by Amber Westbrook · Mar 2, 2021 11:10 am
Fox News Primetime host Lawrence Jones interviewed family members of crime victims about the recall of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón; reporter Talia Kaplan wrote an article this morning for Fox News summarizing the interviews. The common opinion among the families of the victims is Gascón is prioritizing criminals over the victims they harm.
by Michael Rushford · Mar 2, 2021 11:02 am
A bill introduced in the House (HR 7120) by California democrat Karen Bass appears to encourage police departments to adopt race and gender based quotas to avoid being sued. NBC News reports that the Biden Administration is supporting the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to tackle “systemic racism — in police departments.” Attorney Hans Bader, who reviews the bill in Liberty Unyielding, suggests that it might actually cause racism. “Under the bill, what matters is numbers and racial bean counting, not actual racism or sexism.” Disparate impact in police stops or interviews based on race or gender is defined as “prima facie evidence” of a “violation,” under the proposed law.
by Michael Rushford · Mar 1, 2021 3:22 pm
The ABA Journal reports that last week the U.S. Supreme Court accepted Wooden v. United States for review. The case involves a defendant’s pro se appeal of his enhanced sentence under the federal Armed Career Criminal Act. William Wooden, a habitual felon, was arrested in November of 2014 for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Due to Wooden’s prior convictions; a 1989 conviction of aggravated assault, a 1997 conviction for ten burglaries, and a 2005 conviction for burglary, he was sentenced to 15 years. In December of 2019 the Sixth Circuit upheld his conviction and sentence, rejecting Wooden’s claim that the 1997 burglaries, where he burglarized ten mini storage warehouses located at a single property, should only count as a single burglary.
by Amber Westbrook · Mar 1, 2021 12:44 pm
Governor Gavin Newsom will soon be appointing a new attorney general of California. In a LA Times article yesterday Patrick McGreevy stated, “…he is preparing to appoint a state attorney general from a field of potential candidates that includes some of the state’s leading critics of the death penalty.” The concern here is that the death penalty will not be applied to those individuals who commit heinous violent crimes when it remains a legal and protected means of sentencing under the California state constitution.
by Michael Rushford · Mar 1, 2021 12:13 pm
Representatives of crime victims, former and current prosecutors and Los Angeles political leaders launched the campaign to recall LA District Attorney George Gascón on February 27. Former District Attorney Steven Cooley, former City Council member Dennis Zine and Former LA County Supervisor Mike Antonovich are backing the effort. Ben Poston of the Los Angeles Times reports that the recall effort will have 160 days to gather roughly 580,000 signatures to put the recall on the ballot. According to proponents their campaign already has 40,000 members. Opposition to Gascón has been fueled by a list of “directives” he issued shortly after he was sworn in. Among them is one which eliminated sentencing increases for habitual felons required by state law, and another essentially abolishing the death penalty for any murderer in Los Angeles County. Another Gascón directive eliminates cash bail for arrestees, although 54% of Los Angeles County voters rejected a ballot measure to do this last November.
by Michael Rushford · Feb 26, 2021 3:47 pm
The Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter (BLM-LA) has announced that it is beginning a campaign to force the Los Angeles Federation of Labor to disband the city’s police unions. David Zahmiser of the Los Angeles Times reports that Akili, an organizer with BLM-LA told reporters that the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents 9,800 police officers, promotes “white supremacy, anti-Blackness and a culture of deadly violence.” He said the group would also seek to disband the Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs Association, which he also claims is racist. Last year BLM-LA demanded that the LA City Counsel cut police funding. Last Summer, the Council cowed to their demands and slashed $150 million, cutting 250 officers from the force. This at a time when violent crime in Los Angeles is skyrocketing. The Times piece calls BLM a “grass roots” organization, suggesting the it represents the views of most blacks. A Gallup poll conducted last August reported that 81% of blacks wanted to either keep the current level of police patrols in their neighborhoods or increase them.
by Kym Stapleton · Feb 25, 2021 3:25 pm
This morning the California Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a statute passed by the state legislature (SB 1391) that prohibits 14- and 15-year-old criminal offenders from being prosecuted as adults. In the case of in O.G. v. Superior Court (S259011), the issue was whether the California Legislature unconstitutionally amended the statutory provisions of Proposition 57 when it enacted SB 1391. Prop. 57 was voted into law by a majority of California voters in 2016. The ballot measure eliminated a District Attorney’s ability to directly file criminal charges against individuals under age 18 in adult court. The measure instead gave juvenile court judges the sole authority to decide whether violent juveniles ages 14 and older should be prosecuted as adults only after conducting a full evidentiary hearing in the juvenile court. In 2018, former Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 1391 into law. SB 1391 prohibits 14 and 15 year olds from being criminally prosecuted as adults regardless of the crime committed. CJLF filed a brief (found here) arguing that SB 1391 unconstitutionally amended Prop. 57. Today the California Supreme Court held that SB 1391 “is fully consistent with and furthers” the intent and purpose of Prop. 57 and upheld the statutory amendment.
by Bill Otis · Feb 25, 2021 2:06 pm
Sentencing Law and Policy has this thought-provoking post urging President Biden to make filling Sentencing Commission slots a priority, and recommending — you’ll never guess — “diversity.” But it’s diversity of a notable kind. The post’s final paragraph tells the story in only slightly scrubbed language:
In his pioneering 1972 book, Criminal Sentences: Law Without Order, Judge Marvin Frankel first advocated for a “Commission on Sentencing” to include “lawyers, judges, penologists, and criminologists, … sociologists, psychologists, business people, artists, and, lastly for emphasis, former or present prison inmates.” As Judge Frankel explained, having justice-involved persons on a sentencing commission “merely recognizes what took too long to become obvious—that the recipients of penal ‘treatment’ must have relevant things to say about it.” Judge Frankel’s insights remain ever so timely a half-century later, and the federal system can now follow a recent sound state example: Brandon Flood was appointed Secretary of the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons in 2019, not despite but largely because of his lived experience as an inmate and his numerous encounters with the criminal justice system. President Biden’s could and should consider going even further by including multiple persons with diverse, direct experiences with U.S. justice systems in his nominations to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
What to make of the suggestion that the inmates should decide how long other inmates remain in the asylum?
by Kent Scheidegger · Feb 25, 2021 1:01 pm
The extent to which rioters were able to enter the Capitol, trash it, and disrupt the work of Congress had multiple causes. One of them was insufficient use of force by the Capitol police. Buried deep in this AP story is this comment by Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman: “She also says officers didn’t understand when they were allowed to use deadly force, and that less-than-lethal weapons that officers had were not as successful as they expected.”
Now that Members of Congress have personally experienced the adverse consequences of insufficient use of force by police, will they learn the needed lessons from this experience? Continue reading . . .
by Amber Westbrook · Feb 25, 2021 11:35 am
There are an array of explanations that are offered as to why carjackings have increased in major cities across the country in the last year. The caveat to be considered is which explanations are empirically supported compared to opinions offered based on perspective. In a WSJ article today, reporter Scott Calvert presents the argument that the spike in carjackings in Washington D.C. noticed by police officers could be due to juveniles being kept out of on-site schools due to the pandemic. While many Americans would agree juveniles have more free time on their hands with distance learning, that does not explain the use of deadly weapons and engagement in violence. These same juveniles would likely be carrying a weapon(s) whether on-site schooling was an option or not.
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