Sentencing Law and Policy

"Roughly one in 12 people in America’s prisons and jails is a veteran"

The title of this post is one of a number of notable facts reviewed in this new webpage up at Families Against Mandatory Minimums. The page carries the simple heading "Veterans Day," and here are excerpts:

Kenny. Ronald. Warren. Michael. All of these men served in our country’s Armed Forces.  Between them, their service extended to all branches of the military and earned them several Purple Hearts and other distinctions. They served bravely and with courage, and we honor them and all veterans today.

Ronald, Michael, Warren, and Kenny are also prisoners and former prisoners.  Roughly one in 12 people in America’s prisons and jails is a veteran.  Often, they’ve ended up in prison because of behavior resulting from injuries and trauma sustained during service.  Many are serving absurdly long sentences for low-level drug offenses, having turned to drugs as a way of coping with PTSD and adjusting to life after tours of duty.  And almost always, they are forgotten on this solemn day.

Our message today is simple:

• Judges need discretion at sentencing to consider the reasons our country’s veterans ended up on the wrong side of the law.
• The evidence of America’s failed war on drugs is in heartbreaking relief when you consider the lives of veterans— who put their lives on the line for our country — now serving inhumane mandatory minimum sentences.
• The service to our country of incarcerated veterans is no less appreciated because of your incarceration. You are not forgotten. Thank you for your service.

Some sobering facts to think about today:

• More than 75 percent of incarcerated veterans received honorable discharges from the military.
• An estimated two thirds of those serving prison sentences discharged from service between 1974 and 2000, a period spanning several wars including Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
• Of the total number of persons incarcerated, about half were diagnosed with a mental disorder, frequently Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
• Sixty-four percent of incarcerated veterans have been sentenced for violent offenses, as opposed to only 48 percent of other prisoners. (That single fact has resulted in both longer and harsher sentences for veterans.)

Some good news:

• Overall, the veteran prison population has shrunk.
• As both the Veterans Administration and the courts have begun to understand this particular issue, the situation for veterans has improved. The veteran prison population has dropped as the Veterans Administration works to provide outreach and support to returning vets, including the provision of Veterans Justice Outreach Specialist.
• Probation officers and corrections staff are being trained to immediately identify veterans upon sentencing, and then to connect the veteran with a Veterans Justice Outreach Specialist who can advise and support the veteran.

"Is It Time for Criminologists to Step Outside the Ivory Tower?"

The question in the title of this post is the headline of this commentary by LawProf Erik Luna from over at the Crime Report that provides some background and perspective on the extraordinary recent academic work, discussed here, that Erik helped create and curate. Here are excerpts:

[C]riminal justice reform presents an issue — perhaps the only issue today — on which the left and the right can unite. And, as it turns out, the academic world may be able to help, as demonstrated by a newly released report from a distinguished group of criminal justice scholars....

Recent years have witnessed otherwise strange bedfellows bunking together to improve our criminal justice system. On what other topic do groups like the ACLU and the NAACP join hands with organizations such as Americans for Tax Reform and the Charles Koch Institute?

In our nation’s capital, Republicans and Democrats came together to correct grotesque disparities between crack and powder cocaine sentencing, for instance, and pending bills would address such issues as America’s broken bail process, ruthless mandatory penalties, and recidivism by former inmates. In truth, the most remarkable bipartisan action is occurring outside of the Beltway, where states such as Texas (yes, Texas) are leading the way in top-to-bottom criminal justice reforms.

Although advocates may have different motivations — political, social, economic, religious — they agree that something needs to be done about criminal justice in America....

Despite [broad] reasons to support criminal justice reform, the movement still faces a daunting task. In particular, a gap in knowledge exists among government actors and the general public. Many officials and most ordinary people tend to be unaware of the character and quantity of crime, the scope of criminal law, the rules of criminal procedure, the reality of pretrial and trial proceedings, the nature of sentencing schemes and their severity, and the lasting consequences of conviction and incarceration.

This lack of appreciation is hardly surprising given the sheer breadth and complexity of American criminal justice. What is needed is a means to help people grasp the system’s workings and its many, interrelated problems, so Americans and their representatives can have a full and thoughtful discussion of possible solutions.

This is where academics have a role to play. After all, their work is fundamentally all about reform. Criminal justice scholars spend most of their time studying, critically analyzing, and writing at length about crime, punishment, and processes, with an eye toward providing greater understanding of the criminal justice system and proposing changes to that system.

Traditionally, however, academic authors have written to themselves—that is, to other criminal justice scholars — not to the public or even to policymakers, professionals, or policy analysts interested in criminal justice.  As a result, academic scholarship is inaccessible in the sense that it is dense, filled with jargon, and, as a general rule, painful to read and unfriendly to normal human beings.  Oftentimes scholarly works are physically inaccessible as well, published by academic presses and journals and buried in libraries or hidden behind paywalls.

In an attempt to bridge the gap between scholarship on the books and legal reform on the ground, a loose-knit group of well over 100 scholars has issued a four-volume report titled Reforming Criminal Justice, which takes on some of the most pressing issues in criminal justice today.

Broken down into individual chapters, each authored by a top scholar in the relevant field, the report covers dozens of topics within the areas of criminalization, policing, pretrial and trial processes, sentencing, incarceration, and release. The goal of each chapter is to increase both professional and public understanding of the subject matter, to facilitate an appreciation of the relevant scholarly literature and the need for reform, and to offer potential solutions.

Today, the United States is unique among Western nations in terms of the scale and punitiveness of its criminal justice system. Academics can’t directly change this: We’re teachers and scholars, not elected officials or other policymakers. But, as the report hopes to show, the academic world can enlighten the public and their representatives and help guide reform efforts through the insights of those whose lifework is the study of criminal justice.

Prior related post:

• In praise of an extraordinary new resource, "Reforming Criminal Justice"  

Nebraska moving forward with execution plans involving a new four-drug(?!) lethal injection protocol

The state of Nebraska has not had an execution in two decades, and the state's legislature actually abolished the death penalty back in 2015.  But voters in 2016 brought the death penalty back, and this local article reports on recent work by the state's Attorney General to carry out the will of the people.  And the article, headlined "State of Nebraska moves closer to executing Jose Sandoval by lethal injection, but legal challenges appear likely," explains why the novel execution method adopted in the state seems sure to engender litigation:

The State of Nebraska took a big step Thursday toward executing its first death-row inmate in 20 years, using an untried combination of lethal-injection drugs.

Attorney General Doug Peterson said Thursday that he is prepared to request a death warrant for Jose Sandoval after at least 60 days, which is the minimum notice period for condemned inmates under the state’s execution protocol. The Nebraska Supreme Court issues death warrants if an inmate has no pending appeals. A check of state and federal court records Thursday showed that Sandoval’s last legal challenge was decided against him in 2011 and that he has no active appeals. It’s unclear whether he currently has a lawyer or will contest the state’s plan to execute him.

But experts say the new four-drug combination officials unveiled Thursday has never been used by another state in a lethal injection execution. Legal challenges over the drugs could further delay what would be the first time Nebraska has used lethal injection to carry out an execution. Twenty years ago, the state relied solely on the electric chair. “It’s yet another experimental protocol. Now the lawsuits begin,” said Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.

The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services notified Sandoval that it will inject four drugs in the following order: diazepam, fentanyl citrate, cisatracurium besylate and potassium chloride. Diazepam (brand names include Valium) is a benzodiazepine that is used to produce a calming effect. Fentanyl citrate is a general anesthetic that has been used since the 1960s. As an opioid, it also blocks pain, which has made it a popular a street drug linked to lethal overdoses.

Cisatracurium besylate (brand name: Nimbex) relaxes or paralyzes muscles and is used along with a general anesthetic when intubating patients or doing surgery. The final drug, potassium chloride, is used to stop the inmate’s heart. It was the only drug that was also used in Nebraska’s former three-drug combination.

Dunham said the four drugs selected by Nebraska have not been used in combination by another death penalty state. The third drug, cisatracurium besylate, has not been used before in an execution, he added.

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento, California, said that in 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court established “a fairly high hurdle for those who would stop a lethal injection.” In deciding a lethal injection dispute in Oklahoma, the court said that to prevent an execution, the drug must present a “demonstrated risk of causing severe pain” in the inmate and the risk must be substantial compared with known alternative drugs, Scheidegger said. “The objection that a drug has never been used before is not valid by itself,” he said.

The announcement that Sandoval had been selected for execution was somewhat surprising, given that several other inmates have been on death row longer than he has. Sandoval was the ringleader of a 2002 botched bank robbery that left five people shot to death. He was later convicted of killing two men before the bank shootings. Vivian Tuttle, whose daughter, Evonne, was gunned down by Sandoval as she stood in line to cash a check, said she had been waiting for this day. “He needs to be executed, and Nebraska has the drugs to do it now,” Tuttle said Thursday....

State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, the leading opponent of capital punishment in the state, said the new and untested protocol would inspire lengthy legal action. “They’re far from being at the point at which an execution can be carried out,” Chambers said. “I think the rough ride has just begun.”

The senator said he thought that Thursday’s announcement was more a “political and public relations” move tied to Gov. Pete Ricketts’ bid to win a second term as governor. The Republican governor helped organize and fund a petition drive to reinstate capital punishment last year after the Legislature in 2015 overrode his veto to repeal the death penalty.

Danielle Conrad, director of the ACLU of Nebraska, said she was “horrified” that the state plans to use Sandoval as a test subject for an unproven lethal drug combination. Her organization, she said, will closely evaluate the constitutional questions raised by the state’s plan. “This rash decision will not fix the problems with Nebraska’s broken death penalty and are a distraction from the real issues impacting Nebraska’s Department of Corrections: an overcrowded, crisis-riddled system,” she said in a press release....

Sandoval was considered the leader of four men who attempted to rob the Norfolk bank. He shot and killed three of the victims. He is one of 11 men on death row, which is at the Tecumseh State Prison.

Making the case against International Megan's Law

Guy Hamilton-Smith has this new commentary at In Justice Today headlined "We’re Putting Sex Offender Stamps on Passports. Here’s Why It Won’t Curb Sex Tourism & Trafficking." Here are excerpts:

On October 30th, the State Department announced that passports of people who are required to register as sex offenders because of an offense involving a minor will be marked with a “unique identifier” that will read: "The bearer was convicted of a sex offense against a minor, and is a covered sex offender pursuant to 22 United States Code Section 212b(c)(l)."

The law which occasions this requirement, International Megan’s Law (IML), was enacted in 2016 under President Obama.  In addition to the identifier requirement, IML allows for existing passports of those on the registry to be revoked, and imposes criminal penalties on them for failure to provide the government with advance notice of international travel plans.  While U.S. law already provided for destination countries to be put on notice regarding the travel plans of those on the sex offender registry, IML ratchets things up by requiring the person to carry the government’s “identifier” with them wherever they go abroad....

While IML and similar laws are packaged as a way to prevent sexual violence and exploitation, they do little to nothing to meet those objectives because they make assumptions about sexual offending that are incorrect.  For instance, people who have been convicted of sexual offenses generally have one of the lowest rates of re-offense out of any class of criminal. Dozens of studies have consistently confirmed this finding, including research from the U.S. Department of Justice.  Along similar lines, a 2008 time-series analysis of 170,000 unique sex offenses found that 95.9% of the time, the perpetrator was a first-time offender.  In other words, nearly all reported sexual offending is being perpetrated by people who are not on a registry.

In light of the evidence, the argument that IML and other sex offense policies misdirect resources and attention from actual causes and obfuscate actual solutions is compelling.  Experts such as John Hopkins professor and Director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse Elizabeth Letourneau have argued that, instead of focusing our attention and resources on sex offenders and criminal justice, we ought to focus on education and prevention efforts....

This conclusion is impelled with equal force in the context of international travel.  The U.S. Government Accountability Office and State Department quietly admitted that there is no mass exodus of people on the registry traveling to sex tourism destinations to engage in rape and child molestation: they identified three cases over a five-year period where a person on the registry was convicted for a sexual offense overseas.  To put that number in perspective, there are presently more than 800,000 people on a sex offender registry in the United States in 2017.

IML is more than simply ineffective at accomplishing what its authors have intended.  As commentators have observed, the marking of “a basic badge of citizenship” with a proverbial Scarlet Letter is nearly unprecedented in history.  The freedom of movement, including the right to leave one’s own country, is a basic and fundamental human right outlined in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Historically, the state marking the travel and civil documents of despised groups was only a prologue to further encroachments on fundamental rights.

As recent years have demonstrated, sex offenders have become a proving ground for law and policy that the public would (and should) otherwise find abhorrent.  IML, and its attendant marking of the sine qua non of international travel documents, is just the latest high-profile example.  By misdirecting attention and resources away from actual causes and solutions, policies like IML obfuscate real solutions to the problems presented by sex tourism, trafficking, violence, and exploitation, and reinforce a narrative that is wholly divorced from facts.  Because of this, policies like IML will only ultimately serve to perpetuate the very harms that they seek to prevent.

Florida and Texas carry out executions on same night

As reported in these two articles, two states carried out two death sentences via lethal injection yesterday:

• "Witness curses, ridicules inmate as Florida executes convicted killer of two" 
• "Mexican citizen executed in Texas for cousin's 1997 slaying" 

I believe this is the first time since January 2015 in which two different states carried out executions on the same day. (Arkansas back in April carried out two executions in one state in one day.)

This development is not quite conclusive proof that machineries of death are humming along again, but it serves as still more evidence to support my belief that the results of the 2016 election cycle — especially the vote in support of improving the operation of the death penalty in California and the election of Donald Trump as President — may have significantly turned around the declining fortunes of the death penalty in the US.  I doubt we will get back to 1990s levels of death sentences and executions in the US absent a huge spike in homicides.  But there are still over 2800 condemned persons on death rows throughout the US, and it seems quite possible we could before long start seeing 50 or more executions per year again (which was, roughly speaking, the average during the administrations of Bill Clinton and Geotge W. Bush).

"The Unsung Role That Ordinary Citizens Played in the Great Crime Decline"

The title of this post is the headline of this notable new New York Times piece, which gets started and ends  this way (with inks from the original):

Most theories for the great crime decline that swept across nearly every major American city over the last 25 years have focused on the would-be criminals.

Their lives changed in many ways starting in the 1990s: Strict new policing tactics kept closer watch on them. Mass incarceration locked them up in growing numbers. The crack epidemic that ensnared many began to recede. Even the more unorthodox theories — around the rise of abortion, the reduction in lead or the spread of A.D.H.D. medication — have argued that larger shifts in society altered the behavior (and existence) of potential criminals.

But none of these explanations have paid much attention to the communities where violence plummeted the most. New research suggests that people there were working hard, with little credit, to address the problem themselves.

Local nonprofit groups that responded to the violence by cleaning streets, building playgrounds, mentoring children and employing young men had a real effect on the crime rate. That’s what Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at New York University, argues in a new study and a forthcoming book. Mr. Sharkey doesn’t contend that community groups alone drove the national decline in crime, but rather that their impact is a major missing piece.  “This was a part that has been completely overlooked and ignored in national debates over the crime drop,” he said. “But I think it’s fundamental to what happened.”...

As Mr. Sharkey publishes his findings, crime rates are now diverging after a generation in which violence fell reliably year after year nearly everywhere. It’s not clear yet whether the great crime decline he writes about will continue. But he argues that it’s time for a new model of violence prevention, one that relies more heavily on the kind of work that these community groups have been quietly doing than on the aggressive police tactics and tough sentencing that the Trump administration now advocates.

“The model that we’ve relied on to control violence for a long time has broken down,” Mr. Sharkey said. If communities want police to step back, he is pointing to some of the people who can step in. “This gives us a model. It gives us another set of actors who can play a larger role.”

House members reintroduce the Safe, Accountable, Fair, and Effective (SAFE) Justice Act

As reported in this press release, yesterday "Representatives Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Jason Lewis (R-MN) introduced bipartisan legislation aimed at safely reining in the size and associated costs of the federal criminal code and prison system."  Here is more from the press release about the reintroduction of one of the most progressive federal statutory sentencing reform proposals to make the rounds recently:

H.R. 4261, the Safe, Accountable, Fair, and Effective (SAFE) Justice Act takes a broad-based approach to improving the federal sentencing and corrections system, spanning from sentencing reform to release policies.  The legislation, which is inspired by the successes of states across the country, will break the cycle of recidivism, concentrate prison space on violent and career criminals, increase the use of evidence-based alternatives to incarceration, curtail over-criminalization, reduce crime, and save money....

Similar to the successful reform packages enacted in many states, the SAFE Justice Act aligns the federal prison system with the science about what works to reform criminal behavior.  It reflects the growing consensus among researchers that, for many offenders, adding more months and years onto long prison terms is a high-cost, low-return approach to public safety.  It also looks to the growing number of practices in correctional supervision that are shown to reduce recidivism. 

The SAFE Justice Act will:

• Reduce recidivism by –
• incentivizing completion of evidence-based prison programming and activities through expanded earned time credits;
• implementing swift, certain, and proportionate sanctions for violations of supervision; and
• offering credits for compliance with the conditions of supervision.
• Concentrate prison space on violent and career criminals by  –
  • focusing mandatory minimum sentences on leaders and supervisors of drug trafficking organizations;
  • safely expanding the drug trafficking safety valve (an exception to mandatory minimums) for qualified offenders; and
  • creating release valves for lower-risk geriatric and terminally-ill offenders.
• Increase use of evidence-based sentencing alternatives by  –
  • encouraging greater use of probation and problem-solving courts for appropriate offenders; and
  • creating a performance-incentive funding program to better align the interests of the Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Probation Offices. 
• Curtail overcriminalization by –
  • requiring regulatory criminal offenses to be compiled and published for the public;
  • ensuring fiscal impact statements are attached to all future sentencing and corrections proposals; and
  • charging the Department of Justice, the Bureau of Prisons, and the Administrative Office of the Courts with collecting key outcome performance measures.
• Reduce crime by –
  • investing in evidence-based crime prevention initiatives; and
  • increasing funding for community based policing and public safety initiatives.

Original cosponsors of the SAFE Justice Act: Reps. John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), Mia Love (R-UT), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA).

Additional information about the SAFE Justice Act:

• Bill Text
• Two-Page Summary

Prior related post from June 2015:

• Bipartisan SAFE Justice Act with array of federal sentencing reforms introduced by House leaders

Another notable set of Election Day results for the criminal justice reform movement

One could readily spin the 2016 election as a good one for the (non-capital) sentencing reform movement: marijuana reform and sentencing reform initiatives won in a wide array of blue and red states, and the presidential candidate more supportive of federal reforms won the nationwide popular vote by a fairly sizable margin.  But, on the other side of the spin cycle, the death penalty won big ballot initiative victories in a three states (including California), and Donald Trump won all the right votes in all the right places to become Prez and bring his tough-and-tougher attitudes about crime and punishment into power in the federal executive branch.

I remind everyone of these mixed-message stories from the major election of 2016 because it seems there are not mixed messages or competing spins likely to emerge from the off-off-year election results in 2017.  In two gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, the candidate more supportive of some form of criminal justice reform prevailed.  As noted in this prior post, Prez Trump used his Twitter thumbs to make crime a central issue in the Virginia race, but his preferred candidate seems to have badly under-performed his poll numbers.  And in a widely-discussed local DA race, long-time defense attorney Larry Krasner won big in Philadelphia and now seems poised to engineer a whole new approach to the prosecutorial function in one of the largest cities in the US.

For an array of reasons, these results do not ensure that an array of sentencing reform movements at the federal, state and local levels are sure to be ever more successful and productive in the months and years ahead.  But they serve as a clear signal at this moment in time that advocating criminal justice reform in the right ways and in the right places can be part of winning political strategy (at least on the east coast).   The importance of that signal cannot be overstated.

"An Overdose Death Is Not Murder: Why Drug-Induced Homicide Laws Are Counterproductive and Inhumane"

The title of this post is the title of this big new report from the Drug Policy Alliance. Here is part of its extended executive summary:

The country is in the middle of a tragic increase in drug overdose deaths. Countless lives have been lost – each one leaving an irreparable rift in the hearts and lives of their families and friends. These tragedies are best honored by implementing evidence-based solutions that help individuals, families, and communities heal and that prevent additional avoidable deaths. This report examines one strategy that the evidence suggests is intensifying, rather than helping, the problem and calls for leaders to turn towards proven measures to address the increasing rates of overdose deaths.

In the 1980s, at the height of the draconian war on drugs, the federal government and a host of states passed “drug-induced homicide” laws intended to punish people who sold drugs that led to accidental overdose deaths with sentences equivalent to those for manslaughter and murder. For the first 15-20 years, these laws were rarely used by police or prosecutors, but steadily increasing rates of drug overdose deaths across the country have led the law enforcement community to revive them. Currently, 20 states — Delaware, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming —  have drug-induced homicide laws on the books.

A number of other states, while without specific drug-induced homicide statutes, still charge the offense of drug delivery resulting in death under various felony-murder, depraved heart, or involuntary or voluntary manslaughter laws. These laws and prosecutions have proliferated despite the absence of any evidence of their effectiveness in reducing drug use or sales or preventing overdose deaths. In fact, as this report illustrates, these efforts exacerbate the very problem they seek to remediate by discouraging people who use drugs from seeking help and assistance.

Although data are unavailable on the number of people being prosecuted under these laws, media mentions of drug-induced homicide prosecutions have increased substantially over the last six years. In 2011, there were 363 news articles about individuals being charged with or prosecuted for drug-induced homicide, increasing over 300% to 1,178 in 2016.

Based on press mentions, use of drug-induced homicide laws varies widely from state to state. Since 2011, midwestern states Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, and Minnesota have been the most aggressive in prosecuting drug-induced homicides, with northeastern states Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York and southern states Louisiana, North Carolina, and Tennessee rapidly expanding their use of these laws. Further signaling a return to failed drug war tactics, in 2017 alone, elected officials in at least 13 states – Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia – introduced bills to create new drug-induced homicide offenses or strengthen existing drug-induced homicide laws.

Prosecutors and legislators who champion renewed drug-induced homicide enforcement couch the use of this punitive measure, either naively or disingenuously, as necessary to curb increasing rates of drug overdose deaths. But there is not a shred of evidence that these laws are effective at reducing overdose fatalities. In fact, death tolls continue to climb across the country, even in the states and counties most aggressively prosecuting drug-induced homicide cases. As just one example, despite ten full-time police officers investigating 53 potential drug-induced homicide cases in Hamilton County, Ohio in 2015, the county still recorded 100 more opioid-related overdose deaths in 2016 than in 2015.

This should be unsurprising. Though the stated rationale of prosecutors and legislators throughout the country is that harsh penalties like those associated with drug-induced homicide laws will deter drug selling, and, as a result, will reduce drug use and related harms like overdose, we have heard this story before. Drug war proponents have been repeating the deterrence mantra for over 40 years, and yet drugs are cheaper, stronger, and more widely available than at any other time in US history. Supply follows demand, so the supply chain for illegal substances is not eliminated because a single seller is incarcerated, whether for drug-induced homicide or otherwise. Rather, the only effect of imprisoning a drug seller is to open the market for another one. Research consistently shows that neither increased arrests nor increased severity of criminal punishment for drug law violations results in less use (demand) or sales (supply). In other words, punitive sentences for drug offenses have no deterrent effect.

Unfortunately, the only behavior that is deterred by drug-induced homicide prosecutions is the seeking of life-saving medical assistance. Increasing, and wholly preventable, overdose fatalities are an expected by-product of drug-induced homicide law enforcement. The most common reason people cite for not calling 911 in the event of an overdose is fear of police involvement. Recognizing this barrier, 40 states and the District of Columbia have passed “911 Good Samaritan” laws, which provide, in varying degrees, limited criminal immunity for drug-related offenses for those who seek medical assistance for an overdose victim. This public health approach to problematic drug use, however, is rendered useless by enforcement of drug-induced homicide laws.

Interesting account of "Five myths about white collar crime"

I just saw this notable recent commentary authored by Nicolas Bourtin, a former federal prosecutor, published in the Washington Post outlook section. Here is how the lengthy commentary starts along with the myth headings and the section most focused on sentencing:

Bankers and government officials continue to feature prominently on our newspapers’ front pages — and not in a good way. Since the financial crisis of 2008, a string of political and corporate scandals has played out in our political and financial centers, and recent investigations of people close to President Trump, including Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, have produced indictments for money laundering and tax fraud. Corporate malfeasance, corruption and tax fraud are shrouded in misconceptions. Here are five enduring myths about white-collar crime.

MYTH NO. 1: Prosecutors fear prosecuting powerful defendants....

MYTH NO. 2 White-collar defendants never serve real time.

In the wake of the financial crisis, publications such as Fortune and the Nation have sought to answer why its architects don’t do hard time for their crimes. “Why does the Justice Department appear to have given up on putting white-collar criminals in jail?” Fortune asked. When academics began studying the subject in the 1970s, they noted that federal judges were typically lenient toward white-collar offenders.

Those days are over. Judicial discretion in sentencing was greatly limited by the adoption of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines in 1987, whose penalties for fraud were further enhanced after the Enron scandal broke in 2001. And although the Supreme Court held in 2005 that the guidelines were advisory and no longer mandatory for judges, sentences for white-collar defendants have been getting harsher, not more lenient.

According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s 2013 Report on Sentencing Trends, nearly 70 percent of all offenders sentenced under the guidelines for fraud received some prison time for their crimes in 2012. In 1985, that rate was about 40 percent. For crimes that caused a loss of at least $2.5 million, the same report revealed that offenders were sentenced under the guidelines to an average of nearly five to 17 years in prison in 2012. In 1985, by comparison, the average sentence for white-collar crimes was just 29 months.

MYTH NO. 3 Trump’s administration won’t enforce anti-corruption laws....

MYTH NO. 4 No one went to prison as a result of the financial crisis....

MYTH NO. 5 Financial crime is the same as robbery or theft....

"Criminal Justice and the Mattering of Lives"

The title of this post is the title of this new article/book review authored by Deborah Tuerkheimer and available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:

James Forman's "Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America" is an extraordinary book, and it arrives at a pivotal juncture for criminal justice reform.  This Essay builds on Forman's rendition of "a central paradox of the African American experience: the simultaneous over- and under-policing of crime."  

It describes three areas in which legally marginalized groups currently struggle for state recognition of their injuries: gun violence, sexual violence, and hate crimes. It then offers a conceptual framework for future reform efforts that, by centering structural inequality, aspires to concurrently rectify the over- and under-enforcement of crime highlighted by Forman's careful work.

I refer to this inversion of the traditional criminal justice paradigm as an anti-subordination approach to criminal justice — one that makes salient the interplay between crime and entrenched social inequalities while pressing for a state response that alleviates, rather than exacerbates, the disempowerment of vulnerable populations.

Prez Trump promises "crime will be gone" if Virginians elect the right governor

The politics of crime and punishment are always notable, and the President of the United States today through Twitter added to this always dynamic tale.  Specifically, in this 2017 Election Day tweet, Prez Trump makes a bold claim (with my emphasis added) about the impact of the GOP candidate for Gov in Virginia: "EdWGillespie will totally turn around the high crime and poor economic performance of VA. MS-13 and crime will be gone."  Wow, that is quite a promise, and one I do not recall Prez Trump even making for his own tenure in office.

This new Washington Post article, headlined "Trump plays ‘crime’ card for Virginia GOP as bitter race for governor highlights political rifts," provides more of the context and contents of the President's tweets in this arena. Here is how the article starts:

President Trump weighed in on Virginia’s hotly contested race for governor Tuesday, underscoring the importance of an election seen as a test of his popularity and its possible impact on state-level politics around the country.

Trump urged voters to support Republican Ed Gillespie over Democrat Ralph Northam, the state’s sitting lieutenant governor. Gillespie, a longtime establishment Republican, has embraced the culturally divisive aspects of Trump’s agenda, while Northam has presented himself as a bulwark against Trump.

“Ralph Northam will allow crime to be rampant in Virginia,” Trump wrote on Twitter, echoing Gillespie ads tying Northam to violence committed by the gang MS-13. If the Republican wins, Trump said, “MS-13 and crime will be gone.”

Polls show Gillespie and Northam are running neck and neck. They are competing to replace Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), who is prevented by state law from seeking a second consecutive term.

A number of executions in a number of states generating a number of notable stories and commentary

As detailed in this DPIC listing of upcoming executions, there are scheduled five executions in five different states over the next 10 days.  As is always the reality, each of these cases involve notable stories that can generate notable news.  Here are a few recent stories and commentaries about some of the cases in some of these states (in the order of planned executions):

In the case from Texas: "Mexico says upcoming U.S. execution of national is 'illegal'"

In the case from Arkansas: "Arkansas Death Row Inmate Wants Brain Examined If Executed"

In the case from Nevada: "Against a 'Cruel and Unusual' Death: Nevada must not allow a death-row inmate to 'volunteer' for execution by fentanyl and other drugs."

In the case from Ohio: "Ohio death row inmate wants firing squad as execution alternative"

NAAUSA and six other law enforcement groups write to Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, per the attached letter.

Last week I blogged here about a letter sent to the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee on behalf of the Federal Public and Community Defenders to urge passage of legislation to reform federal mandatory sentencing laws.  Today I received a copy of a quite different letter also sent to the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee this time coming from the National Association of Assistant U.S. Attorneys and six other law enforcement groups.  Here is how the letter, which can be downloaded below, gets started:

We write to express the opposition of the undersigned organizations to the recently-introduced Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2017 (S. 1917).  We represent federal, state and local law enforcement officers, agents and prosecutors responsible for the investigation and prosecution of drug traffickers and other violent offenders involved in the distribution and sale of dangerous drugs.

The public safety of our communities across the nation would be negatively impacted by this legislation.  The legislation undermines mandatory minimum penalties for drug trafficking and weakens the tools that law enforcement authorities need to enforce the law, prosecute criminals and dismantle domestic and international drug trafficking organizations.  The legislation authorizes the early release of thousands of previously convicted armed career criminals, serial violent criminals, and repeat drug traffickers. And it will make it more difficult for law enforcement to pursue the most culpable drug dealers and secure their cooperation to pursue others in drug distribution rings and networks, domestic and international.

The bill would undermine law enforcement investigatory efforts by giving serious criminals the best of both worlds: less sentencing exposure and the choice to not cooperate with law enforcement in further investigatory efforts.

This is not the time for the Congress to consider changes like these that will impair the ability of law enforcement to take serious drug traffickers off the street.  Violent crime across America continues to grow, and a raging heroin and opioid abuse epidemic shows no sign of ebbing. For the second year in a row, violent crime increased across the United States, according to FBI annual crime data.  Homicides increased by 8.6%, with cities like Baltimore, Chicago, and Kansas City, Missouri witnessing massive increases in their homicide rates.  Meanwhile, a national epidemic of overdose deaths, caused largely by heroin and opioid drug abuse, ravages the country.  No state is immune from the deadly consequences.  Over 47,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2014, an all-time high. In 2015 that number rose to 50,000; last year it continued to skyrocket to 64,000 people.  Daily drug overdose deaths, including those from heroin use, exceed those caused by auto accidents.

Download LE Groups Ltr re S 1917 Nov02-2017

Two notable summary reversals from SCOTUS after circuits failed, yet again, to properly follow AEDPA

The US Supreme Court this morning released this order list which does not grant cert in any new cases but does concludes with two notable summary reversals both of which result from circuit courts failing to follow properly the commands of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA).

The longer per curiam ruling (without dissent) comes in Kernan v. Cuero, No. 16-1468 (S. Ct. Nov 6, 2017) (available here), which gets started this way:

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of1996 provides that a federal court may grant habeas relief to a state prisoner based on a claim adjudicated by a state court on the merits if the resulting decision is “contrary to,or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. §2254(d)(1). In this case, a California court permitted the State to amend a criminal complaint to which the respondent, MichaelCuero, had pleaded guilty. That guilty plea would have led to a maximum sentence of 14 years and 4 months. The court acknowledged that permitting the amendment would lead to a higher sentence, and it consequently permitted Cuero to withdraw his guilty plea. Cuero then pleaded guilty to the amended complaint and was sentenced to a term with a minimum of 25 years.

A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit subsequently held that the California court had made a mistake of federal law. In its view, the law entitled Cuero to specific performance of the lower 14-year, 4-month sentence that he would have received had the complaint not been amended.

The question here is whether the state-court decision “involved an unreasonable application o[f] clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” Ibid. Did our prior decisions (1) clearly require the state court to impose the lower sentence that the parties originally expected; or (2) instead permit the State’s sentence-raising amendment where the defendant was allowed to withdraw his guilty plea? Because no decision from this Court clearly establishes that a state court must choose the first alternative, we reverse the Ninth Circuit’s decision.

The other per curiam ruling comes in Dunn v. Madison, No. 17-193 (S. Ct. Nov 6, 2017) (available here), includes these passages:

Neither Panetti nor Ford “clearly established” that a prisoner is incompetent to be executed because of a failure to remember his commission of the crime, as distinct from a failure to rationally comprehend the concepts of crime and punishment as applied in his case. The state court did not unreasonably apply Panetti and Ford when it determined that Madison is competent to be executed because — notwithstanding his memory loss — he recognizes that he will be put to death as punishment for the murder he was found to have committed.

Nor was the state court’s decision founded on an unreasonable assessment of the evidence before it. Testimony from each of the psychologists who examined Madison supported the court’s finding that Madison understands both that he was tried and imprisoned for murder and that Alabama will put him to death as punishment for that crime.

In short, the state court’s determinations of law and fact were not “so lacking in justification” as to give rise to error“beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement.” Richter, supra, at 103.  Under that deferential standard, Madison’s claim to federal habeas relief must fail. We express no view on the merits of the underlying question outside of the AEDPA context.

Notably, Justice Ginsburg penned this brief concurrence in Dunn that was joined by Justices Breyer and Sotomayor:

The issue whether a State may administer the death penalty to a person whose disability leaves him without memory of his commission of a capital offense is a substantial question not yet addressed by the Court. Appropriately presented, the issue would warrant full airing. But in this case, the restraints imposed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, I agree, preclude consideration of the question. With that understanding, I join the Court’s per curiam disposition of this case.

And Justice Breyer also added a concurrence in Dunn to note that the "case illustrates one of the basic problems with the administration of the death penalty itself. That problem concerns the unconscionably long periods of time that prisoners often spend on death row awaiting execution." Notably, no other Justice joined this concurrence by Justice Breyer.

Spotlighting challenges facing federal prosecutors in capital pursuit of Sayfullo Saipov

Andrew McCarthy has this notable recent National Review commentary under this amusing headline/subheadline: "Your Sentencing Advice Isn’t Helpful; Bergdahl is to loyalty as Trump is to tact."  Though the headline suggests the piece is mostly about taking Prez Trump to task, it actually focuses effectively on just how the battle facing federal prosecutors in the Saipov case was made a bit harder by the Prez.  Here is part of McCarthy's analysis:

The Justice Department has an exacting process before the death penalty may be charged. The process is meant to impress on the judiciary — much of which is philosophically predisposed against capital punishment — that the attorney general seeks the death sentence only after extremely careful deliberation, which includes hearing a presentation from the defense. Now, since the attorney general answers to the president, Saipov’s lawyers will argue that the DOJ process is, shall we say, a joke and a laughingstock, the president having already ordered his subordinate to seek the defendant’s execution.

In the end, I’m pretty sure defense motions to throw out any capital charges will be denied.  But the burden on the prosecutors to prevail on the matter of a death sentence will be tougher. Make no mistake: They already have an uphill battle on their hands. 

Saipov richly deserves the death penalty. (Like you, dear readers, I’m not the president, so I get to say that without screwing up the case.)  But the problem is, while this jihadist atrocity should result in a straight-up, slam-dunk state multiple-murder prosecution, the State of New York has done away with capital punishment.  If he is going to get a death sentence, it will have to be a federal case. Thus, I’m proud to say, the case has been taken over by my former stomping grounds, the United States Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. There is still a problem, however: Finding a federal murder charge that fits the facts well is not simple. 

The SDNY prosecutors are a clever lot.  In a two-count complaint, they theorize (in Count Two) that Saipov caused eight deaths in the course of damaging an automobile in interstate commerce. But the criminal statute invoked (section 33(a) of the U.S. penal code) is really addressed at incidentally endangering human beings while doing violence to a car, not incidentally endangering the car while doing violence to human beings.  The latter is what Saipov did — an attack with a truck, not on a truck.

Plainly aware that this allegation may not fly, the prosecutors also charge material support to terrorism (under section 2339B).  They plausibly allege (in Count One) that Saipov’s savage attack was done on behalf of the Islamic State terror network (ISIS).  Yet defense lawyers will surely counter that Saipov has no known connections to ISIS, and that his attack was not coordinated with ISIS.  The government has a good argument.  Even assuming Saipov had no ISIS ties, he fully intended his act to contribute to ISIS’s sharia-supremacist cause. Plus, ISIS has responded by embracing Saipov, albeit after the fact. Still, the ISIS connection will be hotly contested. And, more to the point, neither the material-support charge nor the damaging-an-automobile charge is a death-penalty offense.

Of course, the criminal complaint is only the first step in the case, really just a means of keeping Saipov detained without bail, not the formal indictment on which he will ultimately be tried. When that indictment is filed, I am hopeful it will include charges of murder in aid of racketeering. This offense (section 1959) is a capital crime, prohibiting murder (as well as other violent crimes) committed “for the purpose of gaining entrance to” a racketeering enterprise. ISIS clearly qualifies as such an enterprise under federal law (under section 1961, it is a group of individuals associated in fact — even though not a legal entity — and it engages in acts of murder, among other depravities). Further, even if Saipov was not a member of ISIS before his killing spree, he was patently seeking entry into the network . . . and he succeeded in getting it. ISIS branded him “one of the caliphate soldiers” in its claim of responsibility.

All that said, this is not an easy prosecution — certainly not as easy as the blatant brutality of Saipov’s attack would make it appear.  I am quite confident that whichever judge is assigned to the case will deny the inevitable motions to dismiss death counts.  When we step back, a foolish outburst, even from the White House, is trivial juxtaposed to Saipov’s barbarity.  But understand that the judge will still be incensed over the need to address presidential ranting (particularly if it continues).  The prosecutors’ margin for error, already thin in a death case, will narrow all the more.  Not being a lawyer, Trump may not grasp how many ways a pissed-off judge — especially one who is philosophically opposed to capital punishment — can undermine a prosecutor’s case without formally tossing it out.

Prior related posts:

• Will NYC terror attack become the first big federal capital case for Trump's Department of Justice?
• "Trump labels US justice system 'laughing stock' "
• Is Prez Trump making a capital prosecution for NYC terror killer harder with his death penalty tweets?

Ohio legislator claims condemned inmates "don’t like" her bill to abolish death penalty

It was the headline of this local article, "Republicans join effort to abolish death penalty in Ohio," that first caught my attention. But a quote and claim within prompted the title of this post, and here are excerpts:

With another execution looming next week in Ohio, a Democratic lawmaker is pushing a bill that would eliminate the death penalty in the Buckeye State. Although similar tries in three previous legislative sessions have gone nowhere, this time some Republicans are on board.

House Bill 389, sponsored by Rep. Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, would replace capital punishment with a life sentence without parole. “The consideration of death by the state would be off the table. ... This doesn’t mean they aren’t prosecuted to the fullest extent by the law,” Antonio said....

Antonio’s bill has bipartisan support. Reps. Niraj Antani, R-Miamisburg, and Craig Riedel, R-Defiance, are co-sponsors. “It’s a life issue,” Antani said. He says the ability to put someone to death is “way too big of a power” for the government.

As a Roman Catholic, Riedel opposes capital punishment. “It’s my faith that has led me to believe to not support the death penalty,” Riedel said. “Mankind is not in charge of natural death.”

This is not the first legislative effort that has tried to put an end to capital punishment in Ohio. In fact, this is the fourth time Antonio has introduced the same bill to the General Assembly. “We are not saying do not punish the criminal,” Antonio said. “Punish the criminal through a sentence of life without parole.”...

“I’ve visited death row inmates and they don’t like my bill,” Antonio said. She said they view the death penalty as a way to put them out of their misery....

Almost 140 prisoners were on death row in Ohio as of Oct. 2, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction....

Despite the shift in public attitudes, the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association continues to support capital punishment.... The association has maintained opposition to the repeal of the death penalty, said Wood County Prosecutor Paul Dobson, president of the group. “We believe it’s a deterrent factor of the most serious crimes,” Dobson said.

Notably, this DPIC webpage accounting of "volunteers" lists 7 Ohio executed killers "who continued to waive at least part of their ordinary appeals at the time of their execution."  This accounting suggests that more than 10% of Ohio's 55 executed killers would not have been supportive of the abolition of the death penalty, but it suggests that more than 85% of those executed would have liked to have seen the death penalty abolished.   Because Ohio has 143 current killers on death row, assuming the same based breakdown suggests that maybe as many as 18 condemned Ohio killers do not like the idea of capital abolition.  But I suspect well over 100 of the Ohio condemned would vote in favor of Rep. Nickie Antonio's bill.

In praise of an extraordinary new resource, "Reforming Criminal Justice"

This press release reports on the recent culmination of an extraordinary academic project:

In an effort to inform criminal justice reform, the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University published a major new report titled Reforming Criminal Justice. The culmination of a yearlong collaboration, the four-volume publication involved 120 of the nation’s foremost academics to discuss specific topics within the reform movement. The report was made possible with support from the Charles Koch Foundation....

Erik Luna, ASU Law Amelia D. Lewis professor of constitutional and criminal law, directs the project. “The goal of this report is to connect academics with those responsible for criminal justice policy,” said Luna. “In recent years, academics have not effectively participated in and contributed to the conversation. This is a way for them not only to be a part of the discussion, but also to impact real-world policy.”

The coalition of scholars, known as the Academy for Justice, was inspired by a bipartisan summit in 2015, which brought together prominent figures in the reform movement to discuss the problems of criminal justice and to propose real, meaningful, lasting solutions. Following the 2015 summit, Professor Luna spearheaded an effort to integrate the expertise of the nation’s leading academics into the criminal justice reform movement.  That effort ultimately led to the idea of creating an unprecedented report with perspectives from criminal justice experts from colleges and universities such as Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, Georgetown, Harvard, NYU, Penn, Stanford, Vanderbilt, and Virginia.  The scholars gathered at ASU Law’s Beus Center for Law and Society in February 2017, to share ideas, review and provide feedback on each other’s work, and ensure the highest quality content and issue development....

The report provides both detailed analysis and specific policy proposals, a resource of unrivaled breadth and depth in the reform movement.  The 57 separate contributions cover a wide range of specific topics within criminal justice: from criminalization and policing to adjudication and incarceration.  To maintain and increase its momentum, policymakers, thought leaders, and community members must encourage a broader and deeper understanding of the problems and forge thoughtful solutions to these difficult issues. This is where academics have an important role to play.

The report is being distributed to policymakers, criminal justice officials, think tanks, non-profit organizations, and community activists, but will also be freely available to the public through a dedicated website, academyforjustice.org

I had the honor and privilege of contributing a chapter to this extraordinary project, which is available here and is titled simply "Sentencing Guidelines."  Sentencing fans will especially want to check out all of Volume 4  on "Punishment, Incarceration, and Release" for chapters on topics ranging from traditional theories of punishment to risk assessment at sentencing to fines and fees to sex offender registration and many more. Indeed, all criminal justice fans should check out all the volumes because there is so much extraordinary work to be found therein.

Seeking experiences and thoughts on Marsy's Law, especially from prosecutors, as Ohio prepares to vote

My local paper, the Columbus Dispatch, has this new article reporting on the on-going debate over "Marsy's Law," which is due to be considered by voter initiative here in Ohio this Tuesday. The piece is headlined "Victims rights concerns at root of Issue 1," and here are excerpts:

People on both sides of state Issue 1 say they are deeply concerned with victims rights, but some of those who are opposed question its workability and even its necessity.

Also known as Marsy’s Law, Issue 1 would amend the Ohio Constitution to enshrine rights for victims of alleged crimes that supporters say aren’t guaranteed now.  It’s on the ballot Tuesday. The amendment would require that victims be notified of important hearings in criminal cases of such things as prison releases.  It also would give alleged victims standing to intervene in criminal cases to try to protect what they see as their interests.  And it would seek to protect their privacy.

Marsy’s Law is named for Marsy Nicholas, who in 1983 was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in California. Unbeknownst to her parents, Nicholas’s killer was released on bail and her parents ran into him in a store.

The effort to change state constitutions in Ohio and elsewhere is bankrolled by Marsy’s brother, California tech billionaire Henry Nicholas, who was born in a Cincinnati suburb and moved west as a young boy.  His team insists that the constitutional amendment is meant merely to level the playing field for crime victims.  “Criminals get way more constitutional protections than crime victims do,” said Gail Gitcho, national spokeswoman for the Marsy’s Law effort.

But while victims’ rights are an easy sell politically, criminal cases don’t set the rights of the accused against those of an alleged victim, said Ohio Public Defender Tim Young. “The victim doesn’t need rights to keep the government from improperly sending them to prison,” he said.

Gitcho agreed that victims’ interests are different in criminal cases, and she said nothing about whether Issue 1 would limit constitutional protections for criminal defendants. But, she said, it’s high time that victims’ interests are protected in the Ohio Constitution.

Issue 1 has gathered the support of some high-level prosecutors, such as Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien.  But the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, the Ohio State Bar Association and the Ohio Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys have come out against the ballot initiative.

One concern is that the state Constitution isn’t the appropriate place for the protections. If problems arise with the workability of Issue 1, it would be exceedingly difficult to fix them by amending the Constitution, said Louis Tobin, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association. Issue 1 supporters say, however, that it’s necessary to put victim rights in the Constitution to ensure they’re protected because a 1994 state statute intended to do so hasn’t been enough.

“In the last several decades since, it has become clear that the rights of Ohio victims are not enforceable, there have been numerous efforts to strengthen those rights in the legislature,” Issue 1 spokesman Aaron Marshall said in an email. “All of those efforts have failed due to pushback from the same groups who are now claiming that they would support victims’ rights legislative improvements.”...

Asked for examples of victims’ rights violations in Ohio that would be helped by Issue 1, Marshall cited the case of a northeast Ohio rape in which the trial was postponed 20 times over more than five years. He also pointed to a Summit County woman’s long fight to keep private her psychological records and social media passwords after her boyfriend was killed and she was beaten, shot and stabbed.

Despite the appeal of Issue 1, Public Defender Young predicts a raft of legal headaches if it passes. “This isn’t about victims’ rights,” he said. “It’s about the Bill of Rights.”

As this article highlights, the vote over Marsy's Law has split the state's prosecutors, with Ohio's Attorney General and some county prosecutors in support, but with the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association (OPAA) against.  (The Ohio AG is already a declared candidate for Ohio governor in 2018, which may have played some role in his thinking on the issue.)  This recent commentary from the executive director of the OPAA explains some of the group's concerns:

Marsy’s Law could negatively impact Ohio communities.  The amendment grants “the victim’s . . . lawful representative” the right to assert a victim’s rights. Courts could determine that this grants the victim the right to an attorney. The victim would then have the right to a court-appointed attorney if indigent.

Taxpayers could be paying for the prosecutor; for counsel for an indigent defendant; and for counsel for an indigent victim. This duplication of responsibilities and costs is bad enough in one case. Multiplied by thousands of cases each year, it could delay justice at best and deny it at worst.

Ohio’s prosecutors applaud advocates for victims.  They deserve praise for raising awareness of the cause and plight of victims of crime, and we stand ready to work with all to improve victim’s rights in a meaningful way.  Enshrining Marsy’s Law in Ohio’s Constitution in response to a problem case in California, however, is not beneficial. Ohioans should be concerned about the consequences for our justice system.

I tend to be a strong supporter of victim's rights in the criminal justice system, while also being a strong supporter of defendant rights.  Because I do not think there has to be or should be a zero-sum quality to defendant/victim rights, I am always inclined to support a proposal that seeks to expanded identified and enforceable rights in our justice system.  For this reason, I am inclined to support Marsy's Laws, and that inclination is enhanced by my extraordinary respect for lawyers and advocates I know who work so hard on behalf of rights of crime victims in a range of settings.

That all said, because Ohio has a number of victims' rights already in place in our Constitution and statutes, I understand the concern that Marsy's Law could end up being a cure worse than the current disease.  For that reason, as the title of this post suggests, I would be especially interested in hearing from prosecutors or others with direct experience with the impact and import of Marsy's Law or with particular concerns as to how the law might play out in Ohio.  I believe this law has been on the books for nearly a decade in California and in a handful of others states, and the debate here in Ohio has seemingly not included any examples of the law causing any big trouble in other jurisdictions.  A little research turned up this recent AP article from North Dakota reporting that law enforcement has described the impact of Marsy's Law there as  "very, very minimal."

So, informed (or uninformed) readers, any sharp thoughts on how the citizens of Ohio should vote on Marsy's Law?