Trump Signing Criminal Justice Reform

Shutdown Threatens to Delay Criminal Justice Reforms

Posted by Angel Law on

Hours before the government shutdown began, President Trump scored a rare bipartisan victory when he signed a criminal justice bill aimed at reducing the number of nonviolent offenders in prison.

Now, the shutdown threatens to delay the law’s implementation.

“The timeline in the bill was already ambitious,” said Molly Gill, vice president of policy at FAMM, an organization of families advocating criminal justice reform. “The shutdown isn’t helping.”

One of the first steps in the law is to establish a system for evaluating inmates to determine which ones could be released early without threatening public safety. Under the law, an arm of the Justice Department has until Jan. 21 to help establish a committee tasked with creating that system.

Wyn Hornbuckle, a Justice Department spokesman, and Sheila Jerusalem, a spokeswoman for the National Institute of Justice, declined to answer questions about whether the deadlines would be met. The only Justice Department employees authorized to work during a shutdown are those specifically authorized by law to work on urgent matters, such as national security.

Continue reading “Shutdown Threatens to Delay Criminal Justice Reforms” →

Police Conduct

Wave of Police Using ‘Victim’s Rights’ Laws to Keep Conduct Secret

Posted by Angel Law on

Yet again, a cop has invoked a law intended to shield the conduct privacy of crime victims to keep his name from being released after he killed a suspect.

At the end of November, a Pennington County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed Matthew John Lorenzen, 19, of Rapid City, South Dakota. According to police reports, Lorenzen led deputies on a chase and allegedly shot at them. Lorenzen then rolled his SUV into a ditch and, according to the sheriff’s department, exited his vehicle holding the weapon, which prompted the deputy to shoot him.

The shooting is under investigation, and the deputy is on paid administrative leave. That deputy has also invoked privacy protections under what’s known as “Marsy’s Law” in order to prevent his name from being publicly released.

Marsy’s Law is a “victims’ rights” measure passed by South Dakota voters in 2016. Among many other things, it allows victims of crimes to control whether or not information about themselves gets publicly released. But the law is vague about who exactly is a crime victim. This deputy says he qualifies because Lorenzen reportedly shot at him.

A highway patrol officer in South Dakota did the same trick back in October. And officers in North Dakota, which has its own Marsy’s Law, have pulled a similar move. Even though these cops are on the job working for the public, they’re using this law to hide their own identities from the public.

Needless to say, that isn’t what these laws are supposed to be for. But this misuse is one of several problems with these laws, which are spreading from state to state. Six were approved by ballot initiatives this past November in Florida, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina. Pennsylvania may pass one this year.

The law is named after Marsalee Nicholas, the sister of California billionaire Henry Nicholas. Marsalee was killed by an ex-boyfriend in 1983, and Henry has been bankrolling efforts to introduce these laws across the country. They’re complicated regulations—the original version passed in California in 2008 defines 17 “rights” for victims of crime. They are partly intended to keep crime victims in the loop and potentially involved in decisions about sentencing of defendants.

These laws also have some components where people identified as victims have control over being interviewed or deposed in these cases and control over the public release of information. That crime victims can have the power to withhold information and refuse interviews in criminal cases is big concern in itself, at least for those of us who want to make sure that defense attorneys are adequately able to access what they need to defend their clients. That part of these bills treats defendants as though they’re guilty before they’ve even been convicted.

But once police officers are able to start invoking Marsy’s Law while doing their job, we’re going to see some even bigger problems. These laws do not even state what types of crimes one must be a victim of to invoke the law. So far we’ve only seen cops use it in cases of fatal shootings, but in theory, if this interpretation stands, an officer could claim to be a “victim” of somebody accused of resisting arrest. There could be some serious consequences down the line for the ability of attorneys (both the prosecution and the defense) and even within police departments in trying to investigate cases that involve violence either by or against police officers.

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Criminal Justice Reform

How the nation voted on criminal justice issues that impact our youth

Posted by Angel Law on

The 2018 midterm elections have come to an end, and, while the outcomes of some races remain unknown, it is safe to say that the outcome for young people across the country was overwhelmingly positive. While most of the country was glued to the results in competitive U.S. House and Senate races, it was the state and local elections that that will make a huge difference in the lives of young people. Continue reading “How the nation voted on criminal justice issues that impact our youth” →