Tuesday, February 12, 2019
A year after tragedy, taking stock of the agony (and wondering about the costs) already surrounding the capital prosecution of Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz
CNN has this notable new article headlined "This is where Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz's death penalty case stands a year later," and here are excerpts:
A year after Nikolas Cruz massacred 17 people and injured 17 others at his former high school in Florida, the question is not whether he's guilty -- he's confessed on video. It's does he live or die? His defense team has offered a guilty plea in exchange for life in prison without the possibility of parole -- but only if prosecutors take the death penalty off the table. Prosecutors have rejected the plea, meaning a lengthy trial is all but inevitable.
If the case goes to trial, Cruz will join a short list of mass shooters who've faced their victims in court. Of the 10 deadliest shootings in recent US history, Cruz is the only one who was captured alive.
The case is on what's described as the "pretrial discovery" stage, says Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein, whose office is representing Cruz. He says the case is a long way from trial. In this stage, Cruz's attorneys have been deposing dozens of witnesses to give oral statements under oath.
Such sessions happen behind closed doors and are only attended by attorneys, the court reporter and the victims' advocate, says Richard Hornsby, a criminal defense lawyer in Florida who is not involved in the case. Depositions are conducted in person by prosecutors and defense attorneys, and the defendant is not allowed to be present, he adds.
"It is common for victims/accusers to be deposed. However, from a strategic standpoint, I could not imagine the defense attorneys deposing the survivors in this case without a good reason," Hornsby says. The Broward County Clerk of Court's website lists deposition notices for mostly law enforcement witnesses.
It's the beginning of a long, arduous process. A death penalty case can take years to go to trial.... The process involves painstakingly combing through graphic details of the shooting in court. No detail is too small, including the gunshots, autopsies and the killer's words. "However, with the judge pushing the case hard and the passage of Marsy's Law last fall, I would not be surprised if this case makes it to trial early next fall," Hornsby says. Marsy's Law expanded the rights of victims of crimes, including giving them the right to have a voice in prosecution issues.
Broward state prosecutors have not revealed much in recent months. But in the past, they've rejected the defense's offer of a guilty plea in exchange for a life sentence, paving the way for a lengthy trial. While the prosecution did not respond to CNN's request for comments for this article, Michael Satz, Broward County's prosecutor, has previously said this is "certainly the type of case the death penalty was designed for." Assistant State Attorney Shari Tate has said Florida will not allow Cruz to "choose his own punishment for the murder of 17 people."
Cruz's defense team has made it clear it's not looking forward to a death penalty trial. That's why Finkelstein is offering his client's guilty plea in exchange for 34 life sentences without parole. That would take the death penalty trial off the table and spare the victims from reliving the nightmare during testimony, he says.
That would end the extensive legal process he says could last decades if there's an appeal. In some cases, death penalty trials are followed by lengthy appeals in which survivors return to court to face the killer all over again. "A plea to 34 consecutive life sentences ends not only the above immediately but means no appeals," Finkelstein says. "We still stand ready to plead guilty to 34 consecutive life sentences."
Some Marjory Stoneman Douglas students are conflicted on the possibility of a death penalty trial. Student leader Emma Gonzalez describes Cruz's potential death penalty trial as a "good" thing. Another student, Cameron Kasky, has said he wants him to "rot forever" in prison instead.
Andrew Pollack, whose daughter, Meadow, was one of the people killed, has said he does not plan to attend any death trial hearings. "I don't want to go through some lengthy trial that's going to be brutal. I want him to sit in a cell and rot for the rest of his life," Pollack says.
In high-profile cases such as the Parkland shooting, there are no shortages of challenges for everyone involved. Even finding a jury will be an ordeal, Hornsby says.... "You will have to find people who say they could be fair and impartial to the defendant given what they know about the Parkland murders," he says. "Good luck."
Florida's death penalty law requires the jury's decision to be unanimous. If one of the 12 jurors dissents, the defendant must be sentenced to life without parole.
There are so many interesting and sad elements to this story. For starters, the possibility of the death penalty has, in one sense, already done a lot of work in this case, as it is surely driving the defense to offer to plead guilty to 34 consecutive life sentences. But because prosecutors, likely influenced in part by the wishes of some victims, are eager to secure a death sentence, there will be lots and lots of process (and expense) in the months and years ahead. I hope that the victims of the shooting and victims' families can find some comfort in the long capital trial process, but even if they do they also have to be prepared for years (likely decades) of an appeals process. (Recall, as noted in this recent post, that we are approaching the six-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing and the capital case still is not close to being fully briefed in the First Circuit.)
With a focus on the victims, I find it especially interesting that activist Emma Gonzalez is apparently supportive of the decision to pursue capital charges against Cruz. My general perception is that many progressives and many young people tend to be strong opponents of the death penalty, and so I would be inclined to guess that most of the Parkland students will be disinclined to support efforts to send Cruz to death row. But, as is often the case, victims are a diverse and sometimes unpredictable bunch. And with Marsy's Law newly on the books in Florida, their roles will be one to watch closely in the months and years ahead as well.
Finally, at the risk of seeming crass, I hope someone is keeping track of what this prosecution is costing the taxpayers of the state of Florida. As regular readers know, I think the extraordinary expense of many capital cases can often serves as one of the strongest arguments against the death penalty as it rarely seems the penalty's (debatable) benefits measure up to its (reasonably clear) economic costs.
Prior related posts:
- Contemplating the capital prosecution of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz
- Will Florida school shooting mass murderer thwart efforts to raise age for limit on application of the death penalty?
- 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?"
February 12, 2019 in Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (0)
Friday, January 11, 2019
Are there constitutional (and ethical) issues raised by allowing the family of murder victims to hire lawyers to assist prosecutors as "associate attorneys" in capital prosecution?
The question in the title of this post is prompted by this very interesting local article from Kansas headlined "Despite doubts, judge allows private prosecutors in case of two slain deputies." Here is the story, with one particular line emphasized:
Over the objections of defense lawyers, and despite his own misgivings, a Wyandotte County judge said Wednesday he must allow private attorneys to assist in the prosecution of a man charged with killing two sheriff’s deputies.
Antoine Fielder, 30, is charged with capital murder in the fatal shooting last June of Wyandotte County deputies Theresa King and Patrick Rohrer as they were escorting him back to jail after a court hearing in a robbery case.
Under Kansas law, crime victims can pay for lawyers to assist prosecutors as “associate attorneys,” and the families of Rohrer and King have hired married law partners Tom Bath and Tricia Bath.
Because Fielder faces a possible death sentence, he is being represented by attorneys from the Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit, who objected to what they termed “interference” in the case.
They argued that the Kansas law that allows the hiring of private attorneys to assist in criminal prosecutions has never been used in a death penalty case. They said it raises “novel constitutional, statutory and ethical issues.”
“Counsel for Mr. Fielder is not aware of any direct authority addressing the constitutionality of private prosecutions in obtaining sentences of death,” the defense said in court documents.
In their written response to the defense objections, the Baths noted that the Kansas Supreme Court has upheld the idea of crime victims hiring private attorneys in numerous cases. And while it has never been used in a capital case, there is nothing in the law that excludes it.
At a court hearing Wednesday, defense attorney Jeff Dazey noted that the law has been on the books in Kansas since the early 20th century, “long before the modern era of the death penalty.”
A spokesman for Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree said he had met with the Baths before they entered the case and had no objection to their participation.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Tricia Bath said they would be operating under the direction of Dupree’s office. She noted that both she and Tom Bath have represented defendants in death penalty cases and are familiar with the rules and ethical requirements for attorneys in death penalty cases. “The law is clear,” she argued. “We get to be here and the victims get to have an official representative here.”
District Judge Bill Klapper said that, while he finds the inclusion of private associate prosecutors in the case “inherently problematic,” he is bound by Kansas law that mandates they “shall” be allowed. The judge did order that the Baths will not have any role in the case until after the Feb. 1 preliminary hearing.
The constitutionality of victims have a say and a role in various criminal justice proceedings is well established, and I am generally supportive of victim's being allowed to retain a lawyer to help them preserve and exercise their rights in various ways. But one reason I support victim involvement in criminal prosecution is because, if they have independent rights in the process, they can and should often serve as another kind of check on the power of the state (by, for example, advocating for a sentence lower or just different than what prosecutors seek). But here it seems that the victims' lawyers are not going to be an independent voice and advocate for the victims, but rather will be "operating under the direction" of the District Attorney. That does not seem quite right, and arguably raises some unique constitutional and ethical concerns.
January 11, 2019 in Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (8)
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Making the case against amendments to the FIRST STEP Act proposed by Senators Cotton and Kennedy ... UPDATED with a response on 12/17
In this post a few days ago, I provided details and links concerning three amendments that Senator Tom Cotton and Senator John Kennedy will seek to have made to the FIRST STEP Act this coming week. Unsurprisingly, advocates of significant sentencing reform are not fans of the Senators' proposed changes. The Brennan Center, for example, has this release explaining that it "strongly rejects attempts by Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and John Kennedy (R-La.) to add a series of 'poison pill' amendments that would unacceptably weaken the FIRST STEP Act.... These amendments would stigmatize incarcerated people, block incentives that encourage those who need it most from participating in recidivism-reduction programming, and risk retraumatizing victims of crime."
FreedomWorks has this even longer posting on this front titled "The Senate Must Reject Poison Pill Amendments to the First Step Act." Here are excerpts that provide a taste of the arguments being made against these amendments:
Aside from the fact that the Cotton-Kennedy amendments have been introduced to hurt the First Step Act’s prospects of passage, there are a number of problems with the amendments that we’ve identified. For these reasons, we encourage the Senate to reject the amendments when they are brought to the floor for a vote.
Amendment 1: Excluding serious felons from early release to prerelease custody and supervised release
This amendment seems to be more of the same type of objections raised by Sen. Cotton in the past regarding the exclusions list on the prison reform side of the bill. The exclusions list is already superfluous because of the risk and needs assessment, which in its operation ensures that those who have committed such heinous crimes as Sen. Cotton has identified, will not become low- or minimum-risk of recidivism in order to earn time credits....
Amendment 2: Notifying victims before a offender is allowed to transfer out of prison early
This amendment masquerades as a harmless addition to promote victims’ rights, which is certainly a sympathetic cause. However, the amendment is not only redundant to current law and policy but its approach is also counterproductive and harmful for victims....
Amendment 3: Tracking the effectiveness of the anti-recidivism programs
This amendment creates redundancy. The U.S. Sentencing Commission already provides detailed information on the recidivism rates of federal offenders. Although the measure of recidivism varies by report, the rates of rearrest, reconviction, and reincarceration are accounted for in many reports.
Although the rate of recidivism defined by rearrest is a common data point in U.S. Sentencing Commission reports, this is a poor measure. It is likely, though, that this measure is the one included in the amendment by its authors on purpose and for that very reason....
Additionally, the First Step Act as it stands already includes multiple mechanisms to ensure the effectiveness of the anti-recidivism programming and other aspects of the legislation as well. The First Step Act includes its own reporting requirements, establishes an Independent Review Committee to report on the system, and requires a Government Accountability Office report of the risk and needs assessment and the programming together.
Some of the most recent of many prior related posts:
- Could enhanced FIRST STEP Act get more than 90 votes in the Senate if ever brought up for a vote?
- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promises floor vote on FIRST STEP Act after midterm election if more than 60 Senators want to move forward
- Prez Trump reportedly to announce support for FIRST STEP Act with sentencing provisions, greatly increasing its prospects for swift passage
- Senator Tom Cotton, rather than argue against FIRST STEP Act, makes case for what should be in a SECOND STEP Act
- Four changes to the FIRST STEP Act sought by Senator Tom Cotton
- Senator Tom Cotton continuing to do everything he can to try to keep the FIRST STEP Act from moving forward
- A notable debunking of "Three Myths From Critics of Criminal Justice Reform"
- FIRST STEP Act, already compromised to cater to tough-on-crime crowd, may be watered down further for Senate vote
- Latest chapter of FIRST STEP Act massaging and messaging
- The faulty and foul thinking continuing to thwart a vote on the FIRST STEP Act
- Senator Ted Cruz supports FIRST STEP Act with revisions, Prez Trump tweets for a "VOTE," and the bill's prospects brighten
- Senate leader Mitch McConnell says in floor speech that he will bring up FIRST STEP Act for a vote!!
- Latest developments and discussions surrounding FIRST (baby) STEP Act
- Details on further carve-outs and amendments to FIRST STEP Act sought by Senators Tom Cotton and John Kennedy
MORNING UPDATE on Dec. 17, 2018: I have receive a one-page response to the arguments linked above in a document titled "Myths vs. Facts on the Cotton-Kennedy-Toomey-Kyl-Barrasso amendments to First Step." Here it is for downloading: Download Final Cotton-Kennedy Myths v. Facts
In addition, Senator Cotton has this new commentary at the National Review making the case for his proposed amendments under the headline "Fix the First Step Act and Keep Violent Criminals behind Bars." This commentary closes with a passage that I will be discussing in a subsequent post, but here I will reprint how it starts:
This week, the Senate will vote on the latest version of the First Step Act, a criminal-justice bill that would release thousands of dangerous criminals from federal prison earlier than under current law. This effort is misguided and dangerous, as I have written before. Thankfully, there is still time to limit the damage.
Along with Senator John Kennedy, I have introduced an amendment to categorically exclude violent felons and sex offenders from the bill’s time-credit program, which can be used for early release. We also have amendments to notify victims before a prisoner is released early, and to monitor whether prisoners who are released early commit more crimes. If advocates of First Step want to protect public safety, they will support all three amendments.
December 16, 2018 in Aspects and impact of Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (2)
Monday, December 10, 2018
Congress finally enacts "Paroline fix" that should improve victim restitution in federal child porn cases
Long-time readers may recall regularly blogging here about federal district and circuit opinions struggling to figure out whether and how courts could impose restitution awards/punishments on federal offenders convicted only of downloading child pornography images. Because the child porn restitution questions produced various splits in the lower courts, the Supreme Court took up and "resolved" these issues in Paroline v. US, No. 12-8561 (Apr. 23, 2014) (available here). But because Paroline required federal judges, in the words of one district court, to make "essentially a wild-ass guess" when trying to determine the appropriate level of restitution for a victim in a child porn downloading case, this issue continued to cry out for a legislative fix in the wake of the Paroline ruling.
A few days after the Supreme Court ruled in Paroline, I asked in a post "Will Congress fix (quickly? ever? wisely?) the "puzzle of paying Amy" after Paroline?". And a few years after the Supreme Court ruled in Paroline, victim advocates Paul Cassell and James Marsh talking through these issues in a law review article "Full Restitution for Child Pornography Victims: The Supreme Court's Paroline Decision and the Need for a Congressional Response". Now, a little more than 55 months after the Supreme Court ruled in Paroline, Congress managed to get a Paroline fix done in a bipartisan fashion.
Specifically, Congress used its lame duck session to finalize a long-discussed Paroline fix in the form of an amendment to federal restitution statutes called the "Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act of 2018." President Trump, as reported in this press release, on Friday signed this legislation into law. Senator Orrin Hatch, who played a leading role in getting this enacted, released this press statement celebrating and explaining this new legislation:
Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the senior Republican and President Pro Tempore of the US Senate, released the following statement after the President signed the Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act into law. Senator Hatch introduced the legislation alongside Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Pat Toomey (R-PA). This bill recognizes the unique kind of harm caused by child pornography and requires restitution in a manner that will support victims.
“I’m thrilled the President has signed the Amy, Vicky, and Andy Act into law. This is a momentous day and many years in the making.” Hatch said. “This bipartisan legislation will provide meaningful assistance for child pornography victims to support their recovery and allow them to reclaim their lives. I am proud of this legislation and look forward to seeing it change the world for good.” The legislation establishes more relevant standards for child pornography victims who seek restitution from defendants and gives victims the alternative of a one-time fixed compensation payment from the existing Crime Victims Fund. The bill also allows victims access to the images depicting them, which can be important for victim identification, expert testimony, forensic review, and treatment.
The bill passed in the Senate by unanimous consent in January. With the help of Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the House sponsor of the bill, and House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), the House of Representatives passed an amended version of the bill by unanimous consent. In November, the Senate passed the amended bill by unanimous consent, and ... was signed by the President into law.
The bill is named after victims depicted in some of the most widely circulated child pornography series in the world. “Amy,” “Vicky,” and “Andy” all strongly support the bill.
The Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act includes the following provisions:
- Findings that focus on the unique nature of child pornography crime and how it harms victims
- A more relevant and predictable definition of “full amount of a victim’s losses”
- Restitution: --- Child pornography production: victims receive full amount of their total losses; ----Child pornography trafficking: victims receive from each defendant a minimum of $3,000
- Compensation: --- Victims of child pornography trafficking are entitled to receive a one-time payment of $35,000 in defined monetary assistance (which is indexed to inflation) from a Child Pornography Victims Reserve (CPVR) within the federal Crime Victims Fund (CVF); --- Caps fees for attorneys representing a victim seeking defined monetary assistance at 15%; --- The court must assess defendants in child pornography cases to contribute to the CPVR: up to $17,000 for possession, up to $35,000 for distribution, and up to $50,000 for production crimes; --- The CPVR will be capped at $10 million
- Victims of child pornography trafficking will enjoy the same priority in restitution payments as victims in other restitution statutes
- Child pornography victims have equal rights with criminal defendants to review the child pornography depicting them at a government facility or court for the purposes of furnishing expert testimony
- The Department of Justice must deliver a report to Congress within two years after passage about the Act’s implementation including an assessment of the funding levels for the Child Pornography Victims Reserve
I have long been a support of more effective and predictable restitution mechanisms in these kinds of cases and others, so I welcome this overdue development. Because few have been reporting consistently on the impact of the Paroline ruling in federal cases, I am especially glad this legislation give the Justice Department a responsibility to report on this new legislation's effectiveness.
A few (of many) prior posts on Paroline and child porn restitution issues mostly from some years ago:
- SCOTUS splits the difference for child porn restitution awards in Paroline
- Will Congress fix (quickly? ever? wisely?) the "puzzle of paying Amy" after Paroline?
- "Full Restitution for Child Pornography Victims: The Supreme Court's Paroline Decision and the Need for a Congressional Response"
- "Possession, Child Pornography and Proportionality: Criminal Liability for Aggregate Harm Offenses"
- Fascinating NY Times magazine cover story on child porn victims and restitution
- "Pricing Amy: Should Those Who Download Child Pornography Pay the Victims?"
- Explaining why I am rooting so hard for "Amy" in Paroline
- Wondering about judicial "wild-ass guesses" when considering child-porn restitution since Paroline
December 10, 2018 in Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Fines, Restitution and Other Economic Sanctions, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sex Offender Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (2)
Monday, September 24, 2018
The latest controversy over a lenient sentence involving sexual assault comes from Alaska
This lengthy new Washington Post article provides a detailed review of a lenient Alaska sentencing causing a stir. The article is headlined "A man accused of kidnapping and masturbating on a woman got a ‘pass.’ Now people want the judge and prosecutor out." Here are excerpts:
Hours after Elizabeth Williams learned last week that Justin Schneider wouldn’t spend a day in jail, she turned to Facebook to channel her outrage.
The Anchorage social worker didn’t know Schneider, 34, before he was arrested in August 2017 after police said he offered a woman a ride from a gas station, stopped on the side of a road and asked her to step out under the pretense of loading items into the car, then choked her until she lost consciousness and masturbated on her. Nor did Williams know the victim in the case, identified only as a 25-year-old Native woman who called police after the assault.
What she was familiar with was how the case ended: Schneider pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree felony assault in exchange for the dismissal of his other assault, kidnapping and harassment charges. He was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison, the maximum for that charge, with one year suspended.
However, Schneider was given credit for a year under house arrest, meaning he would not serve additional time in prison. He will instead be required to continue wearing an ankle monitor and participate in a treatment program. “I was just absolutely appalled,” she told The Washington Post.
Soon afterward, Williams learned that Alaska voters were slated to decide whether the judge in the case should be retained on the Anchorage Superior Court in the November elections. And so, Thursday morning, Williams started a Facebook page: “NO retention for Judge Michael Corey,” she named it....
Many in the group also directed their anger at Anchorage Assistant District Attorney Andrew Grannik, the prosecutor in the case, who said he had made the plea deal because Schneider had no prior criminal record and seemed amenable to rehabilitation, according to the Alaska Star.
Grannik said in court that he had “reasonable expectations” that Schneider would not offend again. “But I would like the gentleman to be on notice that that is his one pass. It’s not really a pass, but given the conduct, one might consider that it is,” Grannik said then.
On social media, people seized on the “one pass” comment and demanded that Grannik be given the boot along with the judge.
Meanwhile, Alaska state officials have acknowledged the outrage but said that, while Schneider’s conduct was “very disturbing,” Corey and Grannik were constrained by sentencing laws. “Both the governor and the attorney general think what occurred in this case was unacceptable in terms of the current state of the law,” said Cori Mills, a senior assistant attorney general in the Alaska Department of Law. “The law needs to be changed.”
Under Alaska statute, the definition of sexual contact encompasses only direct physical contact with genitals, buttocks, female breasts or the anus — not semen. In other words, despite the accusation that Schneider ejaculated on the woman, he could be charged only with harassment in the first degree, which is not a sex offense, according to state Deputy Attorney General Rob Henderson.
He reiterated what the Alaska Criminal Division director stated Friday, in the face of strong backlash over the sentence: State officials had feared that the kidnapping charge, the most serious of the counts, could not have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt if the case had gone to trial because Schneider’s victim had willingly entered his vehicle.
Given that, Henderson said, the prosecution would have been left to pursue lesser charges that, even if they had resulted in convictions, would not have forced Schneider to enter sex offender treatment. “Because the state realized there was a need for sex offender treatment, the only way to obtain that requirement was to get him to agree to it" in a plea deal, Henderson said. “When you have sex offender treatment, you have to have some type of leverage or incentive to compel the person to complete the treatment.”...
In the wake of the case, Alaska Gov. Bill Walker (I) said he planned to propose legislation that would make “causing unwanted contact with semen” a sex offense. If successful, the penalty for a first-time offense would carry jail time of two to 12 years and require registering as a sex offender. However, the Alaska legislature does not convene until January, so any fix to the loophole would be months away at the earliest.
Williams, who started the Facebook page calling for the judge’s ouster, said she agreed with the proposed loophole fix and understood the sentencing constraints the judge and prosecutor were under. However, she wished that the judge had sentenced Schneider to some jail time — or that the case had been taken to trial, even if it meant risking that Schneider would be acquitted of all charges...
The Alaska Star reported that Schneider’s victim was not at the hearing and had, according to police, been traumatized “to the point where she couldn’t hardly speak” after the assault. Details about the case were graphic enough that some local news outlets placed editor’s notes at the tops of their stories warning readers.
The victim “said she could not fight him off, he was too heavy and had her down being choked to death,” Anchorage police Detective Brett Sarber wrote in a criminal complaint obtained by KTVA News last year. “[She] said she lost consciousness, thinking she was going to die.” When she regained consciousness, the man zipped up his pants, gave her a tissue and “told her that he wasn’t really going to kill her, that he needed her to believe she was going to die so that he could be sexually fulfilled,” Sarber wrote in the complaint.
September 24, 2018 in Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Sex Offender Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (3)
Saturday, September 15, 2018
"A Reparative Approach to Parole-Release Decisions"
The title of this post is the title of this paper authored by Kristen Bell recently posted to SSRN. Here is its abstract:
Scholars have argued for enhanced procedural protections at parole hearings, but for the most part without a focus on what substantive criteria ought to guide parole-release decisions. I undertake this normative project, first describing the approach to parole-release decision criteria from the perspective of four standard theories of punishment: retributive theory, deterrence theory, rehabilitation theory, and communicative theory. I argue that each of the respective criteria flowing from these theories of punishment is morally objectionable on two grounds: failure to respect the agency of prisoners, and failure to take seriously the limits of our knowledge. After setting forth these theories and the objections to which they are subject, I turn to draw lessons from how California’s parole-release system functions in practice.
Drawing on both the theoretical and practical perspectives on parole-release criteria, I argue in favor of a fundamental change. I propose a “reparative approach” that builds on aspects of restorative justice and takes seriously respect for the moral agency of prisoners, victims, and the broader political community. On this approach, people directly affected by the crime join with others at the outset of a prisoner’s sentence to deliberate and decide upon reasonably achievable criteria that the prisoner would need to meet in order to be released. At the end of the prisoner’s judicially prescribed period of incarceration, the release decision would then be a ministerial determination of whether the prisoner has in fact met the criteria that were decided upon at the outset. I leave for future work the question of whether and how such a policy could be implemented in the context of the contemporary American criminal justice system.
September 15, 2018 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
High-profile drug arrest of billionaire addict spotlights issues of what is "trafficking" and who is a "victim" and "recidivist"
A high-profile drug arrest in Las Vegas late last week presents a high-profile setting to explore all of the legal uncertainty that necessarily surrounds the modern drug war. This CBS/AP story, headlined "Tech billionaire Henry Nicholas facing drug trafficking counts in Vegas," provides some of the basics:
Tech billionaire and advocate of crime victims Henry T. Nicholas III is facing drug counts after being arrested along with a woman Tuesday at a Las Vegas Strip casino-resort. Nicholas was arrested on suspicion of trafficking heroin, cocaine, meth and ecstasy, Las Vegas police officer Larry Hadfield said Thursday. He added police responded to the casino-resort following a report from security, which had found contraband in a room [this local piece provides more details of the search and seizures]....
The woman arrested with Nicholas was identified as Ashley Fargo, reportedly the ex-wife of an heir to the Wells Fargo fortune. Hadfield said she faces the same counts as Nicholas. Court records show she has also been released on her own recognizance. Records for the pair show a court hearing scheduled for September.
Attorney and legal analyst Alex Kazarian tells CBS Los Angeles it's likely Nicholas didn't intend to traffic drugs -- but his intent may not matter. "It sounds like his biggest crime is being an addict," Kazarian said. "He's a billionaire. He's not a person that's trying to make money off of drugs. He's a person that's trying to make friends off of drugs. Unfortunateley, the way the laws are written, if you're giving away drugs or if you're selling drugs, you're trafficking."
Nicholas co-founded high-tech chipmaker Broadcom Corp. in 1991 and resigned as president and CEO in 2003. In 2008, he was indicted on narcotics and securities fraud charges. The charges in the securities case were dismissed in 2009 and the narcotics case in 2010.
The billionaire is an advocate for crime victims and has bankrolled ballot measures in the U.S. to guarantee them and their family members some rights. The so-called "Marsy's Law" victims' bill of rights is named after Nicholas' sister, Marsalee "Marsy" Nicholas, a California college student who was stalked and killed in 1983 by an ex-boyfriend.
Five states - California, Ohio, Illinois, North Dakota and South Dakota - have a Marsy's Law on their books.... In Nevada, Marsy's Law will appear on the ballot in November as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment, after the measure was approved during the 2015 and 2017 legislative sessions, as required by law. Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo and Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson have previously endorsed the measure.
As people who work in the drug policy and reform space know well, the dividing line between being a "drug possessor" and a "drug trafficker" can often be a thin one and this story seems to effectively highlight this reality. Moreover, given the extraordinary work that Nicholas has done to promote victim involvement in the criminal justice system, this case provides an interesting setting to explore who can and should be able to claim to be a victim of a "drug trafficker." In addition, here are some more details about Nicholas's prior involvement with drug charges from this local piece:
In a 2008 federal indictment, Nicholas was accused of possessing and conspiring to distribute drugs, including ecstasy, cocaine and methamphetamine. According to federal court records, he was accused of distributing and using drugs on a private flight between Orange County and Las Vegas, “causing marijuana smoke and fumes to enter the cockpit and requiring the pilot flying the plane to put on an oxygen mask.” The charges against him were dropped in 2010, court records show.
Because charges were drop in the prior case, Nicholas would not qualify as a repeat drug offender subject to recidivist sentencing enhancements. But I cannot help but wonder why and how prior federal drug distribution charges were dropped against him, while also thinking somebody else might get labelled a serious drug offender with this kind of history without Nicholas's legal good fortunes so far.
August 14, 2018 in Drug Offense Sentencing, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Race, Class, and Gender, Victims' Rights At Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
SCOTUS limits reach of Mandatory Victims Restitution Act in Lagos ... and talks about Fourth Amendment
The US Supreme Court handed down two opinions and a dismissal this morning, all from the criminal side of its docket. The one sentencing decision came in Lagos v. United States, No. 16-1519 (S. Ct. May 29, 2018) (available here). Here is hope the unanimous opinion by Justice Breyer gets started:
The Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996 requires defendants convicted of a listed range of offenses to
“reimburse the victim for lost income and necessary child care, transportation, and other expenses incurred during participation in the investigation or prosecution of the offense or attendance at proceedings related to the offense.” 18 U.S.C. §3663A(b)(4) (emphasis added).We must decide whether the words “investigation” and “proceedings” are limited to government investigations and criminal proceedings, or whether they include private investigations and civil proceedings. In our view, they are limited to government investigations and criminal proceedings.
Got that? The short Lagos opinion goes on to provide a mini-primer on federal restitution statutes, but both the issue and the opinion here ensures this ruling will not be too long remembered.
Also not to be too long remembered is a DIG (dismissed as improvidently granted) from SCOTUS today in City of Hays, Kansas v. Vogt, No. 16-1495. The only SCOTUS decision today likely to get any real attention is a Fourth Amendment ruling in Collins v. Virginia, No. 16-1027 (S. Ct. May 29, 2018) (available here). Justice Sotomayor starts the opinion for the Court off succintly: "This case presents the question whether the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment permits a police officer, uninvited and without a warrant, to enter the curtilage of a home in order to search a vehicle parked therein. It does not." Justice Alito dissents alone, starting this way: "The Fourth Amendment prohibits 'unreasonable' searches. What the police did in this case was entirely reasonable. The Court’s decision is not."
The merits aside, the Collins decision will really garner attention because of a lengthy concurrence by Justice Thomas. Writing alone, he urges the Court to reconsider the reach of the exclusionary rule. Here is how his opinion starts and ends:
I join the Court’s opinion because it correctly resolves the Fourth Amendment question in this case. Notably, the only reason that Collins asked us to review this question is because, if he can prove a violation of the Fourth Amendment, our precedents require the Virginia courts to apply the exclusionary rule and potentially suppress the incriminating evidence against him. I write separately because I have serious doubts about this Court’s authority to impose that rule on the States. The assumption that state courts must apply the federal exclusionary rule is legally dubious, and many jurists have complained that it encourages “distort[ions]” in substantive Fourth Amendment law, Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 157 (1978) (White, J., dissenting)....
In sum, I am skeptical of this Court’s authority to impose the exclusionary rule on the States. We have not yet revisited that question in light of our modern precedents, which reject Mapp’s essential premise that the exclusionary rule is required by the Constitution. We should do so.
May 29, 2018 in Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (3)
Monday, May 28, 2018
Sad uncertain realities behind ugly headline about child rape sentencing
The headline of this story understandably caught my attention and had me wondering: "California man sentenced to 90 days of house arrest for rape of 5-year-old girl." A bit of digging revealed, via press reports here and here, a bit more of the story behind the story that would seem to partially explain this outcome. Excerpts below come from the two linked pieces, respectively:
A 79-year-old man who pleaded no contest to felony statutory rape of a child was sentenced this week to 90 days' detention and will not have to register as a sex offender. The sentence upset the parents after they gave emotional testimony at the hearing....
Despite the word "rape," the crime did not involve penetration, said Robert Himelblau, supervising deputy district attorney for San Joaquin County. Gregory Davenport, an attorney for Burgess, said the charge is based on a claim by the girl's mother that she saw Burgess stick his hand down her daughter's pants in 2016.
At the hearing, the judge reminded the parents that they thought the plea agreement was fair when it was reached.... Davenport told the Associated Press on Friday that Burgess accepted the plea deal despite being innocent because he is in frail health and wanted to move on with his life. Burgess denies ever touching the child inappropriately. "The whole case was based upon some minor touching that my client denied even occurred," Davenport said....
Lyle Burgess, 79, was sentenced by San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Ron Northup to either 90 days in an alternative-work program or in-home detention plus five years of informal probation. He does not have to register as a sex offender.
Burgess, who founded Rare Parts Inc. in Stockton in 1981 — an automotive parts manufacturer and distributor — will in all likelihood opt for in-home detention due to his frail physical and mental health, according to defense attorney Gregory Davenport. “My client maintains his innocence,” Davenport said outside the courtroom.
During Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, both parents of the victim gave emotional testimony about what their daughter has been going through, the impact on their family and their dissatisfaction with Burgess’ conviction. The parents’ names are not being used to protect the identity of the minor victim. “Our daughter has been harmed by this man continuously,” the victim’s mother said through tears, describing two incidents she says she witnessed between Burgess and her daughter at Burgess’ cabin in Calaveras County in the fall of 2016.
“I’m incredibly disgusted by his behavior and continuously disgusted by his lies,” she said before describing his sentence as “getting off so easy” and not registering as a sex offender. “I want other kids to be protected by possible future abuse by this man,” she said.
The victim’s father, who has known Burgess for more than two decades, said: “I don’t have too many prized possessions in this world other than my family. (My daughter) will remember this the rest of her life. She sleeps on the floor outside our room.”
Northup told the parents their statements do have an impact but “courts are somewhat limited” in ruling on a negotiated plea and reminded them that at the time it was reached, they felt it was fair.
The parents and the victim recently filed a civil case against Burgess seeking unspecified damages for sexual abuse and intentional infliction of emotional distress.... Davenport, Burgess’s attorney, said: “I believe the allegations are motivated by greed. They are using this instance to try to gain financially.”
I do not know the ins-and-outs of California plea and sentencing procedure, but these articles suggest that the sentence here was largely determined by the terms of a plea deal (and one that the parents of the victim assented to). This other local article, notably, provides this additional (confounding?) account of matters from the prosecutors:
According to the San Joaquin County District Attorney's Office, Burgess' sentence was initiated by the county court because of his age and health. When Burgess was arrested in 2016, he was originally booked on four counts of lewd acts upon a child. The charge was later changed to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, though the DA says there were no allegations the girl was "sexually penetrated." Prosecutors say the plea deal was agreed upon by both Burgess and the girl's family.
I do not know what it means for this sentence to have been "initiated by the county court because of his age and health," but I do know it now sounds as if the sentencing judge largely attributes the outcome to the plea deal and the prosecutions largely attribute the plea deal to the sentencing judge. As I see it, sadness persists from every perspective in this case. And I surmise from my Twitter feed that the case is generating anger, too, and I wonder if recall or other campaigns targeting the judge or DAs might be in the offing.
May 28, 2018 in Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sex Offender Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (9)
Monday, May 21, 2018
In shadow of Parkland, a notable discussion with victim families about capital prosecutions in Florida
This local article from Florida, headlined "For victims' families, no easy answer on whether the ordeal of a death penalty case is worth it," take a thoughtful look at what a death penalty prosecution can mean for the families of murder victims. I recommend the piece in full, and here are excerpts:
The parents of the murdered students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have been asked — directly by prosecutors, indirectly by defense lawyers, and while talking amongst themselves — whether the young man responsible for mercilessly slaughtering their children should be executed for the crime.
At stake is more than just the life of the killer, Nikolas Cruz. Whenever the death penalty is ordered in Florida, the case is automatically appealed, guaranteeing the victims’ families will be locked with Cruz in a lengthy process that can take years or even decades to resolve. It’s a position no one envies, but some who have been through similar ordeals say the Parkland parents cannot give a wrong answer, no matter what they decide.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel talked to family members of three victims whose accused killers faced the death penalty. They agreed that the process is long, grueling and takes an emotional toll. Yet none regret their decisions to ask prosecutors to seek a death sentence.
The Broward State Attorney’s Office already announced that it plans to seek the death penalty against Cruz, 19, who killed 14 students and three staff members at the Parkland high school. Prosecutors won’t say whether the families’ input could change the strategy. And Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein, whose office is representing Cruz, has offered to have him plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison.
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was among the dead, said Finkelstein’s offer is tempting. “I support the death penalty,” he said. “But I don’t want to pursue it in the case of my daughter’s killer. … If there’s a chance Cruz is willing to take a plea deal, I say go for it.” Guttenberg said his main concern is having to relive the case at every stage — a trial, followed by a penalty phase, followed by appeals, the specter of a retrial, repeating the process from the beginning, “only to end up at what is likely to be a life sentence anyway.”...
For Chris Crowley, staying away wasn’t an option. Crowley waited 27 years to see his sister’s killer executed in 2013. William Frederick Happ confessed in the execution chamber and begged for forgiveness before he was put to death by lethal injection. His victim, Angela Crowley, had lived in Lauderdale Lakes for just a few months and was working at a travel agency in the spring of 1986. She was on her way to visit a friend in Citrus County when she was abducted and murdered by Happ.
Chris Crowley, 61, said watching Happ die gave him a kind of closure he never could have gotten had he known the killer was in a cell getting three meals a day. “He would have had the possibility to kill again,” Crowley said. “The possibility of escape. The possibility of a commuted sentence. With the death sentence, there’s finality.”...
Deborah Bowie calls her situation “the textbook case for everything that is dysfunctional about capital punishment.” Bowie’s sister, Sharon Anderson, was murdered in 1994 along with two others in what became known as the Casey’s Nickelodeon murders. The other victims were Casimir "Butch Casey" Sucharski, former owner of the popular Pembroke Park bar that gave the case its nickname, and Marie Rogers.... “It’s a marathon every time,” said Bowie. “I feel for any family that is starting a death penalty case at the beginning. They have no idea what they’re in for.”
May 21, 2018 in Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (0)
Monday, May 14, 2018
Interesting accounting of history and modern realities of victims' rights
The New Yorker has this notable lengthy new article authored by Jill Lepore under the headline "The Rise of the Victims’-Rights Movement: How a conservative agenda and a feminist cause came together to transform criminal justice." The article covers lots history (with a particular focus on the importance of the Oklahoma City bombing) along with considerable law and policy (taking mostly a jaundiced view on victim rights). I recommend the piece in full, and here are a few excerpts:
Because victims’ rights is a marriage of feminism and conservatism, the logic behind its signal victory, the victim-impact statement, rests on both the therapeutic, speak-your-truth commitment of a trauma-centered feminism and the punitive, lock-them-up imperative of law-and-order conservatism. Arguably, this has been a bad marriage....
Some of the things admitted as victim-impact evidence, including testimony that the victim was an excellent piano player, was “good honest hardworking God fearing people,” was a “smart person with higher IQ than others in her family” or had “a 3.8 grade point average,” would appear to advance the fundamentally anti-democratic notion that the lives of the eloquent, the intelligent, the beautiful, the cherished are more worthy of the full protection of the law than others.
How much evidence is enough, or too much? Challenges in some states have sought to limit admissible victim-impact witnesses to numbers that range from three to eleven, but, effectively, the number is limitless. What kind of evidence is allowed? Courts have admitted poems, “handcrafted items made by the victim,” “letters children wrote to their murdered mother,” and “photographs of the stillborn child victim dressed in clothes that the victim-mother had intended him to wear home from the hospital.” Judges often report that they themselves find it difficult to recover their emotional equilibrium after hearing victim-impact statements. Sorrow knows no bottom....
Thirty-two states have passed victims’-rights amendments; five more ballot initiatives may pass in November. Once enough states have acted, activists will again press for a federal amendment. The last time the measure reached Congress, one of the prosecutors in the Oklahoma City bombing case argued against it (victims had tried to prevent one of McVeigh’s associates from signing a plea agreement in exchange for his testimony against McVeigh, which proved crucial in the trial). [Paul] Cassell believes that there is much more work to be done. The movement’s latest campaigns would expand the range of victim-impact evidence allowed in both capital and non-capital cases, and more strictly enforce victims’ rights that are already on the books. In the age of #MeToo, victims’ rights are making remarkable political headway, for many of the same reasons they did after the Oklahoma City bombing. Tragedy is a fierce tailwind. And, as Susan Bandes puts it, “Nobody really wants to have to tell victims, or survivors of violent crime, that they cannot be heard.”
Critics remain. Nancy Gertner, a former district-court judge from Massachusetts, is among those who have questioned Judge Aquilina’s conduct at Larry Nassar’s sentencing. Gertner told me, “The question is whether the victims needed that, as bloodletting, and the question is should the justice system allow that? Or is it a throwback to public hanging?” Scott Sundby, a former prosecutor who studies capital juries, told me that the Nassar sentencing reminded him of Biblical punishments. “Hey, we all get to pick up a rock and throw it at this person!”
May 14, 2018 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (1)
Thursday, May 03, 2018
Oregon Supreme Court orders resentencing upon finding violation of crime victim's right to be heard at sentencing
The Supreme Court of Oregon handed down an interesting unanimous opinion yesterday concerning the rights of a victim at sentencing under the Oregon Constitution in Oregon v. Ball, 362 Or 807 (Or. May 2, 2018) (available here). Here is how the opinion gets started:
The Oregon Constitution provides that the victim of a crime has the right “to be heard at * ** sentencing.” Or Const, Art I, § 42(1)(a). Appellant, who is a crime victim, filed a claim in the trial court, pursuant to ORS 147.515, alleging that the trial court violated her right to be heard when it sentenced the defendant who had committed crimes against her. Specifically, appellant alleged that the trial court violated her right to be heard when it interrupted her victim impact statement and when it later terminated the statement without warning or explanation. The trial court denied the claim, and appellant brought this appeal, pursuant to ORS 147.535.
This case requires us to determine the scope of a crime victim’s constitutional right to be heard during a sentencing hearing. As explained below, we hold that a trial court has the authority and responsibility to conduct a sentencing hearing in an orderly and expeditious manner and may exclude certain statements by victims, including those that are irrelevant, unfairly prejudicial, or cumulative. In addition, a trial court may limit a victim impact statement if the victim disregards the trial court’s appropriate instructions regarding the content or length of the statement. We further hold that, in this case, the trial court’s interruptions of appellant’s statement, which were for the permissible purpose of having appellant focus on the charged crimes and her own experiences with the defendant, did not violate appellant’s right to be heard. However, the trial court’s termination of appellant’s statement, when appellant was discussing a relevant topic that was not outside the limits imposed by the trial court, did violate appellant’s right to be heard. Therefore, we reverse the trial court’s decision denying appellant’s claim, vacate defendant’s sentence, and remand the case to the trial court for a new sentencing hearing.
May 3, 2018 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Victims' Rights At Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (1)
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
"Victims of crime and reformers should work together on criminal justice reform"
The title of this post is the headline of this Washington Examiner commentary authored by Jordan Richardson, Laurie Garduque, and Mai Fernandez. Here are excerpts:
Recent criminal justice reforms, such as the creation of alternatives to incarceration and the tearing down of barriers to reentry from prison, have resulted in significant changes around the country. Nonetheless, there’s one thing that has remained the same: policymakers are failing to consult crime victims prior to the development and deployment of these reforms.
This National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, we urge jurisdictions across the country to bring victims to the table and ask them what they think about criminal justice reform and how they can create a criminal justice system that better takes into account how to make victims whole. Their suggestions may be surprising, and they will help ensure that the changes policymakers create will serve everyone affected by the justice system....
Too often, reformers avoid considering victims’ views because they assume the victims’ highest priority is punishment. But this is far from the truth. Recent polling published in 2017 by the Alliance for Safety and Justice found that only 4 percent of crime victims believe that “too few people in prison” contributes to crime in their community. In fact, 86 percent of victims believe that programs providing rehabilitation and drug and mental health treatment for people already in the justice system should receive more funding.
In order to encourage more crime victims to participate in improving our criminal justice system, The National Center for Victims of Crime has solicited feedback from victims and their advocates around the country. They found that victims seek reliable, sufficient, and accessible services, and they want justice system transparency and trauma-informed responses to their experiences. Crime victims also believe the justice system should be dedicated in part to making victims whole again, beginning with providing notification and protection for victims when formerly incarcerated individuals reenter the community.
Furthermore, victims think that if people are enrolled in diversion programs such as mental health courts or ordered to participate in drug treatment as part of their probation, these services should be affordable, effective, and adequately supervised. Lack of participant accountability causes victims to distrust and not want to engage with the justice system.
Crime victim survivors deserve a voice at the policy reform table. Many are strong supporters of the exact types of reforms criminal justice experts are advocating. They want their experiences to be acknowledged, and they want our justice system to be sensitive and respectful of their needs....
Ensuring that people coming out of prison have a chance to succeed should be a top concern, and victims can play a key role in informing policymakers about how to achieve public safety while respecting the human dignity of everyone involved.
Reformers must be willing to recognize that victims have been affected by unfair justice system policies and practices. They must also respond with adequate funding, research efforts, and resources. The question is, “How can we develop and transform our criminal justice system to improve services for everyone involved?” We cannot afford to leave victims out of criminal justice reform.
April 11, 2018 in Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Notable advocate for clemency on behalf of next condemned to die in Texas
According to this Death Penalty Information Center page, Alabama, Florida and Texas all have executions scheduled for February 22. This new Los Angeles Times story, headlined "Texas father seeks clemency for son who tried to kill him," discusses the notable person making a notable pitch for clemency for the killer scheduled to be executed. Here are excerpts:
In a week, Thomas "Bart" Whitaker, 38, is scheduled to be executed for plotting a 2003 attack that left his mother and brother dead and almost killed his father. That father, Kent Whitaker, is doing everything he can to halt the execution. Inspired by his Christian faith and his son's repentance, the 69-year-old retired construction firm comptroller hopes to have his son's sentence commuted. "The death penalty in this case is the wrong punishment," he said.
Kent Whitaker forgives his son. He paid for lawyers to fight the death sentence at trial in 2007, and got down on his knees and begged prosecutors to seek a life sentence.
Texas is known for capital punishment, executing more inmates than any other state in the country — three this year, seven last year. But Kent Whitaker notes that it is also a victims' rights state, meaning his wishes should be taken into account. "Juries routinely defer to victims in cases to spare the life of a killer," he said.
Thomas Whitaker's last chance is a clemency petition filed with the seven-member Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, which makes a recommendation to the governor by majority vote. Clemency is rare. One of Whitaker's attorneys won it for another convicted murderer, Kenneth Foster, hours before he was scheduled to die in 2007, based on arguments drawn from Scripture. Parole board members in Texas are bound by their consciences, not the law, and some told the lawyer afterward that his biblical arguments had influenced their votes.
So in Thomas Whitaker's clemency petition, his attorney cited the Old Testament story of Cain, who after murdering his brother Abel was marked — but not killed — by God. He also cited the New Testament parable of the prodigal son, forgiven and accepted by his father after he strayed because he repented. "You have a collision between two interests. Every one of those board members is a death penalty supporter. A nd every one of them is there to protect victims' interests. They have to decide if it is more important to execute Thomas Whitaker or spare Kent Whitaker," attorney Keith Hampton said.
Board members don't confer about clemency: They send their votes to the state individually. Condemned inmates and their families can request to meet a member of the board, but it's not guaranteed. Last week, board member James LaFavers, a former Amarillo detective, met Whitaker's son on death row. They spent two hours talking. On Tuesday, the chairman of the board, former Lubbock County Sheriff David Gutierrez, met with Kent Whitaker, his new wife and brother in Austin for half an hour. The chairman didn't ask any questions, just listened as Kent Whitaker made his case for clemency. He said his son had been a model prisoner for 11 years, that the family had asked prosecutors not to seek the death penalty at trial and "it ought to mean something when a victim asks for mercy."
Thomas Whitaker has confessed to plotting the murder of his family. His father believes he has reformed behind bars. Prosecutors disagree.
Whitaker was a troubled teenager. After he was arrested for breaking into his high school with friends to steal computers, his parents sent him to a private Christian school, then Baylor University and Sam Houston State University. But he stopped attending. The night of the attack, the family went out to dinner to celebrate his graduation, unaware that it was a lie — he had missed too many classes....
As they entered their house in the Houston suburb, an accomplice shot them, fatally wounding his mother, Tricia, 51, and 19-year-old brother, Kevin. A bullet passed just inches from Kent Whitaker's heart. Thomas Whitaker was shot in the arm to make it appear he too was a victim. He then called 911. It would be years before he admitted his role in the crime. A thousand people attended the funeral at the largest church in the family's conservative suburb, Sugar Land — including Thomas Whitaker. "He sat there smiling, acting as victim, knowing that he killed them," prosecutor Fred Felcman said. Shortly before Whitaker was to be charged in 2004, he fled to Mexico, where he was caught a year later.
Felcman argued at trial that Whitaker planned to kill his family for a million-dollar inheritance. He had two accomplices — the gunman, who pleaded guilty in exchange for a life sentence, and a getaway driver, who got 15 years in prison. Although Whitaker was not the triggerman, Felcman argued, he "was the ringleader. He literally led his family back to be assassinated."
Felcman said Kent Whitaker has been used by his son. "Most people have a conscience so they don't try to manipulate people outright. He does," Felcman said. The prosecutor has tried 13 capital cases. About half resulted in death sentences. "There's certain crimes you have to forfeit your life for," he said, in part because it's the will of the people. "As soon as Bart Whitaker gets executed I will feel safer, and there are other people who feel that way, too."...
If the board doesn't grant clemency, Whitaker plans to attend his son's execution. When his son looks out of the glassed-in chamber, he wants him to see a caring face among the crowd. Kent Whitaker already has nightmares about what he will witness. "I hope the board will focus on how this execution will affect those of us who are living," he said. "We've all worked hard to get past our grief, and we're all going to be thrown back into that, realizing that Bart's gone too, that he was the last member of my immediate family. It looks like I'm going to be victimized all over again. What kind of justice is that?"
February 14, 2018 in Clemency and Pardons, Death Penalty Reforms, Offense Characteristics, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (2)
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Mass molester Larry Nassar in state court for his third and final sentencing
When a person has committed a whole lot of serious crimes, he may well face a whole lot of serious sentencings. Former doctor Larry Nassar is the latest high-profile example of this reality, and this AP piece reports that he is today in Michigan state court for his third sentencing proceeding. Here are detail about this final sentencing and some of the continuing buzz about his last state sentencing:
The final sentencing hearing began Wednesday for disgraced former sports doctor Larry Nassar, who will again be confronted by scores of victims as he faces another prison sentence for molesting gymnasts at an elite Michigan club run by an Olympic coach.
Judge Janice Cunningham has set aside several days for roughly 60 people who want to confront Nassar or have their statement read in court. The hearing could unfold much the same as a hearing last week in another county where a different judge allowed more than 150 women and girls to confront Nassar about his abuse. That hearing ended with Nassar getting sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison, with the judge describing it as Nassar's "death warrant."
The practice of allowing accusers to speak even if they are not tied directly to a case has raised questions about fairness. But attorneys say the victim statements probably pose little risk on appeal, especially since Nassar pleaded guilty, agreed to allow the statements and is expected to get another long prison sentence as part of his deal with prosecutors. "If you get what you bargained for, then you really can't argue that you were prejudiced in any way," said Margaret Raben, former leader of a Michigan association of criminal defense attorneys.
It's not uncommon for prosecutors to introduce "aggravating" evidence at sentencing to support their request for a severe punishment. But the parade of victims offering emotional accounts of their abuse to the face of an abuser went well beyond the typical hearing. Raben said there was a "horrible dynamic" last week in Judge Rosemarie Aquilina's courtroom, even if the judge had the option to allow so many people to speak in a case that involved just seven victims.
"Her obvious delight was just off the wall," Raben said, referring to Aquilina's "death warrant" remark and others. "I am not defending Larry Nassar at all, but what I saw with her was a real abandonment of judicial demeanor. ... The process doesn't change because everybody hates the defendant. That is the absolute glory, or should be, of the American justice system."
A fellow Ingham County judge, William Collette, said Aquilina's handling of the hearing was "outrageous." Others, however, have praised her treatment of victims and their parents.
The case on Cunningham's docket Wednesday in Eaton County centers on Nassar's assaults at Twistars, a Lansing-area gymnastics club that was run by 2012 Olympic coach John Geddert. Nassar admits penetrating three girls with his hands when he was supposed to be treating them for injuries.
So far, 57 victims want to speak in court or submit statements. Attorney Mick Grewal said 11 of his clients have signed up, including some who were inspired by the 150-plus young women and girls who appeared in Aquilina's court. He called it a "cathartic experience." "Now they're at a point in their healing process where they want to confront Larry, and they want to show the world that they are survivors and they are strong and they are part of this movement," Grewal said. "It helps them through the healing process."
He said the Nassar cases are extraordinary in the number of victims who have come forward. "The only case that's out there that's even similar in stature is Penn State, and this is now six times as big as Penn State, maybe seven times," Grewal said, referring to boys who said they were sexually abused by assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
Prior related posts:
- Does and should anyone care about just how and where child molester/gymnastics coach Larry Nassar rots in prison?
- Child molester/gymnastics coach Larry Nassar gets maxed-out, 60-year federal prison sentence for child porn offenses
- Child molester/gymnastics coach Larry Nassar gets (only?!?) 40 to 175 years as state prison sentence for mass molestation
- Highlighting comments, commentary and consequences from state sentencing of mass molester Larry Nassar
- Still more notable commentary on judicial conduct in sentencing of mass molestor
January 31, 2018 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sex Offender Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (2)
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Highlighting comments, commentary and consequences from state sentencing of mass molester Larry Nassar
The nature of Larry Nassar's crimes and of his victims contributed to his state sentencing earlier today (basics here) garnering lots and lots of attention. I suspect in days to come we may see continuing commentary about Nassar's crimes and their enduring consequences, and tonight I thought to highlight a few particulars already garnering attention.
First, certain comments made by the state judge at sentencing have prompted an array of reactions, and so I thought it useful to link here to a full transcript of the judge's full comments at sentencing. I think it is fair to call everything about the Nassar case remarkable, and the judge's sentencing statement also merits that adjective.
Second, and speaking of the judge and her sentencing comments, over at Slate Mark Joseph Stern already has this notable commentary headlined "Larry Nassar’s Victims Deserved a Judge Like Rosemarie Aquilina." The piece closes with these lines: "The result was impassioned and imperfect. It was also what Larry Nassar deserved."
And third, this local article reports on a noteworthy consequence of Nassar's crimes: "Michigan State President Lou Anna Simon resigns hours after Nassar sentencing." I hesitate calling the MSU Prez another victim of Nassar, but I do not hesitate predicting that Nassar's crimes will reverberate in many ways and in many areas for quite some time to come.
Prior related posts:
- Does and should anyone care about just how and where child molester/gymnastics coach Larry Nassar rots in prison?
- Child molester/gymnastics coach Larry Nassar gets maxed-out, 60-year federal prison sentence for child porn offenses
- Child molester/gymnastics coach Larry Nassar gets (only?!?) 40 to 175 years as state prison sentence for mass molestation
January 24, 2018 in Offense Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sex Offender Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (9)
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court unanimously rejects constitutional attack on consideration of victim impact statements at sentencing
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court handed down a notable short ruling today in Massachusetts v. McGonagle, SJC-12292 (Mass. Jan. 18, 2018) (available here). Here is how the unanimous opinion starts and ends:
General Laws c. 258B, § 3 (p), permits "victims . . . to be heard through an oral and written victim impact statement at sentencing . . . about the effects of the crime on the victim and as to a recommended sentence." We transferred this case here on our own motion to answer two questions: first, whether the United States Supreme Court's recent decision in Bosse v. Oklahoma, 137 S. Ct. 1 (2016) (per curiam), precludes a sentencing judge from considering victim impact statements "as to a recommended sentence" under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution and art. 26 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights; and second, whether the sentencing recommendation provision violates the defendant's constitutional guarantee of due process. We conclude that a sentencing judge's consideration of victim impact statements "as to a recommended sentence" is constitutional because the concerns underpinning the Supreme Court's treatment of victim impact statements before a jury during the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial differ from those at issue here. We further conclude that a victim's right to recommend a sentence pursuant to G. L. c. 258B, § 3 (p), satisfies the requirements of due process. We therefore answer both questions in the negative and affirm....
"Few, perhaps no, judicial responsibilities are more difficult than sentencing. The task is usually undertaken by trial judges who seek with diligence and professionalism to take account of the human existence of the offender and the just demands of a wronged society." Rodriguez, 461 Mass. at 259, quoting Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 77 (2010). The concerns underlying the Supreme Court's holdings in Booth and Bosse, that sentencing decisions not be made based on emotion, apply in nearly every sentencing decision. They raise an important caution. When a crime victim recommends a particular sentence to a judge, that judge must dispassionately consider that recommendation, cognizant that the sentencing decision is the judge's and the judge's alone. We expect judges to make sentencing decisions devoid of emotion, prejudice, and the relative status of a particular crime victim.
We all stand equal before the bar of justice, and it is neither cruel nor unusual or irrational, nor is it violative of a defendant's due process guarantees, for a judge to listen with intensity to the perspective of a crime victim. We affirm.
UPDATE: Not long after noting this case, it dawned on me that this posting might be a fitting place to link this compelling account from the Washington Post of all the compelling victim impact testimony being offered in a high profile case in Michigan this week. The extended article is headlined "At Larry Nassar sentencing hearing, a parade of horror and catharsis," and here is the context:
Nearly a year and a half after one woman filed a police report and contacted a newspaper, the criminal cases against Larry Nassar are nearing an end this week with a marathon sentencing hearing — 105 of the more than 130 girls and women who’ve accused Nassar of abuse are expected to speak — that began Tuesday and could end Friday, before a judge levies a sentence for seven sex crimes Nassar has admitted to as part of a plea deal.
January 18, 2018 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (2)
Sunday, November 05, 2017
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?
November 5, 2017 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (7)
Monday, October 23, 2017
"Is There a ‘Rational’ Punishment for My Rapist?"
The title of this post is the title of this powerful personal article authored by Amber Rose Carlson. I recommend the piece in full, and I hesitate to reprint excerpts for fear of diluting the potency of the entire piece. But this excerpt perhaps will help prompt folks to click through to read the full piece:
“Imagine your rapist had been found guilty and sentenced in court. What would you want his sentence to be?” This was the question asked to me in January 2016 by my therapist during a session of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (E.M.D.R.) — a treatment that researchers tout as one of the best remedies for severe trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder.
I was raped repeatedly during a three-year span from age 13 to 16. I was also subject to physical and emotional abuse during that time. I’ve since undergone years of traditional talk and group therapy with trauma specialists, and I am more healed today than I ever thought possible. Still, recovering from trauma is a serious endeavor, and I hoped for more healing....
I’m not a proponent of the death penalty primarily because the flaws in our criminal justice system are egregious and increasingly well-documented. The thought experiment’s framing, however, circumvented my usual concerns about unjust sanctions. I know what my rapist did to me, so I know he is guilty. Worries about the inhumanity of capital punishment were also blunted in part because this was purely hypothetical and in part because of the inhumanity he exhibited those long years with his penchant for violence.
Although the death sentence seemed wholly appropriate, I still considered how I would feel if a judge gave my rapist a less severe punishment: a natural life sentence — a life sentence with no chance for parole without a successful appeal. In this scenario, my feelings were just as clear: I would be slightly disappointed, but I would still feel mostly satisfied. Anything less than a death or natural life sentence, I knew, would seem inadequate....
IN FEBRUARY 2016 — only weeks after the thought experiments with my therapist — the philosopher Jennifer Lackey published an opinion piece in The Stone. In the article, she uses her experience teaching philosophy to inmates to argue for the irrationality of natural life sentences. Lackey bases her argument against natural life sentences on two reasonable claims: (1) people (criminals, specifically) can and do change in profoundly transformative ways, and (2) we cannot know the future.
For Lackey, the fact that we have good statistical evidence that criminals can and do change is especially problematic given our vast epistemic limitations regarding the future. “Natural life sentences,” she wrote, “say to all involved that there is no possible piece of information that could be learned between sentencing and death that could bear in any way on the punishment the convicted is said to deserve, short of what might ground an appeal.” Citing the possibility of prisoner transformation, Lackey then puts her question about rationality directly: “How is it rational,” she asks, “to screen off the relevance of this information? How, that is, is it rational to say today that there can be no possible evidence in the future that could bear on the punishment that a decades-from-now prisoner deserves?”...
I read Lackey’s article very soon after the thought experiments with my therapist. I noticed that Lackey’s argument easily applied to the death penalty, and I realized that the sentences I desired for my rapist were precisely the ones Lackey condemns as irrational. Since nothing in her argument prevented me from applying her logic to my own desires, I had to wonder if her argument also concluded that I was irrational for desiring permanent punishments. If it is irrational for the state to prescribe a permanent punishment given our epistemic limitations and prisoners’ likelihood for change, wouldn’t it be similarly irrational for victims to ignore these considerations?
There are, of course, crucial differences between victim’s desires and punishments carried out by the state. While sometimes the criminal justice system considers the wishes of victims and their families, the criminal justice system’s central aim is to protect the interests of the state and the community. This aim does not always coincide with the interests or wishes of the victim. Admittedly, there are often very good reasons for the state to ignore the wishes of victims. But my concern is less about what the state should do in practice and more about what arguments that prioritize transformation say about victims who desire permanent punishments.
Here I will be blunt: it matters very little to me whether my rapist is transformed at some point in his life. It matters to me only to the extent that I will readily agree that it would be better if he became the sort of person who did not inflict violence upon others. I would be very happy hearing that no other women would be harmed by him. But in terms of the punishment that he deserves? Transformation does not matter to me. And this is not irrational: There are many carefully considered reasons one might want a natural life sentence for perpetrators of egregious and irrevocable harm.
Desiring death or a natural life sentence for those who inflict traumatic violence is a rational response because whether or not my particular rapist transforms is irrelevant to whether or not I will ever have the chance to be the sort of person I might have been. His transformation is irrelevant to whether or not I will be able to live the sort of life I could have were it not for the injustice done to me. I desire a death or natural life sentence for my rapist because that is what seems appropriate given the amount of damage he wrought in my life....
Although my attitude is in no way representative of all victims, epistemic arguments that prioritize criminal transformation must contend with the implication that they can be used to paint trauma victims irrational when they desire retribution. It’s certainly important to advocate for prisoners who are wrongly incarcerated and for those who were victims of the overzealous war on crime era. The injustices in our criminal justice system are too numerous and too serious to ignore. But criminal justice reform should not be so myopic that it compounds trauma survivors’ victimization. Those who manage to survive traumatic crimes have enough to battle without arguments that undermine their rational considerations. Advocates for criminal justice reform can, and should, do better.
October 23, 2017 in Offense Characteristics, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Scope of Imprisonment, Sex Offender Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (18)
Sunday, August 20, 2017
Is it important to have laws barring sex offenders from living anywhere near their victims?
The question in the title of this post is prompted by this new AP piece headlined "Sex offenders can live next door to victims in many states." Here are excerpts:
A convicted sex offender who molested his niece when she was 7 years old moved in next door to his victim nearly a dozen years after he was sent to prison for the crime. Outraged, the Oklahoma woman, now 21, called lawmakers, the police and advocacy groups to plead with them to take action. Danyelle Dyer soon discovered that what Harold Dwayne English did in June is perfectly legal in the state — as well as in 44 others that don't specifically bar sex offenders from living near their victims, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
"I always felt safe in my home, but it made me feel like I couldn't go home, I couldn't have my safe space anymore," Dyer told The Associated Press, which typically doesn't identify victims of sexual assault, but is doing so in Dyer's case because she agreed to allow her named to be used in hopes of drawing attention to the issue. "He would mow in between our houses. Him moving in brought back a lot of those feelings."
Advocacy groups say the Oklahoma case appears to be among the first in the U.S. where a sex offender has exploited the loophole, which helps explain why dozens of other states have unknowingly allowed it to exist. "This is something that I would dare say was never envisioned would happen," said Richard Barajas, a retired Texas judge and executive director of the nonprofit National Organization for Victim Assistance. "In all the years that I've been involved with the criminal justice system, I've never seen a case like this."
Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Tennessee and West Virginia have laws dictating how far away sex offenders must stay from their victims — 1,000 feet in Tennessee, for example, and 2,000 feet in Arkansas. Other states haven't addressed the issue, though like Oklahoma they have laws prohibiting sex offenders from living within a certain distance of a church, school, day care, park or other facility where children are present.
"You assume it can't happen and then realize there is no provision preventing it from happening," said one Oklahoma prosecutor, Rogers County District Attorney Matt Ballard, whose agency is responsible for keeping tabs on sex offenders in his area. "To have even the possibility of an offender living next to the victim is extremely troubling."
Arkansas passed its provision in 2007. State Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, a former prosecutor, said lawmakers drafted the provision out of "common sense," not as a response to a situation like Dyer's. But Barajas, whose group discussed the loophole with attendees at its annual training event this past week, said support for such laws typically gain traction "when someone who was impacted steps up," like Dyer. "Legislation is never created in a vacuum," he said.
Oklahoma lawmakers have now drafted legislation to close the loophole, using Dyer as their champion. "Of the 70,000 square miles in Oklahoma, this individual happened to choose a place next door to the victim," said state Rep. Kyle Hilbert, who represents Dyer's mostly rural district and is sponsoring the legislation....
Advocacy groups said most legislatures across the U.S. would be able to close the loophole in their laws relatively easily, and said such measures typically receive strong backing from victims, clergy, parents and police. "I don't see any legal reason why those statutes cannot be amended to ensure that the actual victims are protected; it's no different than prohibiting sex offenders from living 1,000 feet from a church or school," Barajas said. "It's not that the legislation (already on the books) is anti-victim, it's just that we have lacked the voice. We certainly have a megaphone, but when you talk about victims of (sexual abuse), you can't have a megaphone big enough."
Dyer, who is attending the University of Central Oklahoma in the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond, said she hopes her story will help other victims who may think they're trapped in similar situations. "I think a lot of people feel like they are alone and that nobody cares," Dyer said. "The biggest thing is that they're not alone."
I fully understand the desire and need to protect victims from those who criminally victimized them, not only in sex offense cases but also in other settings. But if the problem highlighted in this article is rare, I would urge legislatures to be cautious before passing broad new laws that would impact a broad swath of offenders. With research suggesting that broad sex offender residency restrictions may be doing much more harm than good, I worry about one disconcerting case prompting states to embrace more broad collateral consequences that could create some unexpected consequences.
August 20, 2017 in Collateral consequences, Reentry and community supervision, Sex Offender Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (14)
Thursday, August 03, 2017
Distinct sentencing advice from family members for teen guilty of involuntary manslaughter for encouraging suicide
This local article, fully headlined "Conrad Roy’s aunt: Give Michelle Carter 20 years; Defendant’s dad wants probation," reports in the very different advice being given to a juvenile judge in Massachusetts in a high-profile case due to be sentenced today. Here are the details:
A grieving aunt of teen suicide victim Conrad Roy III is looking for a 20-year prison sentence for Michelle Carter tomorrow on the heels of her conviction in the blockbuster suicide-by-text case — but the girl’s worried dad is pleading for probation. “I believe she should be kept far away from society,” wrote Kim Bozzi, Roy’s aunt, in a statement she said she plans to read at Carter’s sentencing inside Taunton Trial Court.
“Take away the spotlight that she so desperately craves. Twenty years may seem extreme but it is still twenty more than Conrad will ever have,” Bozzi said in the written statement she gave to the Herald.
But David Carter, Michelle’s father, begged for probation and “continued counselling” in a July letter to Judge Lawrence Moniz. “She will forever live with what she has done and I know will be a better person because of it,” David Carter wrote in the signed letter, provided to the Herald. “I ask of you to invoke leniency in your decision-making process for my loving child Michelle.”...
The judge found that Carter caused the death of Roy, who killed himself in a Fairhaven Kmart parking lot in 2014 by filling his truck with carbon monoxide. Carter, 20, of Plainville, who had an almost entirely virtual relationship with Roy, goaded him into killing himself through a series of texts and calls. The Mattapoisett teen left the truck as it filled with deadly fumes, but according to testimony at Carter’s trial, she told him on the phone to “get back in.”
“I’m unsure when she decided to set her sick plan into motion or why, but when she did she did it relentlessly, it was calculated and it was planned down to a T,” Bozzi wrote in the victim-impact statement. “She preyed on his vulnerabilities, he trusted her, which in turn, cost him his life.” Bozzi, who attended every court appearance, told the Herald other family members are prepared to speak as well. She said Carter’s conviction was a relief and that “what happens next is up to God and a judge.”
Prior related post:
UPDATE: Michelle Carter received a prison sentence of 2.5 years, but only half has to be actually served in prison as explained in this CNN article. It starts this way:
Michelle Carter, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the 2014 suicide of her boyfriend, was sentenced Thursday to a two-and-a-half-year term, with 15 months in prison and the balance suspended plus a period of supervised probation.
"This court must and has balanced between rehabilitation, the promise that rehabilitation would work and a punishment for the actions that have occurred," said Bristol County Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz.
August 3, 2017 in Celebrity sentencings, Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (14)
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Making the case for AG-nominee Jeff Sessions as an advocate for crime victims
Paul Cassell and Steven Twist have this notable new FoxNews commentary run under the headlined "Why Jeff Sessions, a conservative attorney general, would be best for crime victims." Here are excerpts:
As two crime victims’ rights advocates and law professors, we welcome the announcement that President-elect Trump will nominate Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions to be the next attorney general of the United States. Senator Sessions has a long and robust record of fighting for justice, and more specifically for enforceable victims’ rights. If confirmed by the Senate, he will undoubtedly be a powerful voice for crime victims as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States.
Our enthusiasm about Senator Sessions stems from the fact that he was an early supporter of amending the U.S. Constitution to protect rights for crime victims. This idea was first proposed by a Task Force assembled by President Ronald Reagan and later endorsed by Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The Victims’ Rights Amendment was first introduced in Congress in 1996 by Senators Dianne Feinstein and Jon Kyl. Senator Sessions strongly advocated for the amendment and will be the country’s first Attorney General to cast votes for amending the Constitution to give rights to crime victims....
The Senator’s strong bipartisan record on behalf of crime victims does not end there. Senator Sessions crossed the aisle to work with Senator Feinstein to preserve restitution rights for crime victims and to provide stronger protections for victims of child abuse. He joined with the late-Senator Ted Kennedy to reduce sexual assaults in prison. He worked with Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin to address sentencing disparities in federal drug laws and increase penalties for the most serious drug traffickers. And in many other ways, he fought against weakening the federal criminal laws whenever they posed an undue risk of creating even more victims of crime.
More impressive still is his courage as a prosecutor to take up the cause of pursuing justice for crime victims through the prosecution of their attackers. He stood against headwinds of the Old South to prosecute KKK criminals in Alabama. He prosecuted Klansman Henry Francis Hays, son of Alabama Klan leader Bennie Hays, for abducting and killing Michael Donald, a black teenager.
As a prosecutor, Senator Sessions established a record as aggressive, but fair. He remained focused on the ethical duty to do justice. We are excited about the prospect of an attorney general who sees the need for expanding rights and services for crime victims, and who has demonstrated the heart, the courage, and the leadership to head a Department of Justice that will ensure justice is pursued for all, including and especially for the crime victim.
December 14, 2016 in Criminal justice in the Trump Administration, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (3)
Sunday, October 23, 2016
California judge imposes prison term of 1,503 years(!?!) on father who repeatedly raped daughter
As reported in this local article, a state judge in California gave new meaning to the term "mass incarceration" by imposing a prison sentence on a rapist that will not be completed until the year 3519. Here are the details:
Fresno prosecutor Nicole Galstan asked a judge on Friday to sentence Rene Lopez to 1,503 years in prison for raping his teenage daughter over a four-year period, ending in 2013. Judge Edward Sarkisian Jr. agreed, sentencing the 41-year-old Lopez to the longest-known prison sentence in Fresno Superior Court history.
It stands in stark contrast to recent high-profile sentencings in sexual assault cases such as six months for ex-Stanford swimmer Brock Turner and, just this week, 60 days for a Montana man convicted of felony incest for raping his 12-year-old daughter.
In announcing the punishment, Sarkisian told Lopez he violated a position of trust, engaged in violent conduct and is a “serious danger to society.” Sarkisian also noted that Lopez had never shown remorse and has blamed his daughter for his predicament.
Lopez, who sat shackled in the courtroom, sat silently, never acknowledging his daughter, who told Sarkisian that she feared her father. (The Fresno Bee does not name victims of sexual abuse.) “When my father abused me, I was young. I had no power, no voice. I was defenseless,” said the daughter, who now is 23 years old. She also told the judge that her father never has shown remorse for her pain and suffering....
In September, a jury found Lopez guilty of 186 felony counts of sexual assault, including dozens of counts of rape of a minor. Galstan said the victim was first sexually abused by a family friend. But instead of the father protecting his daughter, “he chose to turn her into a piece of property and use her to satisfy his sexual needs,” the prosecutor told the judge.
The victim was raped two to three times a week from May 2009 to May 2013. Galstan said it ended only when the girl got the courage to leave him. Even then, her father would drive by her new home and later leave love songs on her message machine, the judge said....
At Friday’s hearing, Sarkisian read the date of each felony count, which included Lopez raping his daughter on Christmas and other holidays. Before he announced the sentence, Sarkisian said Lopez turned down two plea deals. Before his preliminary hearing, if he had admitted his guilt, prosecutors would have recommended 13 years in prison. Lopez rejected the offer. Then before his trial, he was offered 22 years in prison if he admitted his guilt. Lopez declined that offer, saying he should be released from jail for the time he already had served, Sarkisian said.
“He ruined her teenage years and made her feel like it was her fault,” Galstan said in arguing for the maximum sentence.
Lopez, who did not testify in his trial, wrote in a letter to the judge that he didn’t get a fair trial and that his daughter lied on the witness stand. “It’s hearsay,” he says in the letter. But Sarkisian told him that he received a fair trial and that the evidence was overwhelming. In addition to the victim’s testimony, jurors heard entries from her diary in which she chronicled her father’s crimes against her, Galstan said. And when she got pregnant from her father, he paid for the abortion, the judge said.
In addition to the prison sentence, Sarkisian said Lopez will have to register as a sex offender.
Though this defendant was convicted of extreme crimes that justified an extreme sentence, the decision of the prosecutor to seek and the judge to impose a term of 1,503 years in prison strikes me as silly and arguably counterproductive to the goal of helping all victims of sexual assault feel vindicated by the criminal justice system. It is silly, I think, to impose upon a defendant a crazy-long-impossible prison sentence just for symbolic effect, just as a restitution sentence of, say, "one trillion, zillion, billion dollars" would be silly. And this crazy-long-impossible prison sentence could, at least indirectly, make other victims of sexual assault whose victimizers were given much shorter sentences feel as though their harms were not entirely vindicated in their cases.
UPDATE: Over at his blog Simple Justice, Scott Greenfield has this effective new post titled "Rape, Incest And Retribution" to highlights how this case takes us from "the sublime to the ridiculous" as we reflect on what this case represents against the backdrop of other recent controversial sexual assault cases in California and Montana. In addition to recommending this post in full, I also recommend the comments there (as well as this funny button Scott provides if his post hurts your feelings).
October 23, 2016 in Offense Characteristics, Scope of Imprisonment, Sex Offender Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (19)
Wednesday, October 05, 2016
"Victim Impact Statements and Expressive Punishment in the Age of Social Media"
The title of this post is the title of this new paper available via SSRN and authored by Erin Sheley. Here is the abstract:
Victim impact statements (VIS) are long-disfavored among legal commentators for allegedly injecting unnecessary, negative emotion into sentencing at the expense of the defendant, with ambiguous informational benefits to the sentencing body. Most traditional arguments both for and against VIS turn on purely retributive or utilitarian grounds.
This essay takes up the Stanford sexual assault victim’s statement to propose an expressive framework for understanding the function of VIS, which resolves much of the theoretical confusion surrounding the traditional justifications. I show how the expressive goals of criminal punishment have long been distorted by the mediation of traditional news reporting. I then analyze the legal relevance of the particular criminological values expressed in the Stanford statement to show how unmediated victim narratives may counterbalance media distortion, particularly in the age of social media transmission. I conclude that the criminal justice system better serves its expressive function by formally incorporating VIS into sentencing.
October 5, 2016 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Sex Offender Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (3)
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Astute recognition that crime victims have to be integral part of effort to address modern mass incarceration
Greg Berman and Julian Adler have this important new commentary at The Crime Report headlined "Finding Common Cause: Victims and the Movement to Reduce Incarceration." Here are excerpts:
After more than a generation of punitive, “tough-on-crime” rhetoric and policymaking, there is now a fairly broad political consensus in the United States that we have gone too far in our use of incarceration. Indeed, just a few weeks ago, the White House unveiled the Data-Driven Justice Initiative, a partnership of 67 jurisdictions — big and small, conservative and liberal — committed to using data to reduce incarceration.
The efforts to roll back mass incarceration are laudable, but they will not achieve lasting change if they do not figure out how to incorporate the perspectives of the justice system’s most vulnerable constituents: Victims of crime.
Victims of intimate partner violence in particular often feel sidelined by a criminal justice system that focuses almost exclusively on defendants. And make no mistake: Domestic violence represents a significant percentage of the cases in our criminal courts. Current estimates show that approximately 10 million people are abused by an intimate partner in the U.S. each year — and this is almost certainly an undercount, given the hidden and unreported nature of a lot of abuse.
But it is not just the criminal justice system that pays short shrift to victims. Reformers do it, too. “Victims have been overlooked in this de-incarceration movement,” said Mai Fernandez, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime, in a recent interview with the Center for Court Innovation. Advocates concerned with reducing the use of incarceration typically argue that fewer defendants should be sent to jail or prison, and that there should be more community-based alternatives. Victim support organizations are, by definition, focused on crime victims’ safety. Historically, many have argued for increased accountability — including incarceration — for offenders, particularly in cases involving domestic violence.
Is it possible for victim advocates and jail reduction advocates to find common cause? To begin to answer this question, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Center for Court Innovation convened a roundtable with policymakers and practitioners from across the country, including judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, victim advocates, and police officials. The roundtable highlighted a number of tensions.
One obvious tension is the potential conflict between protecting the safety of victims and protecting the constitutional rights of the accused. Many advocates believe that to better serve victims, courts should impose conditions of release—including stay-away orders, monitoring, and participation in specialized services — for domestic violence defendants who are out in the community pending trial. This idea runs up against the strong national push to reduce pretrial detention for those who have been accused—but not convicted — of criminal behavior.
As with much of American life, the challenge of racial, ethnic and gender disparity hangs over this conversation. Black and Latino communities have long histories of being over-policed and over-criminalized in the U.S. At the same time, these communities have been under-protected from the threat of victimization. History tells us that women of color are particularly vulnerable.
Many advocates of jail reduction place great faith in actuarial risk assessment instruments to determine who can be safely released while a case is pending. But victim advocates are asking some hard questions about these tools: How accurate are they? What can a statistical analysis tell us about what any individual defendant might do? And how well do risk tools take into account potential lethality?
“Domestic violence defendants are different,” argued Idaho judge James Cawthon in the roundtable. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the presence of a specifically targeted victim changes the equation when it comes to looking at the potential risk — and severity — of re-offending. While some jurisdictions have developed special risk assessment tools for domestic violence defendants, many have not. In the days ahead, jail and prison reformers will have to wrestle with these and other challenges if they are to win the full-throated support of victim advocacy groups....
A strong body of opinion within the victims’ movement agrees the time has come to take a hard look at “right-sizing” incarceration, which involves figuring out who needs to be behind bars and who does not. “It’s just simply not the case that all victims of violent crimes, and certainly not all victims of nonviolent crimes, seek a punitive punishment for the offender,” University of Miami law professor Donna Coker tells the Center for Court Innovation. “What they frequently seek is some assurance that it won’t happen to them again and some assurance that it won’t happen to somebody else.”
Victim advocates and jail reduction proponents may not be able to agree on every issue. But in those areas where they have shared goals — improving the quality of risk assessment tools, reducing racial and gender disparities, and promoting trauma-informed care — they can serve as a powerful voice for change within our justice system.
September 21, 2016 in Prisons and prisoners, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Scope of Imprisonment, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (0)
Saturday, August 06, 2016
Interesting results from survey of crime victims suggests they support "smart on crime" reforms
This Washington Post article, headlined "Even violent crime victims say our prisons are making crime worse," reports on this results of an interesing survey of crime victims. Here are excerpts:
A first-of-its-kind national survey finds that victims of crime say they want to see shorter prison sentences, less spending on prisons and a greater focus on the rehabilitation of criminals. The survey, conducted in April and released Thursday by the Alliance for Safety and Justice, a criminal justice reform group, polled the attitudes and beliefs of more 800 crime victims pooled from a nationally representative sample of over 3,000 respondents....
"Perhaps to the surprise of some, the National Survey on Victims’ Views found that the overwhelming majority of crime victims believe that the criminal justice system relies too heavily on incarceration, and strongly prefer investments in treatment and prevention to more spending on prisons and jails," according to the report.
By two-to-one, victims said the criminal justice system should focus more on rehabilitating people who commit crimes, as opposed to punishing them. By similar margins, the victims preferred shorter prison sentences over keeping criminals incarcerated "as long as possible."...
More recent surveys have uncovered overwhelming support for eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing requirements for federal crimes. But congressional efforts to implement policies like these have often been stymied by "tough-on-crime" senators, including Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who are skeptical of many reform efforts. They often cite the experiences of crime victims and their families in their arguments against reform. For instance, in 2009 Feinstein and Republican Sen. Jon Kyl argued in an op-ed that "for too long, our court system has tilted in favor of accused criminals and has proven appallingly indifferent to the suffering of crime victims." In 2014, Grassley argued on the Senate floor that "lower mandatory minimum sentences mean increased crime and increased victims. Why would we vote to increase crime and create more crime victims?"
But the new survey suggests that crime victims' interests don't always align with those of the tough-on-crime lawmakers who invoke their names. The survey suggests this may be because many crime victims don't see prison as an effective tool for reducing the crime rate and preventing others from being victimized.
In the survey, 52 percent of victims said that prison makes people more likely to commit crimes again. Only 19 percent said that prison helps rehabilitate people into better citizens. This skepticism of prisons is in line with most social science research, which has generally shown that mass incarceration causes more crime than it prevents, that institutionalizing young offenders makes them more likely to commit crime as adults, and that spending time in prison teaches people how to be better criminals....
The survey report quotes Judy Martin, an Ohio woman whose son was shot and killed in a parking lot. "The way our criminal justice system is set up currently doesn’t allow for redemption," Martin says. "We must treat each other, even those among us who have made serious mistakes, with more humanity. It’s the only way forward."
The full report, which is titled "Crime Survivors Speak," is available at this link.
August 6, 2016 in Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (2)
Friday, June 17, 2016
Daughter of mass murder victim explains why she opposes death penaly for Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof
This new Vox commentary authored by Sharon Risher explains a notable person's notable perspective on forgiveness and the death penalty in a notable capital case. The piece is headlined "My mom was killed in the Charleston shooting. Executing Dylann Roof won’t bring her back." Here are excerpts:
Ethel Lance, my mother, was killed on Wednesday, June 17, 2015, along with my cousins Susie Jackson and Tywanza Sanders, and six other people at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. It appears to have been a racially motivated massacre plotted by a 21-year-old white man....
A mere 48 hours after the church shooting, millions of Americans watched my sister, Nadine Collier, stand in front of our mother’s accused killer and forgive him at his bond hearing. The media ran with the forgiveness narrative, praising the ability of the victims’ families for their graciousness and faith.
I didn’t forgive Dylann Roof. And I still don’t forgive him. After I saw my sister address the nation, I thought, This girl has to be crazy! Who’s going to forgive him so quickly? I was hurt that people thought Nadine’s views reflected the views of the Lance family and the thoughts of all of the Charleston nine’s loved ones.
Don’t get me wrong. I disagreed with Nadine, but I respected her opinion — she’s my sister, and she has a right to her own emotions and grieving process. Still, after the shooting, there were several articles that exploited our different ways of grieving. They pitted us against each other in the midst of a horrific tragedy.
I understand that the people of Charleston, and of America as a whole, latched onto the overwhelming message of forgiveness as a coping mechanism. But the focus on quick forgiveness and the pivot to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina statehouse washed away the severity of the larger issues at hand – that the accused killer, because of his hatred of black people, could be so stirred by white supremacist ideology that he would go into that church to kill my momma and all the others.
The man accused of killing my mother did not show any remorse. Why should I feel the need to forgive him when he has not asked for forgiveness? I know God commands us to forgive, but there is no time stamp — forgiveness is a journey that you allow yourself to feel because someone has wronged you....
In the months since the shooting, I received a handwritten letter from Lucia McBath, whose son Jordan Davis was killed in 2012 from gun violence. Lucia sent her condolences and told me to reach out to her if I needed to. On a whim, I did. From there, I became involved with gun control advocacy, rallying for national gun control organizations....
Despite the anger I am still coping with from my mother’s death, I don’t believe in the death penalty, even for the man who killed her. That’s my conviction because of my faith. I’ve said the same thing all along — I don’t believe as human beings that we should take away someone’s life just because we have the power to do so.
God is the only person, the only being who decides our fate. Still, I will let the judicial system do what they choose. The Department of Justice announced last month that it will seek the death penalty against the shooter. Whatever the outcome, I will not protest.
This is how my faith carries me. I don’t walk in fear. I don’t think about Dylann Roof. All I want to do is do what God has planned out for me. If I can stop one person from experiencing the pain myself and my family and all the families experienced post-Charleston, then I have done my part.
June 17, 2016 in Death Penalty Reforms, Offense Characteristics, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
You be the judge for "sentencing supernova": what punishment for former House speaker Dennis Hastert for structuring (and sex) offenses?
I have decided to call tomorrow's scheduled sentencing for former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert a "sentencing supernova." As science geeks know, and as this Wikipedia entry explains, a supernova is "an astronomical event that occurs during the last stellar evolutionary stages of a massive star's life, whose dramatic and catastrophic destruction is marked by one final titanic explosion." I consider any former speaker of the House to be a "massive star" and I look at his coming sentencing as the culmination of a "dramatic and catastrophic destruction" as it was slowly unearthed by federal authorities that he was committing federal banking offenses in order to pay hush money to one (of now it appears many) of Hastert's long-ago sex abuse victims.
I also am thinking of Hastert's sentencing in "supernova" terms because there are so many dynamic and debatable sentencing issues swirling around his case. This recent Chicago Tribune article, headlined "More than 40 letters in support of Hastert made public before sentencing," reviews just some of the sentencing issues in play (with my emphasis added):
More than 40 letters in support of former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert — including one from his former congressional colleague Tom DeLay — were made public Friday evening in advance of his sentencing next week on hush money charges.
"We all have our flaws, but Dennis Hastert has very few," wrote DeLay, the Texas Republican who served as majority leader under Hastert in the early 2000s. "He doesn't deserve what he is going through. I ask that you consider the man that is before you and give him leniency where you can."...
Also included were letters from Hastert's wife, Jean, and sons Joshua and Ethan, who wrote of his devotion to his family and his good deeds as a coach, teacher and later as a politician. They also wrote of concerns over his failing health — Hastert's lawyers have said he suffered a stroke and near-fatal blood infection last year that left him hospitalized for weeks. "This has taken a terrible toll on our family," his wife wrote. "I am particularly worried that if he is taken from his home and the care he needs, his health will continue to deteriorate."
Hastert, 74, faces probation to up to five years in prison when he is sentenced Wednesday, although his plea agreement with prosecutors calls for a sentence of no more than six months behind bars. He pleaded guilty in October to one count of illegally structuring bank withdrawals to avoid reporting requirements, admitting in a plea agreement that he'd paid $1.7 million in cash to a person identified only as Individual A to cover up unspecified misconduct from decades earlier.
In a bombshell sentencing memorandum filed earlier this month, prosecutors alleged Hastert had sexually abused at least four wrestlers as well as a former team equipment manager when he was coach at Yorkville [more than 35 year ago]. The abuse allegedly occurred in hotel rooms during team trips and in almost-empty locker rooms, often after Hastert coaxed the teens into a compromising position by offering to massage them, prosecutors said. The filing also alleged that Hastert set up a recliner chair outside the locker room showers in order to sit and watch the boys....
When he was confronted by FBI agents about the unusual bank withdrawals in December 2014, Hastert lied and said he was just keeping his money safe because he didn't trust security at the banks, according to prosecutors. Later, he accused Individual A of extorting him by making false accusations of sexual abuse and even agreed to record phone conversations for the FBI — a gambit that fell apart when agents realized it was Hastert who was lying, according to prosecutors.
I have highlighted above the notable fact, thanks to a shrewd plea deal in this case, Hastert's punishment is statutorily limited to a prison sentencing range of zero to five years and that prosecutors are bound to recommend a sentence of no more than six months imprisonment. Prosecutors cut this deal, I suspect, because they realize that Hastert's old age and poor health and recent history of public service would make unlikely that a judge would sentence him to a very lengthy prison term.
That all said, it appears nearly undisputable that Hastert did sexually abuse numerous boys while serving as a wrestling coach decades ago and essentially got away with these crimes. (It is my understanding that the statute of limitations has passed so that he could not now be prosecuted for them.) His more recent bank/money structuring crimes are, of course, connected to these long-ago terrible crimes and Hastert also actively lied to public officials in a manner that could also have readily brought separate serious criminal charge for obstruction of justice.
Based on all these facts, I could make reasonabe arguments for sentences ranging from probation to five years, and I also could imagine lots of arguments for creative alternative sentencing terms instead of (or in addition to) a prison stint. For example, I believe some members of the community have urged the judge to require Hastert to make significant payment to groups that work with sexually abused boys. And perhaps one could strain to read federal law to argue that all of those abused by Hastert long ago are still technically victims of his more recent offenses and thus should be able to obtain some kind of restitution through his sentencing. (This would seem to be stretch, but there are reports that some other "victims" are planning to testify at Hastert's sentencing.)
So I sincerely wonder, dear readers, what supernova sentence you think should be impose in this case?
April 26, 2016 in Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Sex Offender Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, White-collar sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (37)
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Fascinating issues emerging in run up to federal sentencing of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert
This new Politico article, headlined "New Hastert accuser emerges: Judge acknowledges that the case against the former House speaker involves alleged sex abuse," flags some of the notable issues emerging as the federal sentencing of a notable former member of Congress approaches. Here are the details:
A previously unidentified victim of alleged sexual abuse by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert has come forward to federal prosecutors and may seek to testify next month when Hastert faces sentencing in federal court in Chicago. The new accuser, labeled as "Individual D" in court papers, is not the "Individual A" to whom Hastert agreed to pay $3.5 million, setting off a series of events that led to the former speaker pleading guilty to illegally structuring $900,000 used in payments to the man.
Up until now, public court records and courtroom proceedings in the case have danced around the fact that the case stems from alleged sexual impropriety, reportedly from Hastert's years as a teacher and wrestling coach. But U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Durkin gave up that pretense Tuesday and made clear that the case is linked to the widely reported allegations of sexual misconduct.
"Let's not beat around the bush. If 'Individual D' wants to come in and talk about being a victim of sexual abuse, he's entitled to do so because that informs my decision about the history and characteristics of the defendant. It's that simple," Durkin said, according to a transcript POLITICO reviewed of a brief court hearing.
Hastert entered his guilty plea last October, acknowledging that he withdrew nearly $1 million in cash in increments of less than $10,000 to avoid reporting requirements, paying the money out to a longtime associate. The indictment against Hastert doesn't name the person he was paying, referring to him only as "Individual A."
Durkin agreed Tuesday to delay Hastert's sentencing by about three weeks at the government's request so that a witness who may wish to testify at the hearing can appear. "Individual D" is "not 100 percent certain he wants to [testify] but has been moving in that direction," prosecutor Steven Block told the judge.
The government apparently did not know of "Individual D" when the indictment was filed against Hastert last May. But sources said investigators were aware of at least two living victims at that time. Since the indictment, Hastert has been mum about the sexual abuse allegations that have swirled in the press. However, Hastert defense attorney John Gallo said Tuesday that the former speaker doesn't plan to contest "Individual D"'s claims.
Durkin also said he's willing to hear at sentencing from a Montana woman, Joanne Burdge, who claims her late brother had a sexual relationship with Hastert while her brother was an equipment manager on the wrestling team Hastert coached. "If the sister of a victim of sexual abuse wants to come in and talk about her interactions with her brother and talk about that, that is something that would inform my decisions about the history and characteristics of the defendant," the judge said.
Hastert's lawyers opposed delaying the hearing and said the proposed witnesses aren't victims under federal law because the crime Hastert pled guilty to was a bank reporting violation. "They're not classic victims, and so they have no statutory entitlement to appear," Hastert attorney Thomas Green said during Tuesday's hearing. He also said their submissions should be taken in writing, not through live testimony.
But Durkin rejected that position. "If they want to come in and they're willing to testify as live witnesses, they're absolutely entitled to do so, and the government's entitled to call them as live witnesses," the judge said.
In an interview, Burdge confirmed her desire and plan to speak at the sentencing. "I'm going to it. I feel like it's crossing the finish line and I need to do it," she told POLITICO Wednesday. "I've waited over 30 years for this."
In Hastert's plea deal, the defense and prosecutors agreed that sentencing guidelines call for the former speaker to receive between zero and six months in custody. However, after his guilty plea last year, the 74-year-old Hastert suffered a stroke and sepsis. Given the health issues, it's unclear whether Durkin will sentence Hastert to any jail time at all.
Some prior related posts:
- You be the federal defense attorney: would you urge Dennis Hastert to cut a plea deal?
- Did former House Speaker Hastert get a sweetheart sentencing deal from federal prosecutors?
March 24, 2016 in Booker in district courts, Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (6)
Wednesday, March 02, 2016
Are death penalty advocates troubled by plea deal, presumably urged by families of two slain Viriginia college students, that allows a double murderer to escape any real punishment?
The question in the title of this post is my reaction to this news story about an expected plea deal which seem to allow a high-profile double-murderer in Virginia to, in essence, avoid suffering any real punishment for murdering two college students. The article is headlined "Report: Matthew to be spared death penalty in Va. student murders," and here are the details (with my emphasis added):
Two remarkably similar murder cases that amplified concerns about campus safety are expected to end when a Virginia man enters a plea deal that will spare him a possible death sentence. Jesse LeRoy Matthew Jr., 34, is expected to enter pleas resolving the Hannah Graham and Morgan Harrington cases Wednesday, according to Albemarle County Commonwealth's Attorney Robert N. Tracci. The prosecutor did not disclose the terms of the plea agreement ahead of the hearing.
Sources told CBS affiliate WTVR Matthew is expected to plead guilty to first-degree murder and intent to defile in both cases. WTVR reporter Laura French reports via Twitter that Matthew is expected to serve four life sentences with no eligibility for parole. The deal will spare him the death penalty, sources told the station.
The former hospital orderly and cab driver is charged with capital murder in the September 2014 death of 18-year-old University of Virginia student Graham. He also faces a first-degree murder charge in the 2009 death of Harrington, a 20-year-old Virginia Tech student. He already is serving three life prison terms for a sexual assault in northern Virginia.
According to authorities, Graham and Harrington were young women in vulnerable straits when they vanished in Charlottesville five years apart...
Graham's disappearance, which came at a time of rising national concern about sexual assaults and other crimes on college campuses, prompted a massive search. Her body was found five weeks later on abandoned property in Albemarle County, about 12 miles from the Charlottesville campus and 6 miles from a hayfield where Harrington's remains had been found in January 2010.
After police named Matthew a person of interest in Graham's disappearance, he fled and was later apprehended on a beach in southeast Texas. He was charged with abduction with intent to defile, a felony that empowered police to swab his cheek for a DNA sample. That sample connected Matthew to the 2005 sexual assault in Fairfax, a Virginia suburb of Washington, according to authorities. The DNA evidence in the Fairfax sexual assault, in turn, linked Matthew to the Harrington case, authorities have said.
The charge against Matthew in the Graham case was later upgraded to capital murder, giving prosecutors the option to seek the death penalty.
Both the Harrington and the Graham families are supportive of the deal, WTVR reports. Both families requested to give victim impact statements at the Wednesday afternoon hearing.
When I first saw the headline of this local story, I was puzzled by the willingness of Virginia prosecutors to let a defendant who is already serving multiple life sentences for other crimes now avoid any capital prosecution for two horrific murders. But, after reading that "the Harrington and the Graham families are supportive of the deal," I presume that these families strongly urged the prosecutors to take this kind of deal in order to conclude legal proceedings quickly and to allow them to get a measure of closure.
Assuming I am right that this plea deal is at the behest of the families of the victims, I am genuinely interested to hear from death penalty advocates about whether they think this outcome is ultimately a serious injustice. I surmise that some (many? most?) death penalty advocates think it is an injustice anytime a first-degree murderer escapes a capital prosecution and possible execution. In this case, given that the double-murderer is already serving life sentences for other crimes, this plea deal to additional life sentences means, functionally, Matthew is going to receive no real punishment at all for murdering Graham and Harrington.
Because I am a something of a death penalty agnostic, and especially because I am a strong supporter of taking very seriously the sentencing interests of crime victims in all cases, I really am not sure how I feel about this outcome. But I am sure I would like to hear the opinions of others, especially those who genuinely believe, as did Immanuel Kant, that the "satisfaction of justice" demands the execution of certain killers.
March 2, 2016 in Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (29)
Monday, February 01, 2016
"Accommodating Justice: Victim Impact Statements in the Sentencing Process"
The title of this post is the title of a forthcoming book by Tracey Booth, the introduction to which can be downloaded here via SSRN. Here is the SSRN abstract:
Prominent criminologist, David Garland, has argued that VISs have led us into “unfamiliar territory where the ideological grounds are far from clear and the old assumptions an unreliable guide”.
A victim impact statement (VIS) is a highly nuanced and individual narrative that can operate as both an informational device in the sentencing process and an expressive mechanism for crime victims. From the law perspective, VISs provide the court with details of harm caused by the offence and the consequences of the offending in order to further purposes of sentencing. As an expressive mechanism, VISs offer victims the opportunity and space to express their feelings, tell their personal story of the aftermath of crime, and be heard by the court, the offender, and the wider community.
Though a well-established feature of contemporary sentencing hearings (at least in superior courts) VISs remain controversial in common law jurisdictions. The ‘non-legal’ nature of VISs has generated uncertainty in relation to the functioning of the sentencing hearing and concerns have been raised that VISs are: inconsistent with established legal values, detrimental to the offender’s entitlement to a fair hearing, detrimental to victims’ wellbeing, and harmful to the integrity of the legal proceedings.
Accommodating Justice: victim impact statements in the sentencing process explores complex territory where VISs, the law and legal institutions intersect with a focus on the requirements of fairness, most particularly in the courtroom. And it does so from multiple perspectives: courts, offenders and victims. The book draws from a range of theoretical and doctrinal sources as well as empirical studies from Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. An ethnographic study of the performance of VISs in homicide sentencing hearings in the NSW Supreme Court woven through most chapters provides an innovative and evidence-based approach to the issues.
February 1, 2016 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Sentencing around the world, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (4)
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Early accounts of the developing post-Hurst hydra for past and present capital cases in Florida
In this post last week not long after the Supreme Court in Hurst v. Florida declared Florida's death penalty procedures violative of the Sixth Amendment, I coined the term term "post-Hurst hydra" to describe what will likely be multi-headed, snake-like litigation that will develop in various ways in various Florida courts as both state and federal judges try to make sense of just what Hurst must mean for past, present and future capital cases.
Not surprisingly, as reported in these two new local articles, courts, lawyers and experts are already puzzled by the situation that SCOTUS has now handed them:
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From the Orando Sentinel here, "Florida death penalty experts disagree on who will be spared execution"
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From the Florida Times-Union here, "Courts face dilemma with Donald Smith and other death-penalty cases coming up after Supreme Court ruling"
As these capital cases are sure to unfold in hard-to-predict ways in the weeks and months ahead, I cannot help but be especially sympathetic to the difficult position in which Florida's prosecutors and the families of victims of capital murderers now find themselves in. Until the Florida legislature enacts a Hurst fix, and likely long thereafter, so many of the worst-of-the-worst murder cases are going to be in a legal limbo that will make hard cases for prosecutors and hard times for families only that much harder.
Prior related posts:
- SCOTUS strikes down Florida's capital sentencing scheme based on Sixth Amendment
- A few (too) quick thoughts on the post-Hurst hydra
- Florida Supreme Court wasting no time trying to figure out impact of Hurst
January 19, 2016 in Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (5)
Friday, January 08, 2016
"Full Restitution for Child Pornography Victims: The Supreme Court's Paroline Decision and the Need for a Congressional Response"
The title of this post is the title of this notable paper authored by Paul Cassell and James Marsh now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:
In this article, we have reviewed the legal issues surrounding restitution for child pornography victims. In our view, the Supreme Court’s Paroline decision failed to fully implement the congressional mandate that victims receive restitution for the “full amount” of their losses. Congress should move swiftly to ensure full restitution for child pornography victims by enacting the proposed Amy and Vicky Act — a more rational scheme for awarding restitution.
After the Supreme Court's Paroline ruling in April 2014, a number of reasonable folks reasonably predicted that Congress could and would move quickly to pass legislation to remedy the victim-oriented concerns stressed in this article. But, now nearly two years later, "Paroline fix" legislation seems stuck in Congress while victims like Amy and Vicky and others wait and wait for statutory reforms that, in the words of this article, would create "a more rational scheme for awarding restitution."
January 8, 2016 in Fines, Restitution and Other Economic Sanctions, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Sex Offender Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (7)
Saturday, December 12, 2015
"The Armed Career Criminal Act: Imprecise, Indeterminate, and Unconstitutional"
The title of this post is the title of this timely new piece authored by Michael Schearer and available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The Armed Career Criminal Act provides a mandatory minimum fifteen-year sentence enhancement for felons possessing a firearm who have previously been convicted three times of a “violent felony” or a “serious drug offense.” Despite this seemingly clear mandate, the statute has been embroiled in controversy for decades as judges struggle to determine what predicate crimes meet this standard. The culmination of this battle resulted in the invalidation of the ACCA’s “residual clause” when the Supreme Court found that the clause violated due process in Johnson v. United States. Nonetheless, the remaining provisions of the ACCA are still problematic.
For example, although burglary is a specifically enumerated offense that constitutes a violent felony, burglary convictions in some states have been held to be violent felonies while burglary convictions in other states have not. Likewise, offenses involving “the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another” have mired the courts in similar difficulties in determining whether the particular offensive qualifies as violent felony. Perhaps most troublesome, a finding of juvenile delinquency can be considered a criminal conviction that subjects an individual to ACCA enhancement in a subsequent adult proceeding, despite the fact that juveniles do not have the right to a jury trial. This paper argues that the ACCA is imprecise, indeterminate, and insusceptible of principled and predictable interpretation. Absent a wholesale modification by Congress, the substantive provisions of the ACCA examined in this paper ought to be held by the courts to be unconstitutional because they deprive defendants of due process.
December 12, 2015 in Offender Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Victims' Rights At Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (6)
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Jared Fogle given (above-guideline and above-prosecutor-recommend) sentence of 188 months in federal prison for sex offenses
As reported in this local article, "Jared Fogle was sentenced to 15 years, eight months in prison Thursday for possession and distribution of child pornography and traveling across state lines for commercial sex with a minor." Here is more about the sentencing:
Judge Tanya Walton Pratt announced the sentence for the former Subway pitchman in federal court in Indianapolis. Fogle was taken into custody of the U.S. Marshal after the four-hour, 42-minute hearing. He was handcuffed behind his back and led out of the courtroom as family members hugged and cried.
Immediately after the hearing, Fogle blew a kiss and waved goodbye to family members in the front row. About a dozen family members and friends attended the hearing. The sentence is more than the 12 1/2 years that prosecutors agreed to seek in a plea deal. Pratt said the advisory sentence range of 135 to 168 months "does not sufficiently account for the defendant's criminal conduct."
Federal prisoners must serve at least 85 percent of their sentences. The judge recommended that Fogle be sent to a prison in Littleton, Colo., because of its program for sex offenders. "Federal judges do not sentence based on emotion or public sentiment," Pratt said. She added, "The level of perversion and lawlessness exhibited by Mr. Fogle is extreme."
She described Fogle, 38, as having had a "privileged" upbringing before becoming "obsessed" with sex and minors. Pratt talked about Fogle's journey from being morbidly obese while at Indiana University to losing weight and being discovered by Subway. "What a gift to have such a professional windfall fall in your lap," Pratt said.
Pratt said she believes Fogle is sincere in his remorse and took into account the $1.4 million in restitution he has paid. "This defendant's celebrity cuts both ways," she said. "He will likely get protection when he goes to the Bureau of Prisons."
Prior related posts:
- Subway pitchman and his "Jared Foundation" subject to serious child porn investigation
- What sort of child porn federal plea deal might be in works for Subway pitchman Jared Fogle?
- Even with plea deal, Subway pitchman Jared likely facing at least a decade in federal prison for sex offenses
- Has Jared Fogle gotten a sweetheart plea deal and/or celebrity treatment for sex crimes?
- Federal child porn downloaders complaining to judges about Jared Fogle's (too sweet?) plea deal
- Federal prosecutors seeking plea-deal max sentence of 12.5 years for Jared Fogle
November 19, 2015 in Celebrity sentencings, Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Sex Offender Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (34)
Monday, November 02, 2015
"Sentencing Reforms Need Voices From Victims: Amid the bipartisan effort to fix a broken criminal justice system, a key perspective is missing."
The title of this post is the full headline of this notable National Law Journal op-ed authored by Mary Leary. I recommend the piece in full, and here are excerpts:
The Senate Judiciary Committee last month advanced, on a bipartisan basis, the historic Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015. This act has been described as the most significant criminal justice reform in decades. It proposes to drastically alter the sentences of thousands of criminals, recalibrating the entire structure of our criminal justice system.
While the Judiciary Committee's recent move is good news for sentencing reform, the news about the process of this bill is more mixed. It is critical that different stakeholders with distinct perspectives weigh in on this landmark legislation before it is passed. Yet, guess how many crime victims organizations were called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee? Zero....
As evidenced by President Barack Obama's recent meetings with the Major Cities Chiefs of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police, some policymakers understand that, to achieve legitimacy, the reforms need to be more than "bipartisan." They must be a product of dialogue with all stakeholders, not just offenders' organizations.
Yet, apparently no one in the Senate thought it appropriate to hear what victims have to say about criminal justice reform. Last year, about 1.17 million violent crimes and nearly 8.3 million property crimes were reported to law enforcement. The victims of that criminal activity are the people who bear the direct and secondary harm.
That is not all. It is not just that victims were not included as witnesses; they were barely even mentioned. A review of the written testimony of all nine witnesses indicates that the word "victim" or any derivative thereof was used a mere nine times....
And if victim groups have concerns, would not the bill become stronger if they were considered and perhaps included in its drafting? Although prosecutorial figures did testify, it is a mistake to assume they speak for victims. Indeed, that is how it should be, as the prosecutor's role is to represent the entire community and do justice, not to act as a victim's personal attorney.
A functioning criminal justice system must have legitimacy and a reformed fair sentencing scheme advances that goal. But a criminal justice system loses some legitimacy if it does not hear the voice of a major stakeholder — the victims.
The president and Congress need to reach out to victims. The president has gone all the way to Oklahoma to meet with prisoners. Perhaps he should take a walk in Washington and meet with one of the victims of the over 40,000 crimes that occurred there in 2014 or speak to the families affected by a homicide rate that has increased over 47 percent since last year.
Similarly, in 2004, Congress passed the Crime Victims Rights Act. This act afforded victims the right to be "reasonably heard" at public court proceedings. This same Congress should recognize that right in this context and allow victims to be "reasonably heard" regarding this major legislation. Not only is it reasonable to listen to crime victims, but it is necessary for any criminal justice reform to be legitimate.
November 2, 2015 in Aspects and impact of Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (3)
Tuesday, October 06, 2015
Montgomery wards: certain victims' family members voicing support for juve murderers getting a chance at resentencing
As noted in this prior post, I am doing a series of posts in preparation for the US Supreme Court hearing oral argument in Montgomery v. Louisiana, and I have a terrific research assistant drafting summaries of various amicus briefs submitted in Montgomery (all of which can be found via this SCOTUSblog page). Here is how he summarized some portions of this Brief of Amici Curiae of Certain Family Members of Victims Killed by Youths in Support of Petitioner:
A collection of people who have lost loved ones, including friends and family, to violent murders submitted an amicus brief in support of the petitioner in Montgomery v. Louisiana. Their argument is both emotional and sensible; it does not appeal to the formalisms of legal argument or precedent.
At its heart, this brief addresses the emotional and personal impact of locking away a person away forever for a crime they committed as a child. This brief pleads the Court to acknowledge the merits of leniency, compassion, and the rehabilitative potential of children. All of the stories contained in this brief are moving and important. Here are a few summarized excerpts.
Jeanne Bishop
“Jeanne Bishop lost her younger sister, Nancy Bishop Langert, brother-in-law Richard Langert, and their unborn child on April 7, 1990.” Brief for Amici Curiae of Certain Family Members of Victims Killed by Youths in Support of Petitioner, Montgomery v. Louisiana, (No. 14-280), at 4. Sixteen year-old David Biro shot and killed the couple in their home after breaking into their home while they were out and lying in wait for their return. After a two-week trial, David was convicted of the murders and sentenced to mandatory life without parole—the only possible punishment for a double-murder committed by a child in Illinois. Neither Jeanne nor anyone else in her family was not allowed to make a victim impact statement during sentencing.
Due to her religious beliefs, Jeanne forgave David, but she was happy that he “would be locked up forever.” Id. at 5. However, over time, Jeanne’s belief that David was a remorseless killer came under question and she decided to write to him. In response, David sent Jeanne a 15-page letter confessing to the crime for the first time and expressing “deep regret.” Id. Jeanne began to visit David in prison after this initial correspondence and has developed a “strong, honest, and respectful” relationship with him. Id. at 6.
“Jeanne knows that many want to write off people like David because, in their mind, people like him can never change. But, she wonders ‘whether what we are truly afraid of is not that they will never get better, but that they might.’” Id.
Linda White
On November 18, 1986, Linda White’s 26 year-old daughter Cathy was murdered by two teenage boys. Id. at 10. The boys asked Cathy for a ride out of town to avoid abusive parents. After Cathy had agreed and driven the boys a distance, the boys brandished guns and ordered Cathy to pull over. After stopping the car, the boys raped Cathy and shot her four times.
After being arrested, one of the boys — Gary — pled guilty to the murder. Gary, who was 15 years old at the time of the murder, was sentenced to 54 years in prison.
Many years after he was incarcerated, Gary agreed to let Linda, his victim’s mother, visit him. “When Linda and Gary finally met, Linda found that he was no longer the child who had callously raped and killed her daughter. Gary was a different person – a remorseful grown man who was desperately seeking both forgiveness and a chance to start making up for all of the hurt that he had inflicted.” Id. at 12.
As of 2015, “Gary has been out of prison for nearly six years. In that time, he has immersed himself in a new community, found and held a job, and begun working with drug and alcohol addicts at his church in a role in which his minister says he has made an incredible difference. Gary has kept himself out of trouble. He and Linda remain in contact, and he never stops apologizing for the pain that he caused. To Linda, Gary is a perfect example for why life sentences are so unjust, especially for children.” Id.
Prior posts in series:
- Montgomery wards: gearing up for SCOTUS juve LWOP retroactivity case
- Montgomery wards: might SCOTUS decide it lacks jurisdiction to resolve juve LWOP retroactivity case?
October 6, 2015 in Assessing Miller and its aftermath, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (3)
"Federalism, Federal Courts, and Victims’ Rights"
The title of this post is the title of this notable new article by Michael Solimine and Kathryn Elvey available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:
A striking development in American criminal justice in the past forty years is the widespread adoption and acceptance of the rights of victims, at both the federal and state levels. A notable exception to this innovation has been the repeated, unsuccessful attempts, continuing to the present day, to pass a Victims’ Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The considerable scholarly literature on the VRA has not rigorously examined the putative need for the VRA from a federalism perspective, a task this article undertakes.
The article examines the history of the victims’ rights movement, and of the repeated attempts to pass the VRA. We argue that both supporters and critics of the VRA have not convincingly addressed federalism issues raised by the potential adoption of the VRA. In contrast, we argue that functional principles of federalism suggest that the VRA and nationalization of victims’ rights is unnecessary. On the other hand, we argue that there is one way that the federal government can recognize state development of victims’ rights. In habeas corpus actions in federal court, challenging state court convictions, we argue that victims of state crimes should be permitted and encouraged to participate in those proceedings, in ways not generally permitted to date.
October 6, 2015 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (6)
Wednesday, September 02, 2015
"Share Your Grief But Not Your Anger: Victims and the Expression of Emotion in Criminal Justice"
The title of this post is the title of this notable new paper available via SSRN authored by Susan Bandes. Here is the abstract:
In the recent capital trials of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for the Boston Marathon bombings and James Holmes for the Colorado theater shootings, victims’ families were permitted to give testimony after the sentence had been announced. Since victim impact testimony in capital cases was upheld by the Supreme Court on the ground that it provides important information to the sentencing jury, hearings after sentencing raise the question of what role the statements are meant to serve.
I argue that although victim impact testimony was originally justified as a means of providing information to sentencing juries, it is now regarded as having two additional purposes. First, it is widely assumed that the statements serve a cathartic or therapeutic role for victims and their families; that they assist in obtaining “closure.” Second, there is a growing tendency toward viewing the statements as a means of confronting the perpetrator in order to elicit remorse, or at least impress on him the gravity of the harm he has caused. Each of these three rationales has different implications for the nature, scope and advisability of allowing victim impact statements.
In this chapter I examine what goals the statements are meant to serve, how those goals should affect the rules governing the statements, and whether the goals are practically achievable or normatively desirable.
September 2, 2015 in Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (3)
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
How did Boston bombing jurors not get informed some victims did not favor death sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?
As regular readers may recall from this post back in April, Bill and Denise Richard, parents of 8-year-old Martin who was one of three people killed in the April 2013 explosions at the Boston marathon's finish line, wrote this stirring Boston Globe commentary about their hopes for the outcome in the federal criminal case against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The Richards there expressed disinterest in a death sentence for Tsarnaev because of all the attention and appeals that such a sentence would necessarily bring for the duration of Tsarnaev's life behind bars. As they explained, in order to be able to "turn the page, end the anguish, and look toward a better future," they were calling upon "the Department of Justice [to take] the death penalty off the table in an exchange for the defendant spending the rest of his life in prison without any possibility of release and waiving all of his rights to appeal."
As regular readers know, federal statutory law gives crime victims an inpedendent right to express their views in federal sentencing proceedings. For that reason, and especially because the feelings and desires of all victims seems important, relevant and proper evidence for jurors trying to decide on a life/death capital verdict, I took for granted that anti-death-sentence victim views would get relayed in some way to the jurors deciding on the sentence for Tsarnaev. (Indeed, I had long thought that one of many benefits of the federal Crime Victim Rights Act was to ensure federal court proceedings would regularly incorportate the views and voices of all victims, not just those prosecutors and/or defense attorneys brought forward.)
But this local interview with the first Boston bombing juror to speak publicly suggests that (1) the jurors were unaware of the Richards' perspective on how best to sentence Tsarnaev, and (2) at least one juror might have reached a different verdict if he knew of what the Richards had said. Here is part of the introduction and transcript of the interview with Kevan Fagan, Juror 83, covering this ground:
Kevan Fagan, “Juror 83″ in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, sat down for an interview in our studio with WBUR’s Jack Lepiarz and David Boeri, who both covered the trial. The 23-year-old became the first juror to agree to be named, to have his picture taken and to talk about the trial, though he would not discuss the jury’s deliberations.
Fagan told WBUR that he may not have voted for the death penalty had he known that some bombing victims wanted Tsarnaev to get life in prison. He said he likely would have changed his vote had he been aware of opposition to the death penalty by the parents of 8-year-old Martin Richard, the youngest victim killed in the bombing.
“If I had known that, I probably — I probably would change my vote. But then again, if I knew that I wouldn’t be on the jury either,” he said in the interview. The jurors were ordered to avoid media coverage of the trial.
He is co-authoring a book about his experience titled “Juror 83 — The Tsarnaev Trial: 34 Days That Changed Me” that is expected to be released at the end of September....
DB: What impressed you? Did you find anything persuasive in the defense case?
KF: I think it was a very hard case, and I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know if there have been harder cases to defend. I think they did the best that they could for their client.
DB: You didn’t know at the time that the Richard family and other families had written to the U.S. Attorney and to the Justice Department saying they were opposed to the death penalty?
KF: Oh sure. No, I had no clue about that.
JL: If you had known that, would you have changed your vote?
KF: If I had known that, I probably — I probably would change my vote. But then again, if I knew that I wouldn’t be on the jury either.
DB: What do you mean?
KF: If I went out of my way and disrespected the judge and went against his orders about researching things. That wouldn’t have been very fair or judicious of me.
Because this juror is writing a book about his experience as a juror — and especially because this juror will likely benefit personally from the publicity that provocative interviews will generate — I am a bit suspicious of his suggestion that his sentencing vote would have been different if he had full information about all victim perspectives. Nevertheless, I now am wondering a lot about (a) whatever legal or strategic or practical issues surrounded decisions to keep jurors unaware of the Richards' (and other victims'?) perspectives on how best to sentence Tsarnaev, and (b) whether this jury unawareness, coupled with this juror's comments about the impact such information could have had, will become a key part of direct and collateral appeals of the Tsarnaev death sentence.
I cannot help but note a particular and particularly sad irony here: the commentary authored by the Richards movingly "urge[d] the Department of Justice to bring the case to a close"; but now this commentary, now combined with its failure to get known to the jury during the sentencing proceedings, seems itself likely to continue to generate legal issues and media attention. The commentary not only noted, but now adds the reality that, a death sentence for Tsarnaev is all but certain to ensure this case will not be coming to a close for decades. So sad.
A few prior related posts:
- Parent of Boston bombers' young victims: "To end the anguish, drop the death penalty"
- "Sister of slain MIT officer opposes death penalty for Tsarnaev"
- Varied perspectives on the varied challenges facing varied victims
- Capital jury concludes character of crime matters most in death sentencing of Boston bomber
August 26, 2015 in Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (3)
Monday, August 24, 2015
Aurora victims present a "parade of pain" at on-going James Holmes sentencing proceedings
One of many benefits I see in giving crime victims certain rights in the criminal justice system is to ensure their voices are heard and their experiences are memoralized in courtroom proceedings even when those voices and experiences may not directly impact sentencing outcomes. In turn, I think it now worth highlighting the on-going proceedings in a Colorado courtroom that are effectively and potently reported in this CNN piece headlined "A parade of pain at James Holmes sentencing." I recommend reading the whole piece, and here are excerpts:
One by one, the wounded and the grieving are telling a Colorado judge how the Aurora movie theater gunman stripped the normal from their lives. Some are sobbing, some are angry. All are shattered by loss. It is a parade of pain that will not change the sentence for the 27-year-old shooter. James Eagan Holmes will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
But the inevitable outcome didn't stop the grieving grandfather of the gunman's youngest victim from making a suggestion: "I would challenge the murderer to do the right thing for once in this trial and petition the court for execution by firing squad," said Robert Sullivan.
He was the doting grandfather of 6-year-old Veronica Moser-Sullivan, who had innocent, shining brown eyes. Her pregnant mother, Ashley Moser, was shot and paralyzed.
Moser said she was looking forward to being a mother of two, but now she's nobody's mommy. She needs constant nursing care. She said she wished Holmes could be sentenced to life as a quadriplegic, just as she and two other shooting victims are.
More than 40 people gave victim impact statements on Monday, and at least 40 more are expected on Tuesday.... [M]any of the victims say they feel cheated, and they appeared to seek comfort in demonizing a defendant who took so much from them. A man whose son was gunned down in the theater referred to Holmes' schizophrenia as "a mental hangnail" and said he was disgusted during the trial by his "smirk." He called Holmes' attorneys "horrible people" and said they "fabricated a defense" to pad their resumes.
Beth Craft, whose brother John Larimer was killed, said, "The defendant may be mentally ill, but he is more evil than anything else."...
The trial, Kathleen Pourciau said, was like watching someone get away with something. It felt out of whack, unbalanced. It didn't feel like justice.
"When justice isn't served, there's a brutal message delivered to the victims," she said. "When the punishment doesn't fit the crime, the message to the victims is that your loss, your pain isn't important. The message was that the state of Colorado values the life of a mass murderer more than the people he murdered.
"How many people do you have to kill to get the death penalty?" Pourciau asked. "Why do you even have a death penalty if you don't use it? What signal does this sentence send to Bonnie Kate and others? We care, but not that much?"
A sentence of 12 life terms topped by hundreds of additional years behind bars is "absurd," she added, "the judicial equivalent of beating a dead horse."
August 24, 2015 in Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (15)
Friday, August 21, 2015
Father given significant prison term for role in deadly crash by underage daughter
As reported in this local article, sentencing took place yesterday in state case that should be a warning to all parents of teenagers (and also involves facts that would make for a challenging law school exam question in a torts or crim law class). The article is headlined "Dad sentenced to prison in unlicensed daughter’s crash," and here are the sad details:
An New York man who admitted to handing over the keys to his SUV to his unlicensed teenage daughter was sentenced Thursday to 6 1/2 to 16 years in prison for his role in a car crash that killed three teens.
Michael Ware of Eastchester had faced a maximum of 21 years behind bars and $45,000 in fines when sentenced at the Wayne County Courthouse. In handing down the sentence, Judge Raymond Hamill repeatedly told Ware he was "a failure as a father" and that the crash had been "preventable, irresponsible, reckless, stupid, selfish" and, finally, "criminal."
Ware, 54, addressed the court briefly before Hamill pronounced his sentence. "I will never be able to feel the loss the families will forever feel," Ware said. "I can only say, hopefully, this brings some form of closure for everyone affected by this horrible tragedy. Neither I nor my daughter ... ever meant any harm to anyone that day."
Prosecutors said Ware let his daughter, then 15, drive his Chevrolet Suburban on Aug. 30, 2014, near a Pocono resort community in Paupack Township, where he owns a vacation home. His daughter took the vehicle, with five friends inside, to buy breakfast before speeding down a hill and flipping the SUV several times.
Cullen Keffer, Shamus Digney and Ryan Lesher, all 15-year-old residents of Bucks County, Pa., were killed. Another passenger was seriously injured. Ware's daughter, who lives in Pleasantville, N.Y., and another Westchester County teen were uninjured. "He basically gave his daughter a gun and put the bullets in it for her," said Wilson Black, Digney's uncle, as he entered court.
The judge, who spoke for 20 minutes, noted Ware initially lied to investigators and, for about 60 days, let his daughter take the full blame for the crash by denying he had allowed her to drive that day. Hamill also said Ware had failed to convince him that he was a candidate for rehabilitation. "Not once did you say, 'I'm sorry' " until the sentencing, the judge said. "Not once did you say, 'I'm responsible.' "
The judge characterized Ware as an overly permissive father who failed to set appropriate rules. He noted Ware's daughter told investigators she had been driving since the age of 14 and had driven from New York to the Poconos that weekend. "Your failure to be a father and say 'No' caused these tragic deaths," he told Ware.
During the sentencing, relatives of the dead boys, who had waited nearly a year for a resolution, held hands and closed their eyes. Some of the parents sobbed while others sat stoically. Each of the boys' parents delivered emotional victim-impact statements. As they spoke, the only sound in the room was that of relatives trying to choke back tears....
Ware's lawyer, Robert Reno, said he believed the judge had mischaracterized Ware's remorse and called the sentence "ridiculous." He said they would appeal. Ware pleaded guilty in July to three misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment and three of involuntary manslaughter. He had initially faced felony charges.
Ware's daughter acknowledged responsibility in juvenile court to vehicular homicide counts and was placed on indefinite probation. She was also ordered to do 300 hours of community service, pay restitution and write a 2,000-word essay on the impact of her crime....
Joe Keffer, father of Cullen Keffer, spoke to reporters at the bottom of the courthouse steps after Ware's sentencing. "I'm satisfied the judge went over and above the recommended sentence," he said. "However, Mr. Ware will not have to endure the lifetime of misery our three families will."
August 21, 2015 in Offense Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (3)
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
New Hampshire enacts novel law requiring defendant's presence in courtroom for victim impact statements
As reported in this Reuters piece, headlined "New Hampshire to make criminals face victims' families at sentencing," one ugly sentencing case has lead the Granite State to enact a novel sentencing procedure law. Here are the details:
New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan on Tuesday signed a law that requires convicted criminals to appear in court at sentencing when victims’ families and friends are given the opportunity to express their pain. The law, believed to be the first of its kind in the United States, was proposed after a man convicted last year of murdering a 19-year-old college student asked not to attend his sentencing, saying he didn't want to hear the victim's family “yell and whine and bitch and moan.”
In the end, convicted murderer Seth Mazzaglia, 33, dropped the request and attended the sentencing, where family members of his victim, Elizabeth "Lizzy" Marriott, expressed profound grief and anger toward him.
Her father, Bob Marriott, was among several relatives of crime victims who backed the bill. At the bill-signing ceremony, Hassan praised Marriott “for speaking up on behalf of his daughter Lizzy, for his family, and for all families impacted by crime.”...
The signing comes almost a year to the day after Mazzaglia was sentenced to life in prison without parole for first degree murder involving sexual assault, among other crimes. He was accused of having his girlfriend lure Marriott to their apartment so he could have sex with her. Prosecutors alleged Mazzaglia strangled Marriott after she rejected his sexual advances and then raped her lifeless body.
The key text of this new law, which can be found here, provides that the "defendant shall personally appear in court when the victim or victim's next of kin addresses the judge, unless excused by the court." The final phrase of this provision, which allows the court to excuse the defendant, confirms my instinct that this new sentencing law is much more about symbolism than substance. That said, especially because the symbolism of the sentencing process is often quite important to crime vicitms, this novel law strikes me as a beneficial way to give victims that much more respect in a sentencing process that sometimes forgets about their various concerns.
August 12, 2015 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
"Should Therapists Have to Report Patients Who Viewed Child Pornography?"
The quesion in the title of this post is the headline of this intriguing new piece from The Atlantic discussing an intriguing legal and policy issue developing in California. The piece's subheadline highlights one reason the answer to the question should perhaps be no: "A new law meant to protect children could lead to fewer pedophiles getting treatment before acting on their sexual impulses." Here is an excerpt:
Under a California law that went into effect at the beginning of this year, ... any real life therapist who learns that a patient has viewed child pornography of any kind would be required to report that information to authorities. The requirement applies to adults who admit to having viewed explicit images of children. And it even applies to teenage patients who tell their therapists about having viewed images sent to them by a peer engaged in sexting.
Over four decades, “California has expanded the scenarios under which therapists are legally required to break their clients' confidentiality and report to authorities a patient's criminal confessions or threats to hurt someone else,” the L.A. Times reports. “Requirements include disclosing confidential information if patients are an imminent danger to themselves or others; if a patient is a child who is the victim of a crime and reporting is in the best interests of the patient; and if the therapist learns that a child is the victim of neglect or abuse or is in imminent danger.”
Under the old standards, therapists also had to report patients who “knowingly developed, duplicated, printed or exchanged child pornography,” the article notes. “But the statute did not mention viewing or downloading material from the Internet.”
Sean Hoffman, who works for a group that represents Golden State district attorneys, told the newspaper that the law can help police to identify people who view child pornography and create a massive market for material produced through the abuse and exploitation. “If we don't know about it,” he said, “we can't prosecute it." The effect would ostensibly be fewer victims of an abhorrent industry.
But it seems to me that this new standard is likelier to make California more dangerous for children, an unintended consequence some therapists are warning against in a lawsuit they’ve filed in hopes of forcing a return to the previous standard.
July 29, 2015 in Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Sex Offender Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (19)
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
You be the judge: what federal sentence for evil cancer doctor?
A few weeks ago, I was discussing with my kids whether they thought some humans were innately evil. In any such discussion, it might make sense to bring up the story of the Michigan oncologist who pleaded guilty to mistreating cancer patients and bilking the government through false Medicare claims. The doctor's federal sentencing began this week, and this AP story provides an overview of the proceedings and basic information to enable any would-be judges to suggest sentences for the doc in the comments:
Patients of a Detroit-area doctor received "stunning" doses of a powerful, expensive drug that exposed them to life-threatening infections, an expert testified Monday as a judge heard details about a cancer specialist who fleeced insurance companies and harmed hundreds of people.
Dr. Farid Fata is headed to prison for fraud and other crimes. But U.S. District Judge Paul Borman first is hearing from experts and former patients about the extent of his scheme to reap millions of dollars from Medicare and other health programs.
Nearly three dozen ex-patients and family members, many dressed in black, chartered a bus to attend the hearing, which could last days. Some will testify Tuesday."This is a small fraction of the people this guy has hurt," said Terry Spurlock, 52, of Holly, who had three more years of treatments after a tumor on his neck disappeared. "He gave me so much treatment, it stopped my immune system."
Fata, 50, pleaded guilty last fall to fraud, money laundering and conspiracy. The government is seeking a 175-year prison sentence, while the Oakland County man is asking for no more than 25 years.
The government said 553 people have been identified as victims, along with four insurance companies. There were more than 9,000 unnecessary infusions or injections. "There is an aggressive approach to treating cancer. This was beyond. This was over the top," said Dr. Dan Longo, a Harvard medical professor and deputy editor at the New England Journal of Medicine, who testified Monday as a $400-an-hour expert for prosecutors after examining 25 patient files, a tiny portion of Fata's practice.
Longo was asked about patients who were given a drug called Rituximab, which can weaken the immune system if overused. It is typically given eight times for aggressive lymphoma, but one patient got it 94 times. Another got it 76 times.... Later, he told the judge that "all the files I looked at had problems, but I would not say all the treatment was inappropriate."
It was the first time that many former patients had seen Fata in months, if not years. He has been in custody since his 2013 arrest. He wore a white dress shirt and dark suit in court.
"I wanted to knock that smirk off his face," said Geraldine Parkin, 54, of Davison, who[se] husband, Tim, has survived non-Hodgkin lymphoma but has other chronic problems because of excessive treatments. "He has a lot of anger," Parkin said.
July 7, 2015 in Offense Characteristics, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, White-collar sentencing | Permalink | Comments (9)
Thursday, July 02, 2015
Varied perspectives on the varied challenges facing varied victims
I am sometimes inclined to say to my sentencing students that crime victims, especially victims of violent crimes, are often the most important and least understood players in the criminal justice system. Helpfully, these two new lengthy and very different pieces about different violent crime victims can help enhance our understanding:
From the New York Times here, "Full Toll From Aurora Theater Shooting Goes Untold at Trial"
From Slate here, "He Killed Her Daughter. She Forgave Him. Linda White believes in a form of justice that privileges atonement over punishment. She practices what she preaches."
July 2, 2015 in Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (1)
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Many bombing victims scheduled to speak at formal sentencing of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
This AP article, headlined "More than 30 victims to speak at Boston bomber's sentencing," provides a preview of a high-profile formal sentencing scheduled to take place today in Massachusetts federal court. Here are excerpts:
More than 30 victims of the Boston Marathon bombing and their family members are expected to describe the attack's impact on their lives before a judge formally sentences bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death.
In May, a federal jury condemned Tsarnaev to die for bombing the 2013 marathon with his brother. Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured when the brothers detonated two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line. Under the federal death penalty law, Judge George O'Toole Jr. is required to impose the jury's sentence. Tsarnaev's sentencing hearing is scheduled for Wednesday morning in U.S. District Court.
Among those expected to speak are Rebekah Gregory, a Texas woman who lost a leg in the bombings, and Liz Norden, the mother of two Massachusetts men who each lost a leg. Tsarnaev, 21, also will be given a chance to speak if he chooses.
June 24, 2015 in Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (1)
Friday, May 15, 2015
You be the judge: what sentence for Georgetown's video voyeur Rabbi?
This Washington Post article provides background on a notable sentencing in a DC local court today in which, as highlighted below, the prosecution and defense have radically different sentencing recommendations. Here are the details:
Sentencing for Barry Freundel, the once-influential Orthodox rabbi who pleaded guilty to secretly videotaping dozens of women as they prepared for a ritual bath, is scheduled for Friday in D.C. Superior Court. The hearing is expected to be an emotional one as many of the victims are expected to speak to Senior Judge Geoffrey Alprin on the impact of Freundel's crime on their lives.
Freundel, 64, was arrested in October on charges that he videotaped six women in the nude while he was at Kesher Israel synagogue in Georgetown. Prosecutors said a review of his computer equipment revealed that many more women had been recorded by Freundel as they prepared for the bath known as a mikvah — used as part of a purification ritual.
Freundel ultimately pleaded guilty to videotaping 52 women, and the punishment proposed by prosecutors would translate to four months for each victim. The longtime rabbi had recorded about 100 additional women, prosecutors have said, but those alleged crimes occurred outside the three-year statute of limitations. The videotaping occurred between 2009 and 2014....
On Thursday, the judge sent out a procedures memo in which he said alerted prosecutors, Freundel and his attorney and victims, as to how the hearing will be conducted. Each victim who wishes to speak will be allowed only five minutes. To ensure anonymity for the victims, each woman will be identified by an alphabetical or numerical identifier. Some victims are scheduled to fly in from Israel to speak.
Prosecutors have asked the judge to sentence Freundel to 17 years in prison. Freundel’s attorney, Jeffrey Harris, urged against prison and instead asked the judge to sentence Freundel to community service. Alprin can adopt either recommendation, or craft another punishment.
Freundel has not spoken publicly about the charges. He is also likely to speak and because he pleaded guilty, he waived his chance to appeal. In the memo his attorney wrote to the judge, Harris said Freundel “recognizes and regrets” his actions. “His conduct has brought shame upon Judaism, the synagogue he once served, his family, and himself,” Harris wrote.
Among the many interesting aspect of this sentencing is whether and how a judge ought to consider the impact of this Rabbi's crimes on those whom he served over many years as a religious leader. This prior Washington Post article, headlined "For those who revered him, D.C. rabbi’s sentencing for voyeurism will not bring closure," highlights their stories. It starts this way:
This week, a D.C. Superior Court judge is scheduled to hand down a penalty for Barry Freundel, a powerful Orthodox rabbi who for years secretly videotaped his female followers as they prepared to submerge in the mikvah, a ritual bath. But in the Orthodox world where Freundel was once a giant, the fallout of his crimes will continue unspooling.
Some of the hundreds who studied or worshiped with Freundel have stopped going to the mikvah, a ritual that is considered so important in Judaism that women are commanded to use it monthly before sharing any physical intimacy with their husbands. Others who converted with Freundel are terrified that their status as Jews will forever be in question in their law-focused communities. Some people have stopped going to synagogue. Others suffer nightmares in which they are spied upon — and feel complicit.
May 15, 2015 in Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics, Sex Offender Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Monday, April 20, 2015
Anyone have predictions for the penalty phase of the Boston Marathon bombing trial?
As highlighted by this new AP article, headlined "Bombing trial enters penalty phase amid life or death debate,"the real legal intrigue surrounding the capital trial of the Boston Marathon bombing is about to begin:
The guilt phase of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's trial was considered a slam dunk for prosecutors, especially after his lawyers bluntly admitted during opening statements that he participated in the deadly 2013 attack. But the outcome of the next phase of the trial is much more difficult to predict. The same jury must decide whether Tsarnaev, 21, should be put to death or spend the rest of his life in prison. The penalty phase begins Tuesday in U.S. District Court.
Debate over whether Tsarnaev should get the death penalty intensified recently after the parents of Martin Richard, an 8-year-old boy who was killed in the bombings, urged federal authorities to consider taking death off the table in exchange for Tsarnaev spending the rest of his life in prison and giving up his rights to appeal....
A married couple who lost limbs in the attack also asked the U.S. Justice Department not to pursue the death penalty. "If there is anyone who deserves the ultimate punishment, it is the defendant. However, we must overcome the impulse for vengeance," Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes said in a statement to the Globe Sunday....
Others have said they favor the death penalty for Tsarnaev. Liz Norden, whose two adult sons each lost a leg in the bombings, said nothing short of execution is warranted. "He destroyed so many families that day," she said. "I want the ultimate justice."
Legal experts differ on whether the pleas from victims will persuade the federal government to drop its bid for the death penalty. "If the Justice Department seriously takes into consideration the feelings of the family members in this case, they have every justification to take death off the table," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
But New York Law School professor Robert Blecker said the Justice Department has to consider the larger question of denouncing terrorism. "They'll go forward with it. It will not change the decision. Denunciation is a legitimate purpose," Blecker said....
During the penalty phase, the defense will continue to portray Tsarnaev's brother, Tamerlan, 26, as a domineering follower of radical Islam who convinced his then 19-year-old brother that America had to be punished for its wars in Muslim countries. Tamerlan died four days after the bombings when he was shot during a firefight with police and run over by Dzhokhar during a getaway attempt.
Prosecutors are expected to emphasize the brutality of the bombings by calling more survivors to testify. During the first phase, several survivors testified about devastating injuries, including lost limbs....
If even one juror votes against the death penalty, Tsarnaev will get a life sentence.
April 20, 2015 in Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Friday, April 17, 2015
Parent of Boston bombers' young victims: "To end the anguish, drop the death penalty"
The title of this post is drawn from the headline of this remarkable new Boston Globe commentary authored by Bill and Denise Richard, parents of 8-year-old Martin who was one of three people killed in the April 2013 explosions at the marathon's finish line. The full piece is a must read, and I will quote it all here to help ensure these victims' voices get heard in full:
The past two years have been the most trying of our lives. Our family has grieved, buried our young son, battled injuries, and endured numerous surgeries — all while trying to rebuild lives that will never be the same. We sat in the courtroom, day after day, bearing witness to overwhelming evidence that included graphic video and photographs, replicated bombs, and even the clothes our son wore his last day alive. We are eternally grateful for the courage and life-saving measures of first responders, Boston Police, the Boston Fire Department, and good Samaritans on April 15, 2013. We also thank the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, the Department of Justice, and the Massachusetts US Attorney’s Office for leaving no stone unturned during the investigation and trial.
But now that the tireless and committed prosecution team has ensured that justice will be served, we urge the Department of Justice to bring the case to a close. We are in favor of and would support the Department of Justice in taking the death penalty off the table in exchange for the defendant spending the rest of his life in prison without any possibility of release and waiving all of his rights to appeal.
We understand all too well the heinousness and brutality of the crimes committed. We were there. We lived it. The defendant murdered our 8-year-old son, maimed our 7-year-old daughter, and stole part of our soul. We know that the government has its reasons for seeking the death penalty, but the continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives. We hope our two remaining children do not have to grow up with the lingering, painful reminder of what the defendant took from them, which years of appeals would undoubtedly bring.
For us, the story of Marathon Monday 2013 should not be defined by the actions or beliefs of the defendant, but by the resiliency of the human spirit and the rallying cries of this great city. We can never replace what was taken from us, but we can continue to get up every morning and fight another day. As long as the defendant is in the spotlight, we have no choice but to live a story told on his terms, not ours. The minute the defendant fades from our newspapers and TV screens is the minute we begin the process of rebuilding our lives and our family.
This is a deeply personal issue and we can speak only for ourselves. However, it is clear that peace of mind was taken not just from us, but from all Americans. We honor those who were lost and wish continued strength for all those who were injured. We believe that now is the time to turn the page, end the anguish, and look toward a better future — for us, for Boston, and for the country.
April 17, 2015 in Death Penalty Reforms, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Victims' Rights At Sentencing, Who Sentences | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack