Sentencing Law and Policy

Making the case for bringing back parole in Illinois and elsewhere

A few years ago I wrote an essay, titled "Reflecting on Parole's Abolition in the Federal Sentencing System," which in part lamented the federal sentencing system's decision to abolish parole back in 1984.  That essay came to mind as I read this new New York Times commentary authored by Ben Austen and Khalil Gibran Muhammad headlined "Let the Punishment Fit the Crime."  Here are excerpts:

Senate Bill 2333 would entitle people imprisoned in the state who serve at least 20 years to a parole review.  There are 2,500 people who have already spent two decades in prison in Illinois; many thousands more will eventually surpass that mark.  Under the proposed law, they wouldn’t be automatically released; a parole board would evaluate them, assessing the risks and benefits of restoring their freedom.

Both of us have visited and studied prisons in other Western countries, where 20-year sentences are considered extreme and are exceptionally rare.  In Germany, according to a 2013 Vera Institute of Justice report, fewer than 100 people have prison terms longer than 15 years; in the Netherlands, all but a tiny percentage are sentenced to four years or less.  In U.S. prisons, life sentences are routine. 

The pending Illinois law, if passed, might lead other states to follow suit, chipping away at one of the many pillars of mass incarceration. The legislation is a hopeful sign of changing sensibilities about people whose transformed lives have meant very little in the machinery of mass punishment.

Parole has a complicated history in this country, one that helps explain how we got into the crisis of mass incarceration and maybe how we might find a way out. When it began in the United States in the 19th century, parole was envisioned as a means of rehabilitating people in prison by encouraging good behavior with the possibility of early release.

By the 1970s, though, parole boards were under attack. Conservatives pointed to rising crime and civil disorder and denounced parole as overly lenient. They said discretionary release invariably sent dangerous people back onto the streets and encouraged more crime, since soft punishments failed as deterrents.

On the other end of the political spectrum, people behind bars were busy protesting prison conditions. They said parole boards lacked transparency and systematically discriminated against petitioners of color. They and their supporters believed that clearly defined fixed prison terms would be less susceptible to a parole board’s bias, racism and indifference, and that as a result these sentences would be shorter. They were wrong.

Sixteen states and the federal government eventually got rid of or severely curtailed their existing parole systems. Other states soon restricted parole eligibility to a small subset of their prison populations. But eliminating and restricting parole turned out to be the first of the sentencing reforms in the country’s punitive turn.

The floodgates opened onto mandatory minimums, truth-in-sentencing, three strikes and you’re out. More people were sentenced to prison, and the fixed terms grew longer and longer. The number of people in state and federal prisons ballooned to a peak of 1.6 million in 2009 from 200,000 in the 1970s. The numbers have fallen moderately since.

A large body of evidence has documented the destruction caused by long prison terms. Not only are people over 50 the fastest-growing segment in U.S. prisons, but they are also exposed to ever-greater mental and physical health risks with each passing year — a crisis made even more apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic.

One of us was a contributor to a 2014 National Research Council report on the creation and consequences of mass incarceration. The report recommends a return to a principle of parsimony, the sensible idea that a punishment should be only as severe as is required to prevent future offending. Too much punishment, the report noted, can have the opposite effect, when “justice institutions lose legitimacy.”

Many legal scholars and criminologists now agree that whatever prisons are supposed to accomplish — whether it’s incapacitation, accountability, rehabilitation or deterrence — it can be achieved within two decades. The nonprofit Sentencing Project argues that the United States should follow the lead of other countries and cap prison terms at 20 years, barring exceptional circumstances. The Model Penal Code of the American Law Institute, a century-old organization led by judges, law professors and legal experts, proposes reviewing long sentences for resentencing or release after 15 years.

In Virginia, there’s also a movement to reinstate parole eligibility. A bill in New York State would grant those 55 and older who have served at least 15 years the right to a hearing. Expanding parole consideration in Illinois and elsewhere won’t be enough to roll back the destructive effects of mass incarceration. But it would be an important step in continuing efforts to reduce prison numbers, and it could usher in other necessary changes.

Still more great Inquest pieces, including a timely commentary on reproductive justice

I continue to hope readers are not tired of all my blogging about Inquest, "a decarceral brainstorm," because the site continues to publish must-read essays and other great materials that remain so  blogworthy.  Here are some new great new reads from the site since the last time I blogged about it, concluding with an excerpt focused on the intersection of incarceration and reproductive rights:

From James M. Binnall, "Carceral Wisdom: Like the value they bring to the classroom, people who have experienced the harms of the penal system have much knowledge to bring to our nation’s jury trials."

From Felix Sitthivong, "Divide and Conquer: For those of us on the inside who believe in prison abolition by any means necessary, prison closures really mean prison closures. The state and some of my fellow prisoners don’t like that."

From Inez Bordeaux, "Radicalized at the Workhouse: The criminal legal system almost took my life from me. The anger that came after now fuels my life’s work."

From Angel Parker, "The True Jailers of Rikers: As demands grow louder for decarcerating and shutting down New York City’s deadly jail complex, judges and prosecutors have escaped accountability. But they’re the ones driving the crisis."

"Saying Their Names: How public defenders in New York City organized to speak up for those who have died on Rikers — and to keep others from going there."

From Crystal Hayes, Carolyn Sufrin & Jamila Perritt, "Where Choice Ends: Unless and until mass incarceration is ended, Roe v. Wade, and reproductive freedom writ large, will never be safe." An excerpt:

Mass incarceration is a system that wields enormous control and power over people’s lives and violates every single tenet of reproductive justice.  Reproductive justice, a theory first coined in 1994 by 12 Black women, maintains that all people, especially communities that have been historically excluded and marginalized — Indigenous women, Black women, trans people, and other women of color — should have access to the material resources necessary to fully realize the range of reproductive, sexual health care, and technologies available to them, unencumbered by any barriers.

Reproductive justice includes four main tenets holding that everyone has a human right to decide if and when they will have a child and the conditions under which they will give birth; to decide if they will not have a child and their options for preventing or ending a pregnancy; to parent the children they already have with the necessary social supports in safe environments and healthy communities, and without fear of violence from individuals or the government; and to possess bodily autonomy free from all forms of reproductive oppression.  Black women who pioneered reproductive justice were seeking a broader way to understand and frame the need to access reproductive health care.  Their efforts included a racial analysis, and critique, of the idea that all women have access to the same resources to make healthy decisions about their own bodies and fertility — while assailing the flawed assumption that all women who choose to have children get to do so and even parent their own children.

For people in prison and jail, all these tenets are beyond reach.  Once incarcerated, people are stripped of bodily autonomy and the freedom and capacity to make healthy decisions over their own bodies in nearly all respects, including reproductive health.  In these environments, it is well documented that abortion access is heavily curtailed and in some cases non-existent, despite legal precedent that incarcerated people retain their right to abortion.  Protecting abortion care and access, contraception, and other sexual health care as part of a holistic approach to reproductive health care, for people in Texas and beyond, demands that we go beyond pushing the courts and political actors to protect Roe v Wade.  Protecting Roe is woefully insufficient in a society where any person is denied basic reproductive healthcare, including those who are incarcerated.  We must protect Roe while also ensuring it is a reality for incarcerated people. To do so, fighting to end mass incarceration altogether is critical.

Oregon Gov uses clemency power to give certain juve offenders opportunity for parole after non-retroactive statutory reform

As reported in this HuffPost piece, "Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) commuted the sentences of dozens of people convicted of crimes they committed as kids on Wednesday, potentially reducing their prison time by hundreds of years and marking major progress in a broader reform effort that recognizes people who committed crimes before they were adults have a unique capacity for change." Here is more (with links from the original):

Brown’s clemency order lists more than 70 people who committed crimes before they were 18 years old and are serving sentences of 15 years or more in prison.  They were selected because they were excluded from a 2019 juvenile justice reform bill that dramatically changed the way the state punishes people who commit crimes when they are kids.  Those individuals, many of whom were previously facing life sentences — some without the chance of parole — now have the opportunity to petition the state’s Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision for release after 15 years in prison.  Brown instructed the board to consider each individual’s age and immaturity at the time of the crime and whether they have subsequently shown maturity and rehabilitation.

The clemency order excludes individuals who are serving sentences for crimes they later committed as adults and those who have a release date of 2050 or later — although these individuals can still petition the governor for clemency.

The governor’s move comes months after a HuffPost story about Kipland Kinkel, one of Oregon’s most infamous juvenile offenders, and the ways his high-profile case has been used to justify extreme sentencing for other people who committed crimes when they were kids.  In 1998, when Kinkel was 15 years old and experiencing symptoms of a severe undiagnosed mental illness, he killed his mother, his father, two students at his school, and wounded 25 others.  He was sentenced to nearly 112 years in prison without the chance of parole.

With a projected release date of 2110, Kinkel is not part of Brown’s clemency order.  The 2050 cutoff in Brown’s order appears to be designed specifically to exclude him, although it does impact a handful of other people....

Brown’s clemency action is an effort to correct some of the sentencing inequities created by the state legislature with the non-retroactive reform bill....  Juvenile justice reform advocates praised Brown’s decision to give a second chance to people who have grown up and dramatically changed since the time of their crimes....

Brown outlined her clemency plan in a September letter to Oregon’s Department of Corrections in which she requested a list of names of people in its custody for crimes they committed as juveniles who were sentenced before S.B. 1008 went into effect and who met a set of criteria. 

“SB 1008 takes into account the fact that these youth are capable of tremendous transformation,” Brown wrote in the letter, citing the fact that many who commit crimes during their youth complete college degrees and treatment programs while in youth custody before they even age into adult prison. “For these reasons, I have no doubt that the above-referenced list will be comprised of many individuals who have demonstrated exemplary progress and considerable evidence of rehabilitation, and who — unfairly — did not benefit from the effects of SB 1008.”

Brown’s juvenile clemency plan is two-pronged, according to the September letter.  One part involves providing clemency that enables individuals who are serving a sentence of 15 years or more to get a parole board hearing — which she did on Wednesday.  The second part involves reviewing the sentences of people who were under 18 at the time of their crime and who will have served 50% of their sentences by next December.

For the roughly 200 people in that group, the governor’s office “will engage in an individualized review process to determine whether the youth has made exemplary progress and if there is considerable evidence of rehabilitation, as well as taking into account input from the [district attorney] and victims, if any,” Merah wrote in an email. “If the Governor determines that a commutation is warranted, the youth will be granted a conditional release.”  Both parts of Brown’s clemency plan exclude individuals who are currently in prison for a conviction they subsequently committed as adults.

Alabama completes execution of intellectually disabled man 30 years after his robbery/murder

As detailed in this lengthy local article, an execution was completed in the Yellowhammer State on Thursday night bringing to a conclusion a capital case raising a host of modern legal issues.  Here are some of the details:

Alabama Death Row inmate Willie B. Smith III was executed by lethal injection Thursday night at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, even as the state did not dispute that Smith had significantly below-average intellectual functioning, according to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The execution date was set by the Alabama Supreme Court last month and came after several months of delay, due to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from February saying Smith could not be executed without his personal spiritual advisor present in the room with him.  That ruling came on the evening Smith was first set to be put to death, on Feb. 11.

Smith was sent to death row after being convicted of killing 22-year-old Sharma Ruth Johnson, the sister of a police detective, on Oct. 27, 1991 in Birmingham.  Prosecutors said Smith abducted Johnson at gunpoint from an ATM, stole $80 from her and later took her to a cemetery, where he shot her in the back of the head.

The execution was set to happen at 6 p.m. but did not start until shortly after 9:30 p.m. because the state was waiting on a ruling from the nation’s highest court.  Smith’s official time of death was 9:47 p.m....  The state allowed a personal pastor in the chamber, Pastor Robert Wiley, who appeared to pray with Smith and put hand on his leg at the beginning of the execution....

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Smith’s request for a stay of execution and petition for a writ of certiorari, or a request to review the case, at approximately 8:30 p.m.  Justice Sonia Sotomayor released a statement respecting the denial of the petition.  She said she shared the same concerns as a lower court judge, who “identified serious concerns with the way the ADOC has administered the Alabama Legislature’s directive to allow those on death row to choose nitrogen hypoxia as their means of execution.”...

Issues of Smith’s mental capacity have been brought up several times throughout the years-long appeals process.  Smith’s lawyers, Allyson R. du Lac, Spencer Hahn and John Palombi of the Federal Defenders for the Middle District of Alabama, said in a recent court filing that Smith has an IQ in or below the 70s and should have received help under the ADA to understand a form related to the selection of an execution method.  Previous appeals in Smith’s state case showed that a state expert put his IQ at 72; a defense expert placed it at 64.

In the 11th Circuit’s ruling, the court stated: “In making its determination, the district court found that: (1) Mr. Smith is a qualified individual with a disability, (2) Mr. Smith failed to demonstrate that he lacked meaningful access to the ADOC’s Election Form service, and (3) Mr. Smith did not request an accommodation from the ADOC or show that his need for an accommodation was so obvious and apparent that the ADOC should have known he required one.”...

Lawyers for the state have argued that Smith never gave any indication that he wanted to request nitrogen; but according to the defense attorneys, “(the state) clearly violated Mr. Smith’s rights when they failed to provide him with an accommodation when handing out the form in June 2018.”  The filing continues, “Mr. Smith has submitted an affidavit making clear that ‘[i]f he had understood the Election Form, [he] would have signed it and handed it in in June 2018.’”

In a different matter last month, the ADOC agreed to allow Smith’s pastor to hold his hand during the lethal injection -- a settlement made to end litigation over the issue.  The issue of allowing inmates’ personal spiritual advisors in the execution chamber has been a point of contention.  Before April 2019 the ADOC required its Christian chaplain to be in the execution chamber.  That policy was changed after a Muslim inmate, Domineque Ray, requested and was denied the presence of his imam (an Islamic spiritual advisor) when he died.  He was executed anyway.

"Data update: As the Delta variant ravages the country, correctional systems are dropping the ball (again)"

The title of this post is the title of this new briefing from the Prison Policy Initiative authored by Emily Widra.  Here is how it starts and ends:

The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over, particularly inside prisons and jails.  The death rate from COVID-19 in prisons is more than double that of the general U.S. population. In state and federal prisons across the country, over 2,800 people have died of COVID-19 and almost 438,000 people in prison have been infected, and thousands of additional cases are linked to individual county jails.  As the more contagious Delta variant ravages parts of the nation, public health officials continue to recommend prison population decreases as a primary method of risk reduction.  Our data show that with just a few exceptions, state and local leaders are continuing to fail to reduce their prison and jail populations.

The federal Bureau of Prisons, state governments and departments of corrections, and local officials have a responsibility to protect the health and lives of those who are incarcerated.  After 18 months of outbreak after outbreak in prisons and jails, it is clear correctional authorities must be held accountable for their failure to reduce their populations enough to prevent the illness and death of those who are incarcerated and in surrounding communities....

Even before COVID-19, prisons and jails were a threat to public health and considered notoriously dangerous places during any sort of viral outbreak.  And yet, correctional facilities continue to be the source of a large number of infections in the U.S.  The COVID-19 death rate in prisons is almost three times higher than among the general U.S. population, even when adjusted for age and sex (as the prison population is disproportionately young and male).  Since the early days of the pandemic, public health professionals, corrections officials, and criminal justice reform advocates have agreed that decarceration is necessary to protect incarcerated people and the community at large from COVID-19. Decarceration efforts must include releasing more people from prisons and jails.  Despite this knowledge, state, federal, and local authorities have failed to release people from prisons and jails on a scale sufficient to protect incarcerated people’s lives — and by extension, the lives of everyone in the communities where incarcerated people eventually return, and where correctional staff live and work.

Notable (re)sentencing of another former Minnesota police officer for another notable homicide

Though not anywhere as high-profile as the conviction and sentencing of Derek Chauvin, another Minnesota police officer was just subject to state sentencing (actually a resentencing) for homicide. This local article, headlined "Judge resentences ex-officer Mohamed Noor to almost 5 years on manslaughter count," reports on an interesting sentencing process and outcome. Here are excerpts:

Former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor received a new sentence of 4 3/4 years on Thursday for his manslaughter conviction after the state's high court overturned the more serious murder conviction for the 2017 shooting of an Australian woman who had called to report a possible crime.

Noor, who turned 36 Wednesday, was resentenced by Judge Kathryn Quaintance on second-degree manslaughter because the Minnesota Supreme Court set aside his third-degree murder conviction last month.  The decision vacated a prison term of 12 1/2 years Noor was already serving on the murder count for shooting Justine Ruszczyk Damond.

Quaintance, in sentencing Noor to the high end as suggested by state sentencing guidelines, said she wasn't surprised Noor has been a model prisoner, but he had fired his gun across the nose of his partner, endangering a bicyclist and others in the neighborhood on a summer evening.  "These factors of endangering the public make your crime of manslaughter appropriate for a high end sentence," she said.

Noor has served 29 1/12 months since he entered prison in May 2019.  With credit for time served, Noor would be scheduled for release after serving 2/3 of his sentence, meaning he must serve another 8 1/2 months. He is likely to be released next May.

Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Amy Sweasy read a statement from Maryan Heffernan, the victim's mother, who was watching from Australia.  The family sought the maximum for Noor. "We should expect complete accountability from our public institutions and their staff," Heffernan's statement said.  The longest sentence would send a message to police "that we require respect for their badges," Heffernan's statement said.  "We will be outraged if the court is unwilling to respect the will of the people and demand that justice be heard, be seen and be done."

The victim's fiance Don Damond appeared via Zoom and took a different tact, saying the Supreme Court's decision, "Does not diminish the truth which was uncovered during the trial.  The truth is that Justine should be alive." Damond said his comments should not be construed that he wasn't still grieving, but his departed wife "lived a life of love, she modeled a life of joy for all and she stood for forgiveness."

"Given her example, I want you to know that I forgive you Mohamed," he said. "All I ask is that you use this experience to do good for other people.  Be the example of how to transform beyond adversity.  Be an example of honesty and contrition. This is what Justine would want."

Second-degree manslaughter is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, but state sentencing guidelines recommend a term between about 3 1/3 and 4 3/4 years in prison for defendants with no criminal history, such as Noor.  The presumptive term is four years, according to the guidelines.

In her comments, Sweasy asked for the maximum, noting this will be the only time a police officer will be sentenced for this offense.  "By every measure ... this is worse-than-typical for a second-degree manslaughter case," Sweasy said, adding that Noor wore the badge of Minneapolis police officer, a social contract that provides privilege to use deadly force to protect other civilians.

Noor's attorney, Thomas Plunkett, said Noor was young and had overreacted. "He was operating with the mistaken belief that he needed to protect his partner," Plunkett said, adding that Noor had wanted to make the world better and chose a career as a police officer to bridge the gap between the police, the justice system and the Somali-immigrant community.

In prison, he was an award-winning inmate for his commitment and respect to others.  Plunkett requested a sentence at the low end of the guidelines, 3 1/3 years.  There is little doubt that Mr. Noor's time in prison was "more punitive" than anyone could have imagined before the pandemic, Plunkett said.  In Noor's brief comments, he said he was "deeply grateful" for Damond's forgiveness and "deeply sorry" for the family's loss. Of Damond, Noor said, "I will take his advice and be a unifier."

Plunkett had asked the judge to give Noor credit for time he's already served in prison and to place him on supervised release, which typically requires regular check-ins with the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC), regular drug and alcohol testing, and restrictions on certain activities.  It can also include electronic home monitoring.  Violations of such terms can result in a defendant being sent back to prison.

Defendants in Minnesota must serve 2/3 of their prison term before becoming eligible for supervised release.  Noor entered prison on May 2, 2019 and was first sentenced in June 2019.  He originally served his time in administrative segregation at Oak Park Heights prison in Minnesota, but was transferred on July 11, 2019 to facility in North Dakota for his own safety.

"The policy lessons learned from the criminal justice system response to COVID-19"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new essay authored by Alex Piquero just published by Criminology & Public Policy.  Here is part of the essay's introduction (with cites removed):

Since the onset of the novel coronavirus, criminologists have researched how the virus and its policy responses have affected crime and criminal justice, with the most significant findings indicating: (1) a steady increase in specific forms of violence, including primarily homicides/community gun violence and domestic violence; (2) reductions or stability in virtually all property crimes, but the acceleration of certain types of offending, such as fraud and cybercrime, due in large part to increased reliance on the internet and related platforms; (3) the emergence of new crime types, such as public health violations for breaking COVID-19 safety protocols; (4) a reduction in prison and jail populations — especially in the first 6–9 months of the pandemic; (5) a rapid spread of viral infections in jails and prisons; (6) a substantial increase in opioid use and fatalities; (6) the creation of gaps in the delivery of needed medical and mental health screening and treatment; and (7) an initial reduction in police stops, citations, and arrests — particularly in the first few months of the pandemic as many departments pulled back on patrol and limited contact with the public in large part due to viral spread, lockdowns — leading to fewer persons out in public, and a lack of protective equipment.

These research efforts have been important in documenting changes in crime and the criminal justice response and have provided important baseline information to compare against as criminologists continue to track changes in crime in the COVID-19 era.  Yet, one of the glaring omissions from the research accumulated thus far — and not necessarily the fault of criminologists per se — has been the lack of policy-relevant discussion surrounding the effects of all-things-COVID on the criminal justice system.  This essay takes a step in that direction.

In the sections that follow, I highlight what was the nonexistent policy playbook and initial response by the various actors of the criminal justice system and the subsequent policy decisions and lessons learned as the system navigated the viral outbreak in real time with little — or constantly changing guidance — from state and federal officials.  Not only were communities ravaged by the virus — and the racial/ethnic health injustices brought to light, but so to were police, court, and correctional systems and personnel as many became infected, hospitalized, and died — all the while the wheels of the justice system continued at a slower pace (with respect to policing) and in some cases stalled or stopped altogether for a period of time (such as the court system).  Following this section, I turn to some of the early experiences as to how policing, courts, and corrections made decisions to adapt to the spread of the virus.  The essay closes with some lessons learned by criminal justice agencies, some policy considerations, and importantly how the COVID-19 pandemic in concert with calls for social and racial justice within the justice (and health) system(s) have hopefully moved the dial to reform and reimagine what criminal justice could look like and should like with respect to trust, legitimacy, accountability, and transparency.

Will guilty pleas and apology reduce odds that Nikolas Cruz is sentenced to death for Parkland school mass murder?

The question in this post is prompted by today's events in a Florida courtroom covered in this CNN article headlined "Nikolas Cruz pleads guilty to murder charges and apologizes for Parkland high school massacre."  Here are excerpts:

Nikolas Cruz, the gunman who carried out the massacre of students and faculty members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018, pleaded guilty in a Florida courtroom Wednesday to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.  Cruz, 23, faces a minimum of life in prison and maximum of the death penalty, which will be decided by a jury in the upcoming sentencing phase of the trial.  The prosecution has said they plan to seek the death penalty.

In court, Cruz wore a collared shirt, black vest, face mask and large, thick-framed glasses. He stood at the court lectern and answered Judge Elizabeth Scherer's series of questions with a "yes ma'am" or "no ma'am," and assured her, "I know what's going on." He said he had depression and anxiety, and that he was experiencing anxiety in court, but he said he was able to proceed.

Cruz then responded "guilty" when each of the 34 charges were read to him. Afterward, he apologized to the victims in a short speech.  "I am very sorry for what I did, and I have to live with it every day.  If I were to get a second chance, I would do everything in my power to try to help others," he said. "I am doing this for you, and I do not care if you do not believe me.  And I love you, and I know you don't believe me, but I have to live with this every day, and it brings me nightmares and I can't live with myself sometimes, but I try to push through because I know that's what you guys would want me to do.

"I hate drugs, and I believe this country would do better if everyone would stop smoking marijuana and doing all these drugs and causing racism and violence out in the streets," he continued.  "I'm sorry, and I can't even watch TV anymore.  And I'm trying my best to maintain my composure, and I just want you to know I'm really sorry, and I hope you give me a chance to try to help others.  I believe it's your decision to decide where I go, and whether I live or die.  Not the jury's.  I believe it's your decision. I'm sorry."

The judge then asked Cruz if he understood that a jury, and not the victims' families, would have the legal power to decide his sentence, and he confirmed that he understood. "What I meant was I believe they should have the right to choose, the victims themselves, on whether I should take life or death," Cruz said.

He was then placed in handcuffs, fingerprinted and escorted from the courtroom.  Jury selection in the penalty phase is scheduled for January 4.

The plea comes more than three and a half years after the Valentine's Day shooting in Parkland, Florida, in which he killed 17 students and faculty members and injured 17 others in what is the deadliest high school shooting in US history.  A dozen law enforcement officers filled the courtroom Wednesday while media, victims, and the family of victims watched the proceedings, some of whom were seen wiping their eyes as the judge detailed the counts and penalties to Cruz.

Tony Montalto, the father one of the slain students, Gina Montalto, called Cruz's apology "ridiculous." "If he wanted to apologize, he shouldn't have murdered Gina and 16 other people that day," Tony Montalto told CNN. Asked about the prospect of the death penalty for Cruz, Montalto said, "We need to deprive these mass murderers of the notoriety they seek. . . . We need to remember the victims for the wonderful and vibrant people that they were.  I think he deserves as much of a chance as he gave my daughter and everyone else on February 14 of 2018."

In court the prosecution laid out the harrowing timeline of the shooting, which began when Cruz, then 19, grabbed his AR-15-style rifle and magazines and rode in an Uber to his former high school. There, he took out his rifle and loaded it, and when a student walked near, Cruz offered a warning. "You better get out of here," he told the student. "Something bad is about to happen." Cruz then wandered through the halls of the school and fired indiscriminately at various students and staff in hallways and classrooms, prosecutors said. He eventually left the school and was taken into custody several miles away....

Cruz's defense team had long ago offered a guilty plea in exchange for life in prison without the possibility of parole -- but only if prosecutors took the death penalty off the table. Prosecutors had rejected that, saying they were seeking the death penalty....

Cruz's guilty plea comes just after a $25 million settlement was reached between the Broward County School Board and 52 victims of the massacre, according to an attorney for some of the victims.  Attorney David Brill said the settlement of the lawsuit includes all of the families of the 17 who died, 16 of 17 victims who were shot but survived, and 19 victims who suffer from PTSD or other ailments.

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 

Rounding up some recent postings from Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform

I have not done a round-up of posts from my blogging over at Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform in quite some time, so here is a sampling of some posts in recent months at intersection of criminal justice reform and marijuana reform from MLP&R:

• "Smoke and Fears: The Effects of Marijuana Prohibition on Crime"

• Drug Policy Alliance's federal marijuana reform recommendations

• Medical marijuana prisoner cites recent Justice Thomas statement questioning federal prohibition in support of sentence reduction

• Is marijuana legalization likely to be a staple of all major Democratic campaigns in 2022?

• Senators Booker and Warren call upon DOJ to "decriminalize cannabis using its existing authority"

• Full policy brief version of "Blowing Smoke at the Second Amendment"

• "Targeted Marijuana Law Enforcement in Los Angeles, 1914-1950"

• California Supreme Court rules Prop 64 did not undo criminalization of possession of cannabis in prison

• "Legalization Without Disruption: Why Congress Should Let States Restrict Interstate Commerce in Marijuana"

New report examines aftermath of Baltimore's no-prosecution policy for minor drug possession and prostitution

As reported in this new release, a "new report from researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Heath found that Baltimore’s no-prosecution policy for minor drug possession and prostitution, enacted at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, led to fewer new low-level drug and prostitution arrests, almost no rearrests for serious crimes for those who had charges dropped, and fewer 911 calls."  Here is more:

The findings suggest the new policies did not result in increased public complaints about drug use or sex work, and that those who had charges dropped did not go on to commit serious crimes.

Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced that Baltimore would stop prosecuting low-level drug and drug paraphernalia possession and prostitution in March 2020, chiefly as an infection-reduction measure at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.  A year later she announced that the policy would remain in place — even after the pandemic winds down — as a way of reducing the burdens on city police and on the poorer, predominantly Black city residents who are traditionally arrested for such crimes....

The report’s key findings, covering the 14 months following the policy change (April 2020 to May 2021), include:

• An estimated 443 new drug/paraphernalia-possession and prostitution arrests were averted as a result of the new no-prosecution policy, 78 percent of which were averted in the Black community. This analysis was based on Baltimore Police Department arrest data.
• Of the 741 people whose drug and prostitution charges were dropped, six—less than 1 percent—had new arrests for serious crimes during the study period. This analysis was based on Maryland Courts Judicial Information System data.
• Calls to 911 about drug/paraphernalia and prostitution declined significantly in the post-policy change period.

The full report, titled Evaluation of Prosecutorial Policy Reforms Eliminating Criminal Penalties for Drug Possession and Sex Work in Baltimore, Maryland,” is available at this link.

"Plea Bargaining in the Shadow of a Retrial: Bargaining Away Innocence"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new empirical paper now available via SSRN and authored by Keith A. Findley, Camila Angulo Amaya, Gibson Hatch and John Smith. Here is its abstract:

Critics of plea bargaining have long contended that it has an innocence problem — that the imbalanced and coercive nature of plea negotiations can induce even innocent defendants to plead guilty.  While laboratory studies confirm that innocent individuals can indeed be induced to plead guilty, little real-world empirical evidence exists about the nature and extent of plea bargaining's innocence problem.

Utilizing original empirical data, this article begins to fill that void.  Looking at cases in a post-conviction context, we study the extent to which prosecutors in real cases utilize their plea-bargaining power to preserve convictions, even when the convictions appear to be deeply flawed and the chances the defendants are innocent are high.  We also examine the degree to which innocence-claiming defendants succumb to those pressures and accept the deals.  To address these questions, we collected a wide-range of data from U.S.-based member organizations of the Innocence Network about the cases they litigated from 2010-2020.

In broadest terms, the data reveal that, in post-conviction litigation involving defendants with a high likelihood of being actually innocent and wrongly convicted, prosecutors offered plea bargains in 23 percent of the cases.  Moreover, when prosecutors made plea offers, the plea concessions they offered were uniformly steep.  Prosecutors on average offered to knock off close to half of the original sentences (45 percent off the original sentence).  The effect was that they offered to erase more than 90 percent of the total time the defendants had left to serve; the remaining years the defendants had to serve represented on average 6 percent of the original maximum imposed sentence.  Indeed, in 88 percent of the cases, the effective remaining years on the sentence derived from the plea offer was zero, as most prosecutors offered time served.  The data also show that in total, 56 percent of the defendants accepted these hard-to-refuse bargains.  Finally, in most cases in which defendants rejected plea offers prior to adjudication of their post-conviction motions, and in every case in which they rejected plea offers made after they had won a new trial, they nonetheless prevailed in obtaining relief from their convictions.

Examining these patterns through the lens of the shadow-of-the-trial theory of plea bargaining, our data provide preliminary evidence that some prosecutors do indeed bargain strategically in the shadow of a trial, discounting the maximum sentence sought by the perceived likelihood of conviction, and they do so even when the likelihood of conviction appears virtually nil.  Hence the data also offer support for the concern that some prosecutors are using their leverage in plea bargaining to preserve convictions in serious cases, even when they know the chances of conviction at trial are quite low and therefore the possibility of innocence is unusually high.  Finally, this article explores possible reforms to mitigate the harmful consequences of these patterns in a system ostensibly designed to seek the truth and protect the innocent.

Recordings of "Understanding Drug Sentencing" symposium’s panels now available

Regular readers surely recall various prior posts promoting the terrific conference organized by the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center and the Academy for Justice which took place earlier this month on October 7-8, 2021, titled "Understanding Drug Sentencing and its Contributions to Mass Punishment."   I am now pleased to be able to report that Recordings for six of the Understanding Drug Sentencing symposium’s panels are now available on the event site here. You can also find recordings via the DEPC playlist on YouTube here.

Notable new essays in Brennan Center's "Punitive Excess" series focused on responding to violent crime and mandatory minimums

I highlighted here back in April the terrific essay series assembled by the Brennan Center for Justice under the title "Punitive Excess."  I have blogged about sets of new essays repeatedly (as linked below) because each new set of new essays are must reads (like all that come before).  The latest pair of piece ought to be of particular interest to sentencing fans:

• "Addressing Violent Crime More Effectively: Excessive punishment is the wrong response to rises in homicide rates" by David Alan Sklansky

• "End Mandatory Minimums: Inflexible, harsh sentences exacerbate crime and racial disparities alike" by Alison Siegler

Both of these pieces are must reads, and the piece on mandatory minimums has links to research and other materials that might be useful for those litigating against such sentences or seeking reductions therefrom.  Here is a segment (with links) from that piece:

[P]rosecutors’ power over mandatory minimums in turn creates racial disparities, obliterating any pretense of an unbiased system.  A recent study finds that prosecutors’ mandatory minimum charges resulted in Black individuals spending more time in prison than whites for the exact same crimes.  In fact, prosecutors bring mandatory minimums 65 percent more often against Black defendants, all else remaining equal. Another study similarly finds that some federal prosecutors charge Black and Latino individuals more often than white individuals with possession or sale of a quantity of drugs just sufficient to trigger a mandatory minimum; the disparity is highest “in states with higher levels of racial animus.”

Finally, mandatory minimums do not promote community safety.  Rather, any prison time at all increases the risk of future crime because “incarceration is inherently criminogenic”; mandatory minimums only exacerbate this situation.  Florida experienced a 50 percent spike in crime after enacting mandatory minimums.  Long sentences also make it more difficult for people to reintegrate into society.  And our overreliance on prisons makes us less safe by diverting resources from other critical public safety needs.  In contrast, studies show that shorter sentences in drug cases neither diminish public safety nor increase drug abuse.

The dominant paradigm is vulnerable, and instituting a new paradigm is both possible and crucial. President Biden and his attorney general have denounced mandatory minimums, as did former Attorney General Eric Holder.  Even though federal prosecutors — all of whom are subject to supervision by the Department of Justice — have long been the primary proponents of mandatory minimums, Attorney General Merrick Garland affirmed this position during his confirmation hearings: “We should . . . , as President Biden has suggested, seek the elimination of mandatory minimum[s].”

However, despite Garland’s testimony, his Department of Justice has given no sign that it will stop pursuing mandatory minimums. In fact, earlier this year, Garland reinstated a 2010 Holder policy that incorporated a long-standing directive to federal prosecutors: “Where two crimes have the same statutory maximum and the same guideline range, but only one contains a mandatory minimum penalty, the one with the mandatory minimum” should be charged.  To make matters worse, Garland chose not to reinstate a 2013 Holder policy that both directed prosecutors to decline to charge a mandatory minimum in “low-level, non-violent drug offenses” and explicitly acknowledged that such sentences “do not promote public safety, deterrence, and rehabilitation.”  After twenty years defending people charged with federal crimes, I’ve learned that prosecutors are rarely agents of change.  This is unfortunate because Garland has real power to reduce racialized mass incarceration. He can and should instruct federal prosecutors to refrain from charging and seeking mandatory sentences, especially in drug cases, where popular opposition to mandatory minimums is strongest.

Prior related posts:

• Brennan Center launches notable new essay series titled "Punitive Excess"
• More notable new essays in Brennan Center's "Punitive Excess" series
• Three more great new essays in Brennan Center's "Punitive Excess" series 
• Still more great new essays in Brennan Center's "Punitive Excess" series
• Another rounds of terrific new essays in Brennan Center's "Punitive Excess" series 
• Yet more must-read new essays in Brennan Center's "Punitive Excess" series 

"Towards A New Framework for Achieving Decarceration: A Review of the Research on Social Investments"

The title of this post is the title of this new paper from the Square One Project at Columbia University authored by Laura Hawks, Evangeline Lopoo, Lisa Puglisi and Emily Wang. Here is a portion of the long paper's introduction:

[T]his paper aims to examine the science behind sustainable decarceration — and the extent to which there is scientific support for how community organizations and societal entities can lead decarceration efforts in concert with continued legal reforms to descale facility-based and community corrections populations.  To be sure, academics of disparate ideology have previously studied sections of this road map.  Some support the need for improving correctional programming, including a risk-needs-responsivity model of correctional programming, which aims to optimize resources within correctional systems to rehabilitate those incarcerated.  Others, including Professors Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, conceptually reject reforms within the correctional sector and propose a framework for dismantling the prison industrial complex that emphasizes investments in alternate sectors, prioritizing economic and political liberation of the historically oppressed (Davis 2005; Wilson Gilmore 2007).  With this paper, we intend to add to this latter school of thought by systematically cataloguing community investments detached from the criminal legal system which promote decarceration.  We then highlight what academics have not yet sought to study.  We undertake this study with the belief that decarceration is as worthy of careful study and investment as the prevention of cardiovascular disease and warrants experimentally designed studies at the individual and community level which tests the short and long-term benefits of intervention, dose of intervention, and the costs and benefits to society.

To our knowledge, no review has identified and synthesized the experimental evidence to determine which community investment efforts effectively support ongoing decarceration efforts and which do not.  To fill this gap, we have conducted a scoping review to identify interdisciplinary interventions, detached from the correctional control system, in the domains of education, housing, healthcare, employment, and social support programs that help reduce incarceration by reducing likelihood of becoming involved in the criminal legal system (referred to in this paper as incident incarceration) or repeat involvement in the criminal legal system (referred to in this paper as recidivism).  We centered our review on the following research question:

Which interventions (including social policies) grounded in community investment have been shown to achieve decarceration as measured by reduced incident incarceration or reduced recidivism?

Bureau of Justice Statistics releases 2020 National Crime Victimization Survey data indicating over a 20% decline in violent victimization from 2019 to 2020

Crime data is always complicated, and the pandemic era adds a huge extra dimension to figuring out just what is happening with crime in the US and how policymakers should respond. The latest data report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics on crime victimization in 2020 seems to add another complicated piece to the complicated puzzle. Via an email I received this morning, here is some more interesting data:

Today, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released findings from the 2020 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which show a 22% decline in the total violent victimization rate from 2019 to 2020. The rate of violent crime dropped from 21.0 to 16.4 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older.

Violent victimization in the NCVS includes rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. It does not include homicide as the survey is based on in-person interviews with persons age 12 or older in a representative sample of households in the United States.

The decrease in violent victimization was driven primarily by a decline in simple and aggravated assault. The rate of simple assault fell from 13.7 to 10.7 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older from 2019 to 2020, while the rate of aggravated assault decreased from 3.7 to 2.9 victimizations per 1,000. The rate of violent crime, excluding simple assault, declined 23% from 7.3 to 5.6 victimizations per 1,000.

The rates of rape or sexual assault (1.2 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older) and robbery (1.6 per 1,000) in 2020 were not significantly different from the rates in 2019.

The rate of property crime victimization declined for the second year in a row, from 101.4 to 94.5 victimizations per 1,000 households from 2019 to 2020. The decline in property crime (burglary, residential trespassing, motor vehicle theft, and other types of household theft) during this period was due to decreases in the rates of burglary and trespassing. Burglary declined 19% (from 11.7 to 9.5 per 1,000), and trespassing declined 24% (from 5.5 to 4.1 per 1,000). From 2019 to 2020, there were no statistically significant changes in the rates of motor vehicle theft and other household theft.

The NCVS and FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program measure an overlapping, but not identical, set of offenses, which leads to differences in estimates of crime between the two sources.  The NCVS interviews victims, while the UCR collects data on crime recorded by law enforcement agencies. Victims reported about 40% of violent victimizations and 33% of property victimizations to the police in 2020. Restricting the NCVS to violent crime reported to police, and excluding simple assault, offers a comparable measure to the UCR.  From 2019 to 2020, the rate of violent crime, excluding simple assault, that victims reported to police decreased 18%, from 3.4 to 2.8 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older.  During this same period, the rate of property crime that victims reported to police did not change significantly (31.2 property crimes per 1,000 households reported to law enforcement in 2020).  However, the rate of burglary reported to police by victims declined from 6.0 to 4.2 per 1,000 households from 2019 to 2020.

By comparison, the FBI reported an increase in violent crimes from 2019 to 2020 (3.8 to 4.0 violent crimes per 1,000 persons) and a decrease in property crimes (21.3 to 19.6 per 1,000).  The FBI also reported a decrease in burglary from 2019 to 2020 (3.41 to 3.14 per 1,000 persons).

The BJS report, Criminal Victimization, 2020 (NCJ 301775), was written by BJS statisticians Rachel E. Morgan, Ph.D., and Alexandra Thompson. The report, related documents and additional information about BJS’s statistical publications and programs are available on the BJS website at bjs.ojp.gov.

The accompanying summary report, The National Crime Victimization Survey and Uniform Crime Reporting program: A complementary picture of crime in 2020, was written by BJS statisticians Rachel E. Morgan, Ph.D., and Alexandra Thompson.

BJS also released a third-party report, National Crime Victimization Survey: Assessment of Outlier Weights (NCJ 302186), that was produced by RTI International for BJS under award number 2020-85-CX-K017 and is also available on the BJS website.

Federal double jeopardy cert grant and two summary reversals awarding police qualified immunity on new SCOTUS order list

After two weeks hearing oral argument (including a short holiday week), the Supreme Court has the next two weeks "off" before its November sitting.  But a final bit of SCOTUS action today comes in the form of this order list with two cert grants, a lot of cert denials, and two summary reversals.  The cert grants are in one civil and one criminal "Indian" case, and the question presented in Denezpi v. US, 20-7622, from this cert petition is:

Is the Court of Indian Offenses of Ute Mountain Ute Agency a federal agency such that Merle Denezpi’s conviction in that court barred his subsequent prosecution in a United States District Court for a crime arising out of the same incident?

The two SCOTUS per curiam summary reversals both involve short unanimous decisions overturning rulings by the Ninth and Tenth Circuits that denied qualified immunity to police officers. The Ninth Circuit case, Rivas-Villegas v. Cortesluna, No. 20-1539 (S. Ct. Oct. 18, 2021) (available here), is described by the Justices as involving "Rivas-Villegas plac[ing] his knee on Cortesluna for no more than eight seconds and only on the side of his back near the knife that officers were in the process of retrieving."  The Tenth Circuit case, City Tahlequah v. Bond, No. 20-16689 (S. Ct. Oct. 18, 2021) (available here), is described by the Justices as involving two officers shooting to death a suspect who "raised the hammer [which he grabbed during a tense encounter] higher back behind his head and took a stance as if he was about to throw the hammer or charge at the officers."

Though I do not follow discussions and debates over policing doctrines closely, I know that there has been considerable interest in encouraging the Supreme Court to cut back (or even eliminate) the judge-created doctrine of qualified immunity.  These two new decisions would seem to suggest that this current Court seems just fine with applying qualified immunity and that any significant changes to the doctrine for the police will need to come from other branches.

New special issue of Science explores "Criminal Injustice: Mass Incarceration in the United States"

This new issue of Science includes a special section of articles exploring the deep roots and deep consequences of mass incarceration in the United States.  This introduction, titled "An outlier of injustice," sets up what follows this way:

For much of the 20th century, the incarceration rate in the US was relatively stable.  But beginning in the early 1970s, several decades of “tough on crime” policies contributed to a dramatic rise in incarceration.  Today, despite recent declines, the US incarceration rate remains a global outlier.  This system of mass incarceration is particularly hostile to Black Americans, who have been imprisoned in stunningly disproportionate numbers. 

Amid burgeoning interest in scholarship on criminal justice, this special issue examines social science research on the state of mass incarceration in the US: its origin and expansion, its far-reaching effects on families and communities, and why the public tolerates and encourages it.  Tracing the system’s roots back to slavery, researchers examine the interplay between incarceration, labor demand, and racial domination in the labor market.  As criminal justice infrastructure has grown more costly and vast, the system has extracted wealth from poor communities that it preys upon to fiscally survive. 

This ever-expanding web of incarceration entangles extraordinary numbers of people of all racial groups, with close to half of all Americans having a spouse or coparent, parent, sibling, or child that is or has been incarcerated.  To support such a system, many Americans psychologically deny that structural racism is at the heart of criminal justice.  Government responses to social justice protests often ignore root social causes and possible remedies and instead rely on policing.  Also, law enforcement increasingly draws upon commercial technologies that challenge public oversight and democratic policing.  Research on these topics is critical to reveal how we got here, as well as to inform and inspire change.

Here are links to the articles that follow, all of which are worth checking out:

"Policing social unrest and collective violence" by Elizabeth Hinton

"The corporate shadow in democratic policing" by Elizabeth E. Joh

"Assessing mass incarceration’s effects on families" by Hedwig Lee and Christopher Wildeman

"Exclusion and exploitation: The incarceration of Black Americans from slavery to the present" by Christopher Muller

"Toward an understanding of structural racism: Implications for criminal justice" by Julian M. Rucker and Jennifer A. Richeson

"The predatory dimension of criminal justice" by Joshua Page and Joe Soss

"Doing Justice in Sentencing"

The title of this post is the title of this short new article by Michael Tonry now available via SSRN.  Here is its abstract:

Anyone who would read a paper on this subject or with this title knows that sentences received by people convicted of crimes in American courts, especially serious ones, are much too often cruelly severe, racially disparate, and reflective more of a prosecutor’s or judge’s idiosyncrasies than of a reasoned assessment of what considerations of justice concerning this offense by this person require or permit.  The process is ultimately casual, as if invasive intrusion into someone’s life is a matter of no great importance.  To people sentenced, their families, and others who love them it is devastatingly important.  Relatively simple ideas about justice, fairness, equality, and parsimony provide a framework to replace contemporary casual justice with a jurisprudence that takes human dignity seriously.

Continuing capital commentary as SCOTUS considers Marathon bomber's capital process

In prior posts here and here, I rounded up press coverage just before and just after the Supreme Court heard oral argument in US v. Tsanaev to consider whether the First Circuit erred when reversing the death sentence given to the bomber who killed three and injured hundreds during the 2013 version of the Boston Marathon.  Not surprisingly, the SCOTUS argument has prompted a number of thoughtful folks to have thoughtful comments on the case and much that surrounds it.  Here is a partial round-up of some of this recent commentary:

From Erwin Chemerinsky, "Biden’s death penalty hypocrisy"

From Chris Geidner, "Supreme Court couldn't consider death penalty case if not for Biden's broken promise"

From Thaddeus Hoffmeister, "Tsarnaev Supreme Court appeal: Do unbiased jurors exist in an age of social media?"

From Karen J. Pita Loor, "The perplexing case of Biden, Tsarnaev and the death penalty"

From Amelia Wirts, "Death penalty can express society’s outrage – but biases often taint the verdict"