The Justice Gambit

Why Guns on College Campuses are Bad Policy

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:45:00 +0000

H 222 would prohibit the governing bodies of Idaho colleges and universities from regulating the lawful possession of a firearm while on campus. Eight other states are currently considering similar legislation. Florida just defeated its version of this bill.

The debate on this bill has largely been framed in the context of concealed carry permits. My reading of this bill reveals no distinction between concealed and open carry. Thus my interpretation of H222 is that anyone legally entitled to possess any weapon could do so if this bill becomes law.

The justification for this bill, according to its sponsor, Erik Simpson (R-Idaho Falls), is colleges and universities are “…places where various serious crime occurs just like out in the streets of Boise or Idaho Falls or any other city in the state of Idaho.”

Generally speaking, US colleges and universities are far safer than the cities and counties they reside in. 93 percent of students become victims of violent crimes while away from campus. Idaho is no exception. For example, Boise reported 6 homicides in 2009, 1 in 2008, and 9 in 2007. During that same period, there were no reported homicides on BSU’s campus. There were no reported robberies at BSU in 2007-2009 and 20 forcible sex offenses while Boise reported 198 robberies and 270 rapes during the same time period.

Thus H 222 falls into the category of a solution seeking a problem. But if the bill becomes law, the cure will be far worse than the illness. Consider the following items:

Very few people are trained in combat shooting situations. One study reports that police potential to hit their intended targets is 25% of the rounds fired. In the event that a shooting incident should occur on a college campus, the probabilities of armed students or faculty hitting the intended target are considerably less than that for the police. But the potential to hit unintended targets in crowded classrooms would be greatly magnified. Studies of the hit rates of military in combat reveal two items of note – the low rates of hitting their targets in combat are largely the result of poor marksmanship, especially when the adrenaline is flowing, and the unwillingness to kill another human being. Thus the argument that armed students or faculty could stop a Virginia Tech situation are dubious at best.
Armed faculty, staff, or students would only add to the confusion in the event of a campus shooting. In the event of a campus shooting, would you want to be holding a gun when the police arrive? What about armed civilians arriving late to the shooting scene? The tragedy in Tucson was very nearly made greater by this very circumstance – a bystander had picked up the shooter’s gun and was nearly shot by an armed citizen.
Idaho is one of nine states that has failed to submit a single name of mentally ill people to the national background-check system as required by law. Approximately 60 out of 1000 adults has a serious mental health issue. About a third of college students have sought some type of mental heath counseling. This means that gun dealers may be selling weapons unknowingly to potentially dangerous people because of a wildly inaccurate list. How many more Jared Loughners are there trying to buy a gun legally at this very moment?
Alcohol is a regular feature of college life.42% of all college students report that they had engaged in binge drinking (five of more drinks) in the past two weeks prior to the survey.
Currently four states and 25 colleges (out of approximately 4300 colleges and universities) permit weapons on campus. The introduction of weapons on college campuses is too recent and involve far too few cases to allow study of the impact of these policies. Research conducted by the Department of Epidemiology and the Injury Prevention Research Center at the University of North Carolina revealed that workplaces that permitted weapons were five times more likely to experience a homicide.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for college students and thousands of students attempt suicide unsuccessfully each year. One large study revealed that half of all college students consider suicide at some point in their life. Studies also show that gun availability in the home correlates with an increased risk of successful suicide.
The Violence Policy Center reports that since May 2007, there have been 18 mass shootings where legal concealed handgun holders have taken, or have been charged with taking, the lives of 79 victims. Since May 2007, legal concealed handgun carriers have killed at least 288 individuals--including nine law enforcement officers--in 194 incidents in 29 states.
Backpacks are ubiquitous on school campuses. They hold an incredible array of items, including firearms. A Gardena High School (located in LA) student dropped his backpack causing a weapon carried inside to discharge, critically wounding one student and grazing a second student. How many backpacks are dropped each day in densely-packed classrooms? How many backpacks are lost or stolen on any given day, thus providing another source of illegal firearms?
This bill is premised on the legend of the urban gunslinger - a well armed community has less crime. But reality intrudes on the myth. Epidemiologists at the University of Pennsylvania discovered that armed citizens were four times more likely to be shot than unarmed citizens when confronted by armed assailants. States that have the highest percentages of gun ownership also tend to have the highest levels of gun violence. Louisiana is among the highest percentage of gun ownership and has the highest percentage of gun deaths. Hawaii is at the other end of the continuum.
What liability issues will be raised by this bill? Will faculty and staff have any type of immunity and/or indemnification? What liabilities will the institutions incur in the event of a shooting or an accidental discharge?
University campuses provide more than just classrooms and research space. They are also meeting places and entertainment venues. Over one million people visit BSU’s campus for non-academic functions. Do guns have a place in this environment? Will certain groups or entertainers stay away from Idaho’s college campuses if this bill becomes law?
One national study found that 94% of respondents were opposed to permitting guns on college campuses. A survey of students in my introductory class revealed that 80% were opposed to allowing guns on campus. The International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators is opposed to this type of legislation.

This bill would introduce a far greater degree of danger on college campuses and would forever alter the dynamic between students and faculty and among the faculty. Will the next student who becomes distraught during a discussion resort to violence? Will the next student who receives a bad grade respond with violence? What about the next faculty member who is denied tenure; will he or she resort to the type of violence that occurred last year at the University of Alabama? Introducing weapons on a college campus will create mistrust and inspire fear, which is contrary to an environment conducive to learning.

If you are wondering what can go wrong by allowing guns on a college campus, I invite you to watch the following video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTfM7WGdWpM – in which a bereaved father asks the Florida legislature to vote no on a bill similar to the one now before the Idaho legislature. No parent should have to endure the misery that has ensued from the lethal combination of alcohol, a weapon, and a crowded college campus.

This issue, like many other public policy questions, is about managing risk. The data point to the conclusion that college campuses are generally safer than the areas that surround them. Introducing weapons on a college campus would mean more risks to manage, not fewer. Those who support this bill are not looking honestly at the risks involved, nor are they looking at the reality of society so thoroughly inundated with guns.

I invite the legislature to assert its interest in making Idaho’s college campuses as safe and as inviting as possible by voting no on H 222.

Update - this bill has died in committee as of March 25th. We will have to remain vigilant as I am sure that we will see this bill again in the future.

Juvenile Waivers: Another Failed Policy

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 17:03:00 +0000

A generation after record levels of youth crime spurred a nationwide movement to prosecute more teenagers as adults, a consensus is emerging that many young delinquents have been mishandled by the adult court system.

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In the quest to get tough on criminals, many policy makers lost sight of seeking balance between the best interests of the offender and the interests of society. That was especially true with juvenile offenders.

But we now have evidence that juvenile waivers is just one more failed remnant of the overall failure of the 1980s get tough approach. But old ways die slowly especially in states like Idaho. While others states revamp their crime control policies, Idaho continues along it merry way creating damage in its wake and wasting tax payer money.

Hold Prosecutors Accountable

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:30:00 +0000

The federal government's reaction to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks once again returned to the Supreme Court on Wednesday as justices considered whether former attorney general John D. Ashcroft could be held personally liable for the detention of an American Muslim.

Abdullah al-Kidd, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in 2003 and held as a material witness. But Kidd contends that he was not detained because he had information about terrorism. Instead, he says, he was detained as part of a plan approved by Ashcroft to sweep up Muslim men the government suspected but could not prove had ties to terrorism.

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Justice Roberts is clearly worried about the impact of holding prosecutors accountable for their actions. But I hope that the Court will take into consideration the following: (1) police officers seem to function under qualified immunity while prosecutors and judges have absolute immunity. (2) prosecutorial misconduct is a leading reason for wrongful convictions. (3) Bar associations have failed to adequately police the behavior of prosecutors. A study of prosecutorial conduct in California reveals the rampant disregard by prosecutors for the rule of law and the consequences of illegal and unethical behavior.

What remedy do victims like Mr. al Kidd have unless absolute immunity is removed and replaced with qualified immunity? In addition, the Court should impose requirement similar to the exclusionary rule - if you cheat, the case is dismissed. But that would not resolve the problem faced by victims like Mr. al Kidd.

A Case of Murder?

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:59:00 +0000

The death of a 2-year-old Houston boy from a rare infection blamed on contaminated alcohol wipes may be only the first casualty tied to allegedly shoddy sterilization practices by a Wisconsin medical products firm.

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We can learn several things from this case. First, the regulatory model in this country is broken. Examine the time line between the inspections, the death of the child, and the recall. The latest installment in this tragedy is the Republicans want to curtail regulation and inspections.

The other aspect of this tragedy is the white-collar crime is violent crime. At least one death has been attributed to the deliberate indifference of the manufacturer. Will these misanthropes face criminal charges? Based on past history, it is doubtful.

Surprise!

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:03:00 +0000

Most of the 113 medical devices recalled by the FDA from 2005 to 2009 for serious or life-threatening hazards were not subjected to the Food and Drug Administration's more stringent approval process, known as "PMA", or premarket approval, according to a review of the FDA's recall data.

Instead, they were cleared using the 501(k) process, which is less extensive and does not require clinical testing. For consumers, that means some cleared products including artificial hip joints, heart valves, and automated external defibrillators (AEDs) were marketed and used on patients without being tested beforehand.

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Imagine going through hip replacement surgery or heart valve procedure only to discover that the parts were defective. How many patients and their families were affected by this broken regulatory model? How much money did it cost to correct and to compensate these victims of white-collar crime?

Will there be an investigation and/or congressional hearings? Doubtful. Is there a way to protect yourself from being victimized in this manner? No. Surprise! Your government has failed you once again.

Dignified?

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 01:48:00 +0000

Even with judicial blessing, the conduct of executions in this country is a shambles. In Arizona and Georgia, the sodium thiopental used in executions has possibly been ineffective and almost certainly been illegal. It came from Dream Pharma, an unlicensed British supplier, run from a driving school. The batches carried a date of 2006. They were likely made by a company in Austria that went out of business. The drug is said to be effective for only a year. As a foreign-made drug without approval by the Food and Drug Administration, it is prohibited by federal statute.

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Rules exist for reasons. In this case, states that conduct executions are supposed to ensure that the protocols are followed in order to minimize the chances of a botched execution and/or physical suffering by the condemned.

Clearly in these cases the law was not followed. What sort of example does this sordid behavior set? The rest of us can pick and choose which law to follow - or not - based on expedience?

It is bad enough that states continue to follow a failed policy. Doing so under these circumstances makes it seem almost clandestine and desperate. Nothing dignified about this behavior whatsoever.

Reducing Prison Spending

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 11:01:00 +0000

The centerpiece of Mr. Daniels’s approach is a set of reforms governing sentencing and parole. Judges would be allowed to fit sentences to crimes and have the flexibility to impose shorter sentences for nonviolent offenses. A poorly structured parole system would be reorganized to focus on offenders who actually present a risk to public safety.

Addicts would be given drug treatment to try to make them less likely to be rearrested. And there would be incentives for towns to handle low-level offenders instead of sending them into more costly state prisons.

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Why can't Idaho and other states admit they have a problem similar to Indiana and take similar steps to reduce prison expending? More treatment will not only save money, but it will lower recidivism rates, which translates into fewer victims in the future.

But it seems that no one in the legislature or governor's office is interested in those sorts of outcomes. What is that saying about insanity?

Hell Just Froze Over

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:44:00 +0000

We can no longer afford business as usual with prisons. The criminal justice system is broken, and conservatives must lead the way in fixing it.

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Conservatives broke it and now they want to fix it. Good for them. It is too bad that this conversion had to result from the budget crisis instead of the revelation that "get tough" crime control polices were failing.

States like Idaho need to get busy reforming their criminal justice systems. Mandatory minimum sentencing, juvenile waivers, the "drug war," capital punishment and community corrections (probation and parole) are all issues that are in dire need of substantive reform (no lipstick on the pig, please).

Another Failed Policy

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 15:43:00 +0000

Sara Kruzan was 16 when she lured her former pimp into a motel room, shot and killed him and took his money. The terrible crime was committed in Riverside County by a girl who had been sexually molested and physically abused since her earliest days, raised by an addicted mother, gang-raped at 13 and at the same age sent into the streets to make a living as a prostitute by the man she would eventually kill.

But teenagers change. Today, at 32, Kruzan is a model prisoner in the honor dorm at Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla. In January, she will receive her associate's degree from the nearby community college. She has volunteered for dozens of rehabilitation programs and won awards for her participation and attitude.

She also serves as an important reminder of why sentencing juvenile offenders to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is backward and counterproductive. Science and society have learned more in recent years about the still-immature and rapidly developing brains of adolescents.

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We have learned a great deal about juveniles and how they develop psychologically and physiologically. We also have decades of experience with the practice of juvenile waivers. Unfortunately this policy has failed to keep pace with the advances of knowledge. Once again, politics and ideology trump research and rationality.

Update 1/3/2011: On his way out of office, Gov. Schwarzenegger commuted Kruzan's sentence.

The Beat Goes On

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 16:57:00 +0000

Word quickly reached top executives at Abbott Laboratories that a Baltimore cardiologist, Dr. Mark Midei, had inserted 30 of the company’s cardiac stents in a single day in August 2008, “which is the biggest day I remember hearing about,” an executive wrote in a celebratory e-mail.

Two days later, an Abbott sales representative spent $2,159 to buy a whole, slow-smoked pig, peach cobbler and other fixings for a barbecue dinner at Dr. Midei’s home, according to a report being released Monday by the Senate. The dinner was just a small part of the millions in salary and perks showered on Dr. Midei for putting more stents in more patients than almost any other cardiologist in Baltimore.

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The senators solicited 10,000 documents from Abbott and St. Joseph. Their report, provided in advance to The New York Times, concludes that Dr. Midei “may have implanted 585 stents which were medically unnecessary” from 2007 to 2009. Medicare paid $3.8 million of the $6.6 million charged for those procedures.

We can only estimate the amount of medical fraud that goes on everyday in this country. But we do know that physicians kill more people than street criminals do each year. See the connection between iatrogenic criminality and our medical system based on profit?

Crimes Against Us All

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 14:49:00 +0000

In 2005, when a federal court took a snapshot of California’s prisons, one inmate was dying each week because the state failed to provide adequate health care. Adequate does not mean state-of-the-art, or even tolerable. It means care meeting “the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities,” in the Supreme Court’s words, so inmates do not die from rampant staph infections or commit suicide at nearly twice the national average.

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No society can refer to itself as civilized while allowing thousands of its citizens (yes inmates are citizens) to be treated in such a manner as described in California. But California is not alone in its mistreatment of inmates. Idaho has its own "gladiator academy" operated by the Corrections Corporation of America.

Aside from the moral (or lack thereof) aspects of the current conditions in our prisons (and jails), Justice Alito raises the myth of crime control through mass incarceration. Alito ponders the impact of releasing so many inmates on California's crime rate.

As one of my late professors (George Beto) once told us in class, opening the doors of prisons would not significantly impact the crime rate. So Alito and others are asking the wrong question - will the crime rate change? Probably not. Will there be new crimes and victims? Probably yes.

But we also have to keep in mind that over 90% of inmates will be released from prison at some point. And a significant number will fail in the free world (California reports 70% recidivism rate). So has it occurred to Justice Alito and others that our current crime control policies are not only failing to reduce crime, but in fact may make the crime rate higher?

The decline in the crime rate since the 1990s is largely attributable to changing demographics. There are fewer people in the crime-prone and victim-prone age groups. I maintain that providing treatment for mental illness and drug addiction (including alcohol) instead of engaging in mass incarceration would further reduce the crime rate. But California broke it, now they own it.

It will be interesting to see how the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Schwarzenegger v. Plata. My bet is that fear and bad policy will win out over rationality and morality.

Who Profits, Indeed

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 04:14:00 +0000

Who really profits from the spew of bills recently advanced by the legislators across the country, and here in Texas, that make immigration enforcement a state matter?

The answer is private prison corporations. In a recent feature on National Public Radio, it was made abundantly clear to anyone who cared to listen that the real motivation behind the Arizona anti-immigrant bill titled SB 1070 was profits for the private prison industry, which hoped to garner new markets from contracted prisons they would build to house the estimated tens of thousands of immigrants, undocumented and otherwise, that they believed would be snagged in this ever-widening net. Now, no one likes to make a dollar more than yours truly. Yet is there anything more cynical than hoping to write a law that imprisons women and children in order to make that buck?

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Corrections Corporation of America and other for-profit prisons stand to make out like bandits if the Faustian bargains succeed. But a few politicians are also benefiting from the deal:

A Tennessean survey of campaign finance records shows that CCA, its officers and their families contributed more than $95,000 to campaigns in the state this past election cycle. The company also had five lobbyists on its payroll working at the Tennessee legislature this year.

CCA is also making the rounds in Idaho. Denton Darrington (R-Declo), chair of the Senate Judiciary& Rules Committee, received a donation from CCA.Other members of the committee who received CCA donations include Patti Anne Lodge and Dean Mortimer, Republicans who received CCA contributions include Mike Moyle, John McGee, Joe Stegner, Lawrence Denney, Darrell Bolz, Russ Fulcher, Clif Bayer, Dean Cameron, Maxine Bell, Janice McGeachin, Steve Kren, Brent Crane, Fred Wood, Eric Simpson, Jeffrey Thompson, Bert Brackett, Frank Henderson, Jim Clark, Jim Hammond, and Butch Otter. Democrats who received CCA contributions include James Ruchti and Diane Bilyeu.

While Idaho politicians did not rake in quite the largess that Tennessee (and I imagine other states) did, the state did not go unnoticed by CCA.By spreading around a little money (under $10,000 reported), CCA gets a contract worth $27 million to run a prison that is currently a target of ongoing litigation regarding its "gladiator school" conditions.

Coming soon - their own private Idaho.

More Evidence of the Failure of the War on Drugs

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 20:38:00 +0000

IN VERACRUZ, MEXICO Exploiting loopholes in the global economy, Mexican crime syndicates are importing mass quantities of the cold medicines and common chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine - turning Mexico into the No. 1 source for all meth sold in the United States, law enforcement agents say.

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When we will finally learn that prohibition polices don't work? Okay, let me rephrase this question - when will policy makers finally learn that prohibition polices fail to reduce the availability of drugs?

We Should Be Ashamed

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:15:00 +0000

The British government has decided to pay former detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, tens of millions of dollars in compensation and conduct an independent investigation into its role in the mistreatment of prisoners.

The United States still operates the Guantánamo camp, with no end in sight. None of the truly dangerous terrorists there have been brought to justice, while many prisoners are still held who never should have been. The government not only refuses to come clean on this ignoble history, but it is covering up the Bush administration’s abuses by denying victims a day in court.

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Canada compensated Maher Arar, a Canadian torture victim, who was the victim of a rendition while on U.S. soil. Not only did the U.S. fail to offer this victim compensation, it block his law suit, claiming national security interests.

Now Britain has decided to step up and compensate more victims of American foreign policy. Good for them, bad for us. The Bush regime has no shame, and the Obama administration is making the same mistakes by covering up for the Bush war crimes.

Sort of a hollow gesture to point out human rights abuses by other countries when our own house is in such disarray.

Looks can kill

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:04:00 +0000

"This is the condition where the death penalty was meant to be applied. The crime was so heinous, and there was so little remorse shown on the part of the defendant. He sat there with such a blank look," the juror said.

"The guy continued to stare straight ahead like he was watching a movie. There was just nothing."

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The above comments were made by one of the jurors in the Hayes capital case in Connecticut.

The 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides protection against self-incrimination. The attorneys in this case followed the standard pattern of not allowing their client to testify. That is usually a pretty good strategy as defendants are apt to say or do something that is prejudicial to their case.

On the other hand, the failure of the defendant to testify can sometimes result in a conviction, or in this case, a death sentence. Jurors want the defendant to show remorse if they are going to extend mercy. Many jurors interpret the failure to testify as having no remorse. They also interpret a defendant's demeanor while sitting at the defense table as showing no remorse even though defense attorney's may caution their clients to remain emotionless.

This is a flaw in the 5th Amendment that needs to be addressed in the sentencing instructions to the jury. Looks can kill.

Killer Mines

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 00:34:00 +0000

Over the years, the federal government has done far less than it should — and far less than the law requires — to guarantee the safety of Appalachia’s miners. So it was a welcome break with grim history when the Labor Department asked a federal judge last week to shut down a Kentucky mine owned by the Massey Energy Company. The mine has been cited for about 700 safety violations this year alone.

Massey is also the owner of the violation-plagued Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, where a methane explosion killed 29 workers in April. The company is reportedly the object of two grand jury investigations in connection with that disaster.

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The safety record of the mining industry in this country can only be described as abysmal. So too is the history of regulation. It remains to be seen if Massey Energy will be held criminally accountable for the 29 deaths. But the lack of accountability for violent crimes is part of the history of white-collar crimes in the U.S. Many people, especially those connected to the criminal justice system, don't make the connection between the actions of corporations and criminal accountability. Too bad, because more people might still be alive if criminal sanctions were sought.

Prison Economics

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 12:40:00 +0000

Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.

Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch.

"The gentleman that's the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger," Nichols said. "He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman."

What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.

"They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community," Nichols said, "the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate."

But Nichols wasn't buying. He asked them how would they possibly keep a prison full for years — decades even — with illegal immigrants?

"They talked like they didn't have any doubt they could fill it," Nichols said.

That's because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona's immigration law.

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We have long feared the impact of the prison-industrial complex. Perpetuation of the war on drugs and mass incarceration is a partial result of the marriage of money and politics. But this is the first case I am aware of where the private sector played a leading role in creating the criminals who would then fill the facilities that, would, in turn, fill the coffers of the for-profit. prison industry.

Politics has corrupted the criminal justice system. The pace of corruption has accelerated with this latest sordid meménage à trois between money, politics, and the criminal justice system.

BTW- investigative journalism like this report is the real reason that conservatives are once again targeting NPR's funding. They don't like it when truth speaks to power.

Just the Cost of Doing Business

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:06:00 +0000

GlaxoSmithKline, the British drug giant, has agreed to pay $750 million to settle criminal and civil complaints that the company for years knowingly sold contaminated baby ointment and an ineffective antidepressant — the latest in a growing number of whistle-blower lawsuits that drug makers have settled with multimillion-dollar fines.

Altogether, GlaxoSmithKline sold 20 drugs with questionable safety that were made at a huge plant in Puerto Rico that for years was rife with contamination.

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$750 million sounds like a lot of money, but here is the key to understanding the issue: "Whistle-blower cases have become so routine that Wall Street no longer takes much notice of individual suits, while the growing trend remains hidden." The facility in question produced $5.5 billion worth of products each year.

So $750 million is just the cost of doing business.

So Much for the Rule of Law

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 13:34:00 +0000

Arizona executed a man last night after the US supreme court lifted a stay granted when the state refused to reveal how it obtained one of the drugs used in the death chamber from a British manufacturer.

The state's attorney general, Terry Goddard, used a little known law preventing the identification of executioners – and others with "ancillary" functions – to defy a court order requiring the state to reveal the exact source of an anesthetic, sodium thiopental, used in the execution.

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The effectiveness of sodium thiopental was one of the main issues in Baze v. Rees. And states are not supposed to use drugs not approved by the FDA. Given that states are supposed to follow the law and that the effectiveness of one of the three drugs used to kill people is in question, one might think that the state would have delayed the execution in order to follow the rule of law and to ensure that a botched execution was avoided.

Additional reading - "This drug came from a reputable place," Chief Deputy Attorney General Tim Nelson said. "There's all sorts of wild speculation that it came from a third-world country, and that's not accurate."

Not so fast - GlaxoSmithKline, the British drug giant, has agreed to pay $750 million to settle criminal and civil complaints that the company for years knowingly sold contaminated products manufactured in Puerto Rico. So just because the drug supposedly came from Britain does not mean that it wasn't manufactured in a "third-world country."

But the larger issue in this case was the mental state of the condemned man:

Last week, Cheryl Hendrix, the judge who condemned Landrigan, told a clemency board that she would have given him a lesser sentence had she been aware of the brain damage caused by his mother's heavy drinking while pregnant and his turbulent childhood.

"The death penalty in this case is not appropriate and never has been," she said.

Why should anyone respect the laws of the State of Arizona when the State itself set such a terrible example?

Justice?

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:27:00 +0000

This is a court of law, not a court of justice. Oliver Wendel Holmes

Troubling questions over Georgia's controversial death penalty system will remain unresolved for now, after the Supreme Court declined Monday to review an appeal from a death-row inmate who received unwanted help from state prosecutors on his legal representation.

The justices without comment rejected Jamie Ryan Weis' request for relief. He says he sat in jail for years after the state ran out of money to pay for his lawyers. Weis said prosecutors then suggested that a judge appoint two public defenders, even offering the names of two overworked and inexperienced attorneys who did not want the job. Weis' current legal team calls that a blatant conflict of interest.

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We only have to read the Court's majority opinion in Powell v. Alabama to understand why the assistance of qualified counsel is essential in the criminal justice process.

The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. If charged with crime, he is incapable, generally, of determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without the aid of counsel, he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without it, though he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence. If that be true of men of intelligence, how much more true is it of the ignorant and illiterate, or those of feeble intellect. If in any case, civil or criminal, a state or federal court were arbitrarily to refuse to hear a party by counsel, employed by and appearing for him, it reasonably may not be doubted that such a refusal would be a denial of a hearing, and, therefore, of due process in the constitutional sense.

No only is a person on trial for his or her life entitled to the assistance of counsel, but the prosecution should be barred from picking that counsel.

Race and the Drug War

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:12:00 +0000

According to a report released Friday by the Marijuana Arrest Research Project for the Drug Policy Alliance and the N.A.A.C.P. and led by Prof. Harry Levine, a sociologist at the City University of New York: “In the last 20 years, California made 850,000 arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana, and half-a-million arrests in the last 10 years. The people arrested were disproportionately African-Americans and Latinos, overwhelmingly young people, especially men.”

For instance, the report says that the City of Los Angeles “arrested blacks for marijuana possession at seven times the rate of whites.”

This imbalance is not specific to California; it exists across the country.

One could justify this on some level if, in fact, young blacks and Hispanics were using marijuana more than young whites, but that isn’t the case. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, young white people consistently report higher marijuana use than blacks or Hispanics.

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What additional evidence do we need in order to decriminalize or legalize marijuana? Prohibition does not work; in fact, it makes matters worse. Now we see that the law is being applied in a discriminatory fashion.

Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow) argues that mass incarceration (and we must add arrest and prosecution to the formula) has evolved as the latest iteration of the Southern strategy. Locking up people of color gives the appearance of a race-neutral policy when, in fact, the ultimate goal is to attract white voters to policies (and the party that supports them).

The problem, as this article points out, is that Democrats are now trapped because no party can be successful if it appears soft on crime. There is no room in U.S. crime control policies for being smart on crime.

Impossible

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 04:25:00 +0000

In his decades working as a forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Richard Coons of Austin has testified at dozens of death penalty trials across Texas in which he opined about how defendants would behave in the future.

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Dr. Coons is in a situation similar to Dr. Grigson (a.k.a Dr. Death). Grigson was expelled from the APA for ethics violations. Grigson concluded in the case of Randal Dale Adams that Adams would kill again if released from prison. The only problem with this predication was that Adams had never killed anyone in the first place. He was exonerated and released from Texas Death Row after serving nearly 10 years.

The bottom line is that it is impossible to accurately predict future dangerousness. The American Psychiatric Association filed amicus briefs that noted

Psychiatrists should not be permitted to offer a prediction concerning the long-term future dangerousness of a defendant in a capital case, at least in those circumstances where the psychiatrist purports to be testifying as a medical expert possessing predictive expertise in this area. Although psychiatric assessments may permit shortterm predictions of violent or assaultive behavior, medical knowledge has simply not advanced to the point where long-term predictions -- the type of testimony at issue in this case - -may be made with even reasonable accuracy. The large body of research in this area indicates that, even under the best of conditions, psychiatric predictions of long-term future dangerousness are wrong in at least two out of every three cases.

Playing Politics with the Death Penalty

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 03:57:00 +0000

RALEIGH, N.C. — A top North Carolina House Democrat whose daughter was murdered 25 years ago said Wednesday he wants the state Republican Party to retract a mailer it sent out alleging that a law he voted for could parole death row prisoners.

The mailer, which was sent to residents in Majority Leader Hugh Holliman’s district in Davidson County, focuses on his support for the Racial Justice Act in 2009. The state law allows people on death row to receive life in prison without the possibility of parole if they can prove, with statistics and other evidence, that race played a role in decisions by prosecutors or jurors to seek the death penalty.

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The bottom line is that Republicans have been called out on the lie regarding the impact and intent of North Carolina's Racial Justice Act. As the law and the article make clear, death row inmates may challenge their sentences, but the only option is life without parole.

The mailer, which is intended to play on the fears and prejudices of voters, is just one more example of how politicians use capital punishment, the victims and their families, and death row inmates and their families to further their own dastardly ends.

Read It's Just Your Garden-Variety Lie and the Big Lie

Are sex offenders a Halloween threat?

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 02:37:00 +0000

Just last week, I wrote about a California district's controversial move to ban sex offenders from celebrating Halloween, but Tulare County is hardly alone. Police are gearing up for similar crackdowns across Tennessee and Virginia, where they officially refer to it as Operation Trick No Treat and Operation Porch Lights Out (for serious). "The purpose of the operation is to both protect and remove a high-risk population from the community during a time when ... children could be vulnerable," Larry Traylor, a spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Correction, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

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The problem with these polices is that they don't work, but they do contribute to heighten fear. As this article reports "No increased rate on or just before Halloween was found, and Halloween incidents did not evidence unusual case characteristics." That remained true even after policies restricting sex offenders' spooky decorating and treat-giving were instituted.

These policies perpetuate the myth of the stranger sex predators. Research has shown that the greater threat is from a member of the family or an acquaintance. Registered sex offenders are scape-goats. Additional harm results when a parent or guardian, trying to be vigilant,looks in the wrong direction for threats to their children.

And then there are some additional precautions to ensure a safe Halloween experience: (1) never let children step inside a resident; (2) an adult should always accompany children until they return home at the end of the night; and (3) nothing should be consumed until an adult has inspected it. If the item looks suspicious, it should be tossed in the garbage. But denying offenders the privilege of passing out candy does little to protect children, but does add to the fear unnecessarily.

A Court of Law, Not a Court of Justice

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. Michael Blankenship) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 16:44:00 +0000

It was an unusual hearing. The subject at the center of it all, Cameron Todd Willingham, was not present. After being convicted of murdering his three children in a 1991 house fire, he was executed in 2004.

Members of Mr. Willingham’s family, working with lawyers who oppose the death penalty, had asked for the rare and controversial hearing, held here on Thursday, to investigate whether Mr. Willingham was wrongfully convicted. They argue that the proceeding, known as a court of inquiry, could restore Mr. Willingham’s reputation, a right guaranteed under Texas law, even to the dead.

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The quote from Justice Holmes sums up the part of the problem for those facing a sentence of death. Politicians will continue to spout platitudes and rhetoric about how much review a particular case has received. What they don't tell you is that law, and the courts are not concerned about truth or justice. Instead the focus on process.

So Mr. Willingham may very well be innocent, but justices like Scalia could care less because he (and every other death row inmate) has had a fair chance at proving their innocence during the initial trial.

The other interesting quote in this story comes from Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a group that supports the death penalty. He notes that no one that supports capital punishment will give the findings of this court of inquiry any credibility. In order words, don't try to confuse these folks with the facts, their minds are already made up.