Search results matching tag 'state prison'

Re: Sierra Conservation Center

Crystalldarlin — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:35:37 GMT

-YES OF COURSE THEY ARE --THEY ARE "ALLWAYS THE ONES TO GO,,,,

Please help I don't understand how jail/prison works, I am so confused and heartbroken

daniellemarie — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:10:55 GMT

My boyfriend and I were arrested on Friday, and I was released several hours later but my boyfriend had many, many charges and I was expecting the worst. He is currently at Robert Presley in Riverside and he had his first court date today. He took the deal they offerred him and he will be doing 3 years with 80% time. I thought it was going to be more like 7 yeas, so I am extemely relieved. He told me they will be transferring him to Delano, but I see now that there are two prisons in Delano. Is he going to be at North Kern?? He called me as soon as he got back to county jail, but he didn't have very many details. He has never been to state prison, so he does not know how it works either... If anyone knows anything that would help me out, I would really appreciate it. Also, I was looking at the website for the state prison and it says there are approved vendors, can I send him as many packages as I want or is there a limit as to how many packages he can get?? What am I allowed to mail him? Please help, thank you. -Danielle Marie

LEGISLATION: EARLY RELEASE

FreeJP — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:44:31 GMT

From: Taxpayers for Improving Public Safety (TiPS)
<matt@thecapitalalliance.com>
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2008 7:04:21 AM
Subject: TiPS Periodic Update 2-15-08

You are receiving this update as a registered user of the Taxpayers for Improving Public Safety (TiPS) website.

If you are receiving this update as a forward from someone else, then take a moment to register (for FREE), to receive these directly, by going to www.forpublicsafety.com.

Subscribed (paid) users have full access to the entire site, and help to build our political power through their memberships which begin at just $5 per month. Be a part of the fastest growing union in California, join TiPS today.

LEGISLATION: EARLY RELEASE

Assemblyman Sandré Swanson (D-Oakland), has introduced AB 1965, a bill to require the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to establish a program to allow prisoners who are at least 55 years of age, are incarcerated for a nonviolent offense, have a diagnosed chronic illness or disease that requires ongoing medical attention, have medical coverage, and meet other specified criteria to be released on early parole.

TiPS' whitepaper on how to fix California's prison crisis, which was distributed prior to last year's Lobby Day, emphasized the need to release the nearly 4,500 terminal and chronically ill inmates.

These inmates, most of them unable to walk on their own and are confined to their beds, pose no credible threat to public safety and do not belong in prison.

We are pleased by Assemblyman Swanson's response to this irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars and wanted to let our members know of this progress.

Mailing a Letter Will Cost a Penny More Starting in May

FreeJP — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:01:40 GMT

Mailing a Letter Will Cost a Penny More Starting in May

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Mailing a letter will soon cost a penny more.   The cost of a first-class stamp will rise to 42 cents starting May 12, the U.S. Postal Service said Monday.   The price of the Forever stamp will go up at the same time, meaning those stamps can still be purchased for 41 cents but will remain good for first-class postage after the rate increase takes effect.

The post office has sold 5 billion Forever stamps since they were introduced last April and plans to have an additional 5 billion in stock to meet the expected demand before the May price change, the agency said.

The charge for other services, such as advertising mail, periodicals, packages special services will also change. Changes in the price for Priority Mail and Express Mail will be announced later, the agency said.

Postage rates last went up in May, 2007, with a first-class stamp jumping 2 cents to the current 41-cent rate.   In the past raising postage rates was a long, complex process involving hearings before the independent Postal Regulatory Commission, a process that could take nearly a year.  However, under the new law regulating the post office that took effect in late 2006, the agency is allowed to increase rates with 45-days notice as long as changes are within the rate of inflation for the previous 12 months.

The Postal Regulatory Commission calculated that rate at 2.9 percent through January, limiting the first-class rate to an increase of just over a penny.   Under the new law, postal prices will be adjusted annually each May, the Postal Service said. Officials said they plan to give 90 days notice of future changes, twice what is required by law.

While the charge for the first ounce of a first-class letter rises to 42 cents, the price of each added ounce will remain 17 cents, so a two-ounce letter will go up a penny to 59 cents.   The cost to mail a post card will also go up a penny, to 27 cents

Other increases set for May 12:   -- Large envelope, 2 ounces, $1, up 3 cents.   -- Money Orders up to $500, $1.05, unchanged.   -- Certified mail, $2.70, up 5 cents.   -- First-class international letter to Canada or Mexico, 72 cents, up 3 cents.   -- First-class international letter to other countries, 94 cents, up 4 cents.

Redemption and rehabilitation

FreeJP — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:34:31 GMT

Redemption and rehabilitation
San Francisco Chronicle: Editorial
January 18, 2008

Three years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penalty
for minors as cruel and unusual punishment, citing medical and
social-science evidence that teens lack the maturity to be held
accountable to the same degree as adults.

"From a moral standpoint, it would be misguided to equate the failings
of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists
that a minor's character deficiencies will be reformed," Justice
Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the 5-4 opinion for the court. The justices
acknowledged that their decision was influenced, in part, by the desire
to end the United States' international isolation on the issue.

All of those arguments also could be applied to laws that put juveniles
in prison without the possibility of parole, which still occurs in this
country. In fact, 99.5 percent of all juveniles who are sentenced
without a chance of release are in the United States.

It was instructive that Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, was initially
frustrated in his efforts to get a straight answer about how many
California inmates serving life without parole were convicted before
age 18. The prison system did not seem to know. Or care. These inmates
were written off as irredeemable without regard to their ages at the
time of their crimes.

"Basically, what we're saying is we're giving up on them ... they're
never going to see daylight again because they're so dangerous," Yee
said.

In some cases, a lifetime of incarceration may be justified. But Yee, a
child psychologist, said there is "evidence both neurological and
psychological" that young people who commit crimes are not necessarily
beyond redemption.

Finally, Yee received a number: 227 inmates. Of those, 59 percent had
no prior criminal record; 26 percent were participants in a robbery or
other felony that resulted in a homicide - but someone else was the
actual shooter.

Yee's Senate Bill 999 would eliminate life sentences without parole for
juveniles who are tried as adults. Instead, the maximum penalty would
be 25 years to life.

As Yee emphasized, "This bill does not give you a get-out-of-jail
card." As we have noted in our examination of other cases, California's
parole board is famously - and properly - judicious in deciding which
inmates are fit for release. In most years, less than 5 percent of
"lifers" who appear before the board are cleared for release.

Beyond that, a law passed by voters in 1988 gives the governor the
ability to veto the parole of anyone convicted of murder. As of
December, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had allowed the release of just
170 of the 771 parole-board recommendations that reached his desk.
Former Gov. Gray Davis allowed just six such releases during his tenure.

So there are plenty of safeguards against the release of unrepentant,
dangerous predators. This measure restores an element of judgment into
the equation. This bill also, to invoke the words of Justice Kennedy,
reflects the morality and wisdom of a society that recognizes that even
a terrible act at age 15, 16, 17 does not call for the dismissal of a
life. The Department of Corrections recently added "rehabilitation" to
its name. This is one way to advance that goal.

It won't be easy. Yee's bill squeaked through the Senate Public Safety
Committee on a 3-2 vote last year. Any loosening of sentencing laws
requires a two-thirds vote from each house. SB999 is expected to reach
the Senate floor later this month.

"It's a tremendous hurdle," Yee said, acknowledging the opposition of
law enforcement and victims'-rights groups.

However, it's the right thing to do for a society that respects medical
science and promotes the value of redemption and rehabilitation.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/18/EDROUGTKF.DTL

“Accelerated Release: A Literature Review” by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency is our site of the day

FreeJP — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:27:32 GMT

“Accelerated Release: A Literature Review” by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency is our site of the day
The National Council on Crime and Delinquency has released a report earlier this month, “Accelerated Release: A Literature Review” that couldn't be more timely, given the proposal by Governor Schwarzenegger to reduce California’s prison population to help deal with our state’s budget deficit crisis and also as an attempt to stave off Federal Court mandated releases and caps.
This 9 page study looked at peer reviewed articles, dissertations, state reports, policy reports, and national data on accelerated prisoner release programs and their impacts on public safety from 1981 to 2004. Included in this review is a 1970 experimental study in California of inmates released 6 months before their expected release date.
The findings in the 1970 California study: “A reduction of six months in prison terms has no statistically significant effect upon recidivism on parole within the first two years following release.” The study group members did not differ from those in the comparison in their likelihood of returning to prison, whether by a court conviction, for a new felony, or as a result of a parole violation short of a new conviction.”
This is in accord with findings from other states and Canada reported in this report.
There also is an important listing of what has worked in other accelerated releases that California policy makers should pay close attention to:
• Selecting nonviolent versus violent offenders for accelerated release.
• Using accelerated release as an incentive for nonviolent behavior in prison.
• Allocating probation officers to maintain contact with accelerated release groups, thereby promoting accountability.
• Linking accelerated release groups to community based services and programs concerned with housing, employment, substance abuse treatment, and mental health care.
Posted on January 14, 2008

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2008/01/accelerated_rel.html

Lethal injection is the wrong debate

FreeJP — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:14:16 GMT

Lethal injection is the wrong debate
Ray Krone
Monday, January 14, 2008

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in Baze vs. Rees,
which challenges the constitutionality of execution by lethal injection.
While the court wrestles with technical issues concerning the Eighth
Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, there's a much
larger reason our country is rethinking the death penalty: the possibility
of sentencing to death and executing an innocent human being.
Unlike almost any American, I speak from experience.
I spent more than 10 years in Arizona prisons for a crime I didn't commit,
including nearly three years on Death Row. In 1992, I was sentenced to death
for killing a bartender, even though I was at home, asleep, when the murder
was committed.
In 2002, through the tireless work of my attorneys, I was the 100th person
to be exonerated and released from death row since the death penalty was
reinstated in the United States. Despite DNA evidence that exonerated me, it
took years before the prosecution grudgingly acknowledged it had no case
against me. If it had been up to the state of Arizona, I'd be dead today.
Who knows how many more innocent people sit on death row today, guilty of
nothing more than the fact that they couldn't afford a lawyer? And can
anyone honestly say with certainty that of the nearly 1,100 people who have
been executed in the past 30 years, not a single one wasn't innocent?
As my story illustrates, even with DNA testing there will always be a chance
an innocent person will be sentenced to death and executed.
Recently, the New Jersey Legislature and governor showed courage and common
sense when they abolished that state's death penalty. One of the primary
reasons cited was the possibility of executing an innocent person.
New Jersey Sen. Raymond Lesniak, one of the bill's sponsors, recalled the
case of Byron Halsey, who spent 22 years in prison for the murder and rape
of two children before being released after DNA testing linked another man
to the crime.
"There are hundreds of Byron Halseys throughout the United States who were
wrongly convicted of murder," Lesniak said. "No doubt, some were sentenced
to death and executed."
Meanwhile, in December, at the same time the bill to abolish the death
penalty was making its way through the New Jersey legislature, three more
former death row prisoners were released. Michael McCormick (Tennessee),
Jonathon Hoffman (North Carolina) and Kenneth Richey (Ohio) had spent a
combined total of more than 40 years on death row before being freed.
Sen. Lesniak summed the problem up best when he said, "It's impossible for
human beings to devise a system free of the risk of human error."
The last time I checked, our criminal justice system was devised and run by
human beings.
And instead of equal justice under the law, in far too many capital cases we
see incompetent legal representation, racial discrimination and
prosecutorial misconduct. These blemishes to our justice system are
problematic, to say the least. But when a human life is at stake, such
potentially fatal flaws are an embarrassment to a nation that considers
itself the standard bearer for human rights.
So while the U.S. Supreme Court contemplates whether or not killing a person
with a particular combination of chemicals is cruel and unusual punishment,
all of us should recognize a much larger, more obvious fact: If sentencing
to death and possibly executing an innocent person isn't cruel and unusual
punishment, nothing is.
Quite literally, I'm living proof of that.

Resources
The Death Penalty
Information Center links.sfgate.com/ZCBA
Witness to Innocence links.sfgate.com/ZCBB
Ray Krone is director of communications for Witness to Innocence, an
organization of exonerated former death row prisoners and their family
members. He lives in York, Pa.

This article appeared on page B - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle

States Hesitate to Lead Change on Executions

FreeJP — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 18:48:56 GMT

States Hesitate to Lead Change on Executions
NEW YORK TIMES By ADAM LIPTAK

When a state panel recommended last April that Tennessee abandon the
three chemicals used in executions across the nation in favor of the
single drug usually used in animal euthanasia, the state¹s corrections
commissioner said no.

Though the move would have simplified executions and eliminated the
possibility of excruciating pain, the commissioner, George Little, said
Tennessee should not be ³out at the forefront² of a decision with
³political ramifications,² according to recently disclosed evidence in
a death row inmate¹s lawsuit.

Mr. Little¹s decision helps illuminate one of the questions lurking
behind the year¹s most eagerly anticipated death penalty case: Why have
states so doggedly and uniformly clung to an execution method with the
potential to inflict intense pain when a simpler one is readily
available?

When the Supreme Court hears arguments on Monday in Baze v. Rees, the
Kentucky case that has led to a de facto national moratorium on
executions, it will mostly be concerned with the question of what
standard courts must use to assess the constitutionality of execution
methods under the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual
punishment.

But beyond that is the more practical question of why all 36 states
that use lethal injections to execute condemned inmates are wedded to a
cumbersome combination of three chemicals.

The answer, experts say, seems to be that no state wants to make the
first move. Having proceeded in lock step to adopt the current method,
which was chosen in part because it differed from the one used on
animals and masked the involuntary movements associated with death,
state governments would prefer that someone else, possibly the courts,
change the formula first.

³The departments of correction are dug in,² said Deborah W. Denno, an
authority on methods of execution at the Fordham University Law School.
³There¹s safety in numbers. But if one state breaks from that, the
safety in numbers starts to crumble.²

³If you change,² Professor Denno continued, ³you¹re admitting there was
something wrong with the prior method. All those people you were
executing, you could have been doing it in a better, more humane way.²

In the Baze case, lawyers for John D. Rees, the Kentucky corrections
commissioner, said the three-chemical combination was safe and painless
and produced a dignified death. Using only a single barbiturate, they
said, was untested, could result in distressing and disruptive muscle
contractions, and might take a long time. The method is the one most
commonly used for pets, sometimes in combination with a sedative.

Lawyers for the Kentucky inmates, Ralph Baze and Thomas C. Bowling,
said a barbiturate would bring on fatal cardiac arrest ³within a matter
of minutes.² They conceded that muscle contractions were possible, but
said that inmates were strapped down and that witnesses could be told
that the movements did not indicate pain. And they said the
three-chemical combination, which is not used in veterinary euthanasia,
was itself once untested.

Mr. Baze is on death row for killing a sheriff and a deputy sheriff who
were trying to serve him with a warrant. Mr. Bowling is there for
killing a couple whose car he had damaged in a parking lot.

Lethal injection protocols nationwide were copied from one developed in
Oklahoma in 1977 ‹ the year after the Supreme Court reinstituted the
death penalty ‹ based on advice from a medical school professor to a
state senator. They call for a short-acting barbiturate to render the
inmate unconscious, followed by a paralytic and then a chemical to stop
the heart.

If the first chemical works, there is no dispute that the process is
quick and painless. If it does not, there is no dispute that the inmate
will suffer intense and terrifying pain. But because the inmate is
paralyzed, it may not be possible to tell whether the first drug worked.

When Texas was considering whether to adopt the Oklahoma protocol in
the late 1970s, the medical director of Texas¹ corrections department,
Dr. Ralph Gray, consulted a veterinarian in Huntsville, Tex., Dr. Gerry
Etheredge.

³I told him,² Dr. Etheredge recalled Wednesday, ³that in veterinary
medicine when we euthanized an animal most of us used pentobarbital, a
general anesthetic, which is very potent and long-lasting, and we
overdosed it and everything went smoothly. It was very safe, very
effective and very cheap.²

Dr. Gray, who has since died, had only one objection, Dr. Etheredge
recalled. ³He said it was a great idea except that people would think
we are treating people the same way that we¹re treating animals. He was
afraid of a hue and cry.²

Texas adopted Oklahoma¹s three-chemical combination and started using
it to execute inmates in 1982.

These days, opponents of that protocol make the opposite argument of
the one Dr. Gray feared. They say that death row inmates deserve to be
treated at least as well as animals.

Two other states have considered revising the three-chemical
combination.

In March, a Florida commission appointed to study lethal injections
endorsed the three-chemical combination. But it indicated uneasiness
about the second drug in the combination, pancuronium bromide, a
paralytic that, used alone, would leave the inmate conscious but
suffocating and unable to cry out.

The Florida commission urged the state to explore ³more recently
developed chemicals² to substitute for the paralytic drug that might
³make the lethal injection execution procedure less problematic.²

In May, a California commission issued a report saying it had
considered recommending a single drug, which has ³the advantages of
being simpler to administer and virtually eliminates the potential for
pain.² But the commission rejected it because a single-chemical
protocol s untested, may result in involuntary muscle movements and
might take a long time.

The Tennessee committee saw it differently.

³The primary advantage of the one-drug protocol,² according to its
draft report in April, ³is that it is much simpler to administer.² It
also ³has the advantage of eliminating both of the drugs which, if
injected into a conscious person, would cause pain,² the report added.
³All of the medical experts consulted by the state were very supportive
of the one-drug protocol,² it said.

Indeed, Judge Aleta A. Trauger of Federal District Court in Nashville
said in a decision in September, ³No medical testimony supports the
proposition that the one-drug protocol causes any suffering or that it
prolongs the pronouncement of death.²

In that decision, Judge Trauger barred the execution of Edward J.
Harbison, who is on death row for beating a woman to death in a
burglary in 1983. Judge Trauger found that the corrections commissioner
was ³deliberately indifferent to the plaintiff¹s excessive risk of
pain² because he rejected the use of a single drug.

That decision is on appeal.

Judge Trauger appeared unimpressed with the testimony of Mr. Little,
the corrections commissioner. She said Mr. Little had ³at first denied
that the protocol committee recommended to him the one-drug protocol²
but ultimately admitted that it had.

At a hearing in September, Judge Trauger questioned Mr. Little directly
about his statement that political considerations had played a role in
his decision to retain the three-chemical combination.

³Did you mean that the governor might look soft on execution or soft on
convicted murderers if he went to a one-drug-protocol?² Judge Trauger
asked. ³He might be pandering to the anti-death-penalty people?²

Mr. Little said no, but he did not elaborate. He did say, according to
the notes of Steve Elkins, the governor¹s lawyer, that the one-chemical
protocol could be a fallback if the courts struck down the
three-chemical combination. ³Vice versa, no fallback,² the notes said.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Little said he had no comment beyond what he had
said in court. A spokeswoman for the attorney general declined to
comment, citing the pending litigation.

Some experts on executions say the debate over which chemicals to use
is the wrong one. States have adopted a process that appears humane
because it looks like medical treatment, Professor Denno said. But
looks can be deceiving, she added.

³To me,² Professor Denno said, ³the firing squad is the most humane and
perceived to be the most brutal.²

December 26, 2007
U.S. Disparity in Executions Grows as Texas Bucks Trend
NEW YORK TIMES By ADAM LIPTAK
This year¹s death penalty bombshells ‹ a de facto national moratorium, a
state abolition and the smallest number of executions in more than a decade
‹ have masked what may be the most significant and lasting development. For
the first time in the modern history of the death penalty, more than 60
percent of all American executions took place in Texas
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/national/usstatesterritoriesandpossessio
ns/texas/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> .
Over the past three decades, the proportion of executions nationwide
performed in Texas has held relatively steady, averaging 37 percent. Only
once before, in 1986, has the state accounted for even a slight majority of
the executions, and that was in a year with 18 executions nationwide.
But enthusiasm for executions outside of Texas has dropped sharply. Of the
42 executions in the last year, 26 were in Texas. The remaining 16 were
spread across nine other states, none of which executed more than three
people. Many legal experts say the trend will probably continue.
Indeed, said David R. Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/univers
ity_of_houston/index.html?inline=nyt-org> who has represented death-row
inmates, the day is not far off when essentially all executions in the
United States will take place in Texas.
³The reason that Texas will end up monopolizing executions,² he said, ³is
because every other state will eliminate it de jure, as New Jersey did, or
de facto, as other states have.²
Charles A. Rosenthal Jr., the district attorney of Harris County, Tex.,
which includes Houston and has accounted for 100 executions since 1976, said
the Texas capital justice system was working properly. The pace of
executions in Texas, he said, ³has to do with how many people are in the
pipeline when certain rulings come down.²
The rate at which Texas sentences people to death is not especially high
given its murder rate. But once a death sentence is imposed there, said
Richard C. Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information
Center, prosecutors, state and federal courts, the pardon board and the
governor are united in moving the process along. ³There¹s almost an
aggressiveness about carrying out executions,² said Mr. Dieter, whose
organization opposes capital punishment.
Outside of Texas, even supporters of the death penalty say they detect a
change in public attitudes about executions in light of the time and expense
of capital litigation, the possibility of wrongful convictions and the
remote chance that someone sent to death row will actually be executed.
³Any sane prosecutor who is involved in capital litigation will really be
ambivalent about it,² said Joshua Marquis, the district attorney in Clatsop
County, Ore., and a vice president of the National District Attorneys
Association. He said the families of murder victims suffered needless
anguish during what could be decades of litigation and multiple retrials.
³We¹re seeing fewer executions,² Mr. Marquis added. ³We¹re seeing fewer
people sentenced to death. People really do question capital punishment. The
whole idea of exoneration has really penetrated popular culture.²
As a consequence, Mr. Dieter said, ³we¹re simply not regularly using the
death penalty as a country.²
Over the last three years, the number of executions in Texas has been
relatively constant, averaging 23 per year, but the state¹s share of the
number of total executions nationwide has steadily increased as the national
totals have dropped, from 32 percent in 2005 to 45 percent in 2006 to 62
percent in 2007.
The death penalty developments that have dominated the news in recent months
are unlikely to have anything like the enduring consequences of Texas¹
vigorous commitment to capital punishment.
A Supreme Court
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/supreme
_court/index.html?inline=nyt-org> case concerns how to assess the
constitutionality of lethal injection protocols. While it is possible that
states may have to revise the ways they execute people, executions will
almost certainly resume soon after the court¹s decision, which is expected
by June.
Similarly, New Jersey¹s abolition of the death penalty last week and Gov.
Jon Corzine
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/jon_s_corzine/
index.html?inline=nyt-per> ¹s decision to empty death row of its eight
prisoners is almost entirely symbolic. New Jersey has not executed anyone
since 1963.
And while the total number of executions in 2007 was low, it would have been
similar to those in recent years but for the moratorium, if extrapolated to
a full year.
There do seem to be slight stirrings suggesting that other states might
follow New Jersey. Two state legislative bodies ‹ the House in New Mexico
and the Senate in Montana ‹ passed bills to abolish capital punishment, and
in Nebraska, the unicameral legislature came within one vote of doing so.
Texas has followed the rest of the country in one respect: the number of
death sentences there has dropped sharply.
In the 10 years ending in 2004, Texas condemned an average of 34 prisoners
each year ‹ about 15 percent of the national total. In the last three years,
as the number of death sentences nationwide dropped significantly, from
almost 300 in 1998 to about 110 in 2007, the number in Texas has dropped
along with it, to 13 ‹ or 12 percent.
Indeed, according to a 2004 study by three professors of law and statistics
at Cornell published in The Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, Texas
prosecutors and juries were no more apt to seek and impose death sentences
than those in the rest of the country.
³Texas¹ reputation as a death-prone state should rest on its many murders
and on its willingness to execute death-sentenced inmates,² the authors of
the study, Theodore Eisenberg, John H. Blume and Martin T. Wells, wrote. ³It
should not rest on the false belief that Texas has a high rate of sentencing
convicted murderers to death.²
There is reason to think that the number of death sentences in the state
will fall farther, given the introduction of life without the possibility of
parole as a sentencing option in capital cases in Texas in 2005. While a
substantial majority of the public supports the death penalty, that support
drops significantly when life without parole is included as an alternative.
Once an inmate is sent to death row, however, distinctive features of the
Texas justice system kick in.
³Execution dates here, uniquely, are set by individual district attorneys,²
Professor Dow said. ³In no other state would the fact that a district
attorney strongly supports the death penalty immediately translate into more
executions.²
Texas courts, moreover, speed the process along, said Jordan M. Steiker, a
law professor at the University of Texas
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/univers
ity_of_texas/index.html?inline=nyt-org> who has represented death-row
inmates.
³It¹s not coincidental that the debate over lethal injections had traction
in other jurisdictions but not in Texas,² Professor Steiker said. ³The
courts in Texas have generally not been very solicitous of constitutional
claims.²
Indeed, the Supreme Court has repeatedly rebuked the state and the federal
courts that hear appeals in Texas capital cases, often in exasperated
language suggesting that those courts are actively evading Supreme Court
rulings.
The last execution before the Supreme Court imposed a de facto moratorium
happened in Texas, and in emblematic fashion. The presiding judge on the
state¹s highest court for criminal matters, Judge Sharon Keller, closed the
courthouse at its regular time of 5 p.m. and turned back an attempt to file
appeal papers a few minutes later, according to a complaint in a
wrongful-death suit filed in federal court last month.
The inmate, Michael Richard, was executed that evening.
Judge Keller, in a motion to dismiss the case filed this month, acknowledged
that she alone had the authority to keep the court¹s clerk¹s office open but
said that Mr. Richard¹s lawyers could have tried to file their papers
directly with another judge on the court.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/opinion/27thu1.html
New York Times Editorial,
December 27, 2007
State Without Pity

It is a shameful distinction, but Texas is the undisputed capital of
capital punishment. At a time when the
rest of the country is having serious doubts about the death penalty, more
than 60 percent of all American
executions this year took place in Texas. That gaping disparity provides
further evidence that Texas's
governor, Legislature, courts and voters should reassess their addiction to
executions.

As Adam Liptak reported in The Times on Wednesday, in the last three years,
Texas's share of the
Nation's executions has gone from 32 percent to 62 percent. This year, Texas
executed 26 people. No other
state executed more than three.

It is not that Texas sentences people to death at a much higher rate than
other states. Rather, Texas has
proved to be much more willing than others to carry out the sentences it has
imposed.

The participants in Texas's death penalty process, including the governor
and the pardon board, are more
enthusiastic about moving things along than they are in many states. Texas's
system also contains some
special features, like the power of district attorneys to set execution
dates. Prosecutors are likely to be more
eager than judges to see an execution carried out.

While Texas has been forging ahead with capital punishment, many other
states have been moving away
from it. New Jersey abolished the death penalty this month, and other states
have been considering doing
the same thing. Illinois made headlines a few years ago when its governor,
troubled about the number of
innocent people who had been sent to death row, put in place a moratorium on
executions.

These states have had good reasons for their doubts. The traditional
objections to the death penalty
remain as true as ever. It is barbaric -- governments should simply not be
in the business of putting people to
death. It is imposed in racially discriminatory ways. And it is too subject
to error, which cannot be corrected
after an execution has taken place.

In recent years, two other developments have undercut the public's faith
in capital punishment.

There has been a tidal wave of DNA exonerations, in which it has been
scientifically proved that the wrong
people had been sentenced to death. There is also increasing awareness that
even methods of execution
considered relatively humane impose considerable suffering on the condemned.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments next month in a case about whether
the pain caused by lethal
injection is so great that it violates the Eighth Amendment injunction
against cruel and unusual punishment.
Those who study the death penalty say that if current trends continue,
eventually almost all of the nation's
executions will occur in Texas. That is not a record any state should want.
Some states, such as Illinois
and New Jersey, have already had wide-ranging discussions about what role
they want the death penalty to
play in their criminal justice system. Texas is long overdue for such a
debate.

If it is unwilling to abolish the death penalty, which all states should
do, Texas should at least take a hard
look at a system that still produces so many executions and is so wildly out
of step with the rest of
the country.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/opinion/27thu1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/opinion/27thu1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin>

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-beiser1jan01,0,3022746.story?coll=
la-opinion-rightrail
From the Los Angeles Times
Falling out of love with death
Though a majority of Americans back capital punishment, surveys find growing
unease over it.
By Vince Beiser

January 1, 2008

The media are abuzz over the 40th anniversary of 1968, the year that saw so
much change in this country. But one of the most extraordinary of those
changes has been almost completely forgotten: 1968 was the first year in the
history of the United States that not a single prisoner was executed. Today,
we're getting closer than we have in decades to matching that milestone.

Forty years ago, the death penalty was dying off. With the injustices
highlighted by the civil rights movement prominent in the public
consciousness, polls found that more Americans opposed capital punishment
than supported it. Several states had banned the practice starting in the
early 1960s, and prominent leaders, from then-presidential candidate Robert
Kennedy to local politicians, were denouncing it. Even the U.S. attorney
general at that time, the nation's top law enforcement official, called for
its abolition. In a 1968 ruling, a Supreme Court justice dismissed death
penalty advocates as a "distinct and dwindling minority." That year, the
number of annual executions, which had been slipping into the single digits,
hit zero. Finally, in 1972, the Supreme Court effectively banned executions.

But just a few years later, the nation began an astonishing about-face. The
Supreme Court reopened the door to capital punishment in 1976, launching an
era in which the U.S. didn't just bring back the death penalty, it
feverishly embraced it. By the 1990s, a record majority of Americans favored
capital punishment. Opposing it had become political suicide for any major
candidate. Courts were handing down hundreds of death sentences every year,
and dozens of new crimes were being made capital offenses in state after
state. By the start of the new millennium, thousands of men and women were
languishing on death row, and the number of executions shot up to nearly 100
a year.

What happened? By the mid-1970s, much of middle America was deeply uneasy
about how the very fabric of society seemed to be unraveling. Drug use and
crime were rising; minorities, women and homosexuals were demanding more
power and respect. And the mighty United States was humiliated, first in
Vietnam and later by Iranian hostage-takers.

In this milieu, politicians increasingly learned that crime could pay -- for
them. From federal candidates to county sheriffs, would-be officeholders
began vying to out-tough each other on law-and-order issues. One result was
the extension of the death penalty to dozens of new crimes, along with
cutbacks on appeals and other protections for capital defendants.

Today, however, the nation is again losing its enthusiasm for capital
punishment. Executions nationwide are effectively on hold until the U.S.
Supreme Court takes up a case later this month on whether lethal injection
is unconstitutionally inhumane. If the court rules that it is, states can,
of course, find some other way to end convicts' lives. But Americans are
increasingly queasy about doing so, no matter how it's done.

Although about two-thirds of all Americans still support capital punishment
in principle, that number is considerably lower than what it was just five
years ago. In practice, we're ever more reluctant to impose it. That's
largely because of the more than 100 men and women who have been freed from
death row in recent years, thanks to DNA testing and other advances. That
shocking proof of the system's fallibility also has made juries, judges,
prosecutors and politicians much more wary about pushing for the ultimate
punishment. In 1996, courts handed down 317 death sentences; last year, that
number plummeted to 110, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
And in December, New Jersey became the first state in 40 years to abolish
its death penalty. At least two other states are considering doing likewise.

According to Amnesty International, 133 countries have abolished the death
penalty. Last month, the United Nations voted for a worldwide moratorium on
capital punishment.

As far back as the 1960s, almost every industrialized nation had abandoned
the death penalty as a barbaric and pointless anachronism. The U.S. in 1968
was on track to do the same -- not because the Supreme Court forced it on
us, but because we as a nation had decided it was a bad idea. Support for
the death penalty hasn't always been a fact of American life. That's
something worth remembering in this new year.
Vince Beiser is a California-based writer who often writes on criminal
justice issues.

http://www.kansascity.com/105/v-print/story/424378.html

Posted on Sun, Dec. 30, 2007
Race emerges as a death penalty issue
By TONY RIZZO; The Kansas City Star

Across the nation, death chambers sit idle while the U.S. Supreme Court
mulls the viability of lethal injection.

But it¹s another less-publicized death penalty issue that in the long
run may prove to have a much larger impact on who dies and who decides
if they should.

The issue is race. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard
arguments in the appeal of a black man from Louisiana convicted by an
all-white jury. In his case, the prosecutor admonished jurors to not
let the defendant get away with murder like O.J. Simpson.

Beyond the prosecutor¹s closing-argument theatrics looms his alleged
desire to strike blacks from the jury. It highlights what many see as
the ongoing racial disparity in how capital punishment is meted in this
country.

Whether real or perceived, when black defendants face a jury with no
black faces in it, particularly in a case involving the question of
life or death, they are often left with the feeling of being unfairly
judged, according to some attorneys and death penalty researchers.

³Perception is reality,² said Kansas City defense attorney John P.
O¹Connor. ³The perception of justice is often as important as justice
itself.²

The current debate about whether the chemicals used in lethal injection
can lead to undue pain and suffering is a peripheral issue that will
work itself out, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death
Penalty Information Center.

³Race and the death penalty is a much more fundamental issue,² Dieter
said.

Blacks are disproportionately represented on the nation¹s death rows.
And blacks who kill whites are overwhelmingly more likely to be
executed than blacks who kill other blacks or whites who kill blacks.

Since 1976, when capital punishment in its current form was
established, 223 black defendants have been put to death for killing
white victims, according to records maintained by the information
center. During that same period, only 15 white defendants have been
executed for killing black victims.

This year, of the 14 black defendants put to death, victims were white
in 10 of those cases. Twenty-two whites have been put to death this
year. None of the victims was black.

³The existing data clearly suggest that many of the death sentences are
a product of racial discrimination,² Dieter wrote in a 1998 study of
race and the death penalty. ³There is no way to maintain our avowed
adherence to equal justice under the law while ignoring such racial
injustice in the state¹s taking of life.²

Unfairly excluding blacks as jurors ³undermines public confidence in
the fairness of our system of justice,² the U.S. Supreme Court noted in
a landmark 1986 decision.

Though noting that a defendant has no right to have anyone of his own
race on a jury, the court said that the state cannot use race as the
basis for removing someone from the jury pool.

³By denying a person participation in jury service on account of his
race, the state also unconstitutionally discriminates against the
excluded juror,² the court reasoned.

That ruling required that before an attorney can exercise a
³peremptory² strike to remove someone during jury selection, he must be
able to provide a race-neutral basis for the strike.

But legal theory does not always translate to practical application in
the courtroom.

O¹Connor said that he knows of several cases where prosecutors have
³contrived² reasons to remove black jurors.

In a decision handed down earlier this year in a case that O¹Connor
tried, the Missouri Court of Appeals ruled that the reason prosecutors
provided to strike a black person from the jury in a murder case was
³pretextual² and that they ³engaged in purposeful discrimination.² As a
result, the court overturned the conviction of defendant Lance
Livingston.

That is the same argument raised by lawyers for the Louisiana man whose
case the Supreme Court recently heard.

Prosecutors provided race-neutral reasons for using strikes to remove
all five blacks from the jury. But defense attorneys say the
prosecutor¹s words and deeds - including the O.J. analogy - betray his
true racial motivation.

The court is expected to rule by summer.

³I think the Supreme Court considers it an important issue,² Dieter
said. ³They can send a message that we¹re going to monitor this
closely.²

O¹Connor said he thinks the Supreme Court eventually may have to do
away with peremptory strikes entirely to prevent attorneys from playing
games with jury selection.

While peremptory strikes long have been a part of the American justice
system, the Missouri Court of Appeals said in the Livingston case:

³The right of a party to peremptorily strike a juror must always give
way to a right of a citizen to participate in our judicial system
without regard to race, gender or national origin.²
To reach Tony Rizzo, call 816-234-4435 or send e-mail to

California's broken parole system

FreeJP — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 21:10:03 GMT

California's broken parole system

The Sacramento Bee reports that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is looking to save money by cutting the corrections budget, perhaps by releasing as many as a third of the inmates in California prisons because they're non-violent and no danger to anyone. Atrios has been on this, and apparently makes some good points:

The thing is, when something like this is being proposed as a budget-cutting measure rather than a "good public policy" measure they're bound to get it wrong.

I'm all for speeding up the release of many/most/all non-violent drug offenders but you obviously just can't do itall at once, and you can't do it assuming that it will magically suddenly save lots of money. Our society has put up so many barriers preventing the re-integration of previously incarcerated felons into "normal" life that one can't imagine a successful mass prison release program without spending quite a bit of additional moneys on reintegration programs.

The trouble is, that in California's instance, they probably can do exactly that. Read the Bee article linked above, but notice these passages near the end:

On Nov. 14, the state's Little Hoover Commission issued a scathing report in which it noted that nearly 70 percent of California parolees were returned to prison. The national average is 35 percent, and many of the California inmates who went back to prison did so for violating relatively minor conditions of their release.

"The state's fiscal crisis provides an important opportunity to rethink essential public safety policies that are not working well," commission Chairman Michael E. Alpert said when the report was released.

And on Nov. 18, the day after Schwarzenegger took the oath of office, his administration settled a federal lawsuit over how long suspected parole violators were forced to sit in prison before hearings were held on whether they actually did break conditions of their release.

That settlement, resisted by the Davis administration, calls for hearings within 35 days and gave suspected violators the right to have their case argued with a lawyer.

These two points only hint at a huge problem in California's penal system that never seems to register with people until it's specifically pointed out, and even then, they don't often want to believe it.

In California, parole violations are determined and assigned exclusively by correctional officers - in essence, prison guards. If a parolee's parole officer says "you've violated parole," the parolee is arrested and taken to the county jail. There's no warrant, no proof - nothing but the parole officer's word. He then sits in jail for 1-2 months before being transferred to a state prison, where he sits for another 30-90 days before a "violation committee" reads the parole officer's report and hears the inmate's response in person.

The committee then sides with the parole officer (something like 99.5% of the time) and assigns the inmate a violation prison term of between two weeks and one year. Sometimes it'll be "time served," since many parolees have been back in custody for 2-3 months by the time their hearing comes up. That's one aspect of the November 18 settlement - from now on, California has only 35 days from the time the parolee is re-arrested to hold the legally required hearing. Apparently, the settlement doesn't require it to be more than the rubber stamp against the inmate that it's been for decades.

If a parole violator wants to appeal this decision, California law requires that he first do so through the Board of Prison Terms' own administrative appeal process, which usually takes about eight months and always (again, about 99.5% of the time) upholds the violation finding. Only then can the inmate take it to court, but by the time any court would hear the case, even the maximum one-year violation term is over, and the court dismisses the case as moot.

Put these facts together with some statistics about the California penal system and the problem becomes clearer:

No court or jury put any parole violator back in prison. That happens solely by non-judicial parole officers, upheld by parole committees also composed of correctional officers. All of the state employees involved, other than in the BPT's administrative appeals, are members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association - the CCPOA, better known as the prison guard's union.
The CCPOA is, at present, the most politically powerful union in California, and has pushed hard for new prisons and tougher laws to fill them.
California's prisons have held about 50% more people than designed capacity for many years. This leads to lawsuits and demands for more prisons. California's prison system is larger than the US Federal prison system.
About half the people currently in California state prisons are parole violators.
California's parole system eventually issues violations (and re-incarcerates) 70% of parolees, twice the national average.

In other words, CCPOA members - who directly benefit from overcrowding and more prisons - are the ones who decide on parole violations. If they did so at the national average rate, California would instantly (or at least within one year) drop the prison population by about 25%, probably at no risk to anyone.

Many California inmates actually dread parole, because they know that their parole officers will find some way to "violate" them, as it's called. They won't be able to keep a job or start anything long-term because they know, at a moment's notice, a parole officer who doesn't like them or who they pissed off (while not violating the rules) can have them re-jailed for up to a year. By law, it can continue for up to three years even on a one-year sentence. If you're sentenced to 16 months in a California prison, you can actually serve more time on parole violations than you did on your sentence - even more than 16 months total. It's not like that in other states, but it is in California.

It's something like this: by law, the parole term is a maximum of three years from the date of initial parole, but that clock stops running while you're in prison on a violation, but only for one year. So if you're paroled on July 1, 2003, but "violated" on September 1, 2003, for a period of six months, you've completed two months of the parole, and the clock starts again on March 1, 2004, when you're released again. If you're then violated again for a one-year term on May 1, 2004, the clock starts ticking again on November 1, 2004, even though you're still in prison on the violation. Since you'd completed four months "outside," then when the clock resumes on November 1, 2004, your parole must be discharged by law 32 months later, on July 1, 2007, even if you spend every day of that time in prison on various violations. If you spend no time in custody (as only 30% of parolees do), your term is a maximum of three years. If you spend a year or more in custody on violations, it's four years.

Now, as it turns out, California law provides for a "presumptive discharge" of parolees after one year. If you haven't caught a parole violation after 12 months, your parole officer has to fill out a form explaining why you shouldn't be discharged from parole. If BPT doesn't agree disagree with it, then after 13 months, you're discharged from parole and your sentence is completely over. This doesn't happen as often as it should, though, as the California Department of Corrections (CDC) pretty much assumes that certain classes of people don't deserve early discharge, like "people who were in prison." Don't think that running is the answer, either: by law, the three-year clock halts the day you abscond from parole, and it only starts again when you're rearrested, even if that's 20 years later.

Much of what the Bee says is true, too: California has way too many non-violent offenders in custody, largely because it spent much of the 90s trying to figure out how to declare more people to be dangerous, life-long offenders who could be locked up for 25 years or more without much chance of those pesky appeals or reviews. Pre-release counseling has been a joke, and there is no meaningful appeal because the system has been designed to keep it in CDC or BPT hands until the violation term is over.

However, the real problem in California is the parole system. Most people think "parole" means that if you're released after two years on a three-year sentence due to "good behavior," then you'll be supervised on parole for one more year and that's it. They have no idea you can serve four years in prison on parole violations after a one-year sentence, nor do they know that a judge or jury will never hear the case during any of that time. The only people who will hear it are those who have a vested financial interest in keeping the prisons packed. Simply bringing California's parole system in line with national standards would accomplish just about all of Schwarzenegger's financial goal for the system without endangering anyone.

Now go back and read the beginning of the Bee article again:

Convinced that California can no longer afford its $5.3 billion prison and parole system, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration is exploring moves that would all but eliminate parole conditions for nonviolent, nonserious offenders and eventually -- through early release and lighter penalties -- dramatically shrink the prison population.

See? It's not so much "early release" of inmates as it is taking them out of the deeply-flawed parole system. Former prison guard Don Novey, head of the CCPOA, would only say that "anything they do should be looked at with public safety paramount." That's a clue - for the past 20 years, CCPOA's version of "public safety" has been "lock up every single person we can for as long as we can and never parole them." Just you watch what happens next year. I'll bet a quarter that if any proposal removes parolees from CDC and BPT power - or never puts them under that parole system in the first place - Novey and his lobbyists will cry "endangering the public" to every reporter they can find, and they can find a lot of reporters.

Eisenhower warned the nation about the military-industrial complex. It's a shame no one ever warned California about the correctional-industrial complex.

Editorial: Early release of prisoners has to be considered

FreeJP — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 20:51:55 GMT

Editorial: Early release of prisoners has to be considered

Prison costs are a big part of fiscal crisis; controlling them is part of the solution

Published 12:00 am PST Thursday, December 27, 2007
Story appeared in EDITORIALS section, Page B6

Print | E-Mail | Comments (6)| Digg it | del.icio.us

With California facing a $3.3 billion deficit in the current fiscal year and a $14 billion deficit the year after, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should be looking at all possible options for bringing spending in line with revenues, and visa versa.

K-12 schools. Higher education. Environmental protection. County welfare programs. All face cuts of 10 percent or more under a proposal the governor is pushing. Schwarzenegger has declared a fiscal emergency and called for the Legislature to launch a special session (yet another one) to respond to the budget gap on Jan. 10.

If this is truly a fiscal emergency, then nothing should be sacred. That should include pledges of "no new taxes." It also should include the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which each year consumes an ever-increasing portion of state spending – leaping from $3.8 billion to $9.8 billion over the past decade.

As part of a broader package of spending cuts, Schwarzenegger has floated a one-time, accelerated release of lower-risk offenders in the final 20 months of their terms. The aim is to reduce the prison population by 22,000, both saving money and relieving overcrowding.

The governor also is considering changes to the parole system. Offenders on parole would not be returned to prison on technical violations (such as failing a urine test). This would reduce the prison population next year by 6,249 inmates, and reduce prison costs over the long run.

Such proposals are not novel, nor are they unprecedented. In 1967, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan reduced the prison population by 13 percent through an accelerated release of selected prisoners.

But Reagan operated in a much different era, when lawmakers were less apt to exploit public fears over crime and stifle all discussion over prison reform.

All that has changed. Today, the prison guards union and victims' rights organizations are a powerful combo, and few politicians have the courage to buck them. Quite predictably, some lawmakers of both parties are gunning to shoot down Schwarzenegger's trial balloon before it even gets out of the policy shop.

One of these is Assemblyman Jose Solorio, D-Santa Ana, who was quick to declare the governor's proposal "DOA." Another is Republican Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, an Orange County Republican who has made a career of stoking fears about "early release" of prisoners.

To be sure, any proposal to reduce prison populations will need to be fully vetted. Key questions will need to be answered, such as who would qualify for early release. Already, about 115,000 offenders are released to parole from prison every year. What follow-up programs would help 22,000 in the proposed early release successfully re-enter the community – and not end up back in prison?
The response of Spitzer, Solorio and their legislative brethren so far seems designed to quash, instead of illuminate. In doing so, these lawmakers are using scare tactics to serve the interests of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

The prison guards union fears the loss of 5,854 state positions with the governor's proposal. Although some politicians make noise that "everything should be on the table" in solving the state's fiscal troubles, few are actually willing to embrace that principle if it means confronting a well-funded political apparatus. No wonder the state is in a fiscal crisis.

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/592852.html