge debate.

The high court is expected to issue a ruling on campaign finance that could lead to fewer restrictions on how much businesses and unions can spend on favored candidates. If that happens, states could see more expensive judicial races.

"We think the timing is right" for a national debate on elected judges, Kourlis said. "Judicial elections have become so expensive, and so unseemly, that this is something ripe for action."

---

Unusual solution

There is an article in today's Findlaw's

blotter about a community in Florida

that is made-up of sex offender

housing. There is a church whose

membership is also made up of

sex offenders primarily.

This is an unusual approach but has

the underlying philosophy of trying

to assist these "outcasts" to have

housing and employment in addition

to other types of counseling and help.

All against a background of keeping

society's children safe from known

predators who are not in prison.

This seems like a good idea if it is

limited to truly low level offenders:

Teen who has willing sex with another

teen who is underage; touching incidents

and others where no children or rape

is involved.

Basic problem is that we apply the same

label to a multitude of different offenses.

Can you think of a better approach to

assisting these offenders?

It Works and Needs Replication

Copied from CrimProf BLog (http://tinyurl.com/yhg9njd)

"A Cincinnati experiment has changed the way police deal with gang violence"

The Crime Report has this interesting story here. In part:

The Cincinnati study provides a detailed account of how the city’s police force implemented the anti-violence strategy, which is based essentially on identifying gang members and then calling them in for a meeting, or a series of meetings, attended by both law enforcement and community representatives. There, they are told that they have two choices: they can continue their lawbreaking activities and face severe punishment; or they can agree to accept counseling or other services aimed at dealing with the problems that contributed to their gang participation.

The deep involvement of community leaders , parents and pastors, whose moral authority carries a powerful impact, combined with the threat of punishment acts as a form of focused deterrence, say adherents of the model. Similar strategies directed at gang members or drug dealers in cities like High Point, NC, Providence, RI and Hempstead, NY have resulted in a marked falloff in gang violence and the disappearance of open-air narcotics markets.

Is the law too broadly interpreted

The Constitution never defined due process, but

the Courts created a meaningful measurement.

A criminal statute, which leaves "honest-service"

fraud undefined, has been used in so many different

situations that the Supreme Court will hear cases

involving its application.

When you begin to read the article and the specific

charges against the named individuals, you think,

or I suspect you do, of wondering what the fuss is

about. The problem is that without specific parameters

written in the statute itself, by definition, the law can

easily be abused by prosecutors: this is not to say that

it has been, only that it could be.

It is important to the well being of our nation that elected

officials and those involved with companies whose

stockholders' interests are at stake be required to act

within the law. But one must know what is prohibited.

There is a major difference between a moral wrong and something

statutorily illegal. Legislators must clearly state the illegal and

not leave it up to executive branch of government to draw the

parameters of a statute. The Constitution requires that laws not

be vague for just this reason.

The following article was copied from the New York

Times web site on December 7, 2009 to allow you

to consider the need for Congress and other legislative

bodies to define any criminal action clearly.

December 7, 2009

Justices to Weigh Honest-Services Law

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

An unusual coalition of groups has come together to

criticize the federal government’s increasing reliance

on a statute that is commonly used but little understood:

honest-services fraud.

The honest-services law, on the federal books since 1988,

broadly requires that public and corporate officials

act in the best interests of their constituents or employers.

It has become an important tool for federal prosecutors,

who used it successfully against the lobbyist Jack Abramoff

and many of his associates. It is an element of the cases

against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois;

the former New York State Senate majority leader,

Joseph L. Bruno; and former Gov. Donald E. Siegelman of Alabama.

Prosecutors have described the law as a valuable instrument

against corruption at a time when officials have become

increasingly sophisticated at covering their tracks.

But critics say it is used too broadly, is applied inconsistently,

and too often criminalizes behavior that fails to merit the

full weight of federal prosecution. The Supreme Court

will hear three cases concerning the honest-services law

in this term, with two coming up for oral argument on Tuesday.

Opposition to use of the law has emerged from across the

political spectrum, from the United States Chamber of Commerce

and the Washington Legal Foundation on the right,

to the more left-leaning National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

“Could an insincere sermon at Sunday religious services come

within the statute?” asked the chamber, half sarcastically,

in a brief to the Supreme Court.

Justice Antonin Scalia has been harshly critical of the

honest-services law, writing in a recent dissent that it has

been applied to “a staggeringly broad swath of behavior.”

He said that it “invites abuse by headline-grabbing prosecutors

in pursuit of local officials, state legislators, and corporate

C.E.O.s who engage in any manner of unappealing or

ethically questionable conduct.”

One of the two cases coming before the court next week

involves Conrad M. Black, the newspaper executive

who was convicted of defrauding his media company,

Hollinger International. He is arguing that the law

should not be applied to him because he did not

contemplate “economic harm” to Hollinger.

In the second, Bruce Weyhrauch, a former Alaska state

legislator, was convicted of failing to disclose a conflict

of interest. He had not violated state law, however,

and argues that the federal prosecution on honest-services

charges violates important principles of federalism.

The third case, to be argued later in the term, involves

Jeffrey K. Skilling, the former chief executive of Enron.

He is arguing that the honest-services law is unconstitutionally vague.

Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility

and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit watchdog group,

scoffed at the idea that the law is so vague that people

do not know when they have crossed the line, especially

in the three cases before the Supreme Court.

“If you go to those cases — Black, Skilling and Weyhrauch —

and look at what they did, a kindergartner knows

that they were wrong,” she said. “It’s not credible

that those guys really had no idea that what they

were doing would get them into trouble. What they

thought was that they wouldn’t get caught.”

The watchdog group’s brief to the Supreme Court called

the law “an indispensable weapon in the prosecutorial

arsenal for fighting government corruption” since it offers

“a much easier evidentiary burden” than bribery law.

Critics of the law, however, say that its vagueness is used

to bolster corruption cases in which the evidence

might be weak or the offense, while perhaps distasteful, is minor.

That is the argument of Larry Remer, a political consultant in

San Diego who faced multiple felony charges after

successfully running a bond campaign for a community college.

After the campaign was over, and the campaign fund depleted,

a video production company sent in a bill for $5,800.

The college president proposed paying the bill with

public money, ostensibly by buying outtakes from

the video company, though it is illegal to use public money

for such a campaign.

Federal prosecutors indicted Mr. Remer and the college president

in 2004 on a range of charges related to the improper

use of taxpayer money, including honest-services charges.

Mr. Remer said he was baffled by the case.

“I do understand the need to get the sleazebags,” said Mr. Remer,

whose case ended in a mistrial and a plea of guilty, along with

the college president, to misdemeanor charges of improperly

using public money, not honest-services charges. “But let’s

get them with real laws. Let’s not just say we need to get

this guy, so we’ll use this law because it can be

melted to meet our needs.”

The United States attorneys office in San Diego

declined to comment on the case.

The honest-services statute grew out of the Supreme

Court’s earlier attempts to rein in the widening use by

prosecutors of mail and wire fraud laws, said John C. Coffee,

a professor at Columbia Law School.

In a landmark 1987 decision, the Supreme Court

limited mail and wire fraud prosecutions to cases

involving tangible goods like money and property,

and not the “intangible right” of the people to good government.

Within a year, however, Congress restored the prosecutors’

flexible tool by passing the current law.

Since then, critics argue, chaos has resulted, with significant

differences across the country in the ways that the statute is interpreted.

Bennett L. Gershman, a professor at Pace University Law School,

said the power of prosecutors to overreach by focusing on a person

to prosecute and then finding a law to apply “is not only subject

to abuse under the honest-services theory, but has been abused”

in cases like those involving Mr. Siegelman, the former Alabama governor.

The charges against Mr. Siegelman, including honest-services fraud,

concerned a contribution from a businessman, Richard M. Scrushy,

to an issue campaign advocated by the governor, who

later reappointed Mr. Scrushy to a state hospital board.

The Department of Justice has conducted an investigation

of the case and found no misconduct in the prosecution;

Mr. Siegelman’s supporters say the investigation was

poorly conducted. Mr. Siegelman has appealed to the

Supreme Court, which has not decided whether to take

up the case.

Ms. Sloan, of the watchdog group, said that if prosecutors

abused the statute, “it doesn’t mean the whole statute is at fault.”

“It means the prosecutors made some bad decisions,” she said.

Richard L. Thornburgh, who was attorney general when the

honest-services law was passed, said he expected the

Supreme Court to issue “something fairly sweeping”

since it had taken on so many honest-services cases.

But, he added, “I think they can do it without doing

violence to proper law enforcement.”

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company