The Alternative to CORI Reform: Let's Just Order Them to Re-Offend

Thanks to John Monahan and the Worcester Telegram and Gazette for an excellent article yesterday about the fact that CORI reform is now unlikely. The CORI reform proposals, introduced and backed by Governor Patrick, and as discussed and strongly supported by me here at this blog,

have run aground in the House Judiciary Committee, and the chances of the law covering criminal records being reformed before the Legislature ends formal sessions for the year in July now seem remote.

The reason? According to the article:

Earlier this week, Rep. Eugene O’Flaherty, D-Boston, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, reported that the bill has run into a lot of “roadblocks” because of the many complicated issues involving reintegration of ex-convicts into communities and the interest of employers to job screen applicants. His comments gave little hope the bill could be acted on soon.

Right. So, in other words, the CORI reform effort, which is in fact the effort to help reintegrate past offenders into society, by giving them a chance to housing and a job, and that is by reducing the extremely overbroad access of employers to information - information about not just convictions, but even about long-ago charges that led to dismissals or acquittals - has been derailed because employers still want that information, and they have the power on Beacon Hill.

This will be great for these employers, as they will continue to be able easily to identify a special kind of underclass, one that they can either avoid hiring altogether or relegate to lower paying, less desirable employment due to its much diminished bargaining power in the labor market.

But the collateral consequences of failure to reform CORI are that taxpayers will have to pay more for social services to make up for the economic deficiencies, and also more for the criminal justice system - including for law enforcement, our overcrowded jails, and the criminal courts and probation departments - as that criminal justice system will continue to be busy, if not busier, as a result.

The big employers blocking change are at the top of the economic ladder. Basically this is just another way in which the most powerful, wealthy interests are asking the majority of us as taxpayers to pay more taxes to cover the collateral damage that inevitably results from a system designed and created more for the benefit of these most powerful, wealthy interests than for anyone else.

I'm not saying individuals are not responsible for their crimes. However, I am a realist, and I believe the evidence is overwhelming that good, sound economic policies reduce crime. The attempt to block CORI reform seems to me to be just another unsound economic policy (and it is assuredly an economic policy as much as it is a criminal policy) and it probably deserves a chapter in the ongoing, unwritten history of Class War.

I have heard fellow criminal defense attorneys complain, often after a judge in a criminal case gives a poor criminal defendant on probation a short period of time to come up with very stiff probation fees, or when a judge sets very onerous conditions on probation, that "the judge just set him up to fail" or even - and this is my personal favorite - that "the judge just ordered him to re-offend."

Sort of a cynical joke among lawyers, maybe, but this is no real joke for those who have been in the world of crime, and now can't get a job or housing because of it. There are certainly criminal defendants on probation who have committed new crimes in order to get the money to pay their probation, court fees, restitution, or other court-related expenses, as they often find it difficult, if not impossible, to find a legitimate job.

And if former criminals, just like those currently on probation, also can't get a legitimate job or housing, they are more likely both to become dependent upon government benefits of one kind or another, and also either to steal, or sell drugs, or commit other crimes, just in order to survive. This is the difficult, cold, hard reality of former criminal offenders.

So I must ask, in that same, lawyerly cynical spirit: Is our legislature, at the behest of employers, going to deny CORI reform and instead "order former criminals to re-offend"?

For information and links related to Massachusetts criminal law see the criminal defense page of my law firm website.

Incarceration Nation

The New York Times yesterday published a good basic primer on a most embarrassing type of American Exceptionalism, i.e., America as Incarceration Nation: Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’ - New York Times. The first part of the article, written by Adam Liptak, is excerpted below:

"The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.

Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.

Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences.

The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, according to data maintained by the International Center for Prison Studies at King’s College London.

China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison....

...."

For information about Massachusetts criminal law, see the criminal law page of my law firm website.

Bobby Brown and Incarceration Nation

The Worcester Telegram & Gazette News got it spot-on in its editorial today about the sweet, strange deal Bobby Brown received in Brockton District Court. It's almost as if the Telegram read my eerily similar post on this subject from several days ago. Let's just say we are definitely on the same page here. I would now just add that we should ask ourselves how it is that Bobby Brown is actually given the task of mentoring youth as he avoids jail, while many others get locked up for multiple years for possession of just a few grams of crack cocaine. Although admittedly I don't know all the facts of Bobby Brown's recent case, and wouldn't dare to say he deserves to have the criminal case go forward, I can in fact say with confidence that, based on what I do know, it was quite inappropriate, and absurd even, for Bobby Brown to have been assigned community service mentoring youth.

Furthermore, Bobby Brown's sweet deal does appear to be more evidence that, as I recently discussed in yet another post, the War on Drugs doesn't really affect important people the same way it affects those imprisoned in Incarceration Nation.

WORCESTER TELEGRAM & GAZETTE:

BROCKTON'S YOUTH TO GET A DUBIOUS MENTOR

EDITORIAL FOOTNOTE

A tip of the dunce cap goes to Brockton District Court Clerk Magistrate Kevin Creedon, who last week presided over a deal permitting R&B singer Bobby Brown to sidestep cocaine possession charges in return for mentoring the city’s youth for a year.

Whatever his other talents and charms may be, Mr. Brown’s public career has been marked by drug and alcohol abuse, nonpayment of child support, assaulting a hotel security guard, a parole violation for a previous drunken-driving conviction and allegations of assault on his ex-wife, singer Whitney Houston. This is a man whose first musical group, New Edition, voted him out because of his incessant lewd behavior onstage.

There’s no word yet on what kind of mentoring Mr. Brown might be offering the youth of Brockton, but Beating the System 101 seems likely to be high on the list.

For information about Massachusetts criminal law, see the criminal defense page of my law firm website.

Bobby Brown - Do We Want Him Here or Not?

As just reported here in Boston - see Boston Globe: Bobby Brown agrees to community service and Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog: Singer Bobby Brown Forgoes Jail Time for Community Service Over Alleged Cocaine Possession - Bobby Brown will now do community service here after being arrested for alleged drug possession, per the terms of disposition in a Brockton District Court criminal matter.

Wait a minute. Didn't the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court, just a year and a half ago, issue an order for his arrest if he comes back into this state?

Yes, in fact it did. See the People magazine article, Bobby Brown Warned Over Child Support - People.com: ("A judge in Massachusetts added to Bobby Brown's troubles on Monday, ordering him arrested if he steps foot in the state, after Brown skipped a court hearing over delinquent child-support payments to Kim Ward, the mother of two of his children....")

Anyone who has followed the story of Bobby Brown will likely have the impression that, over the last several years, every time Bobby has set foot in this state he has been in one of the following places: 1) in Attleboro or somewhere nearby watching his teenage daughter at cheerleading events, 2) in family court in Canton facing the music for failure to keep up with the child support and other obligations to that very daughter and her brother (children he had before he hooked up with Whitney Houston), 3) in jail because of that failure, or 4) in transit between those other places, courtesy of law enforcement. (To complete the picture, I think Bobby Brown has also been stopped at least once by police for other minor vehicle infractions, and went to a hospital for a false heart attack alarm, but there are just way too many stories to cite them all here. If interested, just do a search for Bobby Brown at people.com or tmz.com.)

Really, Massachusetts needs to decide whether it wants Bobby Brown back here or not. Maybe the family court department should talk with the district court department and get on the same page here, or perhaps we should just have a referendum and let the voters decide whether we want him back here.

Anyway, this guy's problems up here seem to have escalated at the same time his relationship soured with his famous former wife Whitney Houston, with whom he had lived down in Georgia, and especially after she recently called it splits with him and got her divorce in California. In that divorce case, at least according to the press, Whitney pretty much took him to the cleaners. (On the Whitney Houston-Bobby Brown story, see Bobby Brown's Attempt to Overturn Divorce Denied - Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston : People.com.)

For now at least, Bobby Brown must do community service here in Massachusetts. And get this: he will be mentoring youth as part of his community service, and that's something he apparently wants to do, according to his attorney.

I found that fact interesting, especially after reading Bobby Brown and Brainiac at 40 - The Boston Globe from his former classmate Joshua Glenn over at the Boston Globe (this piece is from October of last year). Joshua Glenn is just about the same age, and says he and Bobby Brown attended the same elementary school together in Boston. Although Glenn admits he didn't really know Brown, he does remember that Bobby Brown stole his calculator. Glenn also was kind enough to remind us of some of Brown's infamous rap lyrics:

Too hot to handle, too cold to hold
They're called the Ghostbusters and they're in control
Had 'em throwin' a party for a bunch of children
While all the while the slime was under the building
So they packed up their group, got a grip, came equipped
Grabbed their proton packs off their back and they split
Found about Vigo, the master of evil
Try to battle my boys? That's not legal!

And that brings me to this question:

What exactly will Bobby Brown be teaching our youth in Massachusetts, through this court-ordered community service?

I have some lessons that Bobby Brown can teach them. There are just a few I can print here, and these ones are just specifically for those youth who hope to some day be a celebrity like Bobby Brown: 1) If you happen to become a celebrity when you "grow up" and if you happen to get way behind on your child support, then do not go to visit your daughter as she is cheerleading in public. 2) Do not steal calculators from classmates, because even if you don't end up in juvie, your classmates may grow up to be writers for your hometown newspaper.

From the Associated Press:

BROCKTON, Mass.—Singer Bobby Brown will not face criminal charges after police said they found a small amount of cocaine in his possession.

Brown's attorney said Tuesday a Brockton District Court clerk magistrate found no probable cause to issue a criminal complaint, but recommended that Brown volunteer to mentor young people, which Brown wanted to do anyway.

Brown agreed to a year's community service and his attorney said if no other issues arise over the next year, the matter will be struck from the docket.

The case began when police responding to a disturbance at a Brockton hotel on Dec. 1. They said they found the 39-year-old Brown sitting in an SUV in the parking lot, with cocaine in his possession.

The Boston native is the former husband of singer Whitney Houston and stars in the CMT Network show "Gone Country."

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

Arizona Republicans, Drug Abuse, and Hypocrisy

QUESTION: What do John McCain and the late former Chief Judge William Rehnquist have in common besides that they were both Republican political hacks from Arizona? (Oh, did you think Rehnquist was just our former Supreme Court Chief? Well, he had a not-so-well-known role as a Republican hack challenging Hispanic and African-American Democratic voters in Phoenix, long before he became the Republican Hack-in-Chief of the US Supreme Court. For more background on Rehnquist, see Alan Dershowitz: Telling the Truth About Chief Justice Rehnquist - The Huffington Post.)

ANSWER: These two Republican politicians have both been drug abuse hypocrites.

Attorney and psychologist Stanton Peele wrote the following piece for the LA Times, back in 2000 when McCain was running for president against the convicted drunk driver from Texas: McCain's Double Standard: Hawk In The Drug War, Yet His Wife Got No Penalty. Here's the opening of that article:

"Much has been made of allegations of possible youthful use of illegal drugs by Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush. Meanwhile, his chief GOP opponent, Arizona Sen. John McCain, has admitted that his wife not only illegally used drugs but walked away from criminal charges. The McCains have worked to make Cindy McCain's addiction into a political asset--despite the fact that she stole the drugs from a charity she directed and used them while mothering four young children."

And as for Rehnquist, see the following: Chief Justice Rehnquist's drug habit. - By Jack Shafer - Slate Magazine. One would think Rehnquist's own drug addiction would have led him to have the slightest sympathy for criminal defendants over whom he sat in judgment, but one would be wrong.

Perhaps it is naive to think the War on Drugs should ever affect drug abusers in power.

Federal Judges in Massachusetts Are Releasing Crack Offenders After Sentences Were Retroactively Reduced

As reported a few days ago in the Boston Globe, federal judges in Massachusetts are now releasing several prison inmates pursuant to the federal government's retroactive reduction in sentences for crack offenders. If you read this Boston Globe article, you should know that the newspaper yesterday issued a correction to point out that its headline and first paragraph inaccurately stated that the total number of prisoners affected could be 30, when the real number likely to be affected is actually at least 91, as later indicated in the article itself.

For more on the story of sentence reductions for crack offenders, see my last post on this subject here.

For information about Massachusetts criminal law (not federal) see the criminal defense page of my law firm website.

Great Article on Recent Federal Sentencing Developments

I have recently commented on the US Supreme Court and the US Sentencing Commission's recent positive moves in the area of sentencing for crack cocaine offenders in posts last week and last month. But finally, on Wednesday, Mark Allenbaugh, an expert in the field of federal criminal sentencing, has published an article on Findlaw.com which is a must-read for those interested in the topic: FindLaw's Writ - Allenbaugh: A Positive Development in All the Sentencing Insanity.

For information and links related to Massachusetts criminal law (not federal) see the criminal defense page of my law firm website.

Starting to Make Sense in Sentencing Crack Offenders: Supreme Court & Sentencing Commission Do Some Good

Both the US Supreme Court and the US Sentencing Commission did some good things this week, and are helping to move our federal system a bit closer to sanity in the treatment of federal drug offenders. However, draconian mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses remain, and we will continue to spend lots of tax dollars to lock up lots of people in this country for a long time. Don't think too much has changed, but this is welcome news. Read the CNN article of yesterday, Panel says 19,500 crack inmates can seek reduced sentences - CNN.com (Panel says 19,500 crack inmates can seek reduced sentences; Panel votes unanimously to make change in sentencing guidelines retroactive; Monday Supreme Court ruling allows judges to ease harsh crack sentences) for news on both developments.

My previous post on this issue can be found here. For basic information about criminal law in Massachusetts (not federal law) see the criminal defense page of my law firm website.

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Sentencing Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to allow some 19,500 federal prison inmates, most of them black, to seek reductions in their crack cocaine sentences.

Advocates argue that crack-cocaine offenders are unfairly targeted under sentencing guidelines.

The commission, which sets guidelines for federal prison sentences, decided to make retroactive its recent easing of recommended sentences for crack offenses.

Roughly 3,800 inmates could be eligible for release from prison within a year after the March 3 effective date of Tuesday's decision. Federal judges will have the final say whether to reduce sentences.

The commissioners said the delay would give judges and prison officials time to deal with public safety and other issues.

U.S. District Judge William Sessions of Vermont, a commission member, said the vote on retroactivity will have the 'most dramatic impact on African-American families.' A failure to act 'may be taken by some as particularly unjust,' Sessions said before the vote.

The seven-member commission took note of objections raised by the Bush administration, but said there is no basis to treat convicts sentenced before the guideline change differently from those sentenced after the change.

....

In two decisions Monday, the Supreme Court upheld judges who rejected federal sentencing guidelines as too harsh and imposed more lenient prison terms, including one for crack offenses.

In the crack case, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's majority opinion said Derrick Kimbrough's 15-year sentence was acceptable, although guidelines called for 19 to 22 years. 'In making that determination, the judge may consider the disparity between the guidelines' treatment of crack and powder cocaine offenses,' Ginsburg said.

Kimbrough is black.

So are 86 percent of the 19,500 inmates who might see their prison terms for crack offenses reduced after the commission approved retroactive easing. By contrast, just over a quarter of those convicted of powder cocaine crimes last year were black.

The sentencing commission recently changed the guidelines to reduce the disparity in prison time for the two crimes. New guidelines took effect November 1.

'The Kimbrough decision is a tremendous victory for all who believe that the crack and powder cocaine disparity is unjust,' said Mary Price, vice president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

Kimbrough's case, though, did not present the ultimate fairness question. Congress wrote the harsher treatment for crack into a law that sets a mandatory minimum of five years in prison for trafficking in 5 grams of crack cocaine or 100 times as much powder cocaine.

Seventy percent of crack defendants get the mandatory minimum.

Kimbrough is among the remaining 30 percent who, under the guidelines, are supposed to receive even more prison time for trafficking in more than 5 grams of crack.

Neither the court's decision nor the commission's guidelines affect the minimum sentences, which only Congress can alter.

In previous years, the sentencing commission reduced penalties for crimes involving marijuana, LSD and OxyContin, which are primarily committed by whites, and made those decisions retroactive."

Sentencing Guidelines Revised for Crack Cocaine Offenses, New York Times Reports

Crack cocaine offenses now carry a reduced point value in the US Sentencing Guidelines, after revised sentencing guidelines just went into effect this past week, guidelines that will shorten somewhat the ridiculously long sentences for federal crack cocaine crimes and that will move us a bit closer to the goal of fairness for crack cocaine offenders vis-à-vis powder cocaine offenders. Let's hope that next week's sentencing commission meeting will lead to a decision to apply the new sentencing guidelines retroactively, so we can reduce even more of the waste of this war on drugs.

LINK to Article by Solomon Moore, November 2, 2007, New York Times: Rules Lower Prison Terms in Sentences for Crack - New York Times: "Crack cocaine offenders will receive shorter prison sentences under more lenient federal sentencing guidelines that went into effect yesterday. The United States Sentencing Commission, a government panel that recommends appropriate federal prison terms, estimated that the new guidelines would reduce the federal prison population by 3,800 in 15 years. The new guidelines will reduce the average sentence for crack cocaine possession to 8 years 10 months from 10 years 1 month. At a sentencing commission hearing in Washington on Nov. 13, members will consider whether to apply the guidelines retroactively to an estimated 19,500 crack cocaine offenders who were sentenced under the earlier, stricter guidelines."