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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 1:28 am
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Results for prosecutorial discretion
13 results foundAuthor: Strom, Kevin J. Title: NIJ Controlled Substances Case Processing Study Summary: The processing and analysis of controlled substance evidence accounts for a significant proportion of the work performed by forensic crime laboratories. Crime laboratories are faced with ever-increasing caseloads and demands for prompt analytical information, and the impact of drug chemistry analysis on laboratory backlogs has been largely overlooked. RTI International was funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to conduct the Controlled Substances Case Processing Study. The primary objectives of the study were to (1) gain an improved understanding of how controlled substances cases are processed, from the point of collection (law enforcement) through analysis (forensic laboratories) to subsequent criminal justice processes (prosecution), including factors that influence decision making at different stages in the process; (2) describe the role that controlled substances evidence plays in charging decisions by prosecutors, pretrial plea negotiations, and posttrial convictions; and (3) gather descriptive information from a range of U.S. jurisdictions that could be used to identify problems and develop systemic solutions to case backlogs and other inefficiencies in these forensic systems. Data were collected from a purposive sample of 10 jurisdictions, which represented a wide variation of different law enforcement and laboratory arrangements within state and local systems. Other selection criteria included jurisdiction size, rural or urban location, and differences in legal processes. Site visits to each of the selected jurisdictions were typically conducted over a 2-day period using semistructured interviews. Basic metrics associated with case processing statistics were also collected. Overall, a total of 38 agencies and 60 respondents were interviewed. The findings from this study demonstrate that jurisdictions vary considerably in terms of how they process and analyze controlled substance evidence. Laboratory drug analysis results were not often used (or required) as part of the charging process; in many jurisdictions the charging decisions were tied to the field test result and not to the presence of a confirmatory analysis result. In only one jurisdiction did the prosecutor require that the confirmatory analysis be conducted before the grand jury process (and before any plea negotiation discussions). However, although laboratory analysis was not required for plea negotiations in most sites, some still submitted all drug evidence directly to the laboratory regardless of whether it would ultimately be needed. In terms of barriers and challenges identified, from a laboratory perspective, there is an acute need for more uniform procedures and processes for submitting and analyzing drug evidence, including prioritization based on factors such as case seriousness. From a law enforcement perspective, the findings suggest that more systematic policies and resources need to be in place for evidence retention and storage. Improved communication was identified as an area of need by all the sites; however, some sites had more effective crossagency communication than others. A key for improving coordination was the presence of effective laboratory submission guidelines. In three jurisdictions, the implementation of a case submission policy was attributed to significant reductions in both the number of controlled substance cases pending analysis and the time to turn around cases. Case tracking systems that promote information sharing and monitoring across the different stages of the process were also highly effective. For example, a limited number of sites reported that prosecutors proactively provided information on cases resolved either by plea bargaining or dismissal — cases that, study participants estimated, represented 50–75% of the drug case “backlog.” Details: Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International, 2010. 103p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 29, 2011 at: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/233830.pdf Year: 2010 Country: United States URL: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/233830.pdf Shelf Number: 121187 Keywords: Crime LaboratoriesDrug OffensesEvidenceForensicsPlea BargainingProsecutionProsecutorial Discretion |
Author: Rehavi, M. Marit Title: Racial Disparity in Federal Criminal Charging and Its Sentencing Consequences Summary: This paper assesses the extent to which the large disparities in sentencing outcomes between black and white defendants can be explained by disparities in prosecutors' initial choice of charges, a critical stage overlooked by existing studies of sentencing disparities. To analyze charging, we pair newly constructed measures of charge severity with a newly linked dataset that traces federal cases from the arrest through sentencing. We find that black arrestees, especially black males, face significantly more severe charges conditional on arrest offense and other observed characteristics. The disparities in the use of charges that carry mandatory minimum sentences are particularly striking. These disparities appear to be major drivers of sentencing disparity. Black males face significantly longer sentences than white males do, on average and at almost every decile of the sentence-length distribution, even after conditioning on arrest offense, criminal history, district, and age. However, the addition of controls for initial charges renders most of these disparities insignificant. Indeed, the otherwise-unexplained racial disparities at the mean and at most of the deciles can be almost entirely explained by disparities in a single prosecutorial decision: whether to file a charge carrying a mandatory minimum sentence. Details: Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Law School, 2012. 59p. Source: Internet Resource: U of Michigan Law & Econ, Empirical Legal Studies Center Paper No. 12-002: Accessed March 2, 2012 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1985377 Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1985377 Shelf Number: 124348 Keywords: ProsecutionProsecutorial DiscretionProsecutorsPunishmentRacial DisparitiesSentencing (U.S.) |
Author: Graham, Kyle Title: Crimes, Widgets, and Plea Bargaining: An Analysis of Charge Content, Pleas, and Trials Summary: This article considers how the composition and gravamen of a charged crime can affect the parties’ willingness and ability to engage in plea bargaining. Most of the prevailing descriptions of plea bargaining ignore or discount the importance of charge content in plea negotiations. In fact, one leading commentator has likened crimes to widgets insofar as plea bargaining is concerned. In developing its counter-thesis, this article reviews seven years of federal conviction data, focusing on those crimes that produce the most and fewest trials relative to how often they are alleged; the most and fewest acquittals at trial; and the most and fewest plea bargains that involve a substantial alteration in charges. Overall, the data demonstrate that the character of and circumstances that surround a particular offense can catalyze or frustrate plea bargaining. Similar information to that utilized in and gleaned from this study, it is also argued, can and should be considered in connection with the adoption of new crimes and the re-evaluation of existing offenses. This information would provide legislatures with insight into how a proposed crime is likely to be utilized, and how current crimes are being used. Details: Unpublished, 2012. 58p. California Law Review, Forthicoming. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 20, 2012 at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2004194 Year: 0 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2004194 Shelf Number: 124611 Keywords: ConvictionsLegislationPlea BargainingProsecutorial DiscretionProsecutorsTrials |
Author: Ramiriz, Mary Kreiner Title: Criminal Affirmance: Going Beyond the Deterrence Paradigm to Examine the Social Meaning of Declining Prosecution of Elite Crime Summary: Recent financial scandals and the relative paucity of criminal prosecutions against elite actors that benefited from the crisis in response suggest a new reality in the criminal law system: some wrongful actors appear to be above the law and immune from criminal prosecution. As such, the criminal prosecutorial system affirms much of the wrongdoing giving rise to the crisis. This leaves the same elites undisturbed at the apex of the financial sector, and creates perverse incentives for any successors. Their incumbency in power results in massive deadweight losses due to the distorted incentives they now face. Further, this undermines the legitimacy of the rule of law and encourages even more lawlessness among the entire population, as the declination of prosecution advertises the profitability of crime. These considerations transcend deterrence as well as retribution as a traditional basis for criminal punishment. Affirmance is far more costly and dangerous with respect to the crimes of powerful elites that control large organizations than can be accounted for under traditional notions of deterrence. Few limits are placed on a prosecutor’s discretionary decision about whom to prosecute, and many factors against prosecution take hold, especially in resource-intensive white collar crime prosecutions. This article asserts that prosecutors should not decline prosecution in these circumstances without considering its potential affirmance of crime. Otherwise, the profitability of crime promises massive future losses. Details: Topeka, KS: Washington University School of Law, 2012. 87p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 26, 2012 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2039785 Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2039785 Shelf Number: 125404 Keywords: Elite CrimeFinancial CrimesProsecutorial DiscretionPunishmentWhite-Collar Crime |
Author: Klein, Susan R. Title: Why Federal Prosecutors Charge: A Comparison of Federal and New York State Arson and Robbery Filings, 2006-2010 Summary: Academic, judges, lobbyists, special interest groups, and the defense bar all love to complain about the undue discretion held by federal prosecutors. Criticism has intensified over the last few decades, as the federal criminal code has grown to more than 4,500 prohibitions, a fair number of which replicate nearly identical state offenses. Little empirical evidence, however, attempts to discern what, if anything, is distinctive about the cases charged in federal rather than state court, and what might be motivating federal prosecutors to make their charging decisions. Our study aims to shed some light on this subject. In Part II, we describe our efforts to collect data on the characteristics of cases prosecuted under arson and robbery statutes from three sources: (1) the United States Sentencing Commission ("USSC"); (2) the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services ("DCJS"); and (3) Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports. In Part III, we explain how we combined the USSC and New York State DCJS data before proceeding to our empirical analysis. First, we conduct a simple, bivariate analysis comparing the frequency with which our independent variables are observed in federal versus state arson and robbery cases. We note where we believe the observed, bivariate relationship is likely explained by confounding variables. Second, we proceed to utilize a more sophisticated logistic regression model to simultaneously examine the effect of our independent variables on the choice between federal versus state prosecution for arson and robbery. We find statistically significant evidence that cases prosecuted under federal arson and robbery statutes are more likely to include circumstances such as a conspiracy, a minor victim, use of a weapon, and serious recidivism. In Part IV, we conclude by discussing the higher plea rates and longer sentences imposed under federal as opposed to state criminal justice systems. We argue that where crimes involve the above-noted more egregious circumstances, federal prosecutors are more likely motived to prosecute the crime in expectation of a likely guilty plea and longer sentence. Our study provides much needed empirical evidence to support this rational view of federal prosecutorial discretion. Details: Austin, TX: University of Texas School of Law, 2014. 34p. Source: Internet Resource: U of Texas Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 557 : Accessed April 22, 2014 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2422582 Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2422582 Shelf Number: 132116 Keywords: ArsonistsProsecutionProsecutorial DiscretionPunishmentRobberySentencing |
Author: Kutateladze, Besiki Title: Prosecution and Racial Justice in New York County -- Technical Report Summary: Minority overrepresentation in the criminal justice system is of great national concern. Prosecutors' discretion to file charges, change or reduce charges, plea bargain, and make sentencing recommendations is nearly unlimited. Despite this authority, prior research has not adequately examined the extent to which prosecutors may contribute to racial and ethnic disparities. Research on criminal case processing typically examines a single outcome from a particular decision-making point, making it difficult to draw reliable conclusions about the impact that factors such as defendants' race or ethnicity exert across successive stages of the justice system. Using a unique dataset from the New York County District Attorney's Office (DANY) that tracks a large sample of diverse criminal cases, this study assesses racial and ethnic disparity at multiple discretionary points of prosecution and sentencing. In addition to a large administrative dataset, randomly selected subsamples of misdemeanor marijuana and felony non-marijuana drug cases were chosen, and information on arrest circumstances and evidence factors was gathered from prosecutors' paper files to supplement our analyses. The study found that DANY prosecutes nearly all cases brought by the police with no marked racial or ethnic differences at case screening. For subsequent decisions, disparities varied by discretionary point and offense category. For all offenses combined, compared to similarly-situated white defendants, black and Latino defendants were more likely to be detained, to receive a custodial plea offer, and to be incarcerated; but they were also more likely to benefit from case dismissals. In terms of offense categories, blacks and Latinos were particularly likely to be held in pretrial detention for misdemeanor person offenses, followed by misdemeanor drug offenses. Blacks and Latinos were also most likely to have their cases dismissed for misdemeanor drug offenses. Disparities in custodial sentence offers as part of the plea bargaining process and ultimate sentences imposed were most pronounced for drug offenses, where blacks and Latinos received especially punitive outcomes. Asian defendants appeared to have most favorable outcomes across all discretionary points, as they were less likely to be detained, to receive custodial offers, and to be incarcerated relative to white defendants. Asian defendants received particularly favorable outcomes for misdemeanor property offenses. The study concludes with a discussion of implications for DANY and the research community, as well as study limitations. Details: New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2014. 283p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 12, 2014 at: http://www.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/race-and-prosecution-manhattan-technical.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://www.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/race-and-prosecution-manhattan-technical.pdf Shelf Number: 133017 Keywords: Disproportionate Minority ContactMinority GroupsProsecution (New York)Prosecutorial DiscretionRacial Disparities |
Author: Sideman, Olivia Title: Prosecution and Racial Justice in New York County - Partnership Report Summary: The number of blacks and Latinos involved in the criminal justice system is disproportionately large compared to their numbers in the general population. This phenomenon, known as minority overrepresentation in the criminal justice system, has attracted the attention and concern of researchers, policymakers, and advocates nationwide. Yet attempts to understand the factors contributing to this disproportion historically have been limited by some inherent aspects of the justice system structure. Specifically, the system grants prosecutors broad, largely unchecked, and virtually unreviewable discretion in filing, changing, or reducing charges, plea bargaining, and making sentencing recommendations. Despite the vast influence of prosecutors in the criminal justice system, there is little existing research that adequately examines the extent to which prosecutors may contribute to unwarranted racial and ethnic disparities. Researchers rarely get access to the data necessary to investigate the relationship between race or ethnicity and prosecutorial outcomes; indeed, most jurisdictions do not systematically capture this information. When researchers are able to use available data, they typically examine the data in isolation from prosecutorial practices. The results are of relatively little use to prosecutors concerned with developing a more deliberate approach to the exercise of discretion within their offices and with ensuring the equitable treatment of defendants. With an interest in addressing this gap in the research and providing practical findings and evidence-based technical assistance, the Prosecution and Racial Justice Program (PRJ) of the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) has partnered with a number of district attorneys' (DAs') offices around the country, using a unique researcher-practitioner model. This report describes Vera's most recent partnership, with the New York County District Attorney's Office (DANY), which was funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). The partnership allowed Vera to place two-to-three researchers, depending on the phase of the project, at DANY for 20 months to work closely with DANY staff and analyze felony and misdemeanor cases disposed in 2010 and 2011. The study began in January 2012. It aimed to explore the influence of defendants' race and ethnicity on case acceptance for prosecution; detention status; plea offers to a lesser charge and custodial punishment offers; case dismissals; sentencing; and charge dynamics while considering a host of other factors influencing prosecutorial decision making (e.g., prior record or charge seriousness). The project involved: (1) evaluating and analyzing existing administrative data; (2) conducting prosecutorial semi-structured interviews to better understand case processing and data limitations; (3) collecting additional data from a sample of 2,409 case files; (4) hosting meetings to discuss research findings and their policy implications; and (5) disseminating findings through reports, peer-reviewed publications, and conference presentations. Details: New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2014. 31p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 28, 2014 at: http://www.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/race-and-prosecution-manhattan-partnership.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://www.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/race-and-prosecution-manhattan-partnership.pdf Shelf Number: 133152 Keywords: Case ProcessingEthnic DisparitiesProsecution (New York)Prosecutorial Decision-MakingProsecutorial DiscretionProsecutorsRacial Disparities |
Author: Rabin, Nina Title: Victims or Criminals? Discretion, Sorting, and Bureaucratic Culture in the U.S. Immigration System? Summary: This article examines the Obama Administration's effort to encourage the use of prosecutorial discretion by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the executive agency in charge of the enforcement of immigration laws. Since 2010, the Obama Administration has repeatedly stated that agency officials are to focus enforcement efforts on those who pose a threat or danger, rather than pursuing deportation of all undocumented immigrants with equal fervor. Yet despite repeated directives by the administration, the implementation of prosecutorial discretion is widely considered a failure. Data and anecdotes from the field suggest that ICE has yet to embrace this more nuanced approach to the enforcement of immigration laws. In this article, I argue that one key reason that prosecutorial discretion has not taken hold within ICE is the failure of the President and his administration to adequately account for agency culture. In particular, the prosecutorial discretion initiative directly conflicts with the central role that criminal convictions play in ICE culture. To support my argument, I present an in-depth case study of the agency's refusal to exercise discretion in a highly compelling case. For over two years, ICE aggressively prosecuted a client of University of Arizona's immigration clinic who appeared to be the quintessential recipient of prosecutorial discretion, as the victim of domestic violence, sex trafficking, and the primary caregiver for three young U.S citizen children. Despite these equities, ICE's decision to prosecute was based wholly on the single conviction on her record, which was directly related to her victimization and for which she received a sentence of probation only. I situate this case study in a theoretical framework regarding bureaucratic culture. Applying this analysis to ICE brings into focus key elements of the agency's culture, particularly its tendency to view all immigrants as criminal threats. This culture makes the sole fact of a conviction - without regard to its seriousness or context - a nearly irreversible determinant of the agency's approach to any given case. My analysis of the nature and intensity of ICE's bureaucratic culture has troubling implications for the capacity of the President and his administration to implement reforms that counter the lack of nuance in the immigration system's current legal framework. It suggests that locating discretion primarily in the enforcement arm of the immigration bureaucracy has inherent limitations that lead to a system poorly designed to address humanitarian concerns raised in individual cases. Details: Tucson: University of Arizona - James E. Rogers College of Law, 2013. 68p. Source: Internet Resource: Arizona Legal Studies Discussion Paper No. 13-38 : Accessed June 3, 2015 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2310125 Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2310125 Shelf Number: 129775 Keywords: ImmigrantsImmigrationImmigration EnforcementImmigration PolicyProsecutorial Discretion |
Author: George, Christine C. Title: An Evaluation of the Cook County States Attorneys Office Deferred Prosecution Program Summary: The study looks at the development, implementation, and impact of the Cook County State Attorneys' Deferred Prosecution Program (DPP). Researchers used a mixed methodological approach involving qualitative and quantitative methods including a quasi-experimental design to measure outcomes. Following we summarize the program model, key findings and recommendations. The DPP Model The model is predicated on an ongoing operational collaboration of the State's Attorney's Office with the Cook County First Municipal District Judicial Circuit Court, the Department of Probation Pre-Trial Services Division, and TASC, all of which have key operational roles in the DPP model. The Assistant State's Attorneys (ASA) at various Cook County Branch Courts identify potential candidates, first time non-violent felony offenders, before preliminary hearings are conducted. If victims agree and DPP candidates accept the 12-month program offer, the preliminary hearing is waived and the case is transferred to the DPP program. The low demand program requirements includes regular court appearances in a DPP branch court, assessment, monthly meeting with pre-trial services officer, meeting of certain conditions, dependent on their particular offense and their educational and employment status and not reoffending. Upon successful completion of the program, the felony charge is dismissed by the SAO, exercising its prosecutorial discretion and the participant can then have his or her record expunged. Details: Chicago: Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, 2015. 102p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 15, 2015 at: http://www.icjia.state.il.us/public/pdf/ResearchReports/Cook_County_Deferred_Prosecution_Evaluation_0715.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://www.icjia.state.il.us/public/pdf/ResearchReports/Cook_County_Deferred_Prosecution_Evaluation_0715.pdf Shelf Number: 136063 Keywords: Criminal CourtsPretrial Services ProsecutionProsecutorial Discretion |
Author: Bies, Katherine J. Title: Stuck in the '70s: The Demographics of California Prosecutors Summary: Recent events have renewed longstanding concerns about the treatment of racial minorities by the criminal justice system in California and throughout the United States. Part of that attention has focused on prosecutors, the gatekeepers to the criminal justice system and, in many ways, the system's most powerful officials. Nationwide protests followed failures by prosecutors last year to secure indictments against White police officers implicated in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, two unarmed Black men, in Ferguson, Missouri, and Staten Island, New York. Those protests in turn prompted President Obama to remind the country of our legal system's "long history of discrimination." Considerable attention was also drawn to the decision in May of this year by the State's Attorney in Baltimore, Maryland to file charges against six police officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man arrested for what the police alleged was an illegal knife, while Gray was in custody. Prosecutors determine who is criminally charged, what they are charged with, what sentence will be sought, and what concessions, if any, will be offered in exchange for a guilty plea. Particularly in cases that do not proceed to trial-which are the vast majority of all criminal cases-the prosecutor's decisions effectively determine the outcome. Prosecutors also set broad policies for the criminal justice system, deciding which laws will be enforced aggressively and which will not, helping to convince other law enforcement officials how to pursue their missions, and often setting the agenda for public debates about criminal justice. The District Attorneys in Ferguson and on Staten Island were White men; the State's Attorney in Baltimore was a Black woman. It is impossible to know what role those facts played in their charging decisions, but the race and gender of the lead prosecutors understandably received considerable attention. Because prosecutors hold so much power and exercise so much discretion, it is cause for concern if they do not reflect the diversity of the public. Thus, one of the many questions raised by the Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray cases is: How representative are prosecutors of the communities that they serve?" In California, the answer is "not very." In 2014 Latinos surpassed Whites as the largest demographic group in California. Whites comprise slightly more than 38 percent of the population in California, but they are nearly 70 percent of California prosecutors. Latinos are almost 39 percent of the population but only nine percent of California prosecutors. The last time 70 percent of Californians were White was in 1977-the year that Jimmy Carter became President of the United States, Apple Computer was. Demographically speaking, California prosecutors are stuck in the '70s. Details: Stanford, CA: Stanford Criminal Justice Center, Stanford Law School, 2015. 52p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 26, 2015 at: http://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Stuck-in-the-70s-Final-Report.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Stuck-in-the-70s-Final-Report.pdf Shelf Number: 137057 Keywords: DiscriminationMinority GroupsProsecutionProsecutorial DiscretionProsecutorsRacial Disparities |
Author: Ball, W. David Title: The New Normal? Prosecutorial Charging in California After Public Safety Realignment Summary: On April 4, 2011, Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 109, the 2011 Public Safety Realignment Act ("Realignment" or "AB 109"), into law. AB 109 was one response to the 2009 Three-Judge Court Order for California to significantly reduce its prison population to 110,000 people, or 137.5% of design capacity, by year-end 2013. Affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 in Brown v. Plata, the Three-Judge Court Order determined prison overcrowding to be "the primary cause of the state's unconstitutional failure to provide adequate medical and mental health care to California prisoners," concluding that population reduction was the most narrowly drawn, least intrusive remedy. Realignment shifts the responsibility of supervising, tracking and imprisoning specified non-serious, non-violent, non-sexual ("triple-nons" or "N3 felonies" or "non-non-nons") offenders previously bound for state prison to county jails and probation (see Overview of Public Safety Realignment. The law states that "the purpose of justice reinvestment is to manage and allocate criminal justice populations more cost-effectively, generating savings that can be reinvested in evidence-based strategies that increase public safety while holding offenders accountable." The implementation of Realignment in California is the largest correctional experiment of its kind. Through AB 109, the Legislature has allocated over $2 billion in the first two years of implementation to assist California's 58 counties in carrying out the legislation's provisions. In addition, more than 100,000 offenders have had their sentences altered through mid-2013. The advent of Realignment, of course, affected the decision-making of all the official actors in the criminal justice system. But the prosecutor's role is unique in one clear sense: Prosecutors have, in formal legal terms, virtually un-reviewable autonomy in the choice to charge or not charge an offender (so long as any charge matches provable facts with statutory elements). Traditionally, in deciding whether to charge as high as the provable facts allow, they consider contextual aspects of the commission of the offense itself but also any relevant background aspects and criminal record of the offender. How does this power operate in the wake of AB 109? On the one hand, AB 109 simply classified a large number of pre-existing felonies under California Penal Code S1170(h) because they were deemed "triple-nons." In that sense, prosecutors in theory might be indifferent to the change; they would continue to charge these felonies according to the same factors as they always had, and the changes in site of incarceration and possible change in de facto length of sentences would happen of their own accord. In a sense, the only mandated change in prosecutorial choice here had to do with sentence recommendation: Because judges now have the power to impose a split sentence for an AB 109 conviction - fractioning the sentence between jail time and community supervision - when prosecutors exercise their usual function of recommending sentences, they now have to build the matter of split versus straight sentences into that responsibility. Prosecutors have also always been free to consider such resource factors as their own and other agencies' budgets and crowding in jails and prisons. But many aspects of AB 109 were likely from the start to weigh significantly on the decisions made by prosecutors as they exercise their traditional charging and recommendation choices after October 2011. The most salient aspects were the change in site and de facto length of incarceration, as well as the secondary effects of new county responsibilities for post-release supervision of many prisoners returning home. In particular, in exercising discretion, prosecutors might be influenced by their views on the differences in the severity of experience of incarceration in jail as opposed to prison, or by their concerns about jail crowding or the extra costs that county jails and other county agencies might have to absorb under AB 109. Details: Stanford, CA: Stanford Criminal Justice Center, Stanford Law School, 2014. 187p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 28, 2015 at: http://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/default/files/publication/513777/doc/slspublic/DA%20report%20Feb%202014.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/default/files/publication/513777/doc/slspublic/DA%20report%20Feb%202014.pdf Shelf Number: 137169 Keywords: CorrectionsCriminal Justice ReformJustice ReinvestmentPrison OvercrowdingPrison ReformPrisonsProsecutionProsecutorial DiscretionProsecutorsPublic Safety Realignment |
Author: New York University Center on the Administration of Criminal Law Title: Disrupting the Cycle: Reimagining the Prosecutor's Role in Reentry: A Guide to Best Practices Summary: The report provides concrete recommendations that prosecutors can implement in order to focus on reentry and target the risk of recidivism. The report proceeds in four parts: PART I focuses on reforms that prosecutors can implement at the "front end" of the process, including considering how prosecutorial discretion at various stages of a criminal case can impact defendants' risk of recidivism and affect their reentry process. This includes using discretion to make screening and charging decisions, considering diversion and other alternatives to incarceration, supporting pretrial release of defendants where appropriate, and considering the use of creative sentencing alternatives; PART II focuses on reforms that prosecutors can implement at the "back end" of the process to begin preparing for an incarcerated individual's eventual reentry to their community. This includes prerelease reentry planning, and removing barriers that interfere with their ability to reintegrate into their communities, such as obtaining identification and drivers' licenses, providing them opportunities to expunge their convictions and reduce fines that may burden them upon release, and collaborating with employers and community-based resources; PART III focuses on the prosecutor as office leader and highlights office-wide reforms that can shift office culture to include anti-recidivism concerns as part of a broader focus on public safety; and PART IV focuses on the prosecutor's role in the larger community and how he or she can use his or her power to engage a diverse group of stakeholders in outreach and education initiatives, including legislative reforms designed to target recidivism at the front and back ends of the justice system. Details: New York: NYU Center on the Administration of Criminal Law, 2017. 110p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 22, 2018 at: http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/upload_documents/CACL%20Report.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/upload_documents/CACL%20Report.pdf Shelf Number: 149228 Keywords: Offender ReintegrationPrisoner ReentryProsecutorial DiscretionProsecutorsRecidivism |
Author: Drug Policy Alliance Title: An Overdose Death is Not a Murder: Why Drug-Induced Homicide Laws are Counterproductive and Inhumane Summary: The country is in the middle of a tragic increase in drug overdose deaths. Countless lives have been lost - each one leaving an irreparable rift in the hearts and lives of their families and friends. These tragedies are best honored by implementing evidence-based solutions that help individuals, families, and communities heal and that prevent additional avoidable deaths. This report examines one strategy that the evidence suggests is intensifying, rather than helping, the problem and calls for leaders to turn towards proven measures to address the increasing rates of overdose deaths. In the 1980s, at the height of the draconian war on drugs, the federal government and a host of states passed "drug-induced homicide" laws intended to punish people who sold drugs that led to accidental overdose deaths with sentences equivalent to those for manslaughter and murder. For the first 15-20 years, these laws were rarely used by police or prosecutors, but steadily increasing rates of drug overdose deaths across the country have led the law enforcement community to revive them. Currently, 20 states - Delaware, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming - have drug-induced homicide laws on the books. A number of other states, while without specific drug-induced homicide statutes, still charge the offense of drug delivery resulting in death under various felony-murder, depraved heart, or involuntary or voluntary manslaughter laws. These laws and prosecutions have proliferated despite the absence of any evidence of their effectiveness in reducing drug use or sales or preventing overdose deaths. In fact, as this report illustrates, these efforts exacerbate the very problem they seek to remediate by discouraging people who use drugs from seeking help and assistance. Although data are unavailable on the number of people being prosecuted under these laws, media mentions of drug-induced homicide prosecutions have increased substantially over the last six years. In 2011, there were 363 news articles about individuals being charged with or prosecuted for drug-induced homicide, increasing over 300 percent to 1,178 in 2016. Based on press mentions, use of drug-induced homicide laws varies widely from state to state. Since 2011, midwestern states Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, and Minnesota have been the most aggressive in prosecuting drug-induced homicides, with northeastern states Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York and southern states Louisiana, North Carolina, and Tennessee rapidly expanding their use of these laws. Further signaling a return to failed drug war tactics, in 2017 alone, elected officials in at least 13 states - Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia - introduced bills to create new drug-induced homicide offenses or strengthen existing drug-induced homicide laws. Prosecutors and legislators who champion renewed drug-induced homicide enforcement couch the use of this punitive measure, either naively or disingenuously, as necessary to curb increasing rates of drug overdose deaths. But there is not a shred of evidence that these laws are effective at reducing overdose fatalities. In fact, death tolls continue to climb across the country, even in the states and counties most aggressively prosecuting drug-induced homicide cases. As just one example, despite ten full-time police officers investigating 53 potential drug-induced homicide cases in Hamilton County, Ohio in 2015, the county still recorded 100 more opioid-related overdose deaths in 2016 than in 2015. This should be unsurprising. Though the stated rationale of prosecutors and legislators throughout the country is that harsh penalties like those associated with drug-induced homicide laws will deter drug selling, and, as a result, will reduce drug use and related harms like overdose, we have heard this story before. Drug war proponents have been repeating the deterrence mantra for over 40 years, and yet drugs are cheaper, stronger, and more widely available than at any other time in US history. Supply follows demand, so the supply chain for illegal substances is not eliminated because a single seller is incarcerated, whether for drug-induced homicide or otherwise. Rather, the only effect of imprisoning a drug seller is to open the market for another one. Research consistently shows that neither increased arrests nor increased severity of criminal punishment for drug law violations results in less use (demand) or sales (supply). In other words, punitive sentences for drug offenses have no deterrent effect. Unfortunately, the only behavior that is deterred by drug-induced homicide prosecutions is the seeking of life-saving medical assistance. Increasing, and wholly preventable, overdose fatalities are an expected by-product of drug-induced homicide law enforcement. The most common reason people cite for not calling 911 in the event of an overdose is fear of police involvement. Recognizing this barrier, 40 states and the District of Columbia have passed "911 Good Samaritan" laws, which provide, in varying degrees, limited criminal immunity for drug-related offenses for those who seek medical assistance for an overdose victim. This public health approach to problematic drug use, however, is rendered useless by enforcement of drug-induced homicide laws. People positioned to save lives are unlikely to call 911 if they fear being charged with murder or manslaughter. Jennifer Marie Johnson called 911 when her husband overdosed after she gave him methadone; she is currently serving six years in Minnesota prison for drug-induced homicide. Erik Scott Brown received an enhanced sentence of 23 years in federal prison partly because he failed to call 911 after a friend, whom he had supplied with one tenth of a gram of heroin, fatally overdosed. According to his testimony, the reason he did not call 911 was because drugs were present at the scene. Prosecutors - by their own admissions - want to make "examples" of these types of cases. But elevating punishments for drug-induced homicide charges has a chilling effect on seeking medical assistance and, as a result, leads to more, not fewer, avoidable overdose fatalities. This is especially true when police and prosecutors widely abuse their discretion in investigating and prosecuting drug-induced homicide cases. The vast majority of charges are sought against those in the best positions to seek medical assistance for overdose victims - family, friends, acquaintances, and people who sell small amounts of drugs, often to support their own drug addiction. Despite police and prosecutor promises to go after upper echelon drug manufacturers and distributors, that rarely happens. Out of the 32 drug-induced homicide prosecutions identified by the New Jersey Law Journal in the early 2000s, 25 involved prosecution of friends of the decedent who did not sell drugs in any significant manner. After analyzing the 100 most recent cases of drug-induced homicide in southeastern Wisconsin (as of February 2017), Wisconsin's Fox6 reported that nearly 90 percent of those charged were friends or relatives of the person who died, or the lowest people in the drug supply chain, who were often selling to support their own substance use disorder. A Chicago Tribune review of drug-induced homicide cases between 2011 and 2014 in various Illinois counties showed that the defendant was typically the last person who was with the person who overdosed. Law enforcement must be held accountable for this appalling misuse of discretion; particularly when it discourages the seeking of medical care and wastes resources that could otherwise be spent on interventions that have actually been proven successful at reducing overdose deaths. Unchecked police and prosecutorial discretion in drug-induced homicide cases is particularly ominous given the severity of sentences and the racist history of drug war enforcement. Although rates of drug use and selling are comparable across racial lines, black and Latino people are far more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated for drug law violations than are white people. When, in response to the overdose crisis, Maine Governor Paul Le Page states that "black dealers" and "guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty" are the root of the problem by bringing drugs from places like Brooklyn into his rural state, he lays it bare. Most elected officials and prosecutors advocating a punishment-oriented approach to a public health crisis are more careful with their language than Le Page - targeting "pushers" and "those people" - but the implication is the same. Enforcement of drug war policies has historically targeted black and Latino communities, and drug-induced homicide prosecutions appear to follow this pattern. While comprehensive data are not available, the district attorney of one predominantly white suburban county in Illinois with a black population of only 1.6 percent has charged four black men from Chicago with drug-induced homicide (making up 35 percent of the total prosecutions), and one prosecutor in Minnesota appears to have charged predominately black people with drug-induced homicide. Though we cannot draw any conclusions from these sparse facts, if law enforcement utilizes drug-induced homicide like it has other tools of the drug war, we can reasonably expect that the result will be future cases like James Linder's, a black man from Chicago who is serving 28 years in federal prison after being sentenced by an all-white jury in rural Illinois. Unfortunately, the harms of a highly punitive response to drug use and sales expand far beyond the effects of the actual punishment. Indeed, criminalizing people who sell and use drugs, through means like drug-induced homicide charges, amplifies the risk of fatal overdoses and diseases by increasing stigma and marginalization and driving people away from needed medical care, treatment, and harm reduction services. On the other hand, proven strategies are available to reduce the harms associated with drug misuse, treat dependence and addiction, improve immediate overdose responses, enhance public safety, and prevent fatalities. These strategies include expanding access to the life-saving medicine naloxone and training in how to administer it; enacting and implementing legal protections that encourage people to call for medical help for overdose victims; training people how to prevent, recognize, and respond to an overdose; increasing access to opioid agonist treatment such as methadone and buprenorphine, and to other effective, non-coercive drug treatments; authorizing drug checking and safe consumption sites; and improving research on promising drug treatments. Each of these strategies has evidence to support its effectiveness. Drug-induced homicide laws have none. They have not proven successful at either reducing overdose deaths or curtailing the use or sale of illegal drugs. And yet, ironically, prosecutors and legislators wield this punitive sword with impunity. They are not required to show results in support of their faulty rationale, and they are not held accountable for utterly wasted resources. We simply cannot let our elected officials off the hook that easily anymore. Not when it could be your child, friend or, simply, fellow human being, who dies from a drug overdose or is locked up for murder due to our elected officials' failures to embrace proven, life-saving public health interventions in favor of wasteful, destructive punishments. Details: Washington, DC: Drug Policy Alliance, 2017. 80p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 11, 2019 at: https://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/dpa_drug_induced_homicide_report_0.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: http://www.drugpolicy.org/resource/DIH Shelf Number: 154109 Keywords: 911 Good Samaritan LawsDrug DealersDrug Overdose DeathDrug War PoliciesDrug-Induced Homicide Evidence-Based SolutionsOpioidsProsecutorial DiscretionPublic Health Approach |