Biden and Garland host summit on violence

 At a summit on public safety on February 3, President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland announced new efforts to fight violent crime at the local level, reported Jurist. This is part of the administration’s comprehensive strategy to prevent and respond to gun crime, announced in May 2021. Hours after Biden told every US Attorney’s Office in the country to direct funds toward fighting violent crime, Garland announced how the Department of Justice (DOJ) would help its local partners.

Garland spoke on the new federal actions to support this local work. Among these efforts is a national ghost gun enforcement initiative to train prosecutors on bringing charges for unregistered firearms that are assembled at home. The DOJ claims they are also “strengthening…firearms trafficking strike forces” to prevent violent criminals from obtaining firearms through illegal gun pipelines.

The DOJ’s mix of local and federal strategy is “designed to address violent crime from all angles:”

It includes targeted enforcement, data-driven approaches, and programming that reach every aspect of the problem, from the earliest prevention strategies and violence interruption approaches to post-conviction reentry services. The strategy recognizes that we are most successful when we work closely with state, local, Tribal, and territorial counterparts—and when we serve as a force multiplier for their frontline efforts, including with critical grant funding.

The Biden Administration and DOJ’s plan to keep direct actions primarily in the hands of local authorities, who allegedly have a better understanding of their communities, but seek to work cooperatively across local and federal lines. The summit was hosted by New York City mayor Eric Adams at a New York Gun Violence Strategic Partnership meeting, seen as a model of working across jurisdictions to remedy violent crime and gun trafficking.

Pandemic and shortage of pathologists causes delays in autopsy reports and in turn homicide trials

Mississippi, like most U.S. states, is experiencing a forensic pathologist shortage, reported the ABA Journal.

Although autopsies are performed in a timely manner out of necessity, reports are taking months—and in some instances years—to finalize. For example, Carolyn Green, the coroner for Mississippi’s Lee County, said in October that one natural death from 2016 still doesn’t have a finalized autopsy report.

The pandemic—which also precipitated a backlog in cases—has only exacerbated the shortage. In the last two years, forensic pathologists across the country also have been burdened by COVID-19 deaths, a spike in homicides and an increase in accidental drug overdoses.

With the time between the autopsy and the finalized report stretching months or even years, both prosecutors and defense attorneys are waiting longer than usual to bring criminal cases to trial, raising due process concerns.

The forensic pathologist shortage has been decades in the making, building since the practice became board-certified in 1959.

Few medical school graduates choose pathology residencies, and even fewer opt to work in forensic pathology, where the pay is lower than in other practice areas.

There are currently 500 board-certified forensic pathologists working full time. These pathologists are tasked with determining the cause of death for anyone who does not die in a hospital or in hospital cases involving homicide, according to Dr. James Gill, chief medical examiner for the state of Connecticut. Gill is also chair of the National Association of Medical Examiners’ board of directors and the group’s immediate-past president.

In a normal year, Gill says, the U.S. has needed more than double the number of forensic pathologists to keep up with the number of cases sent to their offices. Increasing cases in the past two years have only made the problem worse.

“There have been reports of national increases in homicides, motor vehicle deaths and drug intoxication deaths,” Gill says. “For example, the latest numbers from the CDC show a 30% increase in drug intoxication deaths in 2020: There were 93,000 of these deaths. Each of these needed an autopsy.”

In Chicago, the county medical examiner’s office saw almost triple the cases in 2020. The office typically sees about 6,000 to 6,500 cases a year; in 2020, it saw 16,049. According to spokeswoman Natalia Derevyanny, half of those deaths were COVID-19-related. Opioid deaths increased by 40% from the previous year, and homicides increased by 50%.

“Homicides are the most labor-intensive autopsies that we do,” Gill says. “It can take more than a day to do an autopsy on someone who was shot 15 times. All those wounds need to be photographed; all those bullets need to be dissected.”

Forensic pathologists prioritize conducting autopsies so the remains can be transferred to funeral directors. Reports are completed when the pathologists have time, and they are further delayed when forensic pathologists are called to testify in court.

“When you are overwhelmed with autopsies, those can’t wait. You can’t say, ‘I’ll wait until next week.’ Those have to take a priority,” Gill says.

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Mangino a guest on The Daily on the Law and Crime Network

Watch my appearance on The Daily on Law and Crime Network talking about civil suit against Prince Andrew and the coming vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Sex offender registries and juvenile offenders

Elizabeth Letoureau and Luke Malone write at Slate:

It’s hard not to get emotional about child sexual abuse. The thought of anyone hurting a child in this way is so egregious that it’s no wonder society has thrown its support behind a robust criminal justice response, including lengthy prison sentences and the registration and public notification of people convicted of this type of sex crime.

But what happens when the perpetrator of child sexual abuse is also a child?

This isn’t a thought experiment. In the United States, up to 70 percent of sexual offenses against children are perpetrated by other children, typically a slightly older relative or playmate who offends in the context of ignorance, impulsivity, and convenience, not predation. Many states subject these kids to the same criminal consequences as adults who have been convicted of sex crimes; the most impactful of which can be registration and public notification, which typically lasts for decades or life, depending upon the conviction or adjudication offense.

The problem is registration and notification don’t work. All published research evaluating juvenile registration has found that these policies fail to improve community safety in any way. Studies informed by tens of thousands of cases examined whether putting kids on the registry reduces sexual recidivism—it does not; or violent recidivism—it does not; or nonviolent recidivism—it does not; or deters first-time sex crimes—it does not. What registration does is place substantial barriers in front of kids and make it less likely they will succeed. Which is why the American Law Institute is set to suggest a radical change to the nation’s sex crime laws.

In March, the Council of the American Law Institute will meet to vote on revisions to the Model Penal Code, which include recommendations that will make it all but impossible to register children for sexual offenses. This comes after the ALI postponed a January vote to formally accept the revisions, following fierce pushback from national law enforcement advocates, who are largely basing their opposition on the tug of emotion and not reasoned outcomes. We strongly encourage the Council to move forward with the sorely needed proposed changes when it meets again in March.

You may not have heard of the Model Penal Code, but it affects most of our lives. It was first published by the American Law Institute—an independent organization of thousands of lawyers, judges, and scholars—in 1962, with the goal of encouraging U.S. states to standardize their criminal codes. Though not legally binding, the Model Penal Code was hugely influential, with a majority of states adopting it wholly or in part. The current revision, almost a decade in the making, will guide states to update their laws based on knowledge that we’ve acquired over the past 60 years.

The proposed revision recommends limiting the convictions that trigger registration to the most serious sex crimes (some states currently place public urinators and streakers at sports events on the registry); eliminating unrestricted public notification of registrants and returning to the original intent of the law as a tool for law enforcement; and capping the maximum registration period to 15 years, in the absence of new sex crimes. Crucially, the revised code recommends ending the practice of placing children on registries, except in rare cases of youth convicted in adult court of violent sex crimes committed at age 16 or older.

The number of people currently on sex offense registries for crimes they committed as children is murky. Estimates range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. States don’t publicize full data sets on registered people and our repeated requests have resulted in bureaucratic brick walls in almost all instances. We do know that the number is high and that many individuals are under 18 at the time of registration—we’ve placed kids as young as nine on registries in this country.

We also know that registration reliably and predictably harms children. Research by the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse found that, relative to children with sexual offenses who are not registered, kids on the registry were four times more likely to have attempted suicide, five times more likely to have been approached by adults for sex, and twice as likely to have been sexually assaulted. Likewise, a Human Rights Watch report found that more than half of registered children experienced violence or the threat of violence, including having guns held to their heads by strangers, being beaten, shot at, and having Molotov cocktails thrown into their homes. So, a policy intended to prevent child sexual abuse is instead associated with increased risk of sexual and violent victimization of children.

This is not what the principal architect of the sex offense registry had in mind. Patty Wetterling began advocating for nationwide sex offense registration after her 11-year-old son Jacob was abducted by a masked gunman in Minnesota in 1989. Jacob was missing for 27 years, until his remains were discovered buried in a field 30 miles from the family home. In 1994, thanks to Patty’s tireless efforts, President Bill Clinton signed the Jacob Wetterling Act—the first federal law requiring states to register people convicted of serious sex crimes. It was originally designed as a tool to help law enforcement keep track of dangerous adults, but Wetterling watched as the goal posts changed and the Wetterling Act was expanded to include community notification and the registration of children.

“People would call me and they would be very proud that they had kids as young as 10 on their sex offender registry, and I’m like, ‘No, that’s not what it was for,’” she said, adding that we shouldn’t even be referring to children as juvenile sex offenders. “They are kids. The terminology is all wrong because that throws them into the same pot as the man that kidnapped and murdered Jacob. It’s not fair.”

Wetterling has since gotten to know several families whose children have been placed on sex offense registries and witnessed firsthand the unintended consequences. She told us she feels a heavy responsibility for how things have turned out and would welcome an update to the law she helped create.

“You can’t just pass something in 1994 and never revisit it,” she said. “What I’ve watched over the years is that all the elected leaders want to look tough on crime, so they keep making it more stringent instead of evaluating what’s working and what needs to be changed.”

This is precisely what the American Law Institute has done. It reviewed decades of research, interviewed numerous experts, and arrived at thoughtful and empirically-based policy recommendations. But not everyone is happy. The ALI had originally planned to give its final approval to the revisions at a Council meeting in mid-January. However, in the days leading up to the vote it received letters opposing the empirically-based recommended changes from important stakeholders: the U.S. Department of Justice (which oversees states’ and other jurisdictions’ compliance with federal registration requirements), the National Association of State Attorneys General, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The letters mostly take aim at the provisions around sex trafficking and the denial of public access to sex offense registries, with the proposed exclusion of children from registration mentioned only in passing—though the National Association of Attorneys General explicitly cite the recommendation to abolish most juvenile registration as a “grave concern.”

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NYC crime reform: Prosecuting fewer people can reduce crime

 Emily Bazelon writes in The New York Times:

Accumulating research in well-designed studies supports the idea, counterintuitive though it may seem, that prosecuting fewer people can actually reduce crime. Last year, for instance, researchers looked at more than 67,000 misdemeanor cases in Suffolk County, Mass., which includes Boston, and found that people arrested but not charged for offenses like drug possession and shoplifting were less than half as likely as those who were prosecuted to be arrested again two years later for a new crime.

Another study from Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston, found that people charged for the first time with felonies, including drug possession and theft, were almost half as likely to reoffend over 10 years if they were offered an alternative to prison, supervision while they live in their communities, which upon completion led to dismissal of the charges against them. A third study published last month found that diversion for young people for some felonies in San Francisco reduced the probability of a subsequent conviction by a third over two years.

This research measures what’s called specific deterrence — the chance that a person directly affected by a policy will be deterred from future crime. One key motivation for success for offenders is to avoid a major barrier to employment, a criminal record. In the Harris County study, those diverted from prison were almost twice as likely to be employed later as those who were not. People with jobs have a better shot at leading a stable life, and that discourages crime.

None of these studies found an overall increase in crime. This is called general deterrence — the effect a policy has on the crime rate. In another study from 2021, the researchers who conducted the study in Suffolk County looked at the effect on local crime rates of so-called progressive prosecutors, who rely less on jail and prison. In 35 jurisdictions, a progressive district attorney had no significant effect on the rate of serious crimes. A modicum of mercy, it turned out, did not lead to lawlessness.

Since the 18th century, the concept of deterrence has been based on the swiftness, certainty and severity of punishment. The research backs up New York City district attorneys Alvin Bragg who is betting that his predecessors overrated the effectiveness of severe penalties.

On the other hand, swiftness and certainty of punishment, which hinge on the probability that a crime is detected, are important in holding down crime. The evidence shows, not surprisingly, that when more police officers are around, people are more likely to believe they’ll be caught if they commit a crime. But, more important, police presence can deter crime without increasing arrests overall.

Increasing misdemeanor arrests produces little value in public safety while disproportionally affecting Black residents, which helps explain why far more Black than white people report fearing the police — even to the point that some say they’d rather be robbed than questioned by an officer without good reason.

Relying on the police and prosecutors to prevent crime, as many cities have more or less done for decades, is a mistake, argue some public safety experts. City governments “can provide as much, if not more, safety as police, without the unavoidable toxicity that comes with force” when they work with residents and local organizations to strengthen the social fabric of neighborhoods, according to Elizabeth Glazer, a director of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Office of Criminal Justice, and Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at Princeton, in a 2021 report for the Square One Project, a justice reform group.

They call for continuing efforts to expand youth employment programs, mental-health services, the deployment of neighborhood workers trained to stop disputes from escalating into violence, and the redesign of public spaces. Studies have shown that planting grass and trees on vacant lots is associated with significant drops in gun violence. If people feel safe, then they’re more likely to be out and about, serving as eyes on the street. And the stronger the connections are among residents, the more likely they are to look out for one another.

New York had a rough 2020 and 2021, when homicides and shootings rose, as they did across the country in the pandemic. The fatal shootings so far this year, including the killing of two police officers who were responding to a 911 call in Harlem and a teenager working at Burger King, have prompted the new mayor, Eric Adams, to pick up the old law-and-order tools — a police crackdown and a call for prosecuting 16- and 17-year-olds caught with illegal guns as adults if they don’t disclose where they got the weapon. (The New York Legislature raised the age of criminal responsibility to 18 in 2017.)

But Mayor Adams is ignoring the lessons of his own city. The Brooklyn district attorney’s office under Eric Gonzalez, another progressive, runs a voluntary diversion program for young people caught with guns that has lowered the rate of rearrest and conviction for those in the program compared to their peers who went to prison. Participants plead guilty and then, instead of being locked up, get the help of a social worker to find a job or go to school.

Around the city, courts in partnership with nonprofit organizations have developed other successful diversion programs. Almost 25,000 people a year participate in programs through the Center for Court Innovation that offer mental-health and substance-abuse counseling and “restorative-justice circles” where offenders must reckon with the impact of their wrongdoing and how to rectify it. Officials from other cities routinely visit New York to see how its programs operate, according to Chidinma Ume and Brett Taylor of the Center for Court Innovation.

President Biden is coming to the city this week to meet with Mayor Adams about gun violence — a sign the White House wants to align with the mayor. It’s a good sign that Mr. Bragg and Mr. Gonzalez are scheduled to be part of the event as well, according to their offices, and Mr. Biden should showcase the record and the research that support their approach. Both point the way to making the city safer and more vital.

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Mangino a guest on Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

Listen to my interview with Nancy Grace on Crime Stories with Nancy Grace about Barry Morphew  charged with killing his wife Suzanne Morphew.

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California dismantling America's largest death row

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who three years ago placed a moratorium on executions, now is moving to dismantle the United States’ largest death row by moving all condemned inmates to other prisons within two years, reported The Associated Press.

The goal is to turn the section at San Quentin State Prison into a “positive, healing environment.” Newsom said Monday it’s an outgrowth of his opposition to what he believes is a deeply flawed system, one that “gets my blood boiling.”

“The prospect of your ending up on death row has more to do with your wealth and race than it does your guilt or innocence,” he said. “We talk about justice, we preach justice, but as a nation, we don’t practice it on death row.”

California, which last carried out an execution in 2006, is one of 28 states that maintain death rows, along with the U.S. government, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. While other states like Illinois have abolished executions, California is merging its condemned inmates into the general prison population with no expectation that any will face execution anytime in the near future.

“We are starting the process of closing death row to repurpose and transform the current housing units into something innovative and anchored in rehabilitation,” California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Vicky Waters told The Associated Press.

Oregon similarly transferred its much smaller condemned population to other inmate housing two years ago.

Newsom, a Democrat, imposed a moratorium on executions in 2019 and shut down the state’s execution chamber at San Quentin, north of San Francisco. Now his administration is turning on its head a 2016 voter-approved initiative intended to expedite executions by capitalizing on one provision that allowed inmates to be moved off death row.

“The underlying motive of the administration is to mainstream as many of these condemned murderers as possible,” said Michael Rushford, president of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which backed the initiative. “Our objective was to speed up the process.”

He added he doesn’t think victims are happy with the administration’s decision.

“They’re moving condemned murderers into facilities that are going to make their lives better and offer them more amenities, while the victims still mourn the death of their family member,” Rushford said.

Newsom said voters approved the move, though he doubts many understood the provision.

“When they affirmed the death penalty, they also affirmed a responsibility ... to actually move that population on death row out and to get them working,” Newsom said.

Newsom is “pouring more salt on the wounds of the victims,” countered Crime Victims United of California president Nina Salarno. “He’s usurping the law.’”

Actor Mike Farrell, president of the group Death Penalty Focus, which opposes the death penalty, said he is thrilled with the idea but concerned by transfers he said could turn condemned inmates into “very ripe targets” for other prisoners.

“We’re talking about people who have been in a specific kind of isolation for decades,” living with the prospect of execution, Farrell said. “To simply move them without very serious consideration of their needs, their personal issues, their psychological state and their safety would be a hideous mistake.”

Corrections officials began a voluntary two-year pilot program in January 2020 that as of Friday had moved 116 of the state’s 673 condemned male inmates to one of seven other prisons that have maximum security facilities and are surrounded by lethal electrified fences.

They intend to submit permanent proposed regulations within weeks that would make the transfers mandatory and “allow for the repurposing of all death row housing units,” Waters said.

The ballot measure approved six years ago also required condemned inmates to participate in prison jobs, with 70% of the money going for restitution to their victims, and corrections officials said that’s their goal with the transfers. By the end of last year, more than $49,000 in restitution had been collected under the pilot program.

Newsom’s proposed budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 seeks $1.5 million to find new uses for the vacant condemned housing.

It notes that death row and its supporting activities are in the same area as facilities used for rehabilitation programs for medium-security San Quentin inmates. The money would be used to hire a consultant to “develop options for (the) space focused on creating a positive, healing environment to provide increased rehabilitative, educational and health care opportunities.”

San Quentin’s never-used $853,000 execution chamber is in a separate area of the prison, and there are no plans to “repurpose” that area, Waters said.

California voters supported the death penalty in 2012 and 2016. An advisory panel to Newsom and lawmakers, the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code, in November became the latest to recommend repealing the death penalty, calling it “beyond repair.”

Under the state’s transfer program, condemned inmates moved to other prisons can be housed in solitary or disciplinary confinement if officials decide they cannot be safely housed with others, although they are supposed to be interspersed with other inmates. Inmates on death row are housed one to a cell, but the transferred inmates can be housed with others if it’s deemed safe.

“There have been no safety concerns, and no major disciplinary issues have occurred,” Waters said.

When it comes to jobs and other rehabilitation activities, condemned inmates outside death row are treated similarly to inmates serving sentences of life without parole. That includes a variety of jobs such as maintenance and administrative duties, according to prison officials.

The condemned inmates are counted more often and are constantly supervised during activities, officials said.

Before they are moved, they are “carefully screened to determine whether they can safely participate in the program,” according to the department. That includes things like each inmate’s security level, medical, psychiatric and other needs, their behavior, safety concerns and notoriety.

Female condemned inmates are housed at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. They can transfer to less restrictive housing within the same prison, and eight of the 21 have done so.

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