Mangino discusses Murdaugh, Householder and Trump on WFMJ-TV21

Watch my interview with Lindsay McCoy as we discuss on WFMJ-TV21 the Murdaugh verdict, Householder trial and Trump's dimming hope for absolute immunity.

 To watch the interview CLICK HERE

Minnesota restores voting rights to those with past felony convictions

Jennifer Ruben writing in the Washington Post:

It is sometimes difficult to tell whether democracy defenders are holding the line against authoritarian forces. But this past week, we saw evidence of real progress in expanding suffrage, a key aspect of democracy. Specifically at issue: restoring voting rights to former felons.

Democracy Docket, the progressive outlet in favor of voting rights, reports, “On Tuesday, the Minnesota state Senate sent a bill to the governor that would restore voting rights to individuals with past felony convictions immediately upon release from incarceration.”

And it’s not just Minnesota. “As of Monday, Feb. 20,” Democracy Docket explains, “at least 73 bills related to felony disenfranchisement have been introduced in over 20 states. Of these 73 bills, 68 of them ease existing felony disenfranchisement laws to differing extents. This means that 93% of bills related to voting rights in the criminal legal system move in the pro-voting direction, a stark comparison to other policies governing voting access.”

It’s no mystery how these laws got on the books. No sooner had Black people received the right to vote after the Civil War did states began enacting felony disenfranchisement. And with the movement toward mass incarceration, which fell disproportionately on Black Americans (including for nonviolent drug crimes), the population of permanently disenfranchised minority Americans ballooned.

The Sentencing Project, which advocated for voting and criminal justice reform last year, reported ahead of the midterms: “Laws in 48 states ban people with felony convictions from voting. In 2022, an estimated 4.6 million Americans, representing 2 percent of the voting-age population, will be ineligible to vote due to these laws or policies, many of which date back to the post-Reconstruction era.”

Reconsideration of this assault on democracy is overdue. Re-enfranchising millions of Americans who have paid their debts to society would be a powerful step in the direction of universal voting, a core principle of democracy.

And expanding voting is popular: A 2022 poll conducted by Lake Research Partners on behalf of State Innovation Exchange, Stand Up America, the Sentencing Project and Common Cause found that 56 percent of voters favor allowing all eligible voters “including citizens completing their sentence, both inside and outside of prison,” to vote. Just 35 percent oppose the idea.

To be certain, there have been high-profile losses on this front, as well. Republicans effectively overturned the will of Florida voters, 65 percent of whom voted in 2018 to allow felons who had served their sentences to regain voting rights. It did not take long for Florida’s Republican lawmakers and governor to “severely” roll back that effort, the New York Times reported. By requiring those who leave prison to repay court fines and fees, the state effectively re-barred these people from voting. Consider it a 21st-century version of a poll tax.

It was telling that five of the six federal judges who voted to strip away voting rights were appointed by President Donald Trump. Making matters worse, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) unleashed a squad of election police to arrest voters, most of whom were Black, who tried to cast votes thinking they had regained their rights. Those cases soon collapsed.

Fortunately, Florida seems to be swimming against the tide, even among red states. States moving toward liberalizing voting for former felons include Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee and Nebraska. Perhaps Florida’s Republicans can be shamed into rethinking their war on enfranchisement.

The battle to preserve democracy won’t succeed in a week or a month or a year. But progress is still being made that can restore rights to millions of potential voters. There is reason for hope.

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Mangino discusses the Murdaugh verdict and sentence on Scripps News

Watch my interview on Scripps News with Del Walters discussing the verdict and sentence in the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial in South Carolina.

To watch the interview CLICK HERE

The Legal: Shapiro Calls for End of Death Penalty in Pennsylvania

Matthew T. Mangino
The Legal Intelligencer
March 2, 2023

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has finally done what some recent governors may have contemplated, but never did—call for the end of the death penalty in Pennsylvania.

In June 2018 the Joint State Government Commission, Task Force and Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment, established under Senate Resolution 6 of 2011, issued its long-awaited report. I was a member of the advisory committee that reviewed 17 different aspects of the death penalty and made eight recommendations to the legislature.

In fact, in 2015, Gov. Tom Wolf announced a moratorium on the death penalty in Pennsylvania—still in place today—awaiting the outcome of the task force and advisory commission report. At the time Wolf said in a statement, “Today’s moratorium will remain in effect until this commission has produced its recommendation and all concerns are addressed satisfactorily.” Wolf implemented his unilateral moratorium by granting a temporary reprieve, not a commutation, each time an execution was scheduled.

After the report, Wolf took no action with regard to the efficacy of the death penalty or with regard to the death sentences of more than 100 men and women on Pennsylvania’s death row. All one needs to know about Pennsylvania’s death penalty is that the commonwealth has executed three men since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978. All three men volunteered to be executed—waiving their appeal rights. In fact, Pennsylvania has not carried out an involuntary execution since 1962.

The state’s most recent execution occurred in 1999, when Gary Heidnik was put to death for the murders of two women he tortured in his Philadelphia home. The other two executions were in 1995. Leon Moser killed his wife and two daughters, and Keith Zettlemoyer killed a “friend” who planned to testify against Zettlemoyer at his trial for robbery.

The death penalty in Pennsylvania has been around for parts of five centuries. In that time more than a 1,000 people have been executed. Until 1915, those executions were at the hand of the hangman. Between 1915 and 1962 executions in Pennsylvania were conducted by electrocution—the electric chair. In 1991, the method of execution became lethal injection. Through records compiled by the Reading Eagle and the Death Penalty Information Center during the modern era of Pennsylvania’s death penalty—September 1978 through 2022—Pennsylvania courts have sentenced 417 prisoners to death. There are approximately 101 men and women currently on death row, 11 men have been exonerated, well over 30 inmates have died of natural cause or suicide and three have been executed. 

Twenty-seven states, including Pennsylvania, still have capital punishment on the books. The death penalty has been around in its modern form for about 46 years. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty. The court ruled in Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972), that the death penalty was unconstitutional, violating the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote, “These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual.”

That same year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided Commonwealth v. Bradley, 403 A.2d 842 (Pa. 1972). On Dec. 15, 1967, George Bradley and two other men entered a bar in Philadelphia with the intent to commit a robbery and ended up killing the bar owner, Charles Mosicant. Bradley was convicted and sentence to death. On appeal, the high court ruled the commonwealth’s death penalty sentencing procedure was unconstitutional. The court cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Furman​. Pennsylvania’s death row was emptied; all sentences were judicially reduced to life.

The decisions forced Pennsylvania’s general assembly, and other state legislatures across the country, to review the death penalty and eliminate the arbitrary, capricious and racially discriminatory aspects of capital punishment.

The idea was that the death penalty would be reserved for the worst of the worst. Before a prosecutor could seek the death penalty she would have to prove more than an intentional killing. Each state established aggravating factors that would target the death penalty for the most dangerous and heinous murderers. The decision also called for bifurcated trial. A guilt phase and a penalty phase for the jury to decide life or death. The court in Furman also suggested that states establish procedures for providing the sentencing court with information about the convicted murderer’s character and record.

In 1974, the Pennsylvania legislature enacted a new death penalty statute overriding Pennsylvania Gov. Milton Shapp’s veto. The new death penalty statute was subsequently found unconstitutional in 1977.

In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court in Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976), found that Georgia, Florida and Texas had enacted new death penalty statutes that were in line with the holding in Furman. Pennsylvania enacted a new death penalty statute in 1978.

Today, the death penalty seems to be spiraling toward extinction. In 2022, there were 18 executions nationwide and only 20 new death sentences meted out across the country. Pennsylvania accounted for one of those death sentences.

Compare those numbers with 1994 and 1998. In 1994, 328 men and women were sentenced to death nationwide. In 1998, there were 98 executions carried out in the United States. Public opinion polls in 2022 showed support for capital punishment remained near historic lows, even amid rising perceptions of crime. Gallup’s 2022 Crime Survey, administered between Oct. 3 and Oct. 20, 2022, reported support for capital punishment held steady at 55%, one percentage point above the 50-year low of 54% in 2021, reported the Death Penalty Information Center.

One way to measure the strength of the death penalty is through a political lens. The death penalty has more to do with political symbolism, “I’m a tough, law and order guy,” than holding killers accountable and deterring future murders.

There were three state governor plebiscites in 2022 where a pause in capital punishment was an issue. Those states were California, Oregon, and, of course, Pennsylvania. In California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who imposed a moratorium on executions, and decommissioned the state’s death chamber, easily won re-election. Newly elected Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek promised to extend the state’s existing moratorium on executions. Shapiro seeks to take the most radical action—abolish the death penalty in Pennsylvania.

“The commonwealth shouldn’t be in the business of putting people to death, period,” Shapiro said. “At its core, for me, this is a fundamental statement of morality, of what’s right and wrong in my humble opinion. And I believe as governor that Pennsylvanians must be on the right side of this issue.”

Shapiro’s position is not the usual political side-step. He didn’t say the death penalty is racist, or there are too may exonerations or even that the process is arbitrary—no, Shapiro contends the death penalty is wrong, state-sponsored death is immoral and Pennsylvania, or any other state for that matter, should not be in the business of death.

The death penalty has lost its way in the muddled political rhetoric of 21st century governance and Shapiro is poised to act. There has not yet been a bill introduced to end the death penalty. Once legislation is introduced, it will be a battle before it ever reaches the governor’s desk.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly and George. and the former district attorney of Lawrence County. He is the author of “The Executioner’s Toll.” You can follow him on twitter @MatthewTMangino or contact him at mmangino@lgkg.com

To read the column CLICK HERE

Mangino discusses the Murdaugh trial on Law and Crime Network

Watch my interview with Linda Kenney Baden on Law and Crime Network discussing the trial of Alex Murdaugh convicted of murdering his wife and son in South Carolina.

To watch the interview CLICK HERE

Chicago police chief resigns in wake of progressive mayor's reelection loss

 David Brown, the embattled superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, has resigned from the department after nearly three years, according to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office, reported WGN. His last day will be March 16.

Brown’s resignation came less than 24 hours after Lightfoot, who selected Brown to lead the CPD in April 2020, lost her bid for reelection.

“It has been an honor and a privilege to work alongside the brave men and women of the Chicago Police Department,” Brown wrote. “I will continue to pray that all officers return home to their families safe at the end of their shift. May the Good Lord bless the city of Chicago and the men and women who serve and protect this great city.”

Before joining the CPD, Brown led the police department in Dallas, his hometown. He arrived in Chicago as the COVID-19 pandemic was in its infancy, and the CPD grappled with a summer of civil unrest, a spike in violent crime — especially murders and carjackings — as well as plummeting morale among the CPD’s rank-and-file officers throughout his time leading the department.

John Catanzara, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, the union that represents rank-and-file CPD officers, has frequently been at odds with Brown since his arrival in Chicago.

Catanzara said that Brown lost the confidence of CPD officers just two months into his tenure when, during a period of violent unrest in summer 2020, he publicly criticized several officers who were caught on tape sleeping in the South Side office of former U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush.

“It was just egregious, over-the-top disgusting,” Catanzara said Wednesday. “It just showed his willingness to be a political pawn for this mayor. He became as political as any superintendent has ever been and did the mayor’s bidding from Day 1.”

Shortly after he took the superintendent job, Brown often talked about his “moonshot goals,” which included going “above and beyond” the requirements of the CPD’s consent decree and keeping the city’s murder total under 300 per year — a tally the city hasn’t seen since the 1950s.

As his time leading the department continued, though, his talk of “moonshot goals” disappeared entirely and the department has struggled to keep pace with the court-mandated reforms that were born out of the police killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014.

Meanwhile, murders, nonfatal shootings and carjackings in Chicago remain at higher levels than before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The CPD has also seen an uptick in officers dying by suicide in recent years.

The next permanent CPD Superintendent will be selected by the next mayor — either Paul Vallas or Brandon Johnson — after he receives a list of three candidates submitted by the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability. After the next mayor makes his choice, the candidate will need approval from the City Council.

To read more CLICK HERE

Mangino analyzes Murdaugh testimony for Scripps News

Watch my interview with Del Walters on Scripps News discussing Alex Murdaugh taking the witness stand in his own defense during his trial for the murder of his wife and son. 

To watch the interview CLICK HERE