Well, that’s one way to reduce crowded prisons. April 21, 2008
Posted by Idta in : Criminal Law, Law Enforcement , add a comment
Imagine if the “fine” for underage drinking was a tour of duty in Iraq! (Watch out, Jenna!) It hasn’t quite come to that, but our desperate military has expanded their definition of “a few good men” to include more people with felony convictions.
Under pressure to meet combat needs, the Army and Marine Corps brought in significantly more recruits with felony convictions last year than in 2006, including some with manslaughter and sex crime convictions.
We’re back! USA is #1! February 28, 2008
Posted by Idta in : Criminal Law, Law Enforcement , 1 comment so far Apparently we are fast becoming a nation of outlaws!
For the first time in U.S. history, more than one of every 100 adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report documenting America’s rank as the world’s No. 1 incarcerator.
Sentence inflation February 2, 2008
Posted by Idta in : Criminal Law, Law Enforcement , 2comments This week I sat second-chair in the trial of a 32-year-old bipolar man accused of cutting a guard’s hand with a razor blade. He has 5 years left on his current sentence. The jury found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison.
A high-ranking officer testified that he ordered the man’s cell to be searched every 2 hours — day and night. If the defendant refused to wake up, be shackled, and come out of the cell, they sprayed him with chemical agents. Then they sent five men in riot gear into his cell to pull him out forcefully. This apparently went on for several months.
The officer said he didn’t know about any research concerning the harmful effects of sleep deprivation, and he wasn’t aware of any harmful effects. (But he grudgingly conceded that lack of sleep could probably make someone irritable.) Also, in his 16 years experience, he had never heard of any guard taking an inmate’s food, as punishment or in retaliation for bad conduct. He’d never even heard the prison lingo — jack the food — for this common inmate complaint.
He said all of this under oath, so it must be true.
It’s getting pretty deep! December 10, 2007
Posted by Idta in : Constitution, Criminal Law, Law Enforcement , add a comment Everybody knows shit runs down hill. When it gets up to the neck of a top White House stooge, THAT IS PRETTY DEEP!
The Bush White House has refused to comment on unresolved questions in the Libby case — such as why no White House staff member was ever reprimanded — on the grounds that the appeals process was still unfolding. Now that argument is moot, as Libby has dropped his appeal.
States rethink charging youths as adults December 1, 2007
Posted by Idta in : Criminal Law, Law Enforcement , add a comment Is the pendulum going the other way at last? States rethink charging youths as adults
“There was an organized effort to label kids and make people afraid of juveniles. . . . People were saying their mothers had smoked crack, their DNA had changed. … they were no longer the same people. They tried to make it seem these kids are different from your kids and that you need to do something.”
Another thing to be thankful for! November 22, 2007
Posted by Idta in : Criminal Law, Law Enforcement , add a comment I spent about ten minutes locked inside a cell in solitary confinement today. We went to do a crime-scene visit. My investigator brought his camera. The guard closed the door so we could take pictures of the view my client had looking out onto the run. When they close the cell door, the cell feels like it gets a lot smaller. It’s about 6 feet across, and maybe 40 square feet (it’s not a square, so that’s an estimate).
I’m thankful I’m out of there.
Should we change our definition of Freedom next? November 11, 2007
Posted by Idta in : Constitution, Criminal Law, Law Enforcement , add a comment The Bush Administration has already redefined “torture” (and treason). Now they’re taking aim at changing the definition of privacy.
A top intelligence official says it is time people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.
Raising Sand? October 19, 2007
Posted by Idta in : Criminal Law, Law Enforcement , add a comment A burglar recently complained about being forced to clean up at gunpoint.
“This man had the nerve to raise sand about us making him clean up the mess he made in my house. The police officer laughed at him when he complained and said anybody else would have shot him dead.”
Carter says U.S. tortures prisoners October 10, 2007
Posted by Idta in : Constitution, Law Enforcement , add a comment Now is the time for tears. We need to flush Bush, wipe up his sewage, and bring back America.
“Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights.”
Aging inmates clogging nation’s prisons September 29, 2007
Posted by Idta in : Criminal Law, Law Enforcement , add a comment This article talks about the graying of America’s prisons, and how it’s costing states more money each year to take care of elderly inmates.
And once they enter prison walls, they aren’t eligible for Medicaid or Medicare, where the costs are shared between the state and federal government, meaning a state shoulders the burden of inmate health care on its own.
