Mangino talks SCOTUS decision on gambling with WFMJ-TV21

Watch my interviews on WFMJ-TV21 6 pm news and my extended interview with Derek Steyer regarding the U.S. Supreme Court decision on gambling and its potential impact on Ohio and Pennsylvania.
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Number of incarcerated women increased by more than 700% since 1980

Over the past quarter century, there has been a profound change in the involvement of women within the criminal justice system, according to The Sentencing Project. This is the result of more expansive law enforcement efforts, stiffer drug sentencing laws, and post-conviction barriers to reentry that uniquely affect women. 

The female prison population stands nearly eight times higher than in 1980. More than 60 percent of women in state prisons have a child under the age of 18.

Between 1980 and 2016, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 700 percent, rising from a total of 26,378 in 1980 to 213,722 in 2016.

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Law enforcement officers killed in line-of-duty down substantially

A total of 93 officers were killed in the line of duty last year, according to a portion of the FBI’s Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 2017 (LEOKA) report.

Of these deaths, 46 were felonious and 47 were accidental. 

Both numbers have decreased from 2016, during which 66 officers were feloniously killed and 52 were accidentally killed, for a total of 118 line-of-duty deaths.

The FBI collects data on officer assaults and deaths from local, state, tribal, campus, and federal law enforcement agencies from around the country, as well as organizations that track officer deaths. The Bureau publishes the data annually through its Uniform Crime Reporting Program, and the national-level statistics can be used to help create data-driven safety training for officers.
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GateHouse: Funding woes put indigent defense in peril

Matthew T. Mangino

GateHouse Media

May 11, 2018

More than 50 years ago, Gideon v. Wainwright was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court unanimously ruled that state courts are required to provide legal counsel for those defendants accused of a crime who cannot afford a lawyer.

Today, the right to counsel is firmly rooted in the American criminal justice system but the lack of funding has put competent representation at risk.

Clarence Earl Gideon was a 51-year-old drifter and petty-thief. He was charged with breaking and entering in Florida. The charge was a felony and when Gideon first appeared before the court he was without funds, without counsel and he asked the court to appoint him a lawyer.

After all, the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”

The judge apologized to Gideon and said that Florida law only provides for counsel in capital cases. Gideon replied, “The United States Supreme Court says I am entitled to be represented by counsel.”

Gideon represented himself, was convicted and appealed to the Florida Supreme Court. His appeal was denied and his case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court appointed a very capable attorney, Abe Fortas, to represent Gideon. Fortas would one day take a seat on the Supreme Court.

Fortas’ argument before the court was deliberate, learned and convincing. Fortas told the court that the federal government already recognized that the Sixth Amendment required the appointment of counsel for indigent defendants facing felony charges.

More than a half-century after Gideon the focus has evolved from merely the right to counsel — to the right to effective representation. That representation has turned from insuring a fair trial to ensuring effective assistance on matters such as plea bargaining and the collateral consequences of sentencing.

As states and local municipalities struggle with declining budget revenues, the more important issue today is how will public defenders and court-appointed counsel react to fewer dollars for indigent defense?

The right to effective counsel for indigent defense may be in peril.

When it comes to legal services, you get what you pay for and Pennsylvania, for instance, pays nothing. Pennsylvania stands alone among the 50 states in its steadfast refusal to allocate any money in the state budget for indigent criminal defense.

Instead, it is up to each Pennsylvania county to design, and pay for, a system to provide legal representation to the poor. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has said that indigent defendants can sue for adequate representation.

Pennsylvania is only the tip of the iceberg.

Recently, public defenders across Massachusetts demonstrated against low pay — average base salary is $47,500 a year — and their lack of collective bargaining power as state employees, according to the Huffington Post.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a class-action lawsuit against Missouri’s public-defender system.

The lawsuit is on behalf of five Missouri residents accused of a crime and involved in the state’s criminal justice system. The suit alleges that public defenders are failing to provide low income defendants with their constitutionally guaranteed right to legal counsel. According to The Atlantic, the 53-page complaint depicts an overwhelmed system in which too few lawyers are burdened with too many cases and, as a result, too little time to properly defend their clients in court.

The American Civil Liberties Union has also filed a lawsuit against the state of Nevada for allegedly neglecting the constitutional rights of low income defendants in rural counties. The suit alleges that some county judges appoint untrained, inexperienced private attorneys to defend the poor.

In the Pennsylvania case authorizing indigent defendants to sue counties to ensure that public defender’s offices are more adequately funded, state Supreme Court Justice David Wecht warned, ”[T]he level of funding provided by a county to operate a public defender’s office has left that office incapable of complying with Gideon creating the likelihood of a systematic, widespread constructive denial of counsel in contravention of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.” Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner’s Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.

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Oklahoma expands ‘Stand Your Ground’ law to churches

Oklahoma has added churches to the list of places where a citizen may use deadly force against a violent intruder, reported the National Review.

The state already allows deadly force against anyone who attempts to “unlawfully or forcefully” enter a person’s home, occupied car, or place of business, or anyone who forcibly tries to remove another person not in their custody from those places. And after Governor Mary Fallin signed an expansion of the policy into law on Monday, places of worship are now among the locations where Oklahomans have a “right to expect absolute safety.”

Oklahoma has stepped up its active-shooter training in churches since November, when a gunman opened fire on a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing 26 and wounding at least 20 more. The gunman, who had a history of domestic violence, claimed as victims many elderly and children, including the preacher’s daughter.

The number of Oklahoma churches putting congregants through active-shooter drills has spiked over 500 percent since that attack, which followed hot on the heels of the Las Vegas massacre of October 1. There, shooter Stephen Paddock used semi-automatic rifles modified to fire at a rate similar to automatics, gunning down 58 people enjoying a country-music concert at a site below his hotel-room window.

Oklahoma’s approach runs counter to the response to the Parkland, Fla. school shooting in February. Students from around the nation called for more gun control and fewer guns on the streets in the aftermath of the Parkland attack, rather than advocating that more guns be put into the hands of those who could respond to an active-shooter situation, as another Oklahoma bill proposes doing.

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Federal prison reform bill moves forward

A White House-backed prison reform bill advanced in the House after winning bipartisan support in a 25-5 House Judiciary Committee vote, reported The Hill.

The bill, called the First Step Act, seeks to offer more funding for prison programs and incentivize prisoners to complete the programs in an attempt to reduce the likelihood of inmates committing new crimes once released from prison.

Democrats and liberal groups that had pressed for more significant criminal justice reforms such as reductions to mandatory minimum sentences have been divided over the bill.

Reps. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) and Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) spent much of the past week in negotiations after committee Democrats pushed back against a number of conservative provisions in the legislation.

After the committee vote, Collins said he’s confident there’s enough Democratic support to get the bill through the House and the Senate.

“They have their own process to go through. There may be some issues that we can then work on later, but I do feel this is one of the pieces of legislation that will be signed into law this year,” he said.

In a nod to Democrats, the bill approved in committee no longer includes language that would have allowed certain law enforcement officials and correctional officers to carry a concealed firearm in all 50 states.

And in another effort to win over Democratic supporters, the bill does include language creating more opportunities for prisoners to earn time credits by completing prison programs. They can then use those credits to serve the remaining days of their sentence in a halfway house or home confinement.

The bill, which authorizes $50 million a year for five years for the Bureau of Prisons to spend on programs like job training and education that reduce recidivism, clarifies current law to allow prisoners up to 54 days of credit for good behavior annually. The law was previously interpreted as only allowing prisoners to earn 47 days a year. 

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Life still means life for juveniles in Illinois

Sixteen year old Benard McKinley was arrested and charged in Illinois as an adult with first degree murder for killing a man. In 2004, Cook County jurors found him guilty, reported the Chicago Sun-Times.

Over the past two decades, scientific researchers and courts began grappling with a question that could dramatically shift the course of McKinley’s life: When it comes to crime, are children and adults different?

Courts across the country slowly began to address the issue, bolstered by research showing that the human brain, particularly parts responsible for controlling impulses and assessing consequences, is not fully developed until one’s early 20s. And so courts ushered in a new era of decision-making, ruling again and again that children accused and convicted of crimes must be treated differently than adults.

The decisions culminated in Miller v. Alabama, a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that laws declaring mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles, even for those convicted of murder, are unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. In the opinion, authored by Justice Elena Kagan, the court found that the mandatory sentences precluded judges from considering the defendant’s “chronological age and its hallmark features — among them, immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences.” The Court reasoned that the youngest offenders have “diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform,” and to require those mandatory sentences without considering features of youth constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

That ruling applies to anyone under the age of 18, and was made retroactive in 2016 after another Supreme Court ruling, Montgomery v. Alabama. “What is with this magical moment?,” asked former Cook County Circuit Court Judge Daniel M. Locallo, now a defense attorney. “You’re 17 and 364 days, the day before your 18 birthday, allegedly your brain isn’t developed enough.” But one day later, he mused, “it is?”

With the new standard set, a wave of prisoners across the country with mandatory life sentences, including some 80 inmates in Illinois, have or are in the process of receiving sentences that take their youth into consideration.

But McKinley is not among them.

Though Wadas imposed a 100-year sentence, to be served in its entirety, the judge was not mandated to sentence McKinley to spend his life in prison; in fact, he was only required under Illinois law to issue a minimum punishment of 45 years in prison.

After his conviction was upheld in the Illinois appellate courts, McKinley turned to the federal courts contending that his sentence was not constitutional.

In March 2014, U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp Jr. refused to strike down the sentence, reasoning that a judge’s imposition of consecutive 50-year sentences, while possibly amounting to a life sentence, was not based on a mandatory sentencing scheme that the Supreme Court prohibited in Miller:

“Whether McKinley’s sentence should have been lower due to his age is not for this Court to say; the Illinois courts held that the sentence was not excessive, and that conclusion is not in conflict with the federal Constitution,” Tharp wrote.

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