Former Trump security adviser Flynn to be charged with lying to the FBI

U.S. President Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn lied to the FBI about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the United States, the U.S. special counsel's office charged in a court filing made public on Friday, according to Reuters. 

The Office of the Special Counsel, which is investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and potential collusion by Trump's campaign, said a plea hearing for Flynn had been set for 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT) on Friday.

Flynn is expected to plead guilty. 

Flynn, a retired Army general who was fired from his White House post in February after revelations he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, is a central figure in the federal investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The charge against him is another escalation in an investigation that has cast a cloud over the Trump administration since the Republican president took office on Jan. 20.

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SCOTUS takes up important 4th Amendment issue in digital age

Criminal courts routinely struggle with the definition of what a Fourth Amendment “reasonable expectation of privacy” means in the digital age. Yet, legislators at the local level remain silent, refusing to strengthen privacy protections from growing government surveillance, according to Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, Law Professor, UDC David A. Clarke School of Law. 

The highest profile example of this puzzle will reach the U.S. Supreme Court today, when a lawyer for Timothy Carpenter — a convicted armed robber — will argue to protect the Fourth Amendment for all Americans. The constitutional issue is whether police need a probable cause warrant to request historic cell-site data from cell phone companies to prove that Mr. Carpenter robbed (ironically enough) a series of cell phone stores. 

Mr. Carpenter argued that the demand for 127 days of cell location data was a search for Fourth Amendment purposes. The government, in opposition, argued that Mr. Carpenter had no expectation of privacy in the data shared with third parties, and thus no Fourth Amendment protection in the records that connected him to the robberies.

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Mangino interviewed on WKBN-TV regarding Safe Haven Law

“Even if you don’t know you’re pregnant and you give birth to a child, you have a responsibility for that child’s care and safety,” said Attorney Matt Mangino. “If you don’t do that, ultimately, you’re gonna be held criminally liable for it.”

Mangino was the district attorney for Lawrence County when Pennsylvania adopted so-called “Safe Haven” laws, which allow parents to leave their newborns with hospital workers or police if they can’t care for the baby on their own.

He said parents can drop off children at hospitals or police stations with no questions asked, as long as they’re under 28 days old.

“There’s no effort to try to trace who the parents of the child are,” he said.

Mangino said even if Robinson’s baby died of natural causes, she should have called for help.

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NYC looks to eliminated short jail sentences

New York City wants to reduce its jail population to do that the city has a bold idea that could be modeled nationwide: Do away with all jail sentences of less than a month, according to Governing.

That's the idea behind newSTART, a jail diversion program launched in New York last month. It keeps defendants who have committed low-level misdemeanors -- things like petty larceny or possession of small amounts of illegal drugs -- from entering jail. It would also apply to people convicted of thefts of service, such as jumping a subway turnstile or exiting a taxi without paying.

Instead, in exchange for a guilty plea, misdemeanor defendants can opt for one or more social service programs, including drug treatment, job training and mental health counseling.

 “We are hopeful that the program will stop the return to jail and [create] a virtuous circle,” says Elizabeth Glazer, director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice.

Right now, the program is limited to defendants who have been sentenced to up to 10 days in jail. If it's successful, it will be expanded to those convicted of crimes carrying sentences up to 30 days.

But not all defendants who fit that time frame will be eligible.

The program specifically targets defendants in need of social services and those who have been repeatedly arrested for similar crimes. Almost three-quarters of those facing short-term sentences are unemployed, and more than 40 percent are homeless, according to the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice.

NewSTART is seen as an improvement from previous jail diversion programs. In the past, defendants who opted for jail diversion ran the risk of serving more time than their initial sentence if they failed to complete the diversion program. For example, a person could escape a five-day jail sentence by opting for a diversion program -- but then end up sentenced to 30 days in jail if they failed to complete that diversion program.

That undermined the point of the diversion program, says Jennifer Scaife, executive director of Prevention, Diversion, & Reintegration for the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice. “People were opting for jail instead of services, which didn’t stop the cycle of going to jail repeatedly.”

Under the new plan, the city will recommend that those who fail to complete the program be sentenced to no longer than 15 days in jail. Final discretion for sentencing, however, remains with judges.

Proponents of sentencing reform have pointed to the economic and social disruptions that even a short stay in jail can impose on poor and at-risk populations.

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GateHouse: A slow death for capital punishment

Matthew T. Mangino

GateHouse Media

November 24, 2017

For the second time in recent years, a condemned killer emerged alive from the Ohio death house, reported the Columbus Dispatch.

The scheduled execution of twice-convicted killer Alva Campbell was called off when a medical team with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction could not find two viable sites for a lethal injection. Afterward, Governor John Kasich issued a temporary reprieve and rescheduled Campbell’s execution for 2019.

One of Alabama’s longest-serving death row inmates, 66-year-old Vernon Madison was cleared for execution by the United State Supreme Court. He was convicted in 1985 of killing a Mobile, Alabama police officer, according to the Birmingham News.

In May 2016, Madison was set to die by lethal injection, but hours after the scheduled execution the Supreme Court issued a ruling upholding a lower court’s stay of execution.

This month, the High Court unanimously reversed that decision even though medical staff and prison officials agree that, as of the result of two strokes, Madison cannot remember his crime or why he is on death row.

On the other hand, a Nevada death row inmate whose execution was postponed on Nov. 14 is complaining to a judge that he’s suffering what he calls “an open-ended and unnecessary delay.”

Scott Raymond Dozier is a volunteer. Unlike Campbell and Madison he wants to die. He was returned to suicide watch — Nevada doesn’t want him to kill himself before they get a chance to kill him. Dozier would become the first person executed in Nevada since 2006.

Court documents show that Dozier sent a Nov. 13 letter asking the judge to lift a stay of execution that was issued over concerns about the three-drug lethal injection protocol that prison officials intended to use, reported the Omaha World-Herald.

These three cases — each unique — are playing out in an era of declining interest in the death penalty.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have abolished capital punishment. According to the New York Times, four more states have imposed moratoriums on executions. Not only are executions down, death sentences are down as well. There are 31 states with the death penalty. Only 14 states handed down any death sentences last year, for a total of 50 across the country — less than half the number six years ago. California, which issued more than one-quarter of last year’s death sentences, hasn’t executed anyone since 2006.

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Glossip v. Gross, a case examining lethal injection. Justice Stephen Breyer noted in a dissent that the decline of the death penalty county by county could one day persuade the court to end it everywhere. Breyer’s argument was anchored in the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment banning punishment that is “cruel and unusual.”

There are signs that the end is near for the death penalty.

Before Roper v. Simmons, the 2005 decision that abolished the death penalty for juveniles, carrying out a juvenile execution had become an unusual occurrence — not unlike today’s “adult” death penalty.

Prior to 2005, 21 states still had the death penalty for juvenile offenders, but only one used it with any regularity. Texas executed 13 people who committed murder as juveniles between 1976 and 2005. Virginia and Oklahoma followed with three and two executions, respectively. Those three states had carried out 82 percent of all executions of juvenile offenders in the United States in the prior 25 years, according to the American Bar Association.

A closer look at the current status of capital punishment is revealing. Just 10 states are responsible for about 83 percent of the 1,465 executions since 1976.

Evolving standards of decency in a “mature society” have made the carrying out of executions increasingly rare nationwide. Last year, there were 20 executions carried out in the United States. All 20 were carried out in five of the 31 states with capital punishment.

So far in 2017 there have been 23 executions nationwide, with one additional execution scheduled before the end of the year

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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Ohio Supreme Court justice apologizes for Facebook post boasting of sexual prowess

An Ohio Supreme Court justice who is running as a Democrat for governor has created a firestorm in a Facebook post asserting he was “sooooo disappointed by this national feeding frenzy about sexual indiscretions decades ago,” reported the ABA Journal.

Justice Bill O’Neill wrote the post Friday, the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Dayton Daily News report. “Now that the dogs of war are calling for the head of Senator Al Franken, I believe it is time to speak up on behalf of all heterosexual males,” he said.

He went on to say he has been “sexually intimate with approximately 50 very attractive females” during the last 50 years. One woman was “a gorgeous blonde” with whom he made love in the hayloft of her parents’ barn, and another was a “drop dead gorgeous red head,” he said.

O’Neill confirmed that he wrote the post. It was shortened from a previous version with more identifying information about two women he mentioned.

Then on Saturday, O’Neill offered this apology: “If I offended anyone, particularly the wonderful women in my life, I apologize. But if I have helped elevate the discussion on the serious issues of sexual assault, as opposed to personal indiscretions, to a new level … I make no apologies.”

He later deleted the Saturday apology and apologized a second time on Sunday. He wrote: “There comes a time in everyone’s life when you have to admit you were wrong. It is Sunday morning and I am preparing to go to church and get right with God. But first I have to get right with my family, my friends, and the thousands of strangers who have been hurt by my insensitive remarks. I am sorry. I have damaged the national debate on the very real subject of sexual harassment, abuse and unfortunately rape. It is not a laughing matter. It wasn’t when I prosecuted sexual misconduct for the state of Ohio, and it is not now.”

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Today marks the anniversary of the most infamous crime of the 20th Century

Today marks the 54th anniversary of the greatest murder mystery of the 20th Century, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas.

The nation's 35th president was born in Brookline, Mass., a Boston suburb on May 29, 1917. This year marks the 100th anniversary of his birth.  He was the first president born in the 20th Century.

Today, national park rangers will lay a wreath outside Kennedy's childhood home, and a 21-gun salute will follow. The observances are being held at what is now known as the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site.

The murder of Kennedy’s alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, only hours after Kennedy’s death has left the investigation unresolved. On the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, a clear majority of Americans (61%) believe others besides Oswald were involved in Kennedy’s assassination according to a Gallup Poll at the time.

Earlier this fall, President Trump agreed to the much ballyhooed release of documents regarding Kennedy’s assassination. In the end, according to CNN, what was supposed to be the final release of government secrets about the 1963 killing of President John F. Kennedy wasn't quite the blockbuster splash that the President had been promising.

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