Criminal Justice  

On every business day, Criminal Justice Journalists (CJJ) provides a summary of the nation's top crime and justice news stories with Internet links, if any. Crime & Justice News is being provided by CJJ with the support of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, its Center on Media, Crime and Justice, the Ford Foundation, and the National Criminal Justice Association. The news digest is edited by Ted Gest and David Krajicek.

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Jails operated at 84 percent of capacity, the lowest percentage since 1984. Local jails admitted about 11.6 million inmates in the year ending midyear 2012, down from 13.6 million in 2008. Stays in jails typically are so short that the number of those admitted last year was about 16 times the size of the average daily population.

The report, "Turning Migrants Into Criminals," said immigration prosecutions for illegal entry or reentry increased to more than 85,000 in 2013 from about 12,500 in 2002. Until about a decade ago, most people prosecuted for immigration violations had criminal histories that included violent crimes or firearms offenses. Then federal prosecutors began taking more immigration cases in which the defendant had no prior convictions or a minor criminal record. A misdemeanor conviction for illegal entry is now enough to trigger a felony prosecution if the person is caught trying to enter the country a second time. Human Rights Watch put the cost of incarcerating immigration violators at $1 billion in 2011.

As the committee was finishing its work, dozens of high-profile conservative leaders and activists signed an open letter that denounced the bipartisan bill, saying the Senate "would do better to start over from scratch."

John Pineau has twice put video clips of pre-trial questioning on YouTube to the advantage of his clients and to the detriment of opponents: once because of a sense of moral outrage, another time in a case that resulted in a secret settlement. Pineau is teaching other attorneys how to add this potent component to their legal arsenal and to do it in a way that doesn't bend the rules of law. "This is an incredible new hammer of justice," said Pineau. "It's really not understating it to say this will change justice around the world." Deborah Cantrell, who teaches legal ethics at the University of Colorado, predicts widely differing opinions among attorneys on the ethics of what might be called YouTube law. Pineau became a firm believer in YouTube law after he won a civil judgment for a Hungarian-born woman against her ex-husband - who was convicted of beating her - and that man's father last year.

Clackamas County DA John Foote said the plan is a response to legislation intended to save $600 million over the next decade by capping the prison population at 14,600. The legislation has the support of a public safety commission appointed by Gov. John Kitzhaber and relies on reducing sentences for violent and property crimes. Foote said reducing sentences for some categories of sex abuse, assault, and robbery would be a mistake.

Of the 40 or so conflicts violence interrupters have tried to mediate, 23 diminished enough that CeaseFire was focusing on getting the people involved in those conflicts in contact with outreach workers. Despite the CeaseFire staff's efforts, the number of killings and shootings in Central City has not been reduced. The number, in fact, has increased. Neither the staff nor the City of New Orleans, which has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to CeaseFire, is ready to declare the program a failure. Officials say CeaseFire has prevented retaliatory violence in numerous instances, and it has had a positive effect on people's lives. "If you think about where Central City was, the hard and deep work that it'll take to get it to a better place is something that we are actively engaged in with our conflict mediation and our case management," said Johnetta Pressley, who oversees CeaseFire's efforts.

The organization conceded it could also lead to greater drug dependency and abuse. "This situation must be faced with greater realism and effectiveness if we want to move forward successfully," said OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza. The report said that, "Legal availability, even without lower price, will encourage experimentation. Some of those new experimenters will go on to become dependent users. Dependent users include poorer parents, students, workers, and neighbors. Thus the increase in dependency may lead to more child neglect and abuse, more children dropping out of school, increased absenteeism, and less community spirit in populations that had not been much affected previously by drug dependence."

Roseanne Scotti, state director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said residents facing criminal charges typically spend several months in jail while they await their trial. Last October, nearly 40 percent of the 15,000 in jail couldn't afford to post bail. Rabner expects the panels will report back to him within a year. He said some reforms can be made by the courts and others may need legislative approval. A group of 11 judges is already studying whether there are too many pre-trial conferences, whether there should be a cut-off date for plea agreements, and whether it takes too long to gather evidence in a trial.

Even though Congress finally reauthorized the federal Violence Against Women Act, at least 106,000 fewer victims are expected to receive services involving domestic violence and sexual assault due to sequestration. Says the Center for American Progress: "Before boarding planes to go home on recess last month, Congress rushed to fix sequestration-related inconveniences for air travelers, but victims of crime and the law enforcement and other agencies that serve them remain dangerously shortchanged."

A friend said Todashev was being questioned about his ties to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout in with police on April 19; his younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in federal custody and facing charges that could bring the death penalty. A friend of Todashev said he met Tsarnaev when both lived in Massachusetts, and that the two men spoke with each other "months before" the April 15 bombings.

In an interview with The Arizona Republic, 12 News and NBC's "Today" show, Arias said she doesn't know if the jury will come back with life or death. "Whatever they come back with I will have to deal with it," she said. "I have no other choice. The verdict may come today, ending what the Republic calls "the circus at Maricopa County Superior Court" that has drawn worldwide media attention. She will likely be transported to the Arizona State Prison Complex-Perryville immediately after the verdict, whether it is for life or for death. Arias, 32, was convicted May 8 of first-degree murder for the brutal 2008 slaying of Travis Alexander. Last week, the jury quickly found that the murder was committed in an especially cruel manner, opening Arias to a possible death sentence.

The change is one of many suggested in a report by Texas Appleseed, a nonprofit advocacy organization, that called on lawmakers to replace the existing mental health code with one that reflects modern mental health needs. Lt. Michael Lee of the Houston Police Department said the law should spell out what authority officers have in situations where someone is experiencing a mental health crisis and there are weapons in close proximity. The bill also specifies how guns should be returned to their owners.