The hidden toll on police officers: Suicide

Yesterday, I wrote about Florida police shooting someone every 2 1/2 days. In the past this blog explored the 957 people killed by police nationwide in 2016.

Not to mention the horrible and tragic loss of 11 police officers so far this years as a result of gunfire. There is another calamity among police officers that we hear too little about. As of the end of the first quarter of 2017, 29 police officers have died of suicide, nationwide, a significant increase over the same period last year, reported Law Officer Magazine.  

These are just the ones that are reported and not “hidden.”  Over 100 police officers committed suicide during 2016.

To read more CLICK HERE

Florida police shoot someone every 2 1/2 days

In 2014, the Tampa Bay Times set out to count every officer-involved shooting in Florida during a six-year period. We learned that at least 827 people were shot by police — one every 2½ days. We learned that blacks are shot at a higher rate than whites. We learned that on-duty police are almost never charged with crimes for firing, even though agencies pay millions to settle civil lawsuits.

Each year had about the same number of shootings, an average of 138.

The youngest person shot was a 2-year-old Jacksonville boy in his mother’s car at a Wendy’s. He survived. The oldest was a deranged 80-year-old man who shot at an officer before the officer fired back. He, too, lived.

Nearly a fifth of the people shot — 156 — were unarmed; no gun, no knife, no vehicle. And half of those were black, in a state where blacks make up just 15 percent of the population. That means unarmed black people were nearly eight times as likely to be shot by police than whites. One hundred twelve people shot were believed to have driven toward police officers or otherwise used a vehicle as a weapon.

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Alabama on verge of outlawing judicial override in death penalty cases

There are two possible sentences in capital murder cases, death or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Alabama is the only state that allows a judge to override a jury's recommendation when sentencing capital murder cases.

According to the Equal Justice Initiative. Alabama judges have overridden jury recommendations 112 times. In 101 of those cases, the judges gave a death sentence.

That is all about to change. The Alabama House of Representatives passed a bill that would end the authority of judges to override jury recommendations in capital cases.

The proposal to end judicial override is not new. The U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down Florida's use of judicial override.

Ebony Howard, associate legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, issued a statement applauding the bill's passage.

"Alabama should do everything it can to ensure that an innocent person is never executed," Howard said. "The bipartisan effort to pass a bill that would keep a judge from overriding a jury's vote in capital cases is a step in the right direction. As of today, Alabama is one step closer to joining every other state in our nation in prohibiting judicial override in the sentencing phase of death penalty cases."

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Arkansas' past with the death penalty is as shocking as its future

As Arkansas' eight executions in 10 days looms, Professor Valena Beety reminds us at Jurist that until now, Arkansas's mark in death penalty history was its execution of Rickey Ray Rector: a man so unable to comprehend his surroundings that he ate his final meal and saved his slice of pecan pie for later. 

Rector had shot himself in the head after committing his crime, but survived. Legally, the state may not execute a person who does not understand they are about to die. Yet the courts ducked the issue, and another famous Arkansas Governor—Bill Clinton—made sure to be present for Rector's execution even while campaigning for the presidency in 1992.

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Free speech no defense to Trump inciting violence at campaign rally

A federal judge rejected President Donald Trump's free speech defense in response to his alleged inciting of violence among protesters during his presidential campaign, reported Jurist. The current lawsuit against Trump alleges the then-presidential candidate attempted to incite violence among his supporters by saying "get 'em out of here" in response to protesters at his Kentucky rally. At the rally two women and a man were supposedly shoved and punched by several members in attendance at the rally following his statements. The judge specifically held that there was sufficient evidentiary support that the injuries were a "direct and proximate result" of Trump's comments. Two people who allegedly forced the three protesters out were also named in the lawsuit.

President Donald Trump's election campaign faced serious concerns over eliciting violence against those opposed to his cause. In November state democrats raised voter intimidation suits in six states, yet only a federal judge in Ohio granted the requested injunction before being rejected on appeal.

To read more CLICK HERE

The militarization of police personnel

My classmate at the University of Pennsylvania, Simone Weichselbaum, has co-authored an interesting article at The Marshall Project on the impact of the militarization of the police--not just in terms of equipment--but veterans who return and work in law enforcement.  Below is an excerpt:

The debate over the militarization of America’s police has focused on the accumulation of war-grade vehicles and artillery and the spread of paramilitary SWAT teams. What has gone largely unstudied, however, is the impact of military veterans migrating into law enforcement. Even as departments around the country have attempted a cultural transformation from “warriors” to “guardians,” one in five police officers is literally a warrior, returned from Afghanistan, Iraq or other assignments.

The majority of veterans return home and reintegrate with few problems, and most police leaders value having them on the force. They bring with them skills and discipline that are regarded as assets. But a Marshall Project investigation indicates that the prevalence of military veterans can also complicate relations between police and the communities they are meant to serve.

To the obvious question — are veterans quicker to resort to force in policing situations? — there is no conclusive answer. Our investigation obtained data from two major-city law enforcement agencies, and considerable anecdotal evidence, suggesting veterans are more likely to get physical, and some police executives agree.

But any large-scale comparison of the use of force by vets and non-vets is hampered by a chronic lack of reliable official record-keeping on issues of police violence.

Some other conclusions about veteran-cops emerged more clearly:

·         Veterans who work as police are more vulnerable to self-destructive behavior — alcohol abuse, drugs and, like William Thomas, attempted suicide.

·         Most law enforcement agencies, because of factors including a culture of machismo and a number of legal restraints, do little or no mental health screening for cops who return from military deployment, and provide little in the way of treatment.

·         Hiring preferences for former service members that tend to benefit whites disproportionately make it harder to build police forces that resemble and understand diverse communities. To read more CLICK HERE

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GateHouse: The ‘Arkansas Eight’ executions a rush to punishment

Matthew T. Mangino

GateHouse Media

March 31, 2017

Arkansas is about to embark on an unprecedented and ignominious foray into state sponsored death. During a span of 10 days in April, Governor Asa Hutchinson has scheduled eight executions.

The specter of the ‘Arkansas Eight’ is so unusual that corrections officials sought the help of the local Rotary Club to drum up official witnesses for the executions.

After nearly a dozen years without an execution, Arkansas is racing to put eight men to death because one of the three drugs used in the lethal injection process will soon expire.

If carried out, the executions beginning April 17 would make Arkansas the first state to execute that many inmates in such a short time since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976.

The accelerated schedule poses a number of risks including the inability of the courts to give due consideration to individual claims made by the condemned and working around the legislatively sanctioned secrecy provided to the department of correction in preparation and carrying out executions.

The Arkansas Eight have filed suit to stop the executions.

“There is no justifiable rationale to hold multiple executions on the same day. Nor is there a justifiable rationale to hold eight executions within 10 days,” alleges the lawsuit, filed in Little Rock, Arkansas.

In addition, attorneys for Bruce Ward, one of the Arkansas Eight, plan to file a lawsuit to halt his execution on the ground that his severe mental illness has made him incompetent to be executed.

The U.S. Supreme Court requires that a death row prisoner have a rational understanding of the punishment he is about to suffer and the reason why he is to be executed.

A forensic psychiatrist and expert in the diagnosis and treatment of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, has examined Ward and concluded that he is incompetent to be executed. Ward’s severe schizophrenia and break with reality result in him having no rational understanding of the punishment he is about to suffer.

Two former governors recently wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post urging the U.S. Supreme Court to outlaw the execution of the mentally ill. In 2002, the court banned the execution of the intellectually disabled and the decision continues to resonate with the court.

Bob Taft, a Republican former governor of Ohio and Joseph E. Kernan, a Democrat former governor of Indiana wrote, “Illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are characterized by impairments that — when untreated — significantly affect one’s ability to distinguish fact from reality, to make rational decisions or to react appropriately to events and other people. Under these conditions, the degree of culpability may not rise to the level of cold, unimpaired calculus that justifies the ultimate penalty.”

Legislators in six states — Indiana, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia — have proposed legislation to prohibit the death penalty for individuals with severe mental illness.

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Texas death row inmate Bobby James Moore, saying the state’s highest criminal court failed to heed medical experts’ changing views about how best to measure intellectual disabilities.

By ignoring advances in science, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals created “an unacceptable risk that persons with intellectual disability will be executed,” the Supreme Court said in a decision written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The rush to punishment in Arkansas may provide a chance for the courts to put an end to the execution of the mentally ill. Moore’s lawyer, Cliff Sloan, said “The Supreme Court has sensibly directed Texas courts to be informed by the medical community’s current diagnostic framework before imposing our society’s gravest sentence.”

The science is there to also protect the mentally ill from society’s gravest sentence, let’s put that science to work.

— 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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