Sentencing Law and Policy

SCOTUS takes up case to address reach of federal two-year mandatory minimum added prison term for identity theft

I missed late yesterday that the Supreme Court issued a tiny order list on Thursday that granted cert on a single new case.  This news is exciting for those of us interest in seeing a bit more criminal action on the SCOTUS docket, and this SCOTUSblog posting has the details:

The Supreme Court announced on Thursday afternoon that it will weigh in on what it means to commit identity theft. After holding their private conference a day early because Friday is a federal holiday, the justices released a one-sentence order list that added one new case to their merits docket for the 2022-23 term: Dubin v. United States.

The defendant in the case is David Dubin, who was convicted of Medicaid fraud.  As the dispute comes to the Supreme Court, Dubin is challenging a separate conviction under a federal law that makes it a crime to use another person’s identity in the process of committing another crime.  Federal prosecutors contend that Dubin’s use of his patient’s name on a false Medicaid claim violated the statute, adding an extra two years to his one-year sentence for fraud.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld Dubin’s conviction and sentence, and on rehearing a deeply divided full court affirmed that decision. Dubin appealed to the justices in June, and they agreed on Thursday to take up his case, which will likely be argued sometime early next year.

Here is how the question in the case is presented by the defendant in his cert petition:

The federal aggravated identity theft statute provides: “Whoever, during and in relation to any felony violation enumerated [elsewhere in the statute], knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person, shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such felony, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 2 years.” 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1).

The question presented is whether a person commits aggravated identity theft any time he mentions or otherwise recites someone else’s name while committing a predicate offense.

Wouldn't pardons and commutations for those who served be a great way for Prez Biden to honor Veterans Day?

The question in the title of this post is inspired by today's national holiday, Veterans Day.  Based on the latest data from Bureau of Justice Statistics, from this March 2021 report "Survey of Prison Inmates, 2016: Veterans in Prison," veterans make up over 5% of the federal prison population (and nearly 8% of state prison populations).  Moreover, as an important new initiative from the Council for Criminal Justice has highlighted, roughly "one third of veterans report having been arrested and booked into jail at least once in their lives, compared to fewer than one fifth of non-veterans."  In other words, at both the federal and state level, there are surely no shortage of justice-involved veterans who could and should be a focus of concern and attention on this important day and for whom clemency consideration would be justified.

Though I am not expecting that Prez Biden will celebrate this Veterans Day by making a special effort to grant commutations or pardons to a special list of veterans, I have long thought criminal justice reform advocates ought to lean into this day by urging the President and all Governors to make a tradition of using clemency powers in this kind of special and distinctive way on this special and distinctive day.  As I have noted before, a key slogan for this day is "honoring  ALL who served," not just those who stayed out of trouble after serving.

Some (or many) prior related posts: 

• Thinking about sentenced troops on Veterans Day
• How many vets, after serving to secure liberty, are now serving LWOP sentences?
• My amicus effort to support our troops 
• Should prior military service reduce a sentence?
• How about a few clemency grants, Prez Obama, to really honor vets in need on Veterans Day?
• "Roughly one in 12 people in America’s prisons and jails is a veteran" 
• Eager to honor our veterans caught up in our nation's massive criminal justice systems 
• Making the case for criminal justice reform as a way to honor those who served on Veterans Day
• New CCJ commission to examine factors driving veterans' involvement in criminal justice system 

Another important look at the role of prosecutors in second-look sentencing

Many years ago, I had the honor of giving a keynote speech at a conference focused on the work of prosecutors where I suggested they should be much more involved in reviewing past sentences.  That speech, whi got published as Encouraging (and Even Requiring) Prosecutors to Be Second-Look Sentencers, 19 Temple Political & Civil Rights L. Rev. 429 (2010), came to mind as I read this new Marshall Project piece headlined "Prosecutors in These States Can Review Sentences They Deem Extreme. Few Do."  I recommend the lengthy and effective piece in full, and here is a brief excerpt:

Louisiana is one of five states that has recently passed prosecutor-initiated resentencing laws, along with California, Washington, Illinois and Oregon.  Five others — New York, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Georgia and Maryland — considered similar bills this year, though none were brought to a vote.

Many incarcerated people view these laws as a way to get fresh eyes on their cases.  Advocates for criminal justice reform say the laws are needed to help reduce mass incarceration.

But their reach so far has been concentrated in the offices of a few district attorneys, mainly in urban areas, according to a review by The Marshall Project.  One reason is the high cost of reviewing old cases, prosecutors say. There are also moral and political issues.  Some prosecutors are philosophically opposed to the notion of overturning sentences handed down by a judge, and others fear pushback from voters.

Some of many recent prior related posts:

• Spotlighting prosecutors advocating for and embracing second-look sentencing mechanisms 
• Noting the notable number of prosecutors now supportive of sentencing second looks
• Every D.A. in America Should Open a Sentence Review Unit" 
• NACDL releases model "Second Look" sentencing legislation providing for resentencing after a decade in prison
• An awesome reading list on "Second Look Sentencing"
• "Prosecutor-Driven 'Second Look' Policies Are Encouraging, But Not A Panacea"
• The Sentencing Project releases new report urging "A Second Look at Injustice" 

A small sampling of my prior writing on this front:

• "Sentencing is Dang Hard... And So..."
• "Re-Balancing Fitness, Fairness, and Finality for Sentences"
• "Reflecting on Parole's Abolition in the Federal Sentencing System"
• "Encouraging (and Even Requiring) Prosecutors to be Second-Look Sentencers"

Rounding up a few post-election accountings and commentary on the crime and justice front

I did a number of pre-election posts with a round-up of news and commentary focused on criminal justice policy and politics as the 2022 voting approached (see here and here and here).  It now seems only fitting to do a (first?) post-election round-up of news and commentary as we get closer to all the 2022 mid-term votes being counted:

From The Appeal, "Midterm Elections Deliver Some Good News For Criminal Legal Reform"

From The Crime Report, "Crime and the Midterms"

From Democracy Now!, "Progressive Prosecutors Win Key Races Despite GOP Attacks on Criminal Justice Reform"

From the New York Times, "For Republicans, Crime Pays, No Matter What Else Happens"

From Reason, "The Crime Backlash Mostly Failed To Materialize on Election Night"

From the Washington Post, "How Democrats can win back trust on the issue of crime"

 

UPDATE:  I have seen a few more pieces in this vein since my initial posting:

From BuzzFeed News, "Progressive Prosecutors Won In Midterm Elections Across The US In Spite Of Tough-On-Crime Rhetoric From Republicans"

From Religion Unplugged, "Recreational Marijuana Use Becomes New Front In The Culture Wars Following Midterms"

From Vera Action, "As Voters Reject Crime Scare Tactics in the 2022 Midterms, Democrats Must Seize the Opportunity for a New Path Forward on Safety and Justice"

From The Watch (Randy Balko), "What the midterms told us about voters and crime"

"Dresser Drawer Pardons: Pardons as Private Acts"

The title of this post is the title of this new article authored by Andrew Ingram now available via SSRN. Here is its abstract:

Can a President issue a pardon without telling anyone but the recipient that she has issued it?  Yes, the President can grant a valid pardon without telling anyone but the recipient of her grace that she has done so.  While a defendant must plead a pardon for a court to take notice of it and quash an indictment, the document may otherwise lay buried in a sock drawer in case it is ever needed without losing any of its force or effect.

In this article, I make the case for secret pardons based upon Supreme Court precedent dating back to Chief Justice Marshall’s tenure on the Court.  In the years since Marshall’s 1833 ruling in United States v. Wilson, the Court has repeatedly reaffirmed the historical and formalist approach to the pardons clause that Marshall inaugurated.  Declaring that English practice should be the guide to the federal pardons clause, Marshall endorsed the understanding of pardons maintained by English treatise writers.  Marshall and the English writers describe pardons as a kind of deed or private act.

Besides validating secret pardons, the fact that pardons are to be treated as private acts or deeds also teaches us that oral pardons are likely invalid and that self-pardons are utterly nugatory.  Along the way to these conclusions, I confront the oddity of the Court-backed legal truth that pardons are private acts, explaining how a power with so many public consequences for the criminal justice system could possibly be considered a private act.  I also consider an abortive challenge to the historical–formalist approach to the pardon power established by Chief Justice Marshall that Justice Holmes raised in the 1920s.  Studying the clash between Marshall and Holmes allows us to see clearly the difference between Holmes’ legal realism and Marshall’s antiquarian formalism.

Texas completes its fouth execution in 2022

As reported in this local artcle, Texas "executed Tracy Beatty on Wednesday evening for murdering his mother in East Texas in 2003."  Here are some of the backstory:

Beatty, 61, was found guilty of fatally strangling Carolyn Click at the end of a violent and tumultuous relationship. Although his attorneys acknowledge Beatty killed his mother, they contended the crime didn’t qualify for the death penalty.

Lethal drugs were injected into Beatty at 6:22 p.m. Wednesday inside the state’s Huntsville Unit, and he was declared dead 17 minutes later, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice....

Although Beatty gave several versions of what happened in his 62-year-old mother’s death, according to court records, he ultimately told police that he came home drunk, the pair started fighting and he choked her. He said he didn’t realize Click was dead until the next day.

But Beatty was found guilty of capital murder because prosecutors argued he killed his mother during a home burglary, entering without her consent, even though he lived with Click at the time. A neighbor testified that Click had told her the day she was last seen that she had told her son that day to move out after a fight....

Beatty had been released from prison on parole months before Click’s death. Prosecutors at trial listed a slew of his previous criminal charges, including injuring a prison guard and assaulting an 18-month-old child....

Neither the Supreme Court nor Texas Gov. Greg Abbott intervened in Beatty’s execution. It was the state’s fourth execution of the year. Seven others are scheduled in Texas through September.

New DPIC analysis finds "murder rates during the pandemic were highest in states with the death penalty"

The Death Penalty Information Center has posted this notable new review of murder data under the heading "DPIC Analysis: Pandemic Murder Rates Highest in Death Penalty States." I recoemmend the full posting, and here are excerpts (with links and the chart from the original, footnotes removed):

A DPIC analysis of 2020 U.S. homicide data has found that murder rates during the pandemic were highest in states with the death penalty and lowest in long-time abolitionist states.

DPIC reviewed the 2020 murder data compiled by the center-left think tank The Third Way for its March 2022 report, The Red State Murder Problem.  Then, taking the analysis out of the realm of politics and into the context of public policy, DPIC compared the data to states’ death-penalty status and historic usage of the death penalty.  That analysis found that pandemic murder rates generally correlated not just with the presence or absence of the death penalty in a state but with the states’ general level of death-penalty usage.

The data show that nine of the ten states with the highest pandemic murder rates — ranging from 9.9 to 20.5 murders per 10,000 residents — are death penalty states. On the other hand, eight of the eleven states with the lowest pandemic murder rates — ranging from 0.88 to 3.49 murders per 10,000 residents — had abolished the death penalty. DPIC found that the three death penalty states with the lowest pandemic murder rates — all 2.89 murders per 10,000 residents — have not carried out an execution in more than a decade, and one had a gubernatorial moratorium on executions.

Murder rates in the mostly high death-penalty usage, high pandemic-murder-rate states ranged from roughly triple to 23 times higher than in the mostly no death penalty, low pandemic-murder-rate states.

More than half of all death penalty states (14 of 27) had murder pandemic murder rates of at least 7.00 per 100,000 residents, and 30 percent (8 states) had pandemic murder rates of 10.29 per 100,000 residents or higher. By contrast, nearly two-thirds of the states that had abolished the death penalty (15 of 23) had pandemic murder rates of 5.14 or less per 100,000 residents, more than a third (8 states) had pandemic murder rates below 3.5 murders per 100,000 residents....

DPIC’s review of The Third Way pandemic murder data found that 15 of the 20 states with the highest pandemic murder rates are death penalty states, of which 12 have carried out 20 or more executions each in the past half century. Collectively, these 12 states have accounted for more than three quarters of all executions in the U.S. since the 1970s.

At the other end of the spectrum, none of the 23 states with the lowest pandemic murder rates are historically heavy users of capital punishment. Fifteen had abolished the death penalty, including nine who had not had the death penalty at any time during the 21st century.  The eight death penalty states with the lowest pandemic murder rates include two with moratoria on executions, six who have executed five or fewer people in the past half century, one that has carried out seven executions, and six who have not executed anyone in more than a decade.

Twenty U.S. states have carried out ten or more executions in the past half-century.  All of them, including three who have since abolished the death penalty, are among the 28 states with the highest pandemic murder rates.

So, does anyone already have "hot takes" on what election results might mean for criminal justice reforms?

Because votes are still being counted nationwide and especially because control of the US Senate may not be resolved until a Georgia run off in December, it is way too early to make any confident predictions about the national policy landscape for the next few months or the next few years.  But with marijuana reform getting mixed results in five states — winning in the big states of Maryland and Missouri, losing in the smaller states of Arkansas, North Dakota and South Dakota — there is already a basis to make a lot of mixed predictions about the short- and long-term future of marijuana reforms.  Likewise, with crime and punishment being a big part of lots of other candidate campaigns that have been called, maybe it is not too early for folks to have interesting views on what the 2022 election means for crime and punishment issues in 2023 and beyond.

So, dear readers, please feel free to use the comments to flag any especially notable races (or exit polls) that you think are especially important for informed political or policy view on criminal justice issues post-election 2022.  And, as the title of this post suggests, "hot takes" are more than welcome.

"Set up to Fail: Youth Probation Conditions as a Driver of Incarceration"

The title of this post is the title of this new paper authored by Jyoti Nanda now available via SSRN.  Here is its abstract:

Youth probation is the most common form of punishment for youth in the United States criminal legal system, with nearly a quarter of a million youth currently under supervision.  Yet the role youth probation conditions play in the incarceration of youth has not been the focus of legal scholarship. Youth probation is a court-imposed intervention where young people remain at home under the supervision of a youth probation officer and are required to adhere to probation conditions, rules, and court-ordered conditions.  The orders rely on standardized terms on youth probation condition forms.  This is the first scholarly Article to excavate original youth probation condition forms.  It relies on data from 17 different urban and rural jurisdictions across the United States, including the five largest, and provides both a descriptive and perscriptive analysis of the problems with the design and execution of probation conditions.

Based on my analysis of hundreds of youth probation conditions in these different jurisdictions, I argue that standard youth probation conditions are part of a youth probation system that is structurally flawed in its design and execution, and that probation conditions that lack an adolescent framework cause real harm to youth and their families — particularly those who are most vulnerable, especially youth of color.  Simultaneously, youth probation systems concentrate power in probation officers, granting them inordinate discretionary power.  Although youth probation is viewed as the ideal alternative to detention, I argue that youth probation in its current structure is a driver of incarceration — that should be viewed as part of a carceral state — in need of thoughtful re-imagination: perhaps even abolition.

How many federal LWOP sentences have been reduced via 3582(c)(1)(A) and on what grounds?

The question in the title of this post was prompted by a notable new ruling sent my way, US v. West, No. 06-21185 (E.D. Mich. Nov. 7, 2022), which grants a sentenced reduction motion for a prisoner serving a federal LWOP sentence.  Before discussing that opinion (which can be dowloaded below), I will note that Figure 2 of the USSC's latest Compassionate Release Data Report from September 2022 reports that 27.9% of the over 4000 prisoners who have had their 3582(c)(1)(A) motions granted were serving original sentences of "20 years or more."  In other words, since the First Step Act became law in December 2018, well over 1000 persons serving sentences of 20 or more years have received sentence reductions.  But, to my knowledge, the USSC has not provided further details with any data specifically regarding prisoners serving LWOP securing compassionate release or regarding the reasons judges commonly give when reducing LWOP sentences.

General numbers and broader trends aside, the ruling in West makes for an interesting read because the judge here decides that Apprendi error as well as unwarranted sentencing dispartity provided extraordinary and compelling reasons for a sentence reduction.  Here is how the West opinion gets started:

Roy West is in year 17 of a life without parole sentence.  The indictment and case submitted to the jury should have netted West not more than ten years in prison.

Errors on the part of competent people — prosecutors, defense counsel, probation officers and, ultimately, this judge at the time of sentencing — resulted in the imposition of a sentence in violation of the law on West.  Even skilled appellate counsel failed to raise the sentencing error.

West has no way to correct this extraordinary and compelling error — and end his days in prison — but through his now pending motion for sentence reduction (compassionate release).

18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), as amended by the First Step Act of 2018, opens an avenue for this Judge to correct a fundamentally unfair sentence that did not exist before.  Justice and faith in our judicial system demand correction for the benefit of Roy West.

This human error on multiple levels, the resulting sentencing disparity, the absence of any other avenue for relief, and West’s extraordinary rehabilitation constitute extraordinary and compelling reasons for sentence reduction.  The 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors support a sentence reduction as well.

Download West CR opinion

Elizabeth Holmes' federal sentencing ready to go forward after her new trial motion is denied

As detailed in this AP article, headlined "Bid for new trial fails, Elizabeth Holmes awaits sentencing," a high-prfole federal sentencing is now on track for later this month.  Here are the basics:

A federal judge rejected a bid for a new trial for disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes after concluding a key prosecution witness’s recent remorseful attempt to contact her wasn’t enough to award her another chance to avoid a potential prison sentence for defrauding investors at her blood-testing company.

The ruling issued late Monday by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila is the latest setback for Holmes, a former Silicon Valley star who once boasted an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion but is now facing up to 20 years in prison that would separate her from her 1-year-old son.

In the latest twist in a Silicon Valley soap opera, Holmes appeared to be pregnant when she showed up for an Oct. 17 hearing about her request for a new trial....

Davila has scheduled Nov. 18 as the day he will sentence Holmes, 38, for four felony counts of investor fraud and engaging in a conspiracy with [Rawesh “Sunny”] Balwani.  Earlier Monday, Davila postponed Balwani’s sentencing for his conviction on 12 counts of investor and patient fraud from Nov. 15 to Dec. 7.

I plan to wait until we see the formal sentencing submissions from the parties before even trying to make any predictions as to what kind of prison term Holmes might get.  But I welcome others' predictions in the comments as we gear up for what should be an interesting (and unpredicatable) sentencing proceeding.  

Prior related posts:

• Elizabeth Holmes convicted on 4 of 11 fraud charges ... but now can be sentenced on all and more 
• Making the case, because "upper-class offenders ... might be even more reprehensible," for a severe sentence for Elizabeth Holmes 
• Might any victims of Theranos fraud urge leniency at sentencing for Elizabeth Holmes?

Are there going to be five executions in four US states over the next ten days?

The question in the title of this post is prompted by my quick look this morning at the "Upcoming Executions" page over at the Death Penalty Information Center.   That page shows that Texas has two executions scheduled, and Alabama, Arizona and Oklahoma each have one execution scheduled, between November 9 and November 17.  If all five of these executions go forward, it will be the most executions completed in the US within such a short period of time in a decade.  (In 2012, between November 6 and 15, Texas completed three executions and Ohio and Oklahoma also completed one execution.)

So many executions in a short period would be a pretty dramatic break from recent norms throughout the US.  Since roughly the start of the pandemic, the US has averaged only about one execution per month as various states have continued to have various difficulties with converting death sentences into completed executions.  Even before COVID hit, the US averaged only about two executions per month when President Trump was in office and less than four executions per month during President Obama's years in the oval office. (About seven executions per month was the national average during President Clinton's second term, and around five per month was the national norm for most of President Bush's two terms).

With all the recent political discussions about crime and crime policy, I have been a bit surprised that we have not seen a significant uptick in chatter about capital punishment polcies and practices this election season.  But it does seem we may be on the verge of an uptick in the number of executions this November.

UPDATE:  I just saw this notable new Salon commentary by Austin Sarat headlined "Crime is a hot issue, but even Republicans don't talk about the death penalty: That's good news."  I recommend the full extended piece, and here are a few excerpts:

In the past, politicians at every level responded to public concerns about crime with law-and-order campaigns in which promises to bring back or enforce the death penalty featured prominently....

Throughout the late 20th and early 21st centuries, death-penalty ballot measures have been used as tools of partisan and political advantage, largely to increase turnout among a targeted portion of the electorate in order to benefit "law and order" candidates.

But not this year.

Only in Alabama will voters be asked to decide on a death-penalty ballot measure. It would "require the governor to provide notice to the attorney general and make reasonable efforts to notify a designated family member of a victim before granting a commutation (a reduced sentence such as life imprisonment) or reprieve (temporary stay of execution) of a death sentence." ...

But in campaigns up and down the ballot, even as conservative candidates have accused their opponents of being soft on crime and promised robust anti-crime measures, Republican gubernatorial candidates in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Oklahoma have said little or nothing about the death penalty....

Whatever the verdict delivered by voters this week may be, the relative invisibility of the death penalty in this year's political campaigns is a clear sign of the progress abolitionists have made in changing the national temperature on that issue.

Three notable dissents from denials of cert in criminal case on latest SCOTUS order list

The Supreme Court this morning released this 54-page(!) order list, and nearly 50 pages are comprised of dissents from the denial of cert by a handful of justices in five distinct cases. Here is a (too brief) accounting of the three criminal cases in this number:

In Anthony v. Louisiana, Justice Sotomayor dissents from the denial of certiorari, joined by Justice Jackson, and her 15-page dissent concludes this way:

Our criminal justice system holds prosecutors to a high standard. The prosecutor is “the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty.” Berger, 295 U. S., at 88.  From that special role, “improper suggestions, insinuations, and, especially, assertions of personal knowledge are apt to carry much weight against the accused when they should properly carry none.” Ibid....

These principles demand careful scrutiny of the rare cases in which a prosecutor takes the stand as a sworn witness in a jury trial.  Because this case presents one of the most egregious instances of prosecutorial testimony amounting to prosecutorial misconduct, I respectfully dissent from the Court’s refusal to issue a summary reversal.

in In Khorrami v. Arizona, Justice Gorsuch dissents from the denial of certiorari (which was not joined by Justice Kavanaugh, though he did indicate he would grant the petition).  His 10-page dissent starts and concludes this way:

The State of Arizona convicted Ramin Khorrami of serious crimes before an 8-member jury.  On appeal, Mr. Khorrami sought a new trial, arguing that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution guarantee individuals like him a trial before 12 members of the community....

For almost all of this Nation’s history and centuries before that, the right to trial by jury for serious criminal offenses meant the right to a trial before 12 members of the community.  In 1970, this Court abandoned that ancient promise and enshrined in its place bad social science parading as law.  That mistake continues to undermine the integrity of the Nation’s judicial proceedings and deny the American people a liberty their predecessors long and justly considered inviolable.  Today’s case presented us with an opportunity to correct the error and admit what we know the law is and has always been.  Respectfully, we should have done just that.

In Chinn v. Shoop, Justice Jackson dissents from the denial of certiorari, joined by Justice Sotomayor, and her 2-page dissent starts and concludes this way:

This is a capital case involving a violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). There is no dispute that, during the capital trial of petitioner Davel Chinn, the State suppressed exculpatory evidence indicating that the State’s key witness, Marvin Washington, had an intellectual disability that may have affected Washington’s ability to remember, perceive fact from fiction, and testify accurately....

Because Chinn’s life is on the line, and given the substantial likelihood that the suppressed records would have changed the outcome at trial based on the Ohio courts’ own representations, see Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 112 (2011), I would summarily reverse to ensure that the Sixth Circuit conducts its materiality analysis under the proper standard.

Recapping last week's SCOTUS arguments in two complicated review procedure cases

Last Tuesday, the Supreme Court hear arguments in two complicated criminal cases: Jones v. Hendrix, which I previewed here last week, and Cruz v. Arizona, a capital case.  These cases have not garnered that much general attention, surely because they both involve complicated procedural issue.  Still, the folks at SCOTUSblog have detailed reviews of the arguments, and I have also seen a few other discussions of the arguments:

Jones:

From SCOTUSblog, "In habeas case, the liberal justices try to untangle a complex statute"

From Law & Crime, "Justice Alito Concerned that Freeing Legally Innocent Man from Prison Would Clog Up the Federal Courts"

 

Cruz:

From SCOTUSblog, "Arizona asks court to approve “Kafkaesque” treatment of due-process claim from man on death row"

From Cronkite News, "Supreme Court presses state on its rejection of Arizona death-row appeal"

From the Arizona Republic, "U.S. Supreme Court hears oral argument of Arizona man on death row"

Rounding up recent disheartening stories in incarceration nation

In recent days, I have seen a number of notable stories and commentaries focused on various discouraging incarceration realities in US prisons and jails:

From The Marshall Project, "Why So Many Jails Are in a ‘State of Complete Meltdown’"

From NBC News, "Tech glitch botches federal prisons' rollout of update to Trump-era First Step Act"

From the New York Post, "Rikers Island detainee is 18th person to die in NYC’s prison system in 2022"

From the New York Times, "‘Dying Inside’: Chaos and Cruelty In Louisiana Juvenile Detention"

From the Omaha World Herald, "‘Waiting on death’: Nebraska prisoners are getting older, and it’s costing taxpayers"

From PennLive, "Sick people in Pa. jails are suffering, dying: ‘The Constitution allows for medical neglect’"

From the Reno Gazette-Journal, "Inmate deaths, drug overdoses on rise at Washoe County Jail"

From Washington Monthly, "Do Prisons Need to Be Hellholes?"

From WSB-TV, "Reality star Joe Exotic says zoo has better living conditions than Atlanta Federal Penitentiary"

Oklahoma Gov extends execution stay for Richard Glossip as courts still consider innocence claim

As reported in this AP piece, "Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt granted another temporary reprieve to death row inmate Richard Glossip, pushing his scheduled execution back until February 2023 so that an appeals court has more time to consider his claim of innocence."  Here is more:

Stitt, who is locked in a tough reelection contest, issued an executive order on Wednesday that delays Glossip’s execution, which was scheduled for Nov. 21. Stitt’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A clemency hearing for Glossip that was scheduled before the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board next week also will be delayed.

Glossip received the death penalty for the 1997 murder-for-hire killing of his boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese. Prosecutors acknowledge Glossip did not kill Van Treese, but maintain that he paid the hotel maintenance man, Justin Sneed, to do it. Sneed, who received a life sentence but was spared the death penalty, was a key witness in two separate trials in which Glossip was convicted.

Attorney General John O’Connor said in a statement that he respects the governor’s decision but remains confident in Glossip’s guilt. “After 25 years, justice is still on hold for Barry Van Treese and his family,” O’Connor said. “Mr. Van Treese was in a room of the motel he owned when he was brutally murdered with a baseball bat by Justin Sneed, an individual Richard Glossip hired to work at the motel and later enlisted to commit the murder. Two different juries found Glossip guilty of murder for hire.”...

Glossip asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals for a new evidentiary hearing following the release of an independent investigation by Houston law firm Reed Smith that raised new questions about his guilt. The firm’s report did not find any definitive proof of Glossip’s innocence, but raised concerns about lost or destroyed evidence and a detective asking leading questions to Sneed to implicate Glossip in the slaying....

A bipartisan group of 62 Oklahoma legislators, led by Republican state Rep. Kevin McDugle, have signed a request that a new evidentiary hearing be granted. Glossip, now 59, has long maintained his innocence.

He has been scheduled to be executed three separate times, only to be spared shortly before the sentence was set to be carried out. He was just hours from being executed in September 2015 when prison officials realized they had received the wrong lethal drug, a mix-up that helped prompt a nearly seven-year moratorium on the death penalty in Oklahoma.

Is the US "on the verge of a new wave of mass incarceration"?

The question in the title of this post is prompted by this notable new Time commentary by Udi Ofer given the headline "Politicians' Tough-on-Crime Messaging Could Have Devastating Consequences."  Here are some extended excerpts from a piece that merits reading in full:

In the majority of hotly contested 2022 midterm races across the country, tough-on-crime rhetoric is at the top of the agenda.  Close to 60% of Republican spending on campaign ads since September has been on the topic of crime, with tens of thousands of ads running on the issue, and Democrats have responded with their own $36 million war chest.  Not since the height of America’s mass incarceration era has the nation seen law and order politics play such an outsized role in candidate races up and down the ballot.  The outcome could put the country in danger of entering a new era of more mass incarceration....

While Republicans are leading this charge, both parties are playing with fire, as the political rhetoric being deployed this election season has the potential to trigger a new surge in incarceration, as occurred following previous election cycles that starred tough-on-crime rhetoric.  Between 1973-2009, the nation saw an exponential growth in incarceration, from approximately 200,000 people in prisons and jails in 1973 to 2.2 million by 2009, making the U.S. the largest incarcerator in the world, with a rate 5 to 10 times higher than Western Europe and other democracies.  Hundreds of new laws and practices passed at the local, state, and federal levels, including new mandatory minimums with harsh sentences, more cash bail and pretrial detention, and more aggressive prosecutorial and policing practices like stop-and-frisk....

Along with mass incarceration came extreme racial inequities that spread well beyond the carceral system.  A Black boy born in the 2000s had a 1 in 3 chance of ending up incarcerated, compared to a 1 in 17 chance for a white boy.  Mass incarceration has contributed significantly to the racial achievement gap, poorer health outcomes in Black communities, and economic hardship for Black families....

This crisis in mass incarceration, which only recently began to dip, has roots that run deep in efforts to politicize and racialize crime.  Mass incarceration has been fueled by moments like the one we are living in today, where following years of gains on civil rights, a backlash ensues and crime is conflated with reforms and civil rights protests....

It wasn’t until the past 10 years that a bipartisan movement for criminal justice reform formed, pushing for an alternative approach.  This movement by Democrats and Republicans has worked together in states across the country to pass bipartisan reforms, such as sentencing reform in Louisiana and Oklahoma, bail reform in New Jersey and Colorado, second chance laws in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Utah, drug law reform in Oregon and Rhode Island, and much more.  The nationwide prison population began to drop to 1.2 million, and the U.S. moved from first to fifth place in the global ranking of imprisonment rates, right between Cuba and Panama.  Families were reunited with their loved ones, and some of the states that have seen the largest decrease in incarceration are also some of the safest states in the nation, like New Jersey.

But today, just as nationwide incarceration rates were beginning to slowly drop, public anxiety over crime is being turned into a wedge issue between the two political parties to undermine progress made on civil rights and criminal justice reform.  Bail reform, police reform, parole reform, and sentencing reform are wrongfully being blamed for a rise in crime....

Candidates for office can resist the tough-on-crime impulse that has grown so common since Barry Goldwater’s 1964 run for office. They can provide a new vision for safety, one that many communities have been calling for — one the emphasizes prevention and investments in public health, schools, jobs, housing and community support structures, and relegates incarceration to the last possible option, after all other intervention efforts have failed.

In fact, research conducted by organizations like Vera Action and HIT Strategies has found that while voters care deeply about crime, they want more than the one-dimensional tough-on-crime message being delivered.  Candidates benefit by articulating a vision that recognizes that public safety is achieved when we provide people with the resources they need to thrive, like earning a living wage, receiving a good education, and having stable housing.  Voters understand that police shouldn’t be the ones charged with solving every social problem, from kids skipping school to mental health needs to homelessness. Instead, voters are seeking long term solutions rooted in prevention, like a good education and a good job.

So far, too few politicians on both the right and left are moving away from the reflexive tough-on-crime rhetoric that has proven to be so devastating in the past.  It won’t be clear until after the midterms how much this rhetoric has impacted voter choices, but the damage may have already been done.  Unless more politicians change course, the U.S. is on the verge of a new wave of mass incarceration — as history repeats itself.

There is much to commend in this piece (including in parts I did not reprint here), and I think there is a very sound basis to expect and fear that heightened concerns about crime and the new wave of political rhetoric being deployed this election season likely will slow or even impede various parts of the agenda in the bipartisan movement for criminal justice reform.  One obvious "for example" here is the now-stalled effort to equalize crack and powder cocaine sentences at the federal level.  The US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in Sept 2021, by a tally of 361-66, to pass the EQUAL Act to equalize powder and crack cocaine sentences, but concerns about "soft-on-crime" attacks have seemingly kept the Senate from moving forward.  

But slowing down on-going reform efforts is a long way from "a new wave of mass incarceration."  As this commentary suggests, both voters and their representatives now understand the importance of a variety of policy responses to crime concerns.  More broadly, we now generally see a far more nuanced discussion of mandatory minimum sentences, drug policy issues and even the death penalty than we did a generation ago.  For example, though a number of GOP Senators have now come out against the EQUAL Act, their competing bill still involves reducing crack sentences a good deal (while also raising cocaine sentences a bit).  And at least one GOP Senator, Mike Lee, is still actively campaigning on his bipartisan criminal justice reform work in the FIRST STEP Act.  In other words, while we may only see a "one-dimensional tough-on-crime message" in 30-second TV ads, I sense most policy-makers still recognize the need for so-called "smart-on-crime" reform efforts.

Ultimately, a lot of political and policy forces that developed over decades provided the infrastructure for modern mass incarceration, and a lot of countering political and policy forces also developing over decades have contributed to the (slow) decline in incarceration rates in recent years.  I do not think one political cycle alone will dramatically change all the trends and dynamics that have brought us to this somewhat fraught moment.  But I do think, as this commentary stresses in many ways, there are plenty of political and policy lessons to learn from both older and more recent developments.  Interesting times.

Some more criminal justice policy and politics as 2022 mid-term election approaches

There are any number of commentaries about crime and punishment issues in this mid-term election cycle as we close in on a final vote.  Here a few pieces that caught my eye recently:

From The Marshall Project, "Why Millions of Americans Will Be Left Out of the Midterms"

From the Niskanen Center, "Voters care about crime. Here’s what lawmakers should do about it."

From Stateline, "The Push to Decriminalize Marijuana Possession Continues, Town by Town"

From the Vera Institute, "How Mass Incarceration Shapes Our Elections"

From Vox, "The reason Republican attacks on crime are so potent"

From the Washington Examiner, "Democrats struggle against Republicans on crime issue"

UPDATE: I just saw this notable new American Prospect piece headlined "How Democrats Mishandled Crime: The most effective issue for Republicans in this midterm is a result of Democratic elites failing to understand what their diverse base of working-class voters wants."

After victims's statements, Parkland shooter formally sentenced to life without parole

As detailed in this NBC News piece, headlined "Parkland school shooter sentenced to life in prison without parole after emotional victims’ statements," a high-profile sentencing was completed today in Florida. Here are some details:

Following dramatic statements from victims and victims' families, a Florida judge formally sentenced Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz to life in prison without parole Wednesday for the 2018 campus massacre that killed 14 students and three staff members.

Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer followed the jury’s recommendation to spare the 24-year-old the death penalty, instead sentencing him to a lifetime behind bars. Last month, in a 9-3 vote, a jury leaned toward sending Cruz to death row, but Florida law dictates that anything less than a unanimous vote automatically shifts the sentence to life without parole.

Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, while the defense had asked for life in prison. The jury’s decision on Oct. 13 shook family members of victims who were visibly distraught by the verdict....

Ilan Alhadeff, father of Alyssa Alhadeff, 14, who was killed in the shooting, said Wednesday during his victim impact statement, Cruz’s inevitable life sentence brings him little satisfaction. He deserved death, Alhadeff said.

“Let me show how angry and frustrated I am with the judicial system. After 4 ½ grueling years, a failed judicial system did not hand down a death sentence to the murderer of my daughter and 16 others,” he said. “Do I see this as accountability? Absolutely not. Do we now have closure? Let me be clear, absolutely not. What I see is that the system values this animal’s life over the 17 now dead. Worse, we sent a message to the next killer out there that the death penalty would not be applied to mass killing. This is wrong and needs to be fixed immediately.”

Sam Fuentes was shot in the leg and struck in the face with shrapnel during the massacre. She said Wednesday in court she watched Cruz kill two of her friends. “You shot me in the leg. If you looked me in the face, like I’m looking at you right now, you would see the scars on it from the hot shrapnel that was lodged into it. Do you remember after you sprayed my classroom with bullets, standing in the door, peering in to see the work you’ve done? Do you remember my little battered, bloody face looking back at you? I could have sworn we locked eyes,” she said....

Cruz wore a mask for the first part of the hearing, until Jennifer Guttenberg, the mother of victim Jaime Guttenberg, admonished the shooter during her victim impact statement. “You shouldn’t be sitting there with a mask on your face. It’s disrespectful to be hiding your expressions under your mask when we as the families are sitting here talking to you,” she told him.

Linda Beigel Schulman, mother of Scott Beigel, who taught geography at the school and coached cross country, said her son saved students' lives before the gunman took his. Beigel Schulman said Wednesday that Cruz has "prison justice" ahead of him. "You will spend the rest of your miserable life having to look over your shoulder worried about every single minute of your day, of your life, and scared out of your mind, fearful for someone to take you out."

On Tuesday, other survivors of the shooting and victims’ loved ones had the chance to deliver impact statements before the sentence was formally announced. Stacey Lippel, a teacher at Parkland who was shot and survived, told Cruz: “You don’t know me but you tried to kill me.” “I will have a scar on my arm and the memory of you pointing your gun at me ingrained in my brain forever,” she said before the court, looking Cruz in the eyes.

Some prior related posts:

• Contemplating the capital prosecution of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz
• In shadow of Parkland, a notable discussion with victim families about capital prosecutions in Florida
• "Nikolas Cruz’s birth mom had a violent, criminal past. Could it help keep him off Death Row?" 
• A year after tragedy, taking stock of the agony (and wondering about the costs) already surrounding the capital prosecution of Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz
• Father of Parkland school shooting victim urges state prosecutors to abandon capital prosecution of shooter
• Will guilty pleas and apology reduce odds that Nikolas Cruz is sentenced to death for Parkland school mass murder? 
• What is the price (for victims and taxpayers) of a four-month(!) capital trial for Parkland mass murderer Nikolas Cruz? 
• Defense beginning mitigation case in the capital trial of Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz
• Notable developments as defense rests in capital trial of Parkland school shooter
• Jury recommends LWOP sentence for Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz

"Constitutional Limits on the Imposition and Revocation of Probation, Parole, and Supervised Release After Haymond"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new paper authored by Nancy King now available via SSRN. Here is its abstract:

In its Apprendi line of cases, the Supreme Court has held that any fact found at sentencing (other than prior conviction) that aggravates the punishment range otherwise authorized by the conviction is an “element” that must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury.  Whether Apprendi controls factfinding for the imposition and revocation of probation, parole, and supervised release is critically important.  Seven of ten adults under correctional control in the United States are serving terms of state probation and post-confinement supervision, and roughly half of all prison admissions result from revocations of such terms.  But scholars have yet to confront the effect of the Court’s Apprendi rulings on the regulation of conditional release in the states.  This Article takes on that project.

The Article makes three contributions.  First, it explains why and how the Apprendi doctrine applies to judicial findings at initial sentencing that either lengthen the term of conditional release an offender must serve or mandate incarceration instead of conditional release.  State courts continue to divide on these questions.

Second, regarding factfinding at the revocation stage, the Article tackles the many questions left open by the Court’s only effort to consider Apprendi in the revocation context — United States v. Haymond.  The Article defends two due process analyses, derived from past precedent and Justice Breyer’s controlling concurrence in Haymond, that are better suited than the Apprendi doctrine to protect against legislative overreach in the revocation context. Scholarship discussing Haymond has barely mentioned Justice Breyer’s analysis.  This Article gives his controlling concurrence the attention it deserves.  Combined, these due process analyses provide a sound middle ground between the rigid application of Apprendi’s rules to conditional release and the limitless use of revocation to punish new criminal conduct.

Third, the Article applies these  analyses to state statutes governing the imposition and revocation of probation and post-confinement supervision. This long-overdue state-centered focus provides needed guidance for policymakers designing conditional release policies that reserve more punitive sentences for more egregious cases.