Cities across the US are breaking homicide records this year

One of the fastest-growing cities in the country, the capital of Texas is nearing the end of its deadliest year on record in 2021 as cities nationwide are experiencing a rise in homicides and gun violence incidents that began last year when the pandemic tightened its grip on the US, reported CNN.

Fueled by what both authorities and community leaders say is the easy access to guns, Austin has recorded 88 homicides so far this year, shattering the previous high of 59 in 1984.

Chris Harris, a member of the Austin Justice Coalition, a community-led organization addressing criminal justice reform as well as economic and social justice, said most of the violent incidents that occur in the city involve people "who know each other."

"If it's two people who know each other, clearly there is some contact that has risen to a point now that is being resolved violently instead of being resolved peacefully," Harris said.

Austin Police Chief Joseph Chacon called the increase in violent crime "disappointing," especially for a historically safe community.

"When you see the numbers spike like this and we're trying to figure out exactly why that's happening," Chacon said, "there's no clear-cut answer. We haven't found that one trend that we can really pin this on."

Austin is part of a worrying trend facing the nation. More than two-thirds of the country's most populous cities have seen more homicides in 2021 than last year, a continuation of the troubling increase in homicides that began at the onset of the pandemic in 2020, according to a CNN analysis of over 40 major cities.

The rise in violent crime is an epidemic that is happening "all across the country," said Thomas Abt, a senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice, and a result of three major factors: the impact of Covid-19 on communities and first responders, the fallout of the social unrest after the murder of George Floyd, and the surge in gun sales since the start of the pandemic.

At least nine major cities have broken their previous annual homicide records with about three weeks left to go in 2021. There have been 513 homicides this year in Philadelphia, higher than the previous total of 503 in 1990. There have been 230 homicides in Indianapolis, breaking the previous record of 215 set just last year.

These increases are not isolated to any particular region of the country. Other cities with record homicide totals include Louisville, Kentucky; Columbus, Ohio; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Tucson, Arizona; Rochester, New York; and Portland, Oregon. Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Nashville are also on pace to reach record homicide numbers by the end of the year.

Los Angeles recorded 352 homicides so far this year, and Chicago has seen 756, with year-to-date increases of 12% and 4% respectively. In Houston, homicides are up 18% from 2020.

While one-year increases don't always portend a significant spike in crime, almost all the largest cities in the United States have seen an increase in homicides from 2019, sustaining a sharp rise that began last year.

According to the 2020 Uniform Crime Report from the FBI, homicides rose 30% from 2019 to 2020, the largest single-year increase the agency has recorded since it began tracking these crimes in the 1960s.

There were more than 21,500 murders last year, a total not seen since the mid 1990s. But the murder rate in 2020 was about 6.5 per 100,000 people, about 40% below what it was in the 1980s and 1990s, when homicides peaked in the United States.

"The pandemic, like community gun violence, concentrates among the poorest and most disenfranchised people," Abt said. "So those communities are doubly impacted, not only by Covid-19, but by gun violence."

At the same time, the institutions that are responsible for responding to violence, including police and community organizations, were also placed under stress and pressure, Abt added, referring to the phenomenon as a "perfect storm."

Abt said the second factor is the fallout of the social unrest following the murder of Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

"We're seeing police pulling back in some cities from some of their discretionary law enforcement activities and we're also seeing communities pulling back from their ongoing collaboration and cooperation with police," he said. "When you have that divide between cops and communities, violence tends to go up."

The final factor experts say is causing violent crime to go up is a "huge surge in gun sales that began at the beginning of the pandemic and has not slowed down," he said.

A small but significant number of these guns are "ending up in the wrong hands and being used in gun crimes," Abt added.

Fayetteville, North Carolina, Police Chief Gina Hawkins said homicides in her city are "up high" right now from 23 homicides last year to 32 this year through the end of September, representing a 39% increase, according to the city's third-quarter crime statistics.

"People are quickly pulling a gun out and without thought of repercussions and without the thought that you are truly ending a life," Hawkins said.

Hawkins said another issue is social media "extremists" who need access to mental health resources.

"When you don't have anyone to talk to you off a cliff or you are so geared in social media, that plays another role," she said.

Experts have recommended looking into community-based approaches to reduce violent crime.

"Police need to be at the table and police are part of the solution, but they are not the whole solution," Abt said. "You need community-based organizations and law enforcement agencies working together."

Shooting incidents -- both fatal and non-fatal -- have increased in nearly all major US cities where data was available, according to a CNN analysis. Guns were the most used weapon in every city where information was published detailing the method of homicide.

According to the FBI report, the number of homicides last year began to escalate during the summer months, peaking in June and July and remaining at high levels after that. Capturing a full picture of homicide in the United States is nearly impossible -- the UCR report is the most comprehensive data set available, but participation by law enforcement agencies is voluntary.

Last year, only 85% of the country's more than 18,000 agencies submitted their data to the FBI. The 2021 UCR report will likely not publish until late next year.

While experts say the reasons for the rise in homicides are varied, murders are increasingly carried out by guns. The increase in gun violence was underscored in the 2020 UCR Report, which stated that about 77% of reported murders in 2020 were committed with a gun, up from 74% in 2019. There is no federal database of gun sales, but other independent surveys have found that gun sales have soared during the Covid-19 pandemic.

With just three weeks remaining in 2021, it seems almost certain that there will be more murders this year than last. However, the rate of increase in homicides does appear to be slowing.

A quarterly report published in November by the Council on Criminal Justice, which studied homicides in 22 cities during the first nine months of this year, showed the number of murders was 4% greater than the same period in 2020. In the first three quarters of 2020, the number of homicides in the same 22 cities rose by 36% over the same time frame in 2019, according to the report.

Data from consulting company AH Datalytics, which tracks year-to-date homicides across dozens of major US cities, shows a 7.5% increase in homicides so far between 2021 and 2020, down from the 10% increase observed over the summer and a further a reduction from the 30% increase observed in 2020.

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California governor proposes gun legislation modeled on the Texas abortion law

Angered by the U.S. Supreme Court decision to continue allowing private citizens to sue Texas abortion providers, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California called for a similar law giving ordinary residents legal standing to file lawsuits against purveyors of restricted firearms, reported The New York Times.

“SCOTUS is letting private citizens in Texas sue to stop abortion?!” Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, tweeted. “If that’s the precedent, then we’ll let Californians sue those who put ghost guns and assault weapons on our streets. If TX can ban abortion and endanger lives, CA can ban deadly weapons of war and save lives.”

The governor’s response seemed to contradict his earlier criticism of the Texas law, which Mr. Newsom had previously described as a cynical attempt to undercut federal rights.

In a statement released on Saturday evening, Mr. Newsom said he had instructed his staff to work with California’s Legislature and attorney general to write a bill that would let citizens sue anyone who “manufactures, distributes, or sells an assault weapon or ghost gun kit or parts” in California. The governor called for damages of at least $10,000 per violation, plus costs and attorney’s fees.

 “If the most efficient way to keep these devastating weapons off our streets is to add the threat of private lawsuits, we should do just that,” Mr. Newsom said in the statement.

The governor’s response seemed to explicitly position California opposite Texas in the divisive battles over abortion rights and gun control — and to position him personally on a national front in the culture wars.

Only three months ago, Mr. Newsom was locked in a bruising, Republican-led recall battle, which he beat back soundly. Relatively secure now in his prospects for re-election, the governor has increasingly raised his national profile. He has undertaken a national book tour to promote a children’s book he has written on dyslexia, a lifelong challenge. And as tornadoes swept through Southeastern states, leaving a path of devastation, Mr. Newsom publicly offered assistance to states such as Kentucky, deploying specialized urban search and rescue resources.

The governor’s vow to use California courts against gun violence followed the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to let stand Texas’ ban on most abortions. The law allows private citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion performed after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. That development typically occurs around six weeks and often before women realize they are pregnant.

Supporters of abortion rights have criticized Texas for drafting its abortion ban to evade review in federal court, where it might be blocked. It effectively deputizes ordinary citizens, including those outside Texas, to sue clinics and others who violate the ban, awarding them at least $10,000 per illegal abortion if they are successful.

In a 5-4 decision led by the conservative majority, the Supreme Court ruled that abortion clinics could sue the state’s licensing officials to halt the new law, but could not sue state court judges, court clerks or the state attorney general. Otherwise, the court allowed the law, in effect since September, to stand.

As the Supreme Court has signaled that it might overturn Roe v. Wade, California political leaders have said they will work to make the state a refuge for women in parts of the country where abortion could be outlawed. Mr. Newsom’s response seemed to fulfill warnings that if the high court backed Texas’ legal strategy, liberal-leaning states might use the same tactic to limit rights dear to conservatives, such as gun rights.

The governor said that “if states can now shield their laws from review by the federal courts that compare assault weapons to Swiss Army knives, then California will use that authority to protect people’s lives, where Texas used it to put women in harm’s way.”

The reference was a swipe at a court ruling this year in which a federal judge overturned California’s three-decade-old ban on assault weapons, comparing the powerful guns, frequently used in mass shootings, to military pocketknives.

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Automobile fatalities show a stunning increase

It was a tally that shocked the experts: 38,680 deaths on U.S. roadways last year, the most since 2007, even though pandemic precautions had dramatically reduced driving, reported the Los Angeles Times.

“This was completely unprecedented,” said Ken Kolosh, a researcher at the nonprofit National Safety Council. “We didn’t know what was happening.”

One possibility was that stressed-out Americans were releasing their anxieties on the wide-open roads. He guessed that fatal accidents would decline in 2021 when traffic returned.

He was wrong. The latest evidence suggests that after decades of safety gains, the pandemic has made U.S. drivers more reckless — more likely to speed, drink or use drugs and leave their seat belts unbuckled.

 “I fear we’ve adopted some really unsafe driving habits, and they’re going to persist,” Kolosh said. “Our roads are less safe than they were pre-pandemic.”

Experts say that this behavior on the road is likely a reflection of widespread feelings of isolation, loneliness and depression.

“We might decide: What does a seat belt or another beer matter, anyway, when we’re in the middle of a pandemic?” said Shannon Frattaroli, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The rise in motor vehicle deaths lines up with other pandemic-era trends: Alcohol sales have soared, drug overdoses have set new records, and homicides have seen their biggest increase on record.

 

COVID-19 marks “a sea change in psychology,” said Frank Farley, a professor of psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia, who views reckless driving as a form of rebellion — or what he calls “arousal breakout.”

“You’ve been cooped up, locked down, and have restrictions you chafe at,” he said. “So if you can have an arousal breakout, you want to take it.”

Before the pandemic, safety on U.S. roadways had been improving for decades, thanks to enforcement of seat belt laws and the advent of airbags, improved braking and stability control, and other safety features.

Even as the number of people on the roads increased and many states raised their speed limits, annual fatalities fell from around 55,000 in 1970 to 36,096 in 2019.

Then came the 7.2% rise in 2020, followed by an 18% jump in the first six months of this year, based on preliminary figures from the federal government.

What made last year’s increase so astonishing was that the total miles driven — an estimate calculated by sampling traffic on various roadways — fell by over 13% as cities locked down and more people worked from home.

For every 100 million miles driven last year, 1.37 people died, a 23% rise from 2019. Mileage estimates are not yet available for 2021.

Scattered across the country at a time when the nation’s attention is on COVID-19 deaths, traffic fatalities have attracted little public notice.

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Oklahoma's oldest death row inmate executed

The 11th Execution of 2021

Oklahoma executed inmate Bigler Jobe "Bud" Stouffer II on December 9, 2021 without the issues that caused the last three lethal injections to be described as botched, reported The Oklahoman.

The convicted murderer was pronounced dead at 10:16 a.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. It was the state's second execution in a month and a half after the practice was halted for more than six years.

"No vomiting, no erratic movements or anything like that. Just, you could see his chest moving as he appeared to breathe. That's about it," said one media witness, Sean Murphy of The Associated Press.

The execution process began at 10:01 a m., Corrections Department Director Scott Crow told reporters. Stouffer was declared unconscious at 10:06 a.m.

For his last words, Stouffer said, "My request is that my Father forgive them. Thank you," media witnesses reported.

In a policy change, Stouffer was allowed to have his personal spiritual advisor, Baptist minister Howard Potts, in the execution chamber with him.

Potts put a hand on Stouffer's foot and read from a Bible, witnesses said. Early in the process, the advisor said something that made Stouffer laugh.

At 79, Stouffer is the oldest inmate in Oklahoma history to be executed.

He is the second oldest inmate to be executed in the nation since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

He was put to death by lethal injection for the fatal shooting of Putnam City elementary school teacher Linda Reaves in 1985.

He maintained to the end he was wrongfully convicted.

Media witness Dylan Goforth said Stouffer talked in an interview Wednesday about being at peace and ready to go.

"He felt like if he couldn't prove his innocence while alive then his attorneys would prove it after he was gone," said Goforth, who works for The Frontier.

Three more executions are set for next year in Oklahoma.

As many as 26 more could be scheduled next year if death row inmates lose a legal challenge to the lethal injection process at a trial in Oklahoma City federal court. The trial is set to begin Feb. 28.

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Presidential Commission SCOTUS takes no position on expansion or term limits

In a final report the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States backed continued audio livestreaming of oral arguments, an advisory code of conduct for the justices and more transparency for the "shadow docket."

But the group took no position on more controversial proposals to expand the size of the U.S. Supreme Court or impose term limits on the justices, reported the ABA Journal.

The Washington Post, CBS News, Law.com, Law360 and Bloomberg Law have coverage.

President Joe Biden created the bipartisan commission in April to study proposals to reform the Supreme Court. Its membership consisted largely of law professors.

The report said there was “profound disagreement” among commissioners over adding justices to the Supreme Court.

Supporters of the idea “contend that court expansion is necessary to address serious violations of norms governing the confirmation process and troubling developments in the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence that they see as undermining the democratic system,” the report said.

“Opponents contend that expanding—or ‘packing’—the court would significantly diminish its independence and legitimacy and establish a dangerous precedent that could be used by any future political force as a means of pressuring or intimidating the court.”

Although the commission took no position on term limits, it did consider how to draft a constitutional amendment to establish term limits and whether such a system could be adopted by statute. The commission also discussed arguments for and against the idea.

“Proponents of term limits argue that they would help ensure that the court’s membership is broadly responsive to the outcome of elections over time; make appointments to the court more predictable and less arbitrary; reduce the chances that excess power might be concentrated in any single justice for extended periods of time; and enhance the court’s decision-making by ensuring regular rotation in decisionmakers while maintaining judicial independence by guaranteeing long terms and lifetime salaries,” the report said.

“Opponents of term limits argue that eliminating life tenure would weaken the Constitution’s express protection of judicial independence, which could undermine the court’s legitimacy; further politicize the selection and confirmation process by requiring confirmations every two years; heighten the perception that justices are partisan or political actors; and destabilize court doctrine.”

ABA President Reginald Turner said in a statement Wednesday the ABA applauds the work of the commission.

Turner noted that the committee wasn’t asked to make specific recommendations. But its comprehensive report provided context and “thoroughly addressed the history of pertinent issues and examined the potential impacts of proposals that would change the court,” Turner said.

“An independent judiciary is necessary to ensure respect for the rule of law and confidence in our courts,” Turner said. “The ABA remains committed to upholding the Constitution, the judicial process and equal justice under the law.”

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Mangino a guest on Law and Crime Network

Watch my interview with Jesse Weber on Law and Crime Network.
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Protections provided by the Sixth Amendment at stake in SCOTUS case

Marc Hayden wrote in the Washington Times:

With many Americans focused on headline-grabbing U.S. Supreme Court cases, it would be easy to miss a critically important case that has flown under the radar: Shinn v. Jones and Ramirez. Despite the consolidated case’s low-profile, it has the potential to fundamentally reshape the criminal justice system in a manner that should offend conservatives’ core sensibilities — that of protecting life, liberty, and unalienable rights.

The case revolves around something quintessentially American — the right to an attorney and a fair trial. According to decades-old case law, the Sixth Amendment provides Americans the right to “effective assistance of counsel,” but not all lawyers are created equal. There are plenty of reports of defense attorneys showing up to court drunk, sleeping during the trial or simply ignoring exculpatory evidence. Thanks to the Sixth Amendment, if an attorney’s assistance was so inadequate that it influenced the case’s outcome, then the courts can order a retrial.

To obtain such relief, appellants must traverse the arcane appeals process, but if state appellate courts rebuff them, they can apply for relief in federal court via a writ of habeas corpus. This process is incredibly time-consuming. In fact, the time between sentencing and execution in capital cases can easily exceed 20 years.  

During the interim, new evidence of ineffective counsel can arise, which brings us to the crux of Shinn v. Jones and Ramirez, and the stakes are high — very high. Both Barry Jones and David Ramirez face death sentences for separate cases in Arizona, but appeals attorneys presented evidence in federal court, questioning their verdict and sentence, respectively. 

In 1995, despite steadfastly maintaining his innocence, Mr. Jones was convicted of an unconscionably heinous crime — child abuse resulting in death — although there is evidence that suggests he may not be guilty. Medical evidence available at the time would have poked holes in the prosecutors’ case against Mr. Jones, according to court documents, but his counsel failed to introduce it. While I can’t say for certain whether Mr. Jones is innocent, it seems that the jurors passed their verdict based on incomplete evidence.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ramirez’s guilt isn’t in question. A jury convicted him in 1990 of a gruesome double murder. Still, there’s reason to believe that Mr. Ramirez suffers from an intellectual disability, has brain damage, and endured serious childhood trauma. However, his lawyers originally failed to provide any evidence of this. Why is this important? Because mitigating evidence such as this would have virtually ensured that he received a sentence other than death.

Mr. Jones’ and Mr. Ramirez’s new attorneys have since brought the aforementioned evidence to light in federal court. They claimed that more effective counsel could have easily raised all of this evidence during the original trials, and as a result, their clients deserve retrials. It’s not unheard of for appeals attorneys to make such 11th-hour assertions in desperate bids to save their clients, but they made a good case. How good? Federal courts overturned Mr. Jones’ conviction and ordered a new hearing for Mr. Ramirez. 

Normally, this would ultimately trigger a retrial for Mr. Jones and a new sentencing hearing for Mr. Ramirez, but instead, the State of Arizona appealed the decision. Citing a provision in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), Arizona asserts that new evidence demonstrating the ineffectiveness of counsel cannot be considered in habeas petitions if the defendant’s lawyers neglected to develop the evidence in state court proceedings. 

The State of Arizona’s interpretation of the AEDPA is unique, to say the least. To date, no appellate court has adopted such a reading, and the United States District Court in Arizona found the State of Arizona’s argument laughable, calling it “simply illogical.” After all, it makes no sense for the law to allow federal courts to entertain evidentiary hearings on claims of ineffective counsel but then to forbid the consideration of the same evidence simply because post-conviction relief counsel failed to raise it in state court.

If the U.S. Supreme Court sides with Arizona, the state will subsequently execute Mr. Jones and Mr. Ramirez despite the evidence. This will also set a dangerous precedent that new evidence of ineffective counsel — in all criminal cases, not just capital cases — can never be considered in federal court even though such claims almost always rely on new evidence.

This will lead to insidious effects that will reverberate throughout the criminal justice system—ensuring that an untold number of Americans, including the wrongly convicted, will never get a fair trial. This should concern all Americans—especially the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative wing. 

Conservatives believe in law and order, but you can have neither as long as Americans are wrongly denied their constitutional rights and stripped of their lives and liberties. Yet, that could become a regular occurrence if the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of Arizona.

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