Author: Michael Rushford

Data compiled by UCLA indicates that over 67,000 criminals have been released from jails and prisons across the country due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  Daniel Horowitz has this piece in the Conservative Review noting that, “this has nothing to do with fear of prisoners dying of coronavirus. Just a few hundred deaths have been recorded out of a population of 2.2 million inmates, lower than that of the general population.  In most prisons, the overwhelming majority of those who got the virus have been asymptomatic and are now already immune and have been for quite some time. Thus, there is no reason to release large numbers of convicted criminals, most of whom are young and healthy.   This has everything to do with accelerating an already dangerous de-incarceration movement, which is why you shouldn’t hold your breath and wait for them to be re-apprehended after the virus burns out.”

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A unanimous panel of the Federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the death sentence of a man who at age 18, kidnapped, raped and brutally murdered a 12-year-old boy.   The court’s per curiam opinion concluded that Danny Lee Hill is mentally retarded and under the Supreme Court’s 2002 ruling in Atkins v. Virginia is ineligible for execution.  In its opinion the court announced, “We hold that Hill is intellectually disabled and that he cannot be sentenced to death. No person looking at this record could reasonably deny that Hill is intellectually disabled.  In holding otherwise, the Ohio courts avoided giving serious consideration to past evidence of Hill’s intellectual disability.”   A story in today’s Tribune Chronicle reports that in September of 1985 Hill and 17-year-old accomplice grabbed 12-year-old Raymond Fife as he was riding his bicycle through a wooded area to a Boy Scout meeting.

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As the California Legislature reconvened earlier this month, the leadership encouraged members to focus on bills “essential” to addressing the coronavirus pandemic.  Michele Hanisee, President of the Association of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorneys, has this piece questioning one of those “essential” bills.    To address the pandemic, Assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D. San Diego)  decided to introduce AB 3070 which restricts attorneys or judges from excusing potential jurors whose behavior renders them unsuitable to properly evaluate evidence and reach a verdict based upon the law.  Assemblywoman Weber believes that excusing people who slept through jury selection, who associate with members of criminal street gangs, who express disdain for police, prosecutors and judges, or cannot understand enough English to follow the proceedings is racist and should not be allowed.

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A habitual criminal released from prison four months early due to the Coronavirus was arrested for murdering a 21-year-old woman in Denver last weekend. Spencer Neale of the Washington Examiner reports that the Colorado Department of Corrections released  Cornelius Haney on May 9 to lower the prison population to protect inmates and correctional staff from the Covid-19 virus. Haney was serving a seven-year-sentence for armed robbery and was due for release on August 22. Louis Casiano of Fox News reports that Colorado Governor Jared Polis had issued an executive order giving state corrections officials the authority to release parole-eligible inmates early during the pandemic.  After Haney’s arrest, the Governor told reporters “nobody on that parole board thought that this person was going to do what they allegedly did.”  Bummer for his 21-year-old victim.

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A Missouri man convicted of the brutal 1991 sexual assault and murder of an 81-year-old woman is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection today. On Sunday, the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals lifted a stay that a district court judge ordered last Friday.  The appeals court noted that after two mistrials, a trial and conviction that was reversed and remanded by the Missouri Supreme Court, and a second trial and conviction that was later vacated, Walter Barton was convicted after his fifth trial for murder in the first degree. The Associated Press reports that Barton has maintained his innocence throughout and that the findings of an expert hired after his trial by his defense attorneys led three jurors to tell reporters that they would have been uncomfortable recommending a death sentence.  UPDATE: Barton died peacefully via lethal injection Tuesday evening.

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The major media has reported that overall crime is down in most places in America this year, attributing most of the reduction to the nation-wide lockdown due to the pandemic.  But CompStat numbers for New York City, one of the most locked-down places in the nation, show increases in some serious crimes over the first four months of the year.   As of May 3, murders in the Big Apple were up 3%.  Robberies increased by 12%, burglary was up 29% and auto theft jumped by 62%.  There were also reported increases in transit crimes and shootings.  But the increase in violence is not limited to NYC.  Detroit has seen a 66% spike in shootings and an increase in homicides, with increases in shootings also reported in Dallas, Nashville, Philadelphia and Tuscon.   In fact shooting deaths nationally at this point in the year are higher than those over the same period during the last three years.

A bill (SB1413) signed into law in 2018 by California Governor Jerry Brown, which prohibits charging some accomplices to murder with murder, and allows reduced sentences to those previously convicted as accomplices to murder, is being challenged by the Ventura County District Attorney.  Megan Diskin of the Ventura County Star reports that the District Attorney is appealing a Second District Court of Appeal ruling, which upheld the law, to the state Supreme Court.

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The Associated Press reports today that crime in Houston, Texas, is up compared to last year, with homicides increasing by 49%.  Police say that the spike in murders is the result of a drop in the supply of illegal drugs, causing dealers to violently defend their turf and product.   Other crimes that have increased during the pandemic, including aggravated assault, domestic violence, and burglaries, even as some crimes have declined in other parts of the world under lockdown.

Seven weeks after the President recommended that Americans shelter in place and states issued lockdown orders to combat the Covid-19 virus, the process of reopening has begun in some parts of the country.   But in several states, including Michigan, New York, New Jersey, and California governors are moving slowly, insisting that science shows that many businesses and parks should remain closed and healthy people should continue to stay home and avoid others.  Manhattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald has this piece in The Hill suggesting that the science is not clear that the lockdown has worked and that the consequences of sheltering in place may be worse than the disease.

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