The Plea Bargaining Blog

In this second of three posts regarding recent stories focusing on the militarization of America's police forces and the resulting consequences, I look at an article that appeared in the Richmond Times Dispatch . The  story is entitled, "Commit any felonies lately?" Below are a few excerpts from the article. Elizabeth Daly went to jail over a case of bottled water. According to the Charlottesville Daily Progress, shortly after 10 p.m. April 11, the University of Virginia student bought ice cream, cookie dough and a carton of LaCroix sparkling water from the Harris Teeter grocery store at the popular Barracks Road Shopping Center. In the parking lot, a half-dozen men and a woman approached her car, flashing some kind of badges. One jumped on the hood. Another drew a gun. Others started trying to break the windows. Daly understandably panicked. With her roommate in the passenger seat yelling “Go, go, go!” Daly drove off, hoping to reach the nearest police station. ...

Over the next three posts, I will be linking to three recent stories focusing on the militarization of America's police forces and the resulting consequences. These three articles include fascinating stories about policing in the 21st century. The first story appeared recently in Salon and is entitled, "Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book": The new warrior cop is out of control."  Below are a few excerpts from the article. Several months earlier at a local bar, Fairfax County, Virginia, detective David Baucum overheard the thirty-eight-year-old optometrist and some friends wagering on a college football game. “To Sal, betting a few bills on the Redskins was a stress reliever, done among friends,” a friend of Culosi’s told me shortly after his death. “None of us single, successful professionals ever thought that betting fifty bucks or so on the Virginia–Virginia Tech football game was a crime worthy of investigation.” Baucum apparently did. After overheari...

Yesterday, a unanimous Supreme Court delivered the opinion in the case of United States v. Davila. The opinion was written by Justice Ginsburg. Justice Scalia filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgement, with Justice Thomas joining.  The Cornell Legal Information Institute describes the facts of the case as follows: On February 8, 2010, a magistrate judge held a hearing with the defendant, Anthony Davila, and his attorney. At the hearing, the judge encouraged Davila to plead guilty, and on May 11, 2010, Davila pled guilty to the charges. On appeal, Davila successfully argued that the judge’s encouragement constituted a violation of Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (“FRCP”) 11(c)(1), which generally prohibits the judge from participating in plea-bargaining. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether any judicial participation in plea-bargaining, as opposed to “prejudicial” participation, mandates automatic reversal of a conviction. The Un...

An interesting CNN article recently discussed a new Human Rights Watch report the examines the use of sex registration requirements to deal with children who commit sex offenses. The report is entitled " Raised on the Registry: The Irreparable Harm of Placing Children on Sex Offender Registries in the U.S. " and states in its opening: Upon release from juvenile detention or prison, youth sex offenders are subject to registration laws that require them to disclose continually updated information including a current photograph, height, weight, age, current address, school attendance, and place of employment. Registrants must periodically update this information so that it remains current in each jurisdiction in which they reside, work, or attend school. Often, the requirement to register lasts for decades and even a lifetime. Although the details about some youth offenders prosecuted in juvenile courts are disclosed only to law enforcement, most states provide these details ...

According to a New York Times article, a recent report by the Department of Justice Inspector General recommends that the federal Bureau of Prisons utilize compassionate release more often to save money and reduce overcrowding. The federal Bureau of Prisons could save taxpayer money and reduce overcrowding if it better managed a program for the “compassionate release” of inmates who are dying or facing other extraordinary circumstances, according to a new report by the Justice Department’s independent inspector general. The federal prison system does not allow the parole of inmates before their sentences are completed, but in the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, Congress authorized the bureau to request that a judge reduce an inmate’s sentence for “extraordinary and compelling” circumstances. Such compassionate release does not have to be for reasons of terminal illness, but it generally is. The 85-page report, released on Wednesday by Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, examined c...

According to CNN , the plea agreement between BP and the U.S. Justice Department has been approved by a federal judge in New Orleans.  The plea deal requires BP to plead guilty to numerous federal charges and pay $4 billion in fines and penalties. A federal judge in New Orleans Tuesday approved a $4 billion plea agreement for criminal fines and penalties against oil giant BP for the 2010 Gulf oil spill, the largest criminal penalty in U.S. history. U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Vance imposed the terms that the Justice Department and BP had agreed to last November, which include the oil company pleading guilty to 14 criminal counts -- among them, felony manslaughter charges -- and the payment of a record $4 billion in criminal penalties over five years. Vance's ruling came after hearing from eight witnesses Tuesday, including family members of those killed, cleanup workers, and members of the Southeast Asian Fisherfolks Association. The plea agreement is with the oil company and...

The New York Times has an interesting opinion page article and related video entitled "True Believers in Justice."  The article and video describe the work of public defenders in the United States.  I’d always wanted to be a lawyer, but unlike Travis Williams — the subject of this Op-Doc video — I never wanted to be a public defender. I didn’t understand how anyone could represent people who did terrible things. “Criminals” were not people I wanted to help. Then, in 2009, while working in the legal department at A&E Television, I met Jonathan Rapping, the founder of what’s now Gideon’s Promise. He invited me to his client-centered legal training program in Alabama. At the start of training, Mr. Rapping asked each lawyer to articulate why he or she chose to become a public defender. One young man said he had a brother with Down syndrome, so he wanted to help people who could not navigate the legal system for themselves. Another said he had been arrested as a teenager, s...