Another Poster Boy For Second Chances

by · Oct 23, 2023 3:32 pm

As noted in this earlier post, when criminal justice reformers celebrate the early release of serious criminals it doesn’t always work out well.   Today the staff at Liberty Unyielding offer up another example.  This time the case involves a former bank robber who became a Georgetown law professor.  In the late 1990s Shon Hopwood was sentenced to 12 years in prison following a series of bank robberies that he committed in small town Nebraska.  Eleven years later, Hopwood was released after having earned a law degree and, as a jailhouse lawyer, twice got petitions on behalf of fellow inmates accepted for review in the U.S. Supreme Court.  Once free, Hopwood won a clerkship with the DC Circuit, and later took a professorship at Georgetown Law.  He also played a role in passing the federal sentencing reform “First Step Act.”  What a remarkable “second chance” success story.

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CA Violent Crime Increases as Arrests Decline

by · Oct 20, 2023 1:52 pm

Fresh FBI data for 2022 indicate that nationally the rate of violent crime dropped slightly.  In California violent crime increased by 5.7% with   aggravated assault accounting for 67%.  Property crime nationally increased by 7.1% while California’s increase was 5.9%.  Matt Delaney of The Washington Times reports that motor vehicle theft continued to increase both nationally and in California, where thefts have increased by 31.6% since 2019.  A report by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) found that the California counties with the sharpest increases in violent crimes were the bay area counties of Contra Costa, San Mateo and San Francisco.  Sacramento, Riverside, Alameda and Orange counties also saw significant increases.  Major property crime increases were seen in Fresno, Alameda, Santa Clara, Orange and San Bernardino Counties.  One positive note, homicides were down by 6.1% after significant increases in 2020 and 2021.

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LA Area Cities Protest Zero Bail Policy

by · Oct 17, 2023 3:40 pm

California’s Constitution has two sections on bail. Both of them begin “A person [shall/may] be released on bail by sufficient sureties” followed by some exceptions. The differences between the two have yet to be worked out (stayed tuned), but two things are clear. First, the Constitution requires “sufficient sureties” for release on bail. Second, own-recognizance release is allowed on a discretionary basis, clearly intended as a case-by-case determination.

The Superior Court judges for Los Angeles County have nonetheless decided that most arrestees will be released with no surety at all, i.e., zero bail, and without any individual determination that the individual arrestee is a suitable candidate for “OR.” Can’t let a little thing like the Constitution get in the way of the agenda.

There are 88 cities in this massive county, and some of them are deeply unhappy about this. Continue reading . . .

Sentenced to Death, Sunset Strip Killer Dies of Old Age

by · Oct 16, 2023 2:05 pm

California’s notorious Sunset Strip Killer, Douglas Clark, who was sentenced to death for six grisly murders in 1983, died in a hospital last week at the age of 75.  Chris Eberhart of Fox News reports that Clark was convicted of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering six women over the summer of 1980.  He mutilated the bodies of his victims, decapitating one and keeping her head in a freezer.  His partner in the murders, Carol Bundy, told police that Clark would have sex with some of his victims corpses before dumping the bodies.  The oldest victim was 25, while three others were teenagers.  All of these young women suffered horribly before they were killed and mutilated.  Because of Governors Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom refusing to enforce the death penalty, even after California voters demanded it remain the law, Clark avoided a well-deserved execution and lived out his life, dying of natural causes.

More Delay on Grants Pass

by · Oct 12, 2023 4:10 pm

See earlier posts here, here and here. This case involves a challenge to a Ninth Circuit decision that severely inhibits cities’ ability to do anything about people camping on its streets and in its parks. The petition to review the case is supported by two dozen amici curiae from across the political spectrum.

Today the Court granted the plaintiffs an extension to December 6 to file their opposition, despite their initial waiver of the right to file at all. That means that the conference of January 5, 2024, is the first realistic date for the Court to consider whether to take up the case.

Cases granted in January can still be heard and decided in the same term, but a few “relistings” of the case may put it off to next term. Continue reading . . .

Texas Executes Carjacking Murderer

by · Oct 11, 2023 3:20 pm

A Texas criminal who killed an elderly woman during a carjacking was executed late Tuesday.  Juan Lozano and Michael Graczyk of the Associated Press report that Jedidiah Murphy passed out a few seconds after receiving an injection of the anesthesia pentobarbital and was pronounced dead 25 minutes later.  A 2018 Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision  and a news story in the Dallas Morning News describe the murder of 80-year-old Bertie Lee Cunningham.  On the afternoon of October 4, 2000, Murphy forced his way into the woman’s car as she was driving home from shopping.  He had her drive to a secluded area then made her get into the car’s trunk before shooting her in the head.  He then dumped her body into a creek and drove off.  Hours later he used the victim’s credit cards to purchase alcohol and cigarettes.  Police caught up with him two days later.  

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