The Cautionary Instruction: The odyssey of Jordan Brown

Matthew T. Mangino
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/Ipso Facto
March 7, 2014
Kenzie Houk and her unborn child were murdered as she slept in her Lawrence County home on February 21, 2009.
Five years later, the son of Kenzie’s boyfriend remains in juvenile detention. Jordan Brown has been accused and convicted of killing Kenzie and his conviction has been overturned.
Brown’s case has been appealed to the Superior Court twice and is scheduled to be argued before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Philadelphia next week.
Brown was 11 years old when he was charged with murder. He was charged as an adult pursuant to Pennsylvania law. Brown faced life in prison without the possibility of parole, possibly the youngest person in the United States ever to face such a sentence.
Brown's attorneys requested that his case be decertified from adult court to juvenile court. In 2010, Lawrence County Common Pleas Judge Dominick Motto ruled that Brown's case should remain in adult court.
Motto based his findings, in part, on the fact that without accepting responsibility for Houk's death Brown would not be amenable to rehabilitation as set forth in the Juvenile Act.
Attorneys for Brown appealed Motto’s decision. The Superior Court overturned the decision and ordered a second hearing to determine whether Brown should be tried as a juvenile or an adult.
"By finding that Appellant (Brown) had to admit guilt or accept responsibility for his actions as a condition to proving that he was amendable for treatment, the trial court placed Appellant in a situation that needlessly encouraged Appellant to sacrifice his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination," the Superior Court said.
Judge Motto heard the decertification issue for a second time and remanded the case to juvenile court.
In April of 2012, following a closed-door proceeding, Lawrence County Judge John Hodge adjudicated Jordan delinquent of first-degree murder and criminal homicide of an unborn child.
The case then made its way back to the Superior Court.
On May 8, 2013, the Superior Court overturned the 2012 delinquency ruling by Hodge. In reviewing the record, the Superior Court took exception to Hodge’s determination of the evidence. The Court concluded that Hodge had “committed a palpable abuse of discretion in rendering a ruling that is plainly contrary to the evidence.”
Specifically, the court ruled the Hodge did not give enough weight to arguments someone else could have entered the house and committed the crime.
Deputy attorney general Anthony J. Krastek said after the hearing, "If it was anyone else that could have accomplished this, they would have had to ... know what time to get there, known where the guns were, which was in the boy's room, known where the ammunition was for that gun, which was in her bedroom ... and then commit the killing and accomplish all of that without leaving a single footprint or a tire track."
Now, the Attorney General’s office is asking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to overturn the Superior Court’s ruling and reinstate Hodge’s finding of delinquency.


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Using urban transformation to eradicate crime

Researchers have long linked urban decay to crime rates. But do the old models of urban renewal—tearing down housing projects in expensive redevelopment schemes—address the roots of the problem?
In Fayetteville, NC, city authorities have been slowly buying up properties in depressed neighborhoods near the downtown area and demolishing abandoned homes, according to The Crime Report.  But without a master “blueprint” that integrates housing reconstruction with efforts to improve infrastructure, schools and community services, such efforts are likely to come up lacking.
Greg Barnes, a reporter for the Fayetteville Observer, went to Atlanta to investigate a program run by a nonprofit called Purpose Built Communities which has pioneered a different approach.  Supporters of the model point to the transformation of East Lake, one of Atlanta’s poorest and most crime-riddled neighborhoods, as evidence of its success.
And the model has been duplicated in other American cities.
Barnes says the program, which operates with private donations,  has already produced a 90 percent drop in crime in the neighborhood.


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Promises of Reform Through Justice Reinvestment Initiative Unfulfilled

Matthew T. Mangino
The Pennsylvania Law Weekly
March 4, 2014
The state prison population increased last year. That is not necessarily earth-shattering news. As of Dec. 31, 2013, Pennsylvania's prisons housed 51,512 people, up 328 from the same date in 2012. The increase was enough to require the state Department of Corrections to ask for a supplemental increase to the current year's budget.
According to the Harrisburg Patriot-News, the corrections budget is projected at more than $2 billion next year, despite the passage of Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI) legislation to save money by reducing the size of state prisons.
The JRI concept was devised about eight years ago as U.S. prison and jail populations were soaring and eating up more and more of state and local budgets.
The idea was to reduce the high cost of incarceration through improved supervision of offenders in the community, in turn bringing fewer probation and parole violators back to prison.
The JRI became a reality in Pennsylvania when Gov. Tom Corbett signed Act 122 in July 2012. The plan recommended funding for local law enforcement, performance-driven incentives for counties to house state inmates, strengthening local probation and state parole and retooling the state's community corrections system. The plan was to be funded by an estimated $260 million in savings realized by eliminating inefficiencies in the corrections system and lowering the prison population.
The original corrections population projection included a reduction of 719 inmates by 2013 and 1,486 by 2014. The first clearly has not been met and the latter appears to be grossly overstated.
At the very outset of the initiative, there was reason to be concerned. A separate piece of legislation was needed to allocate the savings and reinvestment. HB 135 outlined the formula by which savings would be returned to local governments to carry out the directives of Act 122.
The formula for distributions included the following: 43 percent for local police grants; 26 percent for local grants to improve county probation; 21 percent to implement contracts with counties for diversion of low-level offenders; 6 percent for the Board of Probation and Parole for costs to streamline the parole process; and 4 percent to coordinate and implement improved reentry programs.
However, not all of the $260 million in recommended savings made it into the final version of HB 135. The pool of funds for reinvestment was eventually slashed by about 45 percent to $142 million.
The alarm has been sounded. The DOC can point to averting a crisis in corrections spending—the projected savings of $260 million that was recalculated to $142 million actually amounts to zero.
In his recent official remarks to the state House of Representatives appropriations committee, DOC Secretary John Wetzel wrote: "It's a fact if, as an administration, we had embraced business as usual, the DOC population would have continued following its previous trajectory, experiencing the originally anticipated growth of 3,562 inmates—rather than the 328 we saw over the last three years."
According to the Patriot-News, the corrections budget could be more than $113 million higher than the emergency appropriation. Pennsylvania is not the only state to feel the pinch of unfulfilled promises of the JRI.
The JRI is sputtering in Ohio. The two-year-old plan to reduce Ohio's inmate population is not having the desired impact. The number of prisoners behind bars is expected to spike, according to the Associated Press.
Gary Mohr, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said the state prison's already high population of 50,000 could soar to 52,000 in two years and top 53,000 in six years. The population numbers are in contrast to rosy projections from 2011 when lawmakers passed the JRI.
Under the law, the number of inmates was supposed to drop to around 47,000 by 2015 and dip below 47,000 two years after that.
In Oklahoma, the legislature passed a list of new laws under the umbrella of the JRI. The problem is the legislature did not provide any funding for the criminal justice measures. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has asked for an investigation into the matter. Not everyone was keen on the JRI, fearing that it would be seen as soft on crime. A recent review of the JRI in Oklahoma concluded in a rather understated manner, "the utilization rate of [justice reinvestment] policies has been much lower than expected."
There are justice reinvestment initiatives underway in 17 states. A recent study by the Urban Institute found the initiatives have the potential to achieve a "massive return" on the investment of $17 million by the federal government and the Pew Charitable Trusts.
More efficient handling of offenders in the justice system could save $4.6 billion in the states as prison populations are reduced over many years, the institute estimated.
Some participating states "have enjoyed both measurable successes and positive cultural and organizational changes as a result of their reform efforts," the assessment concluded. However, the assessment warned that sustaining consensus can be difficult "in the face of policymaker turnover, high-profile incidents, and lack of public education."
That is exactly the issue that Wetzel pointed out to lawmakers during the recent budget hearings.
"No less than 23 bills have passed the House, every one of which has the potential to increase prison populations," Wetzel said, according to the Patriot-News. He lamented that legislators have done little to counteract efforts through legislation aimed at reducing crime and prolonged incarceration.
"You pass these bills," Wetzel said, "don't be surprised when the budget goes up."
According to the Patriot-News, Wetzel suggested that corrections policy should have two goals: the response should be equal to the crime and the response should yield results. In other words, the offender should be less likely to commit another crime when he or she exits the criminal justice system.
"You can't say that about some of our current laws and corrections policies," Wetzel said.
The route to meaningful reform begins with a comprehensive review of the entire system—from charging to sentencing to parole to the ongoing collateral consequences of crime. Anything short of that is political expedience. 
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George. His book, "The Executioner's Toll, 2010," is out this summer. Reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.

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Pennsylvania Improving Entertainment Options for Prison Inmates

Going to prison is never going to be the best way to stay current with new technology – unless you’re really into security innovation, reported the Harrisburg Patriot-News.
But the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections is putting final touches now on a pilot program that could soon give its inmates the chance to buy a customized electronic tablet through the prison’s commissary system.
Once operational, the tablets would permit inmates to download music, receive and send emails, and place orders for goods from the prison commissary.
“They are not iPads as you would know them,” Corrections Secretary John Wetzel said.
That’s because, he explained, the new tablets would not permit general Internet access.
But inmates would, for a fee, be able to use them to plug into a central kiosk through which they could download incoming emails or buy music from a vast pre-screened list, and then read or listen at their leisure.
Wetzel and Corrections Executive Deputy Secretary Shirley Moore Smeal said if the program works, they see it as having a couple of benefits:
• Improving entertainment options for inmates in their down time.
• Enhancing security.
On the latter point, where radios are available to inmates for purchase now, they have been used to store contraband, and component parts have been transformed into weapons.
“What we’re trying to do is replace radios, because radios have parts on them that become weapons. And also, we have some individual who are able to rewire their radios to… intercept our radio signals,” Wetzel told senators.
“These tablets are kind of the new wave… Much more secure.”




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Proposed jail standards in Ohio limit prisoner's access to meals

Proposed minimum standards for 20,000 inmates in Ohio jails would allow sheriffs to limit prisoners to two meals a day, reduce showers to every other day and shorten visitation time, reported the Columbus Dispatch.
The new rules also would greatly improve treatment of mentally ill inmates but would dramatically reduce mandatory training for jail employees and potentially allow sheriffs to better fend off prisoner lawsuits.  
The proposed changes result from a 2012 statewide jail survey and assessment.
Enforcing the standards is another matter. After more than four years with no jail inspections, now only two state employees are assigned to inspect 92 full-service jails, 13 minimum-security jails, 90 12-day jails, 18 12-hour jails and 136 temporary holding facilities.

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1.3 Million Violent Crimes Against Persons with Disabilties in 2012

An estimated 1.3 million nonfatal violent crimes occurred against persons with disabilities in 2012, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced. While the annual number of victimizations increased from 2008 to 2012, the number in 2012 was not statistically different from 2011. These findings are based on BJS’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which classifies an individual’s disability according to six limitations: hearing, vision, cognitive, ambulatory, self-care and independent living. An estimated 14 percent of the U.S. household population age 12 or older had one or more disabilities.
In 2012, the rate of violent crime against persons with disabilities was 34 per 1,000, compared to 23 per 1,000 for persons without disabilities. Because persons with disabilities are generally much older than those without, the age distribution differs considerably between these two groups, making direct comparisons misleading. To compare rates, each group was adjusted to have a similar age distribution, making the age-adjusted rate of violent crime against persons with disabilities (60 per 1,000) nearly three times higher than the rate for persons without disabilities (22 per 1,000).
The age-adjusted rate of serious violent crime—rape or other sexual assault, robbery and aggravated assault—against persons with disabilities (22 per 1,000) was nearly four times higher than that for persons without disabilities (6 per 1,000) in 2012.
Among persons with disabilities, those with cognitive disabilities had the highest unadjusted rate of violent victimization (63 per 1,000). During 2012, about half (52 percent) of violent crime victims with disabilities had more than one disability. Violent crime against persons with one disability type increased from 2011 (37 per 1,000) to 2012 (53 per 1,000), while the rate among persons with multiple disability types remained stable during the same period.
Other findings include—

• In 2012, persons with disabilities experienced an estimated 233,000 robberies, 195,200 aggravated assaults, 838,600 simple assaults and 80,100 rapes or other sexual assaults.

• Among persons with disabilities in 2012, whites were more likely than blacks to experience a violent crime.

• In 2012, Hispanics with disabilities had a lower rate of violent victimization than non-Hispanics with disabilities.

• Among persons ages 12 to 15, the unadjusted rate of violent victimization was nearly three times higher for persons with disabilities than for persons without disabilities.

The report, Crime Against Persons with Disabilities, 2009–2012 - Statistical Tables (NCJ 244525), was written by BJS Statistician Erika Harrell. The report, related documents and additional information about the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ statistical publications and programs can be found on the BJS website at http://www.bjs.gov/.

Guns soon will surpass cars as leading killer of young people

Matthew T. Mangino
The Youngstown Vindicator
March 2, 2014
Firearms will soon be the leading killer of young people between the age of 15 and 24 — more than disease, accidents and suicide. This startling statistic is in spite of falling violent crime rates and spiraling rates of gun homicide.
For the last two decades, motor-vehicle accidents have been the leading cause of death for young people. However, gun deaths are not far behind. The statistics for 2010 are startling: 6,201 young people between the age of 15 and 24 were killed by guns, while 7,024 people in the same age group were killed in motor-vehicle accidents.
According to a report prepared by the Center for American Progress, if current trends continue, next year gun deaths among 15- to 24-year-olds are projected to outnumber car accident deaths.
This somber statistic seems to be in stark contrast with national rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes. Gun deaths are strikingly lower now than during their peak in the mid-1990s, paralleling a general decline in violent crime, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data.
Sandy Hook massacre
Despite the attention to gun violence in the last year as a result of the horrific massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., most Americans are unaware that gun crime is substantially lower than it was two decades ago. A Pew Research Center survey last spring found that 56 percent of Americans believed the number of crimes involving a gun was higher than it was 20 years ago — only 12 percent said it was lower.
Generally, violent crime has steadily declined in recent years. As for gun violence, since the peak of gun homicides in 1993, the firearm homicide rate has literally been cut in half. The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm — assaults, robberies and sex crimes — was 75 percent lower in 2011 than in 1993, according to Pew Research and Demographic Trends.
The fact that firearms will soon be the leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds raises concern. Every year, about 2.5 million Americans die from all causes, and very few of them — less than 3 percent — are under the age of 25. But when you consider gun deaths, a different pattern emerges. According to the Center for American Progress, more than 1 in 5 individuals killed by guns in 2010 was under the age of 25.
Suicide
In 2010, the third highest cause of death for 15- to 25-year-olds was suicide, and again, guns played a large role, accounting for 45 percent of those deaths.
The contrasts with other age groups are stunning. Homicide was the fifth leading cause of death for 35- to 44-year-olds, although more than two-thirds by firearm, and homicide was not even in the top 10 for individuals ages 45 to 54.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to acknowledge the concern of guns and young people in a way only the Supreme Court can. The court refused to hear two cases that dealt with the Second Amendment and young people.
The two cases were filed by the National Rifle Association. In one case the NRA challenged a law prohibiting federally licensed gun dealers from selling handguns to anyone under the age of 21. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the law, and the Supreme Court will not review that decision.
In the second case, also unsuccessfully challenged by the NRA, the Fifth Circuit upheld a Texas law that prohibits 18-to 20-year-olds from carrying firearms in public.
Disturbing trend
More must be done to deal with this disturbing and embarrassing trend. Policymakers have effectively used research and evidence-based practices to reduce the number of young traffic fatalities. We would do well to take the same approach with young people and gun fatalities.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book, “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010,” is due out this summer. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino)
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