The "Criminals' Lobby" Grows

Right and Left Join Forces on Criminal Justice Reform:

In the next several months, the Supreme Court will decide at least a half-dozen cases about the rights of people accused of crimes involving drugs, sex and corruption. Civil liberties groups and associations of defense lawyers have lined up on the side of the accused.

But so have conservative, libertarian and business groups. Their briefs and public statements are signs of an emerging consensus on the right that the criminal justice system is an aspect of big government that must be contained.

The development represents a sharp break with tough-on-crime policies associated with the Republican Party since the Nixon administration.

“It’s a remarkable phenomenon,” said Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “The left and the right have bent to the point where they are now in agreement on many issues. In the area of criminal justice, the whole idea of less government, less intrusion, less regulation has taken hold.”

I'm not sure why this is such a surprise. For some reason over the years, libertarian philosophy was co-opted by the right in this country, yet many so-called "issues of the left" are decidedly anti-government, libertarian in nature (pro-choice, drug decriminalization, anti-capital punishment, etc.).

However, I would be skeptical of this sudden death-bed conversion (or perhaps it's a "Great Recession-Conversion") on behalf of conservatives. Their rhetoric seems oddly dismissive of policies they once embraced and rammed down the public's throats for the past 25 years.

Edwin Meese III, who was known as a fervent supporter of law and order as attorney general in the Reagan administration, now spends much of his time criticizing what he calls the astounding number and vagueness of federal criminal laws.

Mr. Meese once referred to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of the “criminals’ lobby.” These days, he said, “in terms of working with the A.C.L.U., if they want to join us, we’re happy to have them.”

In an interview at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group where he is a fellow, Mr. Meese said the “liberal ideas of extending the power of the state” were to blame for an out-of-control criminal justice system. “Our tradition has always been,” he said, “to construe criminal laws narrowly to protect people from the power of the state.”

LOL. Keep in mind, this is the former Attorney General who launched the War on Drugs in the 1980's, pushed for the asset forfeiture laws to be changed to allow for easier seizures of private property by the government, and imprisoned more African-Americans per capita than at any other time since slavery.

But hey, let's let bygones be bygones. On behalf of those of us who have been arguing for sense and sanity in criminal justice for the past few decades, I'll welcome Mr. Meese and any other conservative or libertarian to the cause.

Pull up a chair and roll up your sleeves. The extent of the mess that was made over the past 25 years is astonishing. We have much work to do.

Capital Punishment, Juveniles, and Life in Prison

Death Penalty Jurisprudence May Hold Key to Juvenile Life Decision:

The law is made up of rules and standards.

Here is an example of a rule, established by the Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons in 2005: If you commit murder even hours before your 18th birthday, you cannot be put to death for your crime. The same killing a few hours later may be a capital offense. The court drew a bright-line rule at 18.

Here is an example of a standard, one proposed by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. this month at Supreme Court arguments over whether juvenile offenders may be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole: Why not, the chief justice asked, interpret the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment to require sentencing judges to consider the defendant’s age on a case-by-case basis?

But there is a third possible retort, one that draws on the Supreme Court’s 2002 decision in Atkins v. Virginia barring the execution of the mentally retarded. That sounds like a rule, in that it made an entire class of people categorically ineligible for the death penalty. But it turns out to be a standard.

But there is a third possible retort, one that draws on the Supreme Court’s 2002 decision in Atkins v. Virginia barring the execution of the mentally retarded. That sounds like a rule, in that it made an entire class of people categorically ineligible for the death penalty. But it turns out to be a standard.

How has this standard been applied in practice?

Nationwide, the claims have succeeded about 38 percent of the time. But state success rates vary widely.

North Carolina courts heard 21 Atkins claims and ruled in the inmate’s favor 17 times. Alabama courts heard 26 claims and ruled for the inmate 3 times.

Recall that the Supreme Court said an IQ of “approximately 70” should usually satisfy the first part of the test. In Alabama, Mississippi and Texas, four inmates with IQ scores of 66 and 67 were held not to be retarded. But in Pennsylvania, an inmate whose score ranged from 70 to 75 won an Atkins claim. In California, a score of 84 did the trick.

In other words, on the retardation issue, the Atkins decision ended up being a mess. I would hope in the Florida cases regarding juveniles and life in prison without parole (LWOP), the court would adopt a "bright line" 18 year old standard along the lines of Roper. It's simpler and far easier to reach given the Trop test of determining whether a punishment is cruel or unusual by today's standards (most states do not sentence juveniles to LWOP for non-homicide crimes).

We'll watch and report.

The Field of Dreams

Bad Times a Boon to Private Prison Companies:

Prison companies are preparing for a wave of new business as the economic downturn makes it increasingly difficult for federal and state government officials to build and operate their own jails.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons and several state governments have sent thousands of inmates in recent months to prisons and detention centers run by Corrections Corp. of America, Geo Group Inc. and other private operators, as a crackdown on illegal immigration, a lengthening of mandatory sentences for certain crimes and other factors have overcrowded many government facilities.

Private prisons housed 7.4% of the country's 1.59 million incarcerated adults in federal and state prisons as of the middle of 2007, up from 1.57 million in 2006, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a crime-data-gathering arm of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Corrections Corp., the largest private-prison operator in the U.S., with 64 facilities, has built two prisons this year and expanded nine facilities, and it plans to finish two more in 2009. The Nashville, Tenn., company put 1,680 new prison beds into service in its third quarter, helping boost net income 14% to $37.9 million. "There is going to be a larger opportunity for us in the future," said Damon Hininger, Corrections Corp.'s president and chief operations officer, in a recent interview.

Good times. Between 9/11, the anti-immigrant fervor of the mid-00's, and now the Great Recession, no wonder CCA's unofficial motto is "if we build it, they will come." A true "Field of Dreams" ethos.

My father-in-law used to tell me the only two industries guaranteed to be recession-proof were Beauty and Booze. Let's add Incarceration to the list.

Number One Sign Your Parents Were Not in the Gifted Program:

They are sending you to prep classes for the gifted test.

Test preparation has long been a big business catering to students taking SATs and admissions exams for law, medical and other graduate schools. But the new clientele is quite a bit younger: 3- and 4-year-olds whose parents hope that a little assistance — costing upward of $1,000 for several sessions — will help them win coveted spots in the city’s gifted and talented public kindergarten classes.

Motivated by a recession putting private schools out of reach and concern about the state of regular public education, parents — some wealthy, some not — are signing up at companies like Bright Kids NYC. Bright Kids, which opened this spring in the financial district, has some 200 students receiving tutoring, most of them for the gifted exams, for up to $145 a session and 80 children on a waiting list for a weekend “boot camp” program.

These types of businesses have popped up around the country, but took off in New York City when it made the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test, or Olsat, a reasoning exam, and the Bracken School Readiness Assessment, a knowledge test, the universal tests for gifted admissions beginning in 2008.

Hilarious. Pity the poor child whose parents are too dense to realize that a gifted test, much like an IQ test, is not something for which one can study. I mean, the "duh" factor here is astonishing.

Worse, these test preparation services and their educational "boot camps" aren't licensed or regulated by the state.

There is no state registry or licensing for these services, but an Internet search turns up numerous companies with names like Another Young Scholar, Junior Test Prep and Thinking to Learn. Harley Evans, the owner of Manhattan Edge Educational Programs, raised prices this year to $90 a session from $65, but still has his maximum load of 70 children. Daniel C. Levine, the founder of Exclusive Education, based in Manhattan, said that a few years ago, 2 percent of his clientele were children under 6. Now it is about 10 percent.

“It’s the same phenomenon as with the SATs: a gradual rise in test prep, until it becomes the norm,” said Emily Glickman, a Manhattan educational consultant.

Until it becomes the ultimate form of social control. Until we've stamped out critical thinking skills once and for all. Until we've turned an entire generation of youngsters into rats, winding their way through the standardized test maze, looking for the proverbial cheese.

The NCLB Testocracy: a "psychometric blitzkrieg of metastasizing testing aimed at dismantling public education." Stratifying society one student at a time.

UPDATE: SocProf at Global Sociology (my "comrade" in arms) has more.

[Standardized] tests prepare for nothing other than taking other tests whose values is based only on the fact that people believe in their value. They are not good predictors of anything.

Has anyone noted that big complaints about education in the US have started ever since the corporate ideology was imposed on the school system? Personally, that’s the way I see the correlation: the more corporatized the schools become (more administrators, fewer teachers, declining budgets, more “schools should be run like businesses” ideology), the lower the quality of education.

Part of that ideology, as I have said before, education is not about critical thinking, citizenship, etc.. It is about skills acquisition for the job market. Education is not about educating students, it’s about training workers.

Quote of the Day

"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels," Supermodel Kate Moss

Which leads us to our second quote of the day:

"Beauty robs the intellect," Anonymous

Terrorism Trials and "KSM"

Holder Defends Decision to U.S. Courts for 9/11 Trials:

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Wednesday defended his decision to prosecute five men accused as co-conspirators in the Sept. 11 attacks in federal court in Manhattan, declaring that while he believes “we are at war,” that the venue was the best place to pursue the case against them.

Despite criticism that holding such a trial presented greater risks than a military commission, Mr. Holder argued that there were fewer differences between the rules for federal court and the military panels than some critics realize. And, he argued, the Southern District of New York has a long history of successfully prosecuting terrorism suspects.

“We need not cower in the face of this enemy,” Mr. Holder said, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Our institutions are strong, our infrastructure is ready, our resolve is firm, and our people are ready.”

As I have been arguing for years now, terrorism is fundamentally a criminal act. We can put all the politically correct caveats about our being "at war" with terrorism (as we are with drugs, criminals, obesity, smoking, etc.), but fundamentally a terrorist belongs in a criminal court and then behind bars and/or given the death penalty. On that note, kudos to the new A.G. and the strident defense of his decision (although his “Failure is not an option,” prediction about the outcome of the trial was a bit syllogistic, not to mention legally risky).

However, the opposition who believes "we are at war" is a literal interpretation of stopping terrorism isn't going to take this lying down. The "spectacle" of a trial here in the U.S., in Gotham no less, mere blocks from the WTC towers, is apparently too much for some to handle.

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Thursday that trying self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a federal civilian court in New York is unwise and unnecessary.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, in an interview with NBC, said the administration's decision to turn to the civilian court system "may be a new level of repudiation" of the notion that the United States is undertaking a war on terror.

“The big problem I have is that you’re criminalizing the war,” said Senator Lindsey Graham.

I'm sure he said that last part without a trace of irony, but notice the use of the phrase "civilian court." Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (who is now being tagged "KSM" by all the hipster pundits out there, as if the guy is a DJ or something) and his cohorts are being tried in federal criminal court. The use of the phrase "civilian court" is designed to make it sound like these guys are being hauled into civil court, where we sue people and render financial judgments. You don't get the death penalty in civil court.

Secondly, what really bugs the opponents of this is that a criminal court trial of "KSM" will, indeed, undermine the very idea that terrorism is more than a criminal action. Check out some of the hysterical reactions:

"Since he dropped his bombshell on Friday, much commentary has focused on the possibility that KSM might be found not guilty. The perversity here is that the overwhelming evidence of their war crimes gain them protections denied a soldier fighting in accord with the rules of war. By going down this line, Mr. Holder has invited any number of dangers: making the Manhattan courtroom a target for terrorist attack, inviting the disclosure of sensitive intelligence, opening the possibility that some al Qaeda operative will be acquitted and released within the U.S., etc." warned William McGurn of the WSJ.

"Holder does not believe America is at war with terrorists. Even worse, he seems determined to undermine those who do. His assault is on those who believe America is at war with terrorists," thundered Michael Gerson of the WaPo.

No, his "assault" is on the idea that terrorism is an act of war. Terrorism is a criminal act, punishable by life in prison or even the death penalty (see also: this rogue's gallery of infamous terrorists convicted, confined and/or executed in our criminal justice system over the years).

And the notion that "KSM" is going to turn the courtroom into a "circus" and a "poster for al Qaeda recruitment" is equally ludicrous. Not only do the rules of the federal courts allow proceedings to be sealed right from the beginning of the trial, but any future transcripts can be sealed, redacted or censored at the court's discretion. The information the government doesn't want you to hear is never going to leave that courtroom.

Holder is certainly going to take heat for this, but the decision is correct. The other Gitmo detainees who are being tried in military tribunals are accused of terrorist acts against members of the military. This is the appropriate venue for them, as it is domestically with accused Ft. Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, who will be tried for the crimes of homicide in the military system of justice.

Said Holder, summing up his testimony yesterday: “I’m not scared of what Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has to say at trial. And no one else needs to be afraid either. I have every confidence that the nation and the world will see him for the coward that he is.”

The Power-Elite at 10,000

Sometime today this blog will roll past the 10,000 mark on the hit counter. That's 10,000 visitors since going online in August, 2007. In fact, it took me the first year just to reach 1,500 hits, and since then the traffic has been rapidly increasing each month (we're now averaging 36 hits a day, 250+ per week). I know it's a long way from the Single A's to the Majors (some of the biggest blogs generate 10,000 readers a day), but we're on the way.

Thanks to all of you who read regularly, who have surfed in from Google, or wherever your final destination may take you.