Trump Campaign Promise #5

5. Law and Order, and Criminal Justice Reform. Trump has made a strong "law and order" stance a cornerstone of his 2024 platform, positioning himself as the candidate who will crack down on crime, particularly in Democrat-run cities. He promises to take a hard line on violent crime, defunding movements, and supporting police forces. Additionally, Trump has made it clear that he plans to continue to push for criminal justice reform, including addressing prison conditions, expanding sentencing reforms, and supporting more robust rehabilitation initiatives, similar to the First Step Act he championed in his first term.

- crime rates
- violent crime
- defund police movements
- supporting police forces
- criminal justice reform
- prison conditions
- sentencing reforms
- rehabilitation initiatives
- First Step Act

From felonies.org: 14 of the Most Common Felonies

- Click here for the list.

How many have you violated? Or, how many have you been victims of? 

1. Drug Abuse Crimes
2. Arson
3. Aggravated Assault
4. Disorderly Conduct
5. Supplying Alcohol to Minors
6. Violent Crimes
7. Burglary
8. Robbery
9. Vandalism
10. Weapons Crimes
11. Fraud
12. Domestic Violence
13. Grand Theft Auto
14. Counterfeiting and Forgery

Here's detail on the ones I think you (students) are most likely to have problems with:  

Drug Abuse Crimes

Being found guilty of a felony drug charge usually results in a prison sentence of longer than a year, as well as a hefty fine. When differentiating a felony drug crime with a misdemeanor drug crime, the answers to the following questions will lead you to the answer:

- What quantity of drugs?
- What kind of drugs?
- Were the drugs being trafficked, sold, or distributed?

If you are found in possession of a small amount of a drug, you will likely not face a felony charge. However, if found with a large quantity of an illegal substance, or even a small quantity of a harder drug, a felony charge is in play.

The severity of the drug in question is classified under a “schedule.” A Schedule I drug is deemed to be highly dangerous with little medical potential and calls for the harshest penalties, including felony charges. Conversely, a Schedule V drug is seen as the least menacing, and possession is likely to result in a misdemeanor.

The punishment for first-time drug charges will typically range from one to three years in jail and a fine that can range from as little as $500 to as much as a few thousand dollars. Someone who is being charged for a drug crime they’ve already committed in the past can face up to 15 years in jail and equally exponential fines.

Disorderly Conduct

Most often, disorderly conduct results in a misdemeanor charge. However, there are cases where disorderly conduct can be escalated to a felony. An example of a felony form of disorderly conduct is falsely reporting a fire.

State laws vary widely in what is considered disorderly conduct and the appropriate punishments. For a felony charge, the perpetrator can expect up to a year, or even longer in jail along with fines that can top $1000.

Supplying Alcohol to Minors

While typically, providing alcohol to minors is a misdemeanor offense, there are times when it can result in severe felony charges. For example, a felony occurs if serious injury or death occurs as a result of supplying alcohol to minors. The punishment for this type of crime is a jail sentence of one year or more, and a significant fine that can range up to tens of thousands of dollars.

Vandalism

The broad definition of vandalism is willfully causing physical damage to someone else’s property. There are many different forms of vandalism, and some are classified as misdemeanors, while others are serious felonies. Misdemeanor offenses are punished with penalties of up to a year in jail with fines tacked on. But vandalism that results in severe destruction of a valuable piece of property is considered a felony crime.

The penalties for vandalism are unique as they encompass many different aspects. Pay Fines—Fines will vary depending on the level of charges, prior history of the perpetrator, and state law.

Restitution to the Owner—In addition to fines, restitution means the perpetrator must pay back the owner of the property for the value of the damage caused. 

Jail Time—Jail sentences may range from a few days to a few years, depending on the context of the crime.

Community Service Hours—A court will often assign community service hours as part of the punishment for both minor and major vandalism crimes.

Probation—If the crime is minor, being put on probation may be the only punishment. However, with felony vandalism, probation may be added on top of the rest of the sentences.

Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is a crime that involves abuse among members of the same household. Domestic violence can vary by state but usually refers to violence between a husband and wife, a parent and their child, a boyfriend and girlfriend, or between roommates.

The act of domestic violence is an abhorrent crime, but it can be classified as both a felony and a misdemeanor. Acts of domestic violence that can be classified as misdemeanors include verbal abuse, two adults fighting with each other, or threats of violence.

Domestic violence is considered a felony in the following situations:

Abuse of a minor.

Violence with a deadly weapon.

Sexual abuse.

Battery that results in acute bodily injuries or death.

The punishment for domestic violence will, of course, be much more severe for a felony conviction. In California, for example, a felony charge means going to state prison, rather than a county jail and for a much longer sentence of two to four years.

Counterfeiting and Forgery

While most crimes vary by state considering what constitutes a felony and what constitutes a misdemeanor, forgery is considered a felony across all 50 states. Forgery first and foremost involves writing, and the writing must be of legal substance to be considered forgery. To be regarded as a legal substance, the document must, in some way, affect a person’s legal rights.

The following qualification of forgery is that a person has either made, used, altered, or possessed this form of false writing. The last requirement is the intent to defraud. A simple example of forgery is forging someone else’s signature on a legal document.

Common types of forgery prohibited by federal law include:

Identity theft.

Forging immigration

Forging military discharge documents.

Counterfeiting money.

Forgery becomes counterfeiting most commonly when it involves currency. Counterfeiting can be a crime when knowingly distributing counterfeit money or by possessing the tools used to create counterfeit money. Counterfeiting can also involve non-monetary fraud, such as forging documents from a federal court, forging a federal agency’s seal, or forging postal stamps.

The penalties for counterfeiting are severe. Federal law would allow for up to 25 years in jail and fines for $250,000 or more if the financial gain was by more than just the defendant. When this occurs, fines can be doubled.

Forgery, while considered a felony in all 50 states, can also be seen as a misdemeanor depending on the action taking place. For a misdemeanor, a state may sentence the defendant to restitution, fines, and probation, in addition to potentially one year in jail. When felony charges are passed down, perpetrators can expect multiple years in prison and fines ranging up to $125,000 depending on the state and the charge.

__________

What is an infraction? 

In general, infractions are the least serious type of crime. An infraction is a violation of a rule, ordinance, or law. In most jurisdictions, there is no jail time associated with an infraction and it will not appear on a criminal record. Typically, payment of a fine or community service will be the only punishment. However, federal criminal law classifies an infraction as a crime with a jail sentence of not more than five days. Traffic tickets are examples of an infraction, but other offenses may also be categorized as infractions, such as trespassing, littering, disorderly conduct, and other petty offenses.

Infractions usually involve little to no time in court (much less jail). However, infractions can turn into more serious crimes if left unaddressed or unpaid. It is not uncommon that an infraction has different classes (e.g., moving violations, non-moving violations, and other petty offenses). The law typically provides for an increasing range of fines and potential penalties for the different classes within the infraction category.

 

What is a felony?

A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanour is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "félonie") to describe an offense that resulted in the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods, to which additional punishments including capital punishment could be added; other crimes were called misdemeanors. Following conviction of a felony in a court of law, a person may be described as a felon or a convicted felon.

What is a misdemeanor?

A misdemeanor (American English, spelled misdemeanour elsewhere) is any "lesser" criminal act in some common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished less severely than more serious felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions (also known as minor, petty, or summary offences) and regulatory offences. Typically, misdemeanors are punished with monetary fines or community service.

For more, click here, 

Criminal Code: 
- Title 18 of the United States Code.
- Texas Penal Code.

From Vox: How Black Lives Matter fits into the long history of American radicalism

A look at a social movement - part of subject of 2305's chapter on political mobilization.

- Click here for it.

Black Lives Matter was created in 2013 by three Black women — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi — in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman. Over the last seven years, it has evolved into something much bigger: a broad multiethnic liberation movement focused on criminal justice reform, racist policing, and adjacent causes.

During the course of this shift, the movement has not only expanded but become more radical in its demands for equality across the board. And yet, surprisingly, this has increased, rather than diminished, its appeal.

BLM had little support across the country as recently as 2017. But it has become steadily more popular, and in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, its popularity has surged to the point that it’s now supported by a majority of Americans. By any measure, that suggests BLM is succeeding — culturally and politically.

But how should we think of Black Lives Matter as a historical phenomenon? Is it the sort of radical social movement we’ve seen before in this country? Or is it something new, something different, without any precursors?To get some answers, I reached out to Michael Kazin, a professor of history and American social movements at Georgetown University and also the co-editor of Dissent magazine. We discussed how BLM fits into the long tradition of American radicalism, what its proponents can learn from previous eras, and why he thinks BLM is both a political and a cultural struggle.

From Lawfare: Hold Police Accountable by Changing Public Tort Law, Not Just Qualified Immunity

In 2306 we discuss tort reform, and look at its inclusion in the Article 1 of the Texas Constitution.

Here is an article suggesting that police reforms might be accomplished, as well, by changes in trot law.

- Click here for the article. 

While a great deal of recent writing has focused on the inequity created by qualified immunity, it is important to keep in perspective the extent to which its elimination could serve as a meaningful reform mechanism. The U.S. Supreme Court has historically drawn a sharp distinction between constitutional torts, such as excessive force, and common-law torts, such as assault, battery and negligence. Many acts of police wrongdoing may not constitute constitutional violations and thus would not be addressed by reforms to qualified immunity. Accountability would then have to stem from state tort law.

Consequently, to the extent that public tort law can serve as a viable mechanism for law enforcement accountability, eliminating statutory privileges and indemnification regulations may serve as a greater vehicle for reform than qualified immunity. That is not to suggest that the federal government cannot play a role in promoting reform. However, when it comes to federal statutes, Congress should once again examine the Federal Tort Claims Act instead of focusing solely on actions based on 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as a means of initiating law enforcement accountability.

From the Texas Tribune: Judge orders Ken Paxton trial moved out of Collin County and delayed

For 2306, and our look at the executive and judicial branches - and the criminal justice system.

- Click here for the article.

The judge in the securities fraud case against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has ruled that the trial should be moved out of Collin County and delayed.

The ruling to change venue is a major victory for prosecutors, who had argued Paxton and his allies had tainted the jury pool in Collin County, where he lives.

Judge George Gallagher said the trial, initially scheduled for May 1, will now be postponed until a new venue is determined.
Gallagher on Thursday denied two other motions: to dismiss the case and to delay it until prosecutors can get paid.

Paxton is accused of misleading investors in a company from before his time as attorney general, a legal saga that began more than a year ago. He recently beat a federal, civil case involving similar allegations, but the state charges remain — and they are more serious, carrying a potential prison sentence of up to 99 years.

Gallagher's ruling on the venue is somewhat surprising. Weeks ago, Gallagher had signaled that he had wanted to at least try to move forward with the case in Collin County, where jury selection had been set to begin in a few weeks.

In court, prosecutors had sought to show collusion among Paxton, his team and his supporters aimed at creating a sympathetic jury pool. Paxton's lawyers had argued they had no ties to the alleged effort and that it wasn't affecting public opinion even if it existed.

From the New York Times: Fly Fishing and the Art of Criminal Defense

For this coming week in 2306, and out look at the criminal justice process.

An inside look.

- Click here for the article.

In the earliest stages of a criminal case, defense attorneys and prosecutors will congregate in courtroom lobbies and attempt to resolve their cases. A handful of the prosecutors, Sean explained, were fishermen as well. Before discussing the merits of our pending cases — drug offenses, child pornography, domestic abuse — I began chatting with these men about where they had fished the weekend before, what lures they had used and how cold the water had been. We’d take out our phones to show one another pictures of fish we’d landed, and we’d congratulate or rib one another, call over other lawyers to admire the photographs of the mottled bodies quivering in our hands.

In retrospect, I understand the problems of privilege that came with this informal brotherhood — just pick up an issue of American Angler, tell me how many women or minorities you come across. A female defense attorney I worked with would often send me to negotiate with the prosecutors on behalf of our team. “Go talk dude to them,” she’d say.

The notion that a personal rapport between prosecutors and defense attorneys can affect the outcome of a client’s case — might in fact shape the rest of his life — is an uncomfortable one. It is, however, a reality. And it can be argued that a defense attorney is ethically obligated to nurture good relationships with prosecutors, as unpleasant as it can feel to do so. If two opposing attorneys get along, the negotiations tend to go better for the defendant. In a weak case, an afternoon fishing trip might be the difference between a conviction and a dismissal, between a misdemeanor and a felony, between a year of probation and a year of prison.

Not so tough on crime

One way to reduce crime is to not define every problem as a criminal act subject to law enforcement. Two Texas Tribune stories touch on this idea.

- Most embrace some reforms in Court of Criminal Appeals races.

Regardless of party, most of the candidates for the state's highest criminal court say they want to see more cases involving drug addiction and mental illness moved out of the criminal justice system.

. . . Keasler and Meyers – a conservative and progressive, respectively, and two of the longest-serving judges on the court – said people dealing with drug addiction and mental illness don't belong in the criminal justice system. Walker said he's faced the issue with his clients.

"I see people all the time – I've had several cases recently where my clients are competent to stand trial, but they're not really capable of keeping up with probation. They honestly can't," Walker said. "And they need a very intensive type of probation with a whole lot of help. The system can't just put those kind of people out on the street and expect them to show up when they're supposed to show up and do all the programs they're supposed to do without some very intensive help."

Burns, who has presided over a diversion program for more than four years, said helping these offenders instead of punishing them works out in the long run.

"When it comes to drug offenses, I'm a big believer in diversionary programs," Burns said. "I really think that treatment works much better than incarceration because if you don't treat people who have drug problems, they're going to fail on probation and then they're going to end up in prison. It really starts a cycle of failure and criminality."

- Two school districts accused of violating new truancy law.

Two Texas school districts are not following a new law designed to reduce the number of students who end up in truancy courts, an alliance of advocacy groups claimed on Monday.

In complaints filed with the Texas Education Agency, Disability Rights Texas, Texas Appleseed and the National Center for Youth Law accused the El Paso and Mesquite independent school districts of violating provisions of House Bill 2398, a measure designed to decriminalize multiple absences and encourage schools to intervene before court action is taken.

Under the new law, school districts are no longer able to send students with three unexcused absences within a four-week period to truancy courts. School officials must instead notify parents of the absences and warn them of the penalties, which include a fine or loss of driving privileges if the student acquires more absences. A criminal complaint against the parents may eventually be filed as well.

The bill also requires public schools to implement truancy prevention programs and develop new methods of punishing students are punished after multiple absences. It also mandates that parents and educators have face-to-face meetings, and that students be enrolled in a truancy prevention program.

From Robert Jackson: The Federal Prosecutor

This essay was flagged in the previous post.

Jackson was an attorney general under FDR, and later a justice on the Supreme Court.

Here he ruminates on the role of the prosecutor. a potentially dangerous force if malicious - and political.

- Click here for the address.

From Lawfare: Grab 'em by the Constitution: Trump and the Justice Department

Some commentary on Trump's promise to put Clinton in jail if he wins the election.

- Click here for the article.

The attorney general serves at the pleasure of the president and thus can be directed to do as the president pleases. He can be fired if he does not do so and replaced with someone who will. The president also has the authority to have the attorney general name a special prosecutor. Assuming, perhaps charitably, that Trump's promise to jail Clinton is a promise to do so only after she is indicted and convicted of crimes, he has the power to do that too, provided that the special prosecutor he has named or the attorney general he directs can actually make and prove a case against her. I have serious doubts that there is any such case to make, given that FBI Director James Comey has said flatly that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring a criminal against Clinton. But let's be clear that Trump here is not promising to do anything the president lacks the constitutional authority to do.
Yet Trump's comments induced horror among many commentators—and rightly so. The reason? His promise tramples on a number of cherished norms in the relationship between the Justice Department and the White House and in the conduct of the Justice Department itself. These norms restrict presidential and departmental behavior far more than the bare bones strictures of the Constitution. They are part of our constitutional fabric and rooted in important constitutional values. But our mode of enforcing them is not legal. It is political. It is a matter of our deepest expectations of the presidency and the Justice Department.

One of these norms is that the Justice Department doesn't use the criminal enforcement powers of the federal government to go after the administration's political opponents.

. . . Another norm Trump's promises assault is the notion that while the Justice Department is part of the administration and the President is thus entitled to set policy priorities for it, the White House does not involve itself in or direct specific law enforcement operations or decisions.

. . . Still another norm, one sometimes honored in the breach, is that senior law enforcement officials are not supposed to publicly presume someone's guilt.

And:

In addition to the three important norms you explain such a statement violates, there’s a fourth: this wasn’t an action by a sitting President, but a campaign promise to take such action by a candidate. So on top of the fact that this would be a deeply improper action for any President to take, we also have the specter of someone running for office asking people to vote for him based on a promise to investigate and jail a particular person—having a national referendum over (in part) whether someone should be prosecuted. One could debate whether it’s better or worse to have prosecutorial decisions corrupted by the White House or by being subject to a popular vote, but worst of all is to have both.

From the Houston Chronicle: Precinct 4's evidence destruction scandal part of larger pattern in constables' offices

For 2306, and our coverage of county offices.

- Click here for the article.

With Harris County's Precinct 4 Constable's Office mired in scandal over the improper destruction of 21,000 pieces of evidence, serious evidence cataloging and control problems also have been uncovered in the constables' offices in Precincts 3,6 and 7, according to interviews and audits obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

While there is no proof yet that evidence has been unlawfully destroyed in those other three offices, 2,000 items were initially reported missing in Precinct 3; guns, jewelry, electronics and cash were misplaced in Precinct 6; and Precinct 7's evidence room has been described as "a shambles."

In Precinct 4, where the evidence destruction scandal is still unfolding, prosecutors so far have dismissed 100 criminal cases and are still determining how many convictions could be affected by years of careless work blamed on a corporal fired for illegally disposing of drugs, guns and evidence. The episode remains the subject of a criminal probe.

Only time will tell whether chaotic evidence handling practices reported in Precincts 3,6 and 7 will result in case dismissals, appeals or further investigations.

Harris County auditors in May 2015 uncovered evidence problems - never made public - in a review of the overstuffed property room inside the Precinct  6 Constable's Office in the East End. There, auditors reported finding 28 percent of the evidence missing along with $54,000 in cash in a review of a sample of 799 items, the audit shows. Their visit to the office came only months after the previous constable, Victor Treviño, resigned after pleading guilty to misappropriating money from a charity he ran out of his office.

From Vox: Delaware death penalty law declared unconstitutional by state’s highest court

Add this to our discussion of criminal justice, the Bill of Rights, due process, juries, state judicial systems, and political culture - among other things.

- Click here for the article.

Delaware’s death penalty is unconstitutional, the state’s Supreme Court declared on Tuesday.

As Jessica Masulli Reyes reported for the News Journal, the 148-page opinion struck down how the death penalty is applied in Delaware, declaring it a violation of the Sixth Amendment–sanctioned role of a jury. The ruling follows the US Supreme Court’s January decision against Florida’s death penalty on similar grounds.

So this doesn’t mean that Delaware’s death penalty is completely dead, since it could be revived by the state’s legislature if lawmakers alter how a death sentence is carried out.
But if Delaware’s legislature does not act, New Hampshire will become the only state in the northeastern part of the country that still allows the death penalty

From the Texas Tribune: Charges Dismissed Against Anti-Abortion Activists Who Made Video

Lot's to chew on here.

Activists on the left and the right should celebrate the decisions since it makes it easier for them to shine a spotlight on the inner workings of organizations they think necessary.

But there are concerns that the elected district attorney felt political heat due to the coming election, which led to the decision to drop the charges.

- Click here for the article.

Criminal charges against the anti-abortion activists behind undercover recordings of a Houston Planned Parenthood facility were dismissed Tuesday.

David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, the videographers who infiltrated Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, had been charged with tampering with a governmental record, a second-degree felony charge that carries up to 20 years in prison. A court clerk confirmed that the Harris County district attorney's office filed the motion to dismiss the case against Daleiden and Merritt.

Harris County DA Devon Anderson said in a statement that Texas limits what can be investigated after a grand jury term gets extended, which happened in this case.
"In light of this and after careful research and review, this office dismissed the indictments," Anderson said.

Daleiden and Merritt were accused of using fake California driver’s licenses to enter the Planned Parenthood facilities where they recorded staff discussing the costs of providing fetal tissue for research.

The tampering with a governmental record count was the last remaining charge against the activists. A Harris County judge in June tossed a second charge against Daleiden — a misdemeanor charge for offering to sell or buy fetal tissue — because of a technical problem with the indictment filed by prosecutors.

Daleiden’s team had asked a judge to dismiss his indictments, alleging they were a result of improper proceedings by prosecutors and that the grand jury — originally asked to investigate Planned Parenthood, not the videographers — exceeded its authority.

From the Texas Tribune: Cornyn Bill Would Make Killing Police Officer a Federal Crime

The shooting in Dallas helps drive the expansion of federal power.

- Click here for the article.

Days after five police officers were killed by a sniper in downtown Dallas, U.S. Sen.John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced legislation Wednesday that would make killing a police officer a federal crime.

Someone who killed or conspired or attempted to kill a public safety officer, a federally funded law enforcement officer or a federal judge would be eligible for the death penalty as well as a mandatory minimum 30-year-sentence for murder and 10 years for attempted murder, according to Cornyn's office. The bill also would create additional federal crimes for fleeing a state to avoid prosecution for such offenses or for assaulting an officer.

U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, are cosponsors of the bill.

“Law enforcement officers selflessly put their lives on the line every day to protect our communities, and in return they deserve our unparalleled support for the irreplaceable role they serve,” Cornyn said in a statement. “The Back the Blue Act sends a clear message that our criminal justice system simply will not tolerate those who viciously and deliberately target our law enforcement. As our country continues to grieve following last week’s tragedy in Dallas, we must come together in support of those who risk everything to keep us safe.”

Lone gunman Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, opened fire on Dallas law enforcement Thursday night, striking 10 Dallas Police Department officers and one from the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Authority and killing five. Johnson launched the ambush during a Black Lives Matter protest of recent fatal police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota.

Cornyn's bill also would expand the use of federal grants aimed at improving relations between law enforcement agencies and the communities they protect; allow officers to carry firearms in federal buildings and other places where they are currently prohibited; and place limitations on the appeals process for convicted murderers of police officers.

A critic might ask whether states are still best equipped to address police shootings.

From Vox: These states let police take and keep your stuff even if you haven't committed a crime

A bit more for out look at criminal justice.

- Click here for the article.

Most states in America let police take and keep your stuff without convicting you of a crime.

These states fully allow what's known as "civil forfeiture": Police officers can seize someone's property without proving the person was guilty of a crime; they just need probable cause to believe the assets are being used as part of criminal activity, typically drug trafficking.

Police can then absorb the value of this property — be it cash, cars, guns, or something else — as profit, either through state programs or under a federal program known as Equitable Sharing, which lets local and state police get up to 80 percent of the value of what they seize as money for their departments.

But the restrictions in some states, such as California and New Mexico, make it so they can't keep that property without a criminal conviction under many circumstances, under state law. And, therefore, they won't be able to take people's property as easily for personal profit.So police not only can seize people's property without proving involvement in a crime, but they have a financial incentive to do so. It's the latter that state restrictions on civil forfeiture attempt to limit: Police should still be able to seize property as evidence.

And in case you are curious - and as you would suspect - Texas is one of the states thatcan take your stuff without a conviction.

From the Atlantic: What Caused the Great Crime Decline in the U.S.?

For out look at the public policy process - in this case policy evaluation. Did the "tough on crime" approach have anything to do with it?

- Click here for the article.

In the early 1990s, U.S. crime rates had been on a steep upward climb since the Lyndon B. Johnson presidency. The crack-cocaine epidemic in the mid-1980s added fuel to the fire, and handgun-related homicides more than doubled between 1985 and 1990. That year, murders peaked in New York City with 2,245 killings. Politicians embraced tough-on-crime platforms and enacted harshly punitive policies. Experts warned the worst could be yet to come.

Then crime rates went down. And then they kept going down.

By decade’s end, the homicide rate plunged 42 percent nationwide. Violent crime decreased by one-third. What turned into a precipitous decline started later in some areas and took longer in others. But it happened everywhere: in each region of the country, in cities large and small, in rural and urban areas alike. In the Northeast, which reaped the largest benefits, the homicide rate was halved. Murders plummeted by 75 percent in New York City alone as the city entered the new millennium.

The trend kept ticking downward from there, more slowly and with some fluctuations, to the present day. By virtually any metric, Americans now live in one of the least violent times in the nation’s history.

But the forces that drove the Great American Crime Decline remain a mystery. Theories abound among sociologists, economists, and political scientists about the causes, with some hypotheses stronger than others. But there’s no real consensus among scholars about what caused one of the largest social shifts in modern American history.
So, what happened?

A variety of possibilities are explored - none explains everything.

From the Washington Post: Former coal CEO sentenced to a year in prison for 2010 West Virginia coal mine disaster

We discussed Capperton v Massey in some classes recently.

This was the central character in that case. Note that the result will be appealed.

- Click here for the story.

The former chief executive of a company that owned a West Virginia mine where 29 miners were killed in a 2010 explosion was sentenced Wednesday to a year in federal prison.

Don Blankenship, who had been chief executive of Massey Energy, was found guilty by a jury in December on a charge of conspiracy to willfully violate mine health and safety standards, according to the Justice Department. He was sentenced one day after the sixth anniversary of the accident, which drew national attention and prompted congressional scrutiny.

The year in prison was the maximum sentence for this charge. Blankenship was also ordered to pay a $250,000 fine.

“This sentence is a victory for workers and workplace safety,” Carol A. Casto, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia, said in a statement after the sentence was handed down. “It lets companies and their executives know that you can’t take chances with the lives of coal miners and get away with it.”

From the Texas Tribune: Rick Perry's Criminal Case Officially Dismissed

It would be worth analyzing patterns in what types of cases they dismiss and what types of cases they don't. Does it matter who is accused?

- Click here for the article.

The criminal case against former Gov.Rick Perry was officially dismissed on Wednesday, weeks after Texas' highest criminal court ordered that it be dropped.

Judge Bert Richardson, who presided over the case in Travis County and now serves on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, signed an order dismissing the abuse of power indictment related to a 2013 veto threat.

The case against the longest-serving governor in Texas history centered on a threat to veto $7.5 million in state funds for the public integrity unit of the Travis County district attorney's office, and questions about whether he abused his authority — allegations that he had called a "baseless political attack." The unit was charged with investigating and prosecuting state corruption.

After Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg was arrested and pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated in 2013, Perry threatened to veto state funding for the integrity unit unless she first resigned. She refused to step down, and Perry vetoed the funding. 

Perry and his lawyers successfully argued that he was acting within the powers of a governor and did nothing criminal.

. . . Michael McCrum, the special prosecutor in the case, said he still believed that Perry committed a crime — and had drafted and printed copies of a motion for an amended indictment. But on Tuesday afternoon, he decided to halt the effort, saying the high court's ruling had "muddied" the criminal statute at issue.

“It was our position, and our feeling that the law had been so muddied that it was not the just thing to do with any citizen," he said.

From Ballotpedia: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

From the Atlantic: How Wall Street’s Bankers Stayed Out of Jail The probes into bank fraud leading up to the financial industry’s crash have been quietly closed. Is this justice?

More on white collar crime - and the ability of white collar criminals to avoid jail - along with trials and convictions.

- Click here for the article.

Since 2009, 49 financial institutions have paid various government entities and private plaintiffs nearly $190 billion in fines and settlements, according to an analysis by the investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. That may seem like a big number, but the money has come from shareholders, not individual bankers. (Settlements were levied on corporations, not specific employees, and paid out as corporate expenses—in some cases, tax-deductible ones.) In early 2014, just weeks after Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, settled out of court with the Justice Department, the bank’s board of directors gave him a 74 percent raise, bringing his salary to $20 million.

[After the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s, more than 1,000 bankers were jailed.]

The more meaningful number is how many Wall Street executives have gone to jail for playing a part in the crisis. That number is one. (Kareem Serageldin, a senior trader at Credit Suisse, is serving a 30-month sentence for inflating the value of mortgage bonds in his trading portfolio, allowing them to appear more valuable than they really were.) By way of contrast, following the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s, more than 1,000 bankers of all stripes were jailed for their transgressions.

At an event at the National Press Club last February, Holder said the virtual absence of convictions (or even prosecutions) this time around did not result from a want of trying. “These are the kinds of cases that people come to the Justice Department to make,” he said. “The inability to make them, at least to this point, has not been as a result of a lack of effort.” Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, made a similar argument to me. The evidence, he said, does not show clear misconduct by individuals. It’s possible that Bharara is correct about that: Wall Street bankers make it their daily business to figure out ways to abide by the letter of the law while violating its spirit. And to be sure, much of the behavior that led to the crisis involved recklessness and poor judgment, not fraud. But even so, in light of various whistle-blower allegations—and the size of the settlements agreed to by the banks themselves—this explanation strains credulity. The Justice Department’s ethos regarding Wall Street, and the way the department went about its business, appear to be a large part of the story.

From the Washington Post: New report: In tough times, police start seizing a lot more stuff from people

It's not that new - last year - but it helps explains what drives law enforcement policy.

- Click here for the article.

Recent years have brought public scrutiny on a controversial law enforcement practice known as civil asset forfeiture, which lets police seize and keep cash and property from people who are never convicted — and in many cases, even charged — with wrongdoing. But despite a growing public outcry spurred in part by news investigations and congressional hearings, a new report Tuesday from the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit civil-liberties law firm, finds that the past decade has seen a "meteoric, exponential increase" in the use of the practice.

The government does not measure the number of times per year that assets are seized. But one common measure of the practice is the amount of money in the asset forfeiture funds of the Department of Justice and the U.S. Treasury, the two agencies that typically perform forfeitures at the federal level. In 2008, there were less than $1.5 billion in the combined asset forfeiture funds of the Justice Department and the U.S. Treasury, according to the report. But by 2014, that number had tripled, to roughly $4.5 billion.

From Vox: There hasn’t been a criminal defense lawyer on the Supreme Court in 25 years. That’s a problem.

For our look at the criminal justice system in - mostly - 2306.

- Click here for the article.

It's been a quarter-century since a former criminal defense lawyer sat on the Supreme Court.

Since then, crime has fallen by half. Incarceration has risen, then fallen (slightly) again. Americans are becoming more and more critical of the "tough-on-crime" mindset that defined the end of the 20th century, and more skeptical that police and prosecutors will always use their powers for good — in other words, they're coming in line with how defense lawyers see the world.

But when Barack Obama made his third (and likely final) Supreme Court nomination last week, he nominated Merrick Garland.

Garland is a former prosecutor with a tough-on-crime record. The Court already has two ex-prosecutors.

Appellate defense lawyer Timothy O'Toole points out that the Court has veterans of both sides of civil cases (defendants' and plaintiffs' lawyers) and one side of criminal cases (prosecutors). "But the one group that seems kind of outside that box, particularly on the Supreme Court, are defense lawyers. And that's a shame."

Defense lawyers and scholars worry this isn't an accident; it's the result of the structure that shapes who can get nominated to the Supreme Court to begin with. Federal judges tend to be people who "ticked all the political checkboxes on their career starting from when they were 15," says Tejas Bhatt, assistant public defender for New Haven, Connecticut. Often one of those boxes is working as a prosecutor.

Even beyond any particular career experience, the system rewards "people who don't take controversial positions, they don't do controversial things, who don't issue controversial opinions, who do seem to hew more toward law and order and enforcement."Chip Somodevilla/Getty

There's good reason to be concerned about the jurisprudence of a court that only understands one side of a criminal case from experience — and since the high-water mark of the 1960s, defense lawyers have seen the Supreme Court put serious restrictions on the right against self-incrimination, the right against unreasonable search, and even the right to a lawyer.

But to many of them, this isn't just a problem with jurisprudence. It's a problem with the Supreme Court in a democracy — and in an increasingly diverse America. They believe the politics of Supreme Court confirmations has limited all but a very narrow, very privileged slice of America to have a shot at a seat on the highest court in the land. And one of the groups who they fear are locked out is the people whose job it is to stand up for the rights of the marginalized — and those who are on the wrong side of well-intentioned laws.