A kidnapped girl was discovered 18 years after her abduction at the home of a convicted parolee and registered sex offender despite the fact that law enforcement has repeatedly been in contact with the man and has visited his home on many occasions over the years. That law enforcement for almost two decades missed Jaycee Dugard at the home of Phillip and Nancy Garrido is no great surprise to criminal lawyers. The shared resources of the U.S. federal and Nevada state authorities was not enough to effectively manage this parolee. California – like every other state – has overburdened our police, probation and parole authorities by continuing the trend toward retribution and punishment over rehabilitation and reformation. Non-violent three strike offenders overburden prison officials. Juveniles are increasingly being punished as adults within the already crowded criminal courts. New enhancements and new Penal Code provisions and harsher punishment are continually being written into law. The list of those offenses that require registration for life as a sex offender is ever expanding. Consequently, prison, parole and probation officials cannot keep up with the workload and those persons convicted of misdemeanor non-violent sex offenses are draining resources from the supervision of high risk offenders. As California clearly does not have more money to throw at these criminal justice problems, perhaps it is time to re-think how to best allocate the money we do have.
Archive for August, 2009
Michael Jackson’s Death Ruled a Homicide: Murder Charges Possible?
Now that the Los Angeles Coroner has ruled Michael Jackson’s death a homicide, what charges will be contemplated by the Office of the District Attorney? Two charges are possible. A second degree murder charge is possible if it can be proved that injecting Jackson with the powerful anesthetic propofol was done under circumstances where the drug giver was actually aware of the risk of death from use of the drug but consciously disregarded that risk and unlawfully gave him the drug anyway. Involuntary manslaughter is possible where the lawful administration of the drug was conducted in a negligent manner. The punishment for second degree murder is 15 years to life in prison. Involuntary manslaughter is punishable by up to 6 years in prison. Other than punishment, the big difference between the two charges obviously concerns the state-of-mind of the defendant, whether he or she understood but ignored the actual risks involved with giving a person the drug. Presumably, a doctor would have a subjective awareness of the risks but at the same time would take actions to safeguard the patient’s welfare. The charge one would therefore expect to see in this case – if any -will be involuntary manslaughter. The circumstances relevant to determining what charge to file will include: who administered the drug, how they acquired the drug, whether they were aware of the nature and type of drug being administered, the side effects of the drug, their knowledge of the effects, the actual dosage, whether the drug was administered in a prudent and careful manner, and other factors that may bear on their subjective awareness of the dangers presented by the drug and on the issue of negligent supervision of the patient. The criminal defense attorney for Jackson’s cardiologist doctor, Conrad Murray, says his client gave Jackson nothing that “should have” killed him. In other words, the lawyer argues that the issue is whether an involuntary manslaughter occurred or no crime at all.
San Diego Criminal Courts Closing, Prisoner Early Release
The unprecedented California budget crisis has now resulted in the San Diego Superior Court closing every third Wednesday of the month, effective September 1, 2009. Court clerks have already cut-back to a shorter work day, and the court closing will put further strain on a majority of criminal court defendants and defense lawyers. The budget mess has also forced the California Legislature to consider a number of proposals to allow for early release of prisoners. The early release will lighten the budget load as the higher cost of housing prison inmates will be eased by the lower cost of parole supervision. This proposal, of course, does not apply to inmates in county jails serving a probationary sentence. There are a few county sheriffs, however, that take a creative approach to the meaning of “custody” by allowing their county inmates to “serve custody” in ways ranging from electronic surveillance to work release. In this way their budget load is lightened.
The budget mess is clearly both helping and hurting criminal defendants.
Unchecked Illegal Police Search and Seizure
The United States Supreme Court in on the verge of abolishing the exclusionary rule prohibiting the use of unlawfully obtained evidence against a criminal defendant. The recent case of Herring v. United States portends a court trend in favor of illegal search and seizure at the expense of the integrity of the entire criminal justice system. This is a dangerous and unnecessary trend. Law enforcement has long taken as their own the maxim “give them an inch, they take a mile.” For example, police already have such a long list of permissible justifications for traffic stops, car searches, home invasions and general rummaging through your belongings that they can always come up with an after-the-fact justification hiding the real basis for their conduct, and thereby making illegal conduct extremely difficult to uncover even for a very experienced criminal defense attorney. We see this type of conduct, for example, in “wall stop” cases, where the police hide illegal conduct by masking their activity behind a second, outer layer of law enforcement. Nonetheless, law enforcement is deterred to the extent that they may have to justify their activity in a court against the exacting scrutiny of an aggressive criminal defense lawyer; there is really no other effective deterrent to the police from invading your privacy as they see fit. The Herring decision threatens to erode accountability for police misconduct.
Perhaps the new composition of the Supreme Court, with Justice Sotomeyer, will resist repeal of the exclusionary rule. Time will tell.
Juvenile Offenses can be used as Strikes
Juvenile adjudications (convictions) can be used against adult criminal defendants under the “three strikes” law even though juvenile defendants have no right to a jury trial. The California Supreme Court, in People v Nguyen, held that prior juvenile adjudications that qualify as serious or violent felonies (”strikes”) can used to substantially increase an adult criminal defendant’s felony sentence, despite the fact that juveniles are not entitled to a trial by jury.
In Nguyen, the Court emphasized that a defendant is still free to contest the fact of a prior conviction in the adult case, and, of course, a defendant can always challenge whether the juvenile adjudication actually qualifies as a serious or violent felony offense. Juvenile cases from outside of California are example of those types of cases often subject to successful challenge on the issue of whether they qualify as a strike offense. But for now, criminal defense attorneys can no longer successfully raise 5th 6th and 14th Amendment objections against the use of the juvenile case as a strike solely due to the lack of a jury trial right in juvenile court.
The California Supreme Court may get overruled on this issue by the U.S. Supreme Court. Criminal defense lawyers therefore must continue to object to the use of juvenile offense as strikes in order to preserve this issue for appeal, especially for criminal defendants looking at a life sentence.
