Carroll: Is plea deal for juvenile fair? - The Denver Post

Carroll: Is plea deal for juvenile fair? - The Denver Post

When 13th Judicial District Attorney Bob Watson got up before the press on Friday to announce that a 12-year-old killer would likely spend only seven years in juvenile detention based upon a plea agreement he'd reached with the Colorado Public Defender's Office, he blamed the remarkably unsatisfying prospect on state law.

"This is not an easy decision, nor one that I am entirely happy with," Watson said of the deal involving a Burlington boy accused of killing both parents and seriously wounding two siblings. "But unfortunately the current status of Colorado law forces us to choose either an unacceptably light juvenile sentence or an unnecessarily harsh lifetime sentence."

Wally Long, the boy's uncle, echoed these sentiments in a public statement, saying he felt "betrayed by the system."

"The juvenile code in Colorado does not allow for any middle ground," Long added. "It's either juvenile court and the resulting short sentence or adult court and a lengthy or life sentence. There should be some middle ground. Some combination of juvenile and adult sentencing that would do justice to the crime, provide greater protection and peace of mind for the victims and allow the one convicted to get the proper treatment .... I urge the legislators and the governor in Colorado to do something about changing the law . . . ."

Few would argue with the prosecutor's and uncle's lament that a seven-year sentence is too light — and hardly adequate to ensure public safety, let alone fulfill a normal understanding of justice.

Watson explained that he'd been seeking "some type of middle ground in this case," yet apparently couldn't find it. If the boy had been tried as an adult and convicted of first-degree murder, he'd have to serve 40 years before earning a chance at parole under a law passed in 2006.

The "middle ground," you'd suppose, would mean perhaps 12 to 20 years (although whether Watson would agree is another question).

But let's not get carried away with the indictment of state law. While it certainly should provide additional options, prosecutors often do have a middle ground available in juvenile cases — and the main thing that may have worked against it in this case was the boy's unusual youth.

Watson apparently thought he had little chance of persuading a judge to allow him to file adult charges, after which he might have tried to strike a deal for a lesser charge than first-degree murder.

When 13th Judicial District Attorney Bob Watson got up before the press on Friday to announce that a 12-year-old killer would likely spend only seven years in juvenile detention based upon a plea agreement he'd reached with the Colorado Public Defender's Office, he blamed the remarkably unsatisfying prospect on state law.

"This is not an easy decision, nor one that I am entirely happy with," Watson said of the deal involving a Burlington boy accused of killing both parents and seriously wounding two siblings. "But unfortunately the current status of Colorado law forces us to choose either an unacceptably light juvenile sentence or an unnecessarily harsh lifetime sentence."

Wally Long, the boy's uncle, echoed these sentiments in a public statement, saying he felt "betrayed by the system."

"The juvenile code in Colorado does not allow for any middle ground," Long added. "It's either juvenile court and the resulting short sentence or adult court and a lengthy or life sentence. There should be some middle ground. Some combination of juvenile and adult sentencing that would do justice to the crime, provide greater protection and peace of mind for the victims and allow the one convicted to get the proper treatment .... I urge the legislators and the governor in Colorado to do something about changing the law . . . ."

Few would argue with the prosecutor's and uncle's lament that a seven-year sentence is too light — and hardly adequate to ensure public safety, let alone fulfill a normal understanding of justice.

Watson explained that he'd been seeking "some type of middle ground in this case," yet apparently couldn't find it. If the boy had been tried as an adult and convicted of first-degree murder, he'd have to serve 40 years before earning a chance at parole under a law passed in 2006.

The "middle ground," you'd suppose, would mean perhaps 12 to 20 years (although whether Watson would agree is another question).

But let's not get carried away with the indictment of state law. While it certainly should provide additional options, prosecutors often do have a middle ground available in juvenile cases — and the main thing that may have worked against it in this case was the boy's unusual youth.

Watson apparently thought he had little chance of persuading a judge to allow him to file adult charges, after which he might have tried to strike a deal for a lesser charge than first-degree murder.

Burlington boy who killed parents will not face adult court - The Denver Post

Burlington boy who killed parents will not face adult court - The Denver Post

BURLINGTON — A 12-year-old boy accused of killing his parents and gravely wounding two siblings will spend seven years in juvenile detention, but will avoid adult charges in the case.

The announcement was made during a news conference this morning by 13th District Attorney Bob Watson and Daniel King, the chief trial deputy for the Colorado Public Defender's Office.

"There has to be some type of middle ground in this case," Watson said. "In making this decision I told my office I would not make the deal until I have all the information. "

At the same time, Watson acknowledged that a majority of the boy's family wanted to see him face adult sanctions, including the possibility of life in prison.

In considering a transfer to adult court, Watson was required to consider several factors including the seriousness of the crime, the mental health and maturity level of the juvenile the best interest of the juvenile and the safety of the community.

The boy, who was 12 years old at the time of the crime, is being held on a juvenile-delinquency petition alleging two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder and three counts of first-degree assault.

On March 1, Charles Long, 50 and his wife Marilyn, 51, were found shot to death inside their Burlington home. The two youngest children, Ethan and Sarah, were stabbed and assaulted with a knife.

The boy, whose name is being withheld by The Denver Post because he is being treated as a juvenile, was taken into custody that night and transferred to juvenile detention the next day.

The two younger siblings have since recovered from their injuries and are living with their uncle in Missouri.

The boy's disposition hearing is set for Sept. 28.

Charles Long's sister Deborah Long is among those family members unhappy with the decision.

The Interrupters

The Interrupters NEW Official Trailer

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Directed by Steve James. Produced by Alex Kotlowitz and Steve James. Every City Needs Its Heroes. An epic tale of courage and hope, The Interrupters is a new...

Supreme Court justice to be named manager of safety in Denver - The Denver Post

Supreme Court justice to be named manager of safety in Denver - The Denver Post

Colorado Supreme Court Justice Alex Martinez is expected to be named Denver's Manager of Safety today.

Two sources close to the selection process, who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak on behalf of Mayor Michael Hancock or Martinez, confirmed that the justice will resign and be appointed to the job overseeing police and fire in the city of Denver.

Hancock has scheduled an announcement for today to name his selection to the post. Check back with Denverpost.com for more information on this developing story.

Addressing the Justice Gap

NY TIMES
Most low-income Americans cannot afford a lawyer to defend their legal interests, no matter how urgent the issue. Unless they are in a criminal case, most have no access to help from government-financed lawyers either.

In civil proceedings like divorces, child support cases, home foreclosures, bankruptcies and landlord-tenant disputes, the number of people representing themselves in court has soared since the economy soured. Experts estimate that four-fifths of low-income people have no access to a lawyer when they need one. Research shows that litigants representing themselves often fare less well than those with lawyers. This “justice gap” falls heavily on the poor, particularly in overburdened state courts.

There is plenty the government, the legal profession and others can do to improve this shameful state of affairs. With the economic downturn, only around two-thirds of law school graduates in 2010 got jobs for which a law degree is required, the lowest rate since 1996. That leaves the other third — close to 15,000 lawyers — who, with financial support from government and the legal profession, could be using their legal expertise to help some of those who need representation.

While the Constitution requires that defendants in criminal cases be provided a lawyer, there is no such guarantee in civil cases. The Legal Services Corporation, created by Congress, gives out federal grants that provide the bulk of support for legal aid to the poor. Over the decades, that budget has shrunk — it was $404 million in 2011, about one-third less than it was 15 years ago, adjusted for inflation. The House Appropriations Committee has proposed reducing that to $300 million for 2012. The cut would be devastating; the budget should, instead, be increased.

Half of the people who seek help from legal aid offices are already turned away. Some offices are so understaffed that they must engage in triage, so that in, say, domestic abuse cases, they will only assist someone seeking a restraining order against a violent partner if that person is in immediate danger of being hurt again.

State bar associations could help address these needs by requiring lawyers to report their pro bono service — such disclosure would likely increase many lawyers’ service to the recommended 3 percent to 5 percent of their paid work. Another step is to allow nonlawyers into the mix. The American Bar Association has insisted that only lawyers can provide legal services, but there are many things nonlawyers should be able to handle, like processing uncontested divorces.

CCJRC Auction Preview

CCJRC 2011 Miniature Golf Tournament/Dinner/Auction

CCJRC’s annual fundraiser and silent and live auction will be held on Thursday, September 15th, 2011.

Tickets available at WWW.CCJRC.ORG

Have a look at some of these incredible Live and Silent auction items! These can be yours - plus a relaxing and entertaining evening of miniature golf, dinner, a brief presentation, and good folks - when you arrive on Thursday, September 15th

          

                                                                                 A Week in Paris....

A Week in South Africa....

A Weekend at the Christiana Lodge in Vail 
                                                                                                              

   A guided Fly Fishing tour in Colorado...

We also have over 75 Silent Auction items from some familiar places:
                               
The Oxford Hotel         
                                       

and much much more.......

CCJRC

1212 Mariposa St. #6, Denver CO.  80204

Tickets to the event are also available online at WWW.CCJRC.ORG

 

Griego: Leaving rehab is just the beginning - The Denver Post

Griego: Leaving rehab is just the beginning - The Denver Post

In the seventh month following his graduation from rehab, Roman Brohl began arranging the details of his relapse. He does not refer to it directly as a relapse, with its suggestion of helpless compulsion or momentary weakness. He uses the word "episode."

"It was completely premeditated," he says.

The distinction lies in control — or, rather, in the illusion of control. Roman understood the difference enough to be scared by what he was doing. Nevertheless, he re-created the circumstances under which he used to get drunk. He bought his gin. He shut himself in his apartment. He turned off the phone. He fired up his laptop and wrote as he drank to drunkenness.

"I don't why I did it," he says. "I don't know what I wanted to know. It was curiosity more than anything else."

He hasn't had a drink since and hasn't wanted one. "It was miserable," he says.

Roman debated whether to tell me and, by extension, the readers who followed his story, read his blog and sought help. But he and honesty have a deal. Lie to others and before you know it, you're lying to yourself and then you're barreling down the road of guilt to nowhere good.

Roman drank for 10 years. He spent 13 months getting himself well at the Denver Rescue Mission's Harvest Farm. I went to his graduation in June 2010 and hadn't seen him since. His blog, Snapshots from Rehab Ranch, can be found still on the Internet. He hasn't added an entry since graduation, but Snapshots remains worth reading.

He keeps a copy of the blog in his car and reads the entries to remind himself. "When life looks smooth, you kind of forget the struggle, and I think if I become complacent, I'll be, 'Oh, I can have a drink with friends,' " he says. "This is one issue in my life where I need to keep the thorns around."

I'm not surprised by Roman's relapse. Relapse is common, sure, but the whole time Roman was in rehab, he agonized over why he became an alcoholic. What's inside me, he'd ask himself. From there, it's only a short distance to: Is it still there?

He says he was ill-prepared for the reality of sobriety. It was not at all like the bright and shiny thing he expected. Instead, it was like falling into a void, a drab place where time sat back on its heels and refused to budge. "You come out and you feel so good and so accomplished and you get so many pats on the back, and then you enter the reality of day-to-day life and the fact is things don't always work and life doesn't always play out that way. You go to work. You go home. You watch TV until you fall asleep on the couch.

Griego: Program moves women from pain, to hope, to heroes - The Denver Post

Griego: Program moves women from pain, to hope, to heroes - The Denver Post

Sharee Wilson got out of prison and moved into a halfway house where a woman named Tina Black said, "You know, you should take this self-esteem program with me."

"Oh, no," Sharee replied, "not another program."

To the same suggestion, some of the other women at the house, scoffed: "Self-esteem? I have plenty of self-esteem, thank you very much."

Bravado isn't self-esteem, but then, the word has lost its meaning. Building self-esteem has been cast as an end, when it is a means. Humility, dignity, love of humanity all come with understanding one's own worth or value or sacredness — choose the word that has meaning for you. It guides the choices we make.

Sharee made a lot of bad choices. We've met her before. She was one of the inmates who urged students at Manny Martinez Middle School to learn from her missteps. Her son, Kevin, a dean of students at Montbello High School, saw her picture in the paper. They'd been estranged. He wrote me and said that for the first time in a long time, he was proud of her.

Sharee accepted Tina Black's offer. When the program ended, 16 weeks later, she invited me to graduation.

It was Sunday. Twenty-seven women graduated. They are residents of either Tooley Hall or Arapahoe County Residential Center halfway houses. Between the singing, the praising Jesus and the dancing, I've never seen anything quite so joyous. Hope took its place in that room among the women and their families, and hope is hard to muster in the wake of so many broken hearts.

The ceremony was held at Word Up Life Changers Ministry. It's the church with the white steeple just north of Alameda on Colorado Boulevard. The church gave office space to evangelist Renee Scott and her Angel's Cove program. Sister Scott, as she is known, is an unflappable, soft-spoken straight-talker, generous in her love and time. The goal, she tells the women, is to "build a new you."

"We talk about blame. We talk about taking responsibility," Sister Scott says. "We don't just come in with flowers. The goal is that their lives change, that they would come to know their purpose.

"When they are getting ready to go back home, they are full of questions. Who am I? How do I fit? Who will rub shoulders with me? Will I be rejected? So, we separate prison from who they are. We tear that veil away. Yes, we'll talk about prison, but right now, 'Who are you?' "

Among the guests are the directors of Tooley Hall and ACRC, Cecilia Turner and Angie Riffel. They attend every graduation. "A lot of these women have been told no one wants to hear their voices," Turner says. "This program helps them find their voices. Sister Scott has made an incredible difference in their lives."

I meet Brenda. She's a beautiful 40-year-old and longtime addict. "This is the first time I have ever graduated from anything," she says, beaming. Her mother has driven in from Laramie. "I think you can do it," mom says to daughter. "Enough is enough." Brenda nods. "I can."

Homeless surge prompts Denver Rescue Mission to add 100 beds - The Denver Post

Homeless surge prompts Denver Rescue Mission to add 100 beds - The Denver Post

Prompted by a surge in downtown's homeless population, Denver Rescue Mission, working with Denver's Road Home project, will add 100 beds at least through next April.

The addition doesn't require new construction, just a temporary zoning change, said Denver's Road Home executive director Amber Giauque Callender.

The rescue mission has been turning away, on average, 45 men each night, spokeswoman Alexxa Tavlarides said.

"My understanding is that this summer we started to notice we were turning more people away," she said.

Mission president Brad Meuli, Denver's Road Home managers and Mayor Michael Hancock agreed to the expansion at the mission's Lawrence Street and West Park Avenue location.

In the past, the mission has added as many as 100 men's beds in emergency situations, such as when winter temperatures plummet.

The city lost 200 overnight beds two years ago when the Salvation Army closed its Crossroads shelter. At the time, much of that loss was absorbed by other shelters.

Road Home focuses on finding permanent places for homeless people to live, said Callender.

But this summer, outreach workers noticed a large increase in the downtown homeless population, particularly on the 16th Street Mall.

"We definitely felt the effects of Crossroads closing, and we were struggling to find transitional housing," said Revekka Balancier, spokeswoman for Denver Human Services. "But not to this extent."

Road Home doesn't yet have numbers to quantify what its workers have been reporting, but they should come soon.

Colorado prison program teaches inmates renewable energy job skills for a greener life on the outside - The Denver Post

Colorado prison program teaches inmates renewable energy job skills for a greener life on the outside - The Denver Post

It's a far cry from making license plates.

A Colorado Department of Corrections program is now teaching career skills in renewable energy fields to inmates whose pre-arrest job capabilities may have become obsolete while they have been in prison.

Inmates who pass the program at Fremont Correctional Facility in Cañon City earn certificates and 20 college credits. It could give them the edge they need to get a job, which in turn could help them stay out of trouble, class instructor Randy Twilliger said.

After he heard about the new vocational class, Tommy Shanteler, who is serving an eight-year prison sentence for escape, immediately recognized its advantage.

"Everything is turning green; why not get educated?" Shanteler said in a recent interview in his third-tier cell as he leaned against a barred window ledge. "It's my chance to become a productive member of society."

Shanteler, 26, spoke rapidly and his hands moved quickly later in the day as he showed two fellow inmates how to wire components of a house solar system together on a prison-made control panel. His future is in green energy production, he proclaimed.

Twilliger said he's taught vocational courses for years, but he's never had such high attendance and participation. His prison students attend class five hours a day and then return to their cells to do homework out of a textbook. They also write essays and take challenging tests.

"They all kind of know this is the new frontier," he said. "I think this is really going to take off."

Twilliger has had to use leftover scraps of metal and wiring and discarded boards to piece together teaching materials like the control panel Shanteler was working on, he said. There is little funding for such a program, so he makes do with what he can find.

Sex Offenders the Last Pariah

NY TIMES OPINION
STARTING in the 1970s, lawmakers across the United States enacted punitive “lock ’em up” policies. The prison population more than quadrupled, and the United States became first in the world in both the total number of prisoners (about 2.3 million) and the rate of imprisonment (1 of every 100 adults is behind bars).
Now, budget pressures, court orders and a recognition of the social costs of incarceration have prompted America to reconsider some of these draconian laws. Incarceration rates may be topping out.
But most criminal justice advocates have been reluctant to talk about sex offender laws, much less reform them. The reluctance has deep roots. Sex crimes are seen as uniquely horrific. During the Colonial, antebellum and Jim Crow eras, white Americans were preoccupied with tales of sexual dangers to white women and children. McCarthy-era paranoia, stories of Satanic ritual abuse and other sex panics stirred pervasive anxieties about lurking strangers. Sexual predators play a lead role in the production of a modern culture of fear.
In fact, the crimes that most spur public outrage — the abduction, rape and murder of children — are exceedingly rare. Statistically, a child’s risk of being killed by a sexual predator who is a stranger is comparable to the chance of being struck by lightning. The reported incidence of most forms of child abduction, including the most serious, has declined since the 1980s.
The most intense dread, fueled by shows like “America’s Most Wanted” and “To Catch a Predator,” is directed at the lurking stranger, the anonymous repeat offender. But most perpetrators of sexual abuse are family members, close relatives, or friends or acquaintances of the victim’s family. In 70 to 80 percent of child deaths resulting from abuse or neglect, a parent is held responsible.

Denver groups must apply by Friday to be needle-exchange sites - The Denver Post

Denver groups must apply by Friday to be needle-exchange sites - The Denver Post

Organizations vying to become among the first legal syringe exchanges in Denver have until Friday to submit proposals to the Department of Environmental Health.

The Denver City Council voted unanimously in March to amend a 1997 ordinance on needle-exchange programs, making it easier for them to operate in the city.

Amendments to the ordinance consisted of eliminating the one-for-one syringe exchange provision, eliminating identification cards for participants and killing a provision that restricted a needle-exchange program from operating within a mile of another exchange.

After the proposals are submitted, a review committee will take less than two weeks before making recommendations to the Denver environmental health manager as to which agencies are best equipped to serve the community. The program depends on funding from a mix of government grants and private donations.

Exchanges could open for business as early as this fall.

Lisa Raville, director of the Harm Reduction Action Center, said she is cautiously optimistic that her organization will be one of the chosen agencies. Last year, HRAC disposed of 21,000 used syringes, officials said, but couldn't provide clean ones in exchange.

"These exchanges are essential in the community, not only for the public health of injection drug users but for the entire community as a whole," Raville said. "Thirty-five states and 60 countries already operate these exchanges, so it's long overdue."

Jefferson County Recovery Court Offers a Path Away From Prison

Denver Post
For Leslie, it’s been a struggle to get life turned around.
Thefts led to a felony conviction and probation, and alcohol abuse and failing to meet conditions of probation looked like a ticket to real time behind bars.
Then, a last chance. A new approach, barely two years old, called Recovery Court, or drug court, in Jefferson County changed her outlook — and her future.
Leslie, whose last name is being withheld, graduated from the program last week, sober, upbeat and planning on becoming a nurse.
“I’ve been through a lot,” she said, “and this program has made me who I am today.”
Leslie, 31, was reluctant at first, but went ahead with the program about two years ago.
“I hated it for a while, but it ended up being the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” she said.
Her struggles included having to deal with the death of her mother and both grandmothers.
“And I still kept going, and it was because of the people and the support I had in this program,” she added.
Her support allowed her to hold a part-time job, get promoted to store supervisor and work through the program to success — for her mom.
“A lot it I did to make her proud,” she said.

Parent's Minor Marijuana Arrest Lead to Child Neglect Cases

The NY Times
The police found about 10 grams of marijuana, or about a third of an ounce, when they searched Penelope Harris’s apartment in the Bronx last year. The amount was below the legal threshold for even a misdemeanor, and prosecutors declined to charge her. But Ms. Harris, a mother whose son and niece were home when she was briefly in custody, could hardly rest easy.
The police had reported her arrest to the state’s child welfare hot line, and city caseworkers quickly arrived and took the children away.
Her son, then 10, spent more than a week in foster care. Her niece, who was 8 and living with her as a foster child, was placed in another home and not returned by the foster care agency for more than a year. Ms. Harris, 31, had to weather a lengthy child neglect inquiry, though she had no criminal record and had never before been investigated by the child welfare authorities, Ms. Harris and her lawyer said.
“I felt like less of a parent, like I had failed my children,” Ms. Harris said. “It tore me up.”
Hundreds of New Yorkers who have been caught with small amounts of marijuana, or who have simply admitted to using it, have become ensnared in civil child neglect cases in recent years, though they did not face even the least of criminal charges, according to city records and defense lawyers. A small number of parents in these cases have even lost custody of their children.
New York City’s child welfare agency said that it was pursuing these cases for appropriate reasons, and that marijuana use by parents could often hint at other serious problems in the way they cared for their children.
As states and localities around the country loosen penalties for marijuana, for both recreational and medical uses, they are increasingly grappling with how to handle its presence in homes with children. California, where the medical marijuana movement has flourished, now requires that child welfare officials demonstrate actual harm to a child from marijuana use in order to bring neglect cases, and defense lawyers there say the authorities are now bringing fewer of them.
But in New York, the child welfare agency has not shied from these cases. For these parents, the child welfare system has become an alternate system of justice, with legal standards on marijuana that appear to be tougher than those of criminal courts or, to some extent, of society at large. In interviews, lawyers from the three legal services groups that the city hires to defend parents said they saw hundreds of marijuana cases each year, most involving recreational users

"West Memphis 3" are freed after 18 years behind bars - The Denver Post

"West Memphis 3" are freed after 18 years behind bars - The Denver Post

ATLANTA — The men known as the "West Memphis Three," who served more than 18 years behind bars for the notorious 1993 murders of three Cub Scouts, won their freedom in an Arkansas courtroom Friday after new evidence arose to potentially challenge their convictions.

Their legal absolution, however, was not clear-cut. In an agreement with prosecutors, Damien Echols and Jessie Misskelley, both 36, and Jason Baldwin, 34, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder charges but will also be able to claim they are innocent, a rare arrangement known as an Alford plea.

"It's not perfect by any means," Echols, pale and in tinted shades, said at a news conference after the hearing. "But at least it brings closure. . . . We can still try to clear our names. The only difference is now we can do it from the outside."

"Although I am innocent, this plea is in my best interest," said Misskelley, who along with Baldwin was serving a life sentence.

Damien Echols had been on death row and once came within three weeks of execution. He remained defiant Friday, accusing prosecutors of using innuendo and faulty evidence to convict them.

In the event of a new trial, "they knew there would be more people watching, more attention on the case, so they wouldn't be able to pull the same tricks," Echols said.

The gruesome slayings of the 8-year-old boys — Christopher Byers, Steve Branch and Michael Moore — terrified the small heartland city of West Memphis, Ark., leading to rumors that a satanic cult was responsible. After disappearing one afternoon in May 1993, the second-graders were found "naked, bound and in horrific condition, submerged in a creek in the woods," according to one court filing.

Later, the convicts' plight became an issue among musicians and Hollywood actors who were concerned that the suspects, teenagers at the time, were persecuted. Their black clothing and taste for heavy-metal music had been presented by prosecutors as part of an argument that they were Satanists who had engaged in "an occult murder."

Scott Ellington, the prosecuting attorney in Jonesboro, Ark., said that with new revelations in the case, it was likely the men would have received new trials — and that it would have been "practically impossible" to put on a proper trial 18 years after the slayings.

Driver injured in crash with DOC worker in critical condition - The Denver Post

Driver injured in crash with DOC worker in critical condition - The Denver Post

The man whose car was struck by one driven by an accused impaired driver from the Department of Corrections remained in the hospital in critical condition Thursday.

Jonathan Price, 36, was driving along East Smoky Hill Road near South Riviera Way at 9:05 a.m. Saturday when DOC employee Jason Ulrich swerved and hit the car carrying Price and his wife and child.

Price's wife, Diane, 32, and the couple's 2-year-old daughter were treated at a local hospital and released.

Ulrich, 38, told police he was drinking and taking painkillers before his car slammed into the Price family car, Aurora police Lt. Chuck DeShazer said.

DeShazer said that if Ulrich's blood tests show alcohol or drugs, a case will be presented to the Arapahoe County district attorney's office for a filing of vehicular assault.

DeShazer added that vehicular assault could also be filed against Ulrich if his driving was reckless — if in fact he was going 75 mph in a posted 45 mph, as investigators estimated.

Vail Panel: To Legalize or Not Legalize Marijuana

Vail Daily
VAIL, Colorado — Marijuana can be bad and it generates half the Mexican drug cartels' money — but what to do about it?

Legalize it, say Jared Polis and Dr. Ethan Nadelmann.

Increase enforcement, say John Suthers and Anthony Coulson.

They had a rhetorical battle royale.

The four offered a preview Tuesday night of what could be one of Colorado's least mellow debates — legalizing marijuana. The Vail Symposium hosted the event Tuesday at Vail Mountain School. It will be broadcast on C-Span.

Suthers is Colorado's Attorney General. Coulson is a former assistant special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Tucson office.

Dr. Ethan Nadelmann is head of the Drug Policy Alliance and advocates for legalization. Polis represents Colorado's 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, including Eagle County.

“Here we are 40 years into the drug war. Does anyone think it's been a success?” Polis asked. “It's time for a different strategy. The vast majority agrees that the war on drugs is a massive and comprehensive failure.”

The War on Drugs has failed because we have not done enough, Coulson said.

“We have people who need help who aren't getting it,” Coulson said. “If we invest, in a generation or so hopefully we won't need a DEA.”

In a keynote address for NORML's 40th anniversary, Polis said that he'd introduce a law to decriminalize marijuana.

“Is marijuana harmful? Absolutely. All drugs are potentially harmful,” Polis said, but marijuana is more comparable to alcohol and cigarettes than the more dangerous narcotics.

“Marijuana prohibition has caused far more harm than good,” Polis said.

Suther hit back hard.

“You guys need to get out in the streets more,” Suthers said. “The people who want to raise the white flag to drug legalization say the problems could not be any worse. Folks, they're flat wrong.”

In the 1960 and '70s, 14 percent said they used drugs once a month, Suthers said. In the 1980s, drug use rates fell, and have continued below what they were 30 years ago.

“You don't see addicts up here advocating for the legalization of marijuana, or prevention and treatment folks and law enforcement people on the street,” Coulson said.

Prison Privitizaton Puts Taxpayers on the Hook

Miami Herald
The state of Florida will soon privatize 30 prisons to save money, but before that, taxpayers will be on the hook for a payout of up to $25 million.
That’s how much the Department of Corrections says it will cost to pay more than 4,000 displaced state corrections workers for their accumulated vacation time, sick leave and special compensatory time for working on holidays.
The hidden expense was never discussed in public last spring when the Legislature pushed ahead with the most ambitious privatization venture in the history of state government.
Now, the prison system — already coping with a series of budget cuts — is forced to find the money.
“It’s a liability,” said Dan Ronay, the agency’s No. 2 official. “I don’t think anyone can keep running a business if you don’t know what you’re on the hook for.”
A top advisor to Gov. Rick Scott voiced similar concerns.
Bonnie Rogers, who oversees criminal justice spending in Scott’s budget office, told Ronay in an e-mail May 13: “We too have concerns with how this will be managed.”
Ronay had told Rogers in a previous e-mail, “This amount was NOT taken into consideration by the Legislature, even though they were made aware ... This payout may just cripple the agency for next [fiscal year].”
The e-mail was first obtained by the Florida Police Benevolent Association, the union for correctional officers. The PBA has filed a lawsuit seeking to block the privatization.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/16/v-print/2362243/privatization-of-prison-comes.html#ixzz1VJfvLf00

Broderick advised of his rights, will be in Larimer court again Sept. 8 - The Denver Post

Broderick advised of his rights, will be in Larimer court again Sept. 8 - The Denver Post

FORT COLLINS — A police detective accused of perjury in the investigation that led to the conviction of Tim Masters was advised of his rights Tuesday in a brief hearing that attracted more reporters than defendants.

Fort Collins Lt. Jim Broderick faces nine charges of first-degree perjury related to his testimony during the probe and trial that resulted in Masters' conviction for the 1987 murder of Peggy Hettrick.

Larimer County Magistrate Matthew Zehe informed Broderick of his rights during a short video-taped presentation.

Broderick, who did not enter a plea, was accompanied by his attorney Patrick Tooley. Neither man said anything as they left the courtroom trailed by several reporters and cameras.

Broderick's next court hearing is Sept. 8.

Broderick was reindicted on the perjury charges in late July.

In June 2010, a grand jury indicted Broderick on eight counts of perjury. But that indictment was thrown out May 9 by Weld County District Court Judge James Hartmann, who ruled the prosecution had not specified when the alleged perjury was discovered.

Colorado law states that the statute of limitations for the crime of perjury is three years from the date of the discovery of the crime.

In July, Weld County prosecutors presented their case again, asking a new grand jury to review seven of the original charges and two more. They cited a discovery date on or after Oct. 15, 2007, and credited lawyers Maria Liu and David Wymore with uncovering the perjury during their post-conviction representation of Masters.

Masters was convicted in 1999 for Hettrick's murder and served nearly 10 years in prison. His conviction was overturned in 2008 after a visiting judge ruled new DNA evidence pointed to another suspect.

No one has been charged with her death since.

Family members of sex offenders organize lawsuit against Colorado's indeterminate sentences - The Denver Post

Family members of sex offenders organize lawsuit against Colorado's indeterminate sentences - The Denver Post

Paul Allen, his parents and his attorney thought he'd serve his probation and move on once he pleaded guilty in 1999 to bouncing a child relative on his knee while sexually aroused.

But after his attempts to recant and withdraw that plea got him booted out of therapy, a judge resentenced him to two years to life in state prison.

A decade later, he's still there.

Allen, 40, was one of the first men sentenced under a 1998 law designed to give mid- to high-level sex offenders a choice: Get treatment behind bars or stay there for life.

Years later, a lack of therapy resources and a parole board reluctant to release even treated sex offenders has blocked the exit out of prison for hundreds of inmates on so-called indeterminate sentences.

Defense attorneys, offenders and their families say the state has broken its promise to treat and release these inmates. Family members are organizing a class-action lawsuit against the Department of Corrections.

Sixty-six of 1,659 sex offenders in custody on indeterminate sentences had eventually been paroled as of June 30, 2010, according to the department's most recent annual report on the program.

Nearly as many inmates are waiting for sex-offender treatment — 300 — as the 345 who are currently receiving it, corrections officials report.

After watching fellow inmates try and try again at therapy, only to be denied parole anyway, Allen waited until 2009 to ask for treatment.

He's halfway through the first phase.

"This wasn't meant to be a life sentence. This was supposed to be an education thing," Allen said.

In 1998 some Colorado lawmakers wanted to institutionalize sex offenders once they served their criminal sentences. Then-state Sen. Majority Leader Norma Anderson wanted something less costly and more fair, she said.

The Lifetime Supervision Act was born.

Judges now pick a minimum sentence for people convicted of certain sex offenses, which ranges from probation to time in prison. The maximum is automatically set at life in prison.

Before locked-up offenders can be recommended for parole, they must complete two phases of therapy.

Then, Colorado Parole Board members decide whether those inmates can re-enter the community on specialized and lengthy probation.

DOC officer admitted he was drinking before crash in Aurora, police say - The Denver Post

DOC officer admitted he was drinking before crash in Aurora, police say - The Denver Post

A 38-year-old Department of Corrections officer has admitted to police that he was drinking and taking painkillers in the hours before his car slammed into a car carrying a family of three Saturday morning, Aurora police Lt. Chuck DeShazer said.

DOC employee Jason Ulrich was driving his personal vehicle, a Toyota Tacoma, when it swerved on East Smoky Hill Road near South Riviera Way at 9:05 a.m. and hit a car carrying Jonathan Price, 36, Price's wife, Diane, 32, and the couple's 2-year-old daughter.

DeShazer said Saturday night that Jonathan Price was in serious but non-life-threatening condition. Diane Price and her daughter were treated and released.

Motorists first spotted Ulrich weaving near East Arapahoe and

Photos

• Slideshow: Photos of the crash scene involving a dept. of corrections officer on Saturday, August 13, 2011.

South Parker roads. About two minutes after those witnesses called, Ulrich crashed, DeShazer said. Investigators estimate that Ulrich was traveling at 75 mph in a 45 mph zone. Once he was eastbound on East Smoky Hill Road, Ulrich swerved into the median, over-corrected and hit the Price's westbound Honda Pilot.

Ulrich was still in the hospital Saturday evening.

Katherine Sanguinetti, DOC spokeswoman, said Ulrich is a probationary employee hired in November. He is an entry-level corrections officer at the Denver Women's Correctional Facility, 3600 Havana St., in Denver.

Ulrich has not been charged. DeShazer said that if Ulrich's blood tests show alcohol or drugs, a case will be presented to the Arapahoe County district attorney's office for a filing of vehicular assault.

DeShazer added that vehicular assault could also be filed against Ulrich if his driving was reckless — if in fact he was going 75 mph in a posted 45 mph.

Mexico's Drug War- Feminized

The NY TIMES

By DAMIEN CAVE

Damien Cave is a New York Times correspondent who covers Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
WITH a sweet, awkward smile, Nancy Lilia Núñez offered up the main details of her life: she is a mother of three, having given birth to a daughter just seven months ago, and she is serving a 25-year sentence for helping to kidnap a 15-year-old girl. We were sitting at El Cereso — the Ciudad Juárez prison — a drab, hulking complex of brick and steel. Ms. Núñez wore tight jeans and eye makeup, as if heading to the mall.
At one moment, she declared with simply stated conviction that she had no idea the 15-year-old girl was being held for ransom in the house where Ms. Núñez was arrested. The next, she seemed to be holding back information about the friends she was arrested with. Ms. Núñez is only 22. She grew up here, in one of the world’s most crime-infested cities. But was she just hanging out with the wrong crowd, or is she a criminal deserving decades behind bars?
With her case and others, this is what Mexico is struggling to figure out. The number of women incarcerated for federal crimes has grown by 400 percent since 2007, pushing the total female prison population past 10,000.
No one here seems to know what to make of the spike. Clearly, the rise can partly be attributed to the long reach of drug cartels, which have expanded into organized crime, and drawn in nearly everyone they can, including women.
Detained lieutenants for cartels have told the police that some act as lookouts. Other women work as drug mules, killers, or as “la gancha” (the hook), using their beauty to attract male kidnapping victims. At least one woman, Sandra Ávila Beltrán, became a major cartel leader, before her arrest in 2007 for trafficking and money laundering.
Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising. More women are working in every aspect of the economy, “including drug trafficking,” said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, an assistant professor of government at the University of Texas, Brownsville. Yet, because Mexico’s justice system is so opaque, incompetent and corrupt, it is nearly impossible to know which prisoners deserve their punishment. Human rights lawyers say this is especially true for women, who are often unwittingly used by men they love. Several women at the prison, for example, said they only realized after their arrests that the cars they were caught driving had been packed full of drugs by boyfriends or brothers.
And in a society as traditional as Mexico’s — where women are responsible for virtue and order, as Octavio Paz once wrote — mere involvement in crime is enough to cause outrage and fascination. Mexicans (and Hispanic telenovela viewers in the United States) simply cannot get enough of feminized crime. One of the most popular novels in Mexico today is “Queen of the South,” which follows a Mexican woman who becomes the most powerful drug trafficker in southern Spain. When Telemundo made it a telenovela this year, it became a ratings bonanza on both sides of the border.
Many of the women at El Cereso have received similar notoriety. Eunice Ramírez, 19, is the most famous. She was arrested last November for luring men into places where they could be kidnapped, and immediately photos from her Facebook page appeared nationwide, mostly showing her in a bikini.
American border patrol agents say that they have also been catching more attractive teenagers in short skirts with drugs taped to their inner thighs.
The result, here at least, is a female prison population both gang-connected and perfume-scented. Most of the 160 women here at El Cereso — one of several prisons with women a few walls apart from male inmates — are between 18 and 26. At least a third are still awaiting trial, most are charged with drug possession or trafficking, and daily life in their shared cells looks almost juvenile. Ms. Núñez’s walls feature a poster of Disney princesses; others are decorated with heart stickers.

Trend to Lighten Sentences Catches On In Conservative States

NY Times

By CHARLIE SAVAGE

WASHINGTON — Fanned by the financial crisis, a wave of sentencing and parole reforms is gaining force as it sweeps across the United States, reversing a trend of “tough on crime” policies that lasted for decades and drove the nation’s incarceration rate to the highest — and most costly — level in the developed world.
While liberals have long complained that harsh mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent offenses like drug possession are unjust, the push to overhaul penal policies has been increasingly embraced by elected officials in some of the most conservative states in the country. And for a different reason: to save money.
Some early results have been dramatic. In 2007, Texas was facing a projected shortfall of about 17,000 inmate beds by 2012. But instead of building and operating new prison space, the State Legislature decided to steer nonviolent offenders into drug treatment and to expand re-entry programs designed to help recently released inmates avoid returning to custody.
As a result, the Texas prison system is now operating so far under its capacity that this month it is closing a 1,100-bed facility in Sugar Land — the first time in the state’s history that a prison has closed. Texas taxpayers have saved hundreds of millions of dollars, and the changes have coincided with the violent crime rate’s dipping to its lowest level in 30 years.
“In Texas for the last few years we’ve been driving down both the crime rate and the incarceration rate,” said Marc Levin, the director of the Center for Effective Justice at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which helped draft the state’s corrections overhaul. “And it’s not just Texas. South Carolina, Kentucky, Arkansas and Ohio in the past year or so have done major reforms. These are certainly not liberal states. That is significant.”
More than a dozen states in recent years have taken steps to reduce the costs to taxpayers of keeping so many criminals locked up. As crime rates have steadily declined to 40-year lows, draining the political potency from crime fears, the fiscal crunch has started to prompt a broad rethinking about alternatives to incarceration.
The 1980s and 1990s saw a wave of stiff new sentencing laws, from mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession to California’s three-strikes law imposing an automatic life sentence for a third felony conviction. Partly as a result, the United States, with 5 percent of the world’s population, now accounts for 25 percent of the world’s inmates. Taxpayers are spending about $50 billion a year on state corrections systems — nearly twice as much, in inflation-adjusted terms, as expenditures in 1987, according to the Pew Center on the States.
Even before the financial crisis settled in, a handful of states, including New York, had begun experimenting with softening mandatory sentences for drug crimes, driven by a mix of concerns about effectiveness, fairness and cost. Texas, an early innovator, mandated probation for low-level possession of many drugs in 2003, before enacting its far more sweeping overhaul of incarceration policies in 2007.

Pennsylvania judge gets 28 years in 'kids for cash' case

Pennsylvania judge gets 28 years in 'kids for cash' case

SCRANTON, Pa. — A longtime judge has been ordered to spend nearly three decades in prison for his role in a massive juvenile justice bribery scandal that prompted the state's high court to toss thousands of convictions.

Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced Thursday to 28 years in federal prison for taking $1 million in bribes from the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centers in a case that became known as "kids-for-cash."

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, saying he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea.

Ciavarella, 61, was tried and convicted of racketeering charges earlier this year. His attorneys had asked for a "reasonable" sentence in court papers, saying, in effect, that he's already been punished enough.

"The media attention to this matter has exceeded coverage given to many and almost all capital murders, and despite protestation, he will forever be unjustly branded as the 'Kids for Cash' judge," their sentencing memo said.

Story: Pa. judges accused of jailing kids for cash

Federal prosecutors accused Ciavarella and a second judge, Michael Conahan, of taking more than $2 million in bribes from the builder of the PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care detention centers and extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the facilities' co-owner.

ACLU: States Benefit By Lowering Prison Terms - KGMI-AM

ACLU: States Benefit By Lowering Prison Terms - KGMI-AM
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Six U.S. states that reduced incarceration rates by focusing on parole or probation instead of prison time have cut costs without increasing crime rates, according to a report released on Tuesday.

The report by the American Civil Liberties Union highlights Texas, Mississippi, Kansas, South Carolina, Kentucky and Ohio as traditionally "tough-on-crime" states that benefited from reducing incarceration rates.

Four more states -- California, Louisiana, Maryland and Indiana -- are in the midst of reform, said the report by the ACLU's Center for Justice, an advocacy group that supports less-stringent penalties for nonviolent offenses.

"The costs of using incarceration as an option of first -- rather than last -- resort far outweighs any benefit to public safety," ACLU advocacy and policy counsel Inimai Chettiar said in a statement accompanying the report.

State and federal governments spend about $70 billion annually on prisons and corrections, with state corrections spending having skyrocketed 674 percent over the last 25 years, according to the ACLU.

POSITIVE MEASURES

Some of the changes noted by the report as having a positive impact include:

* Decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana

* Reducing sentencing disparity between different types of drugs

* Ending mandatory minimum sentences

* Pushing treatment and parole over prison for non-violent offenders

* Letting prisoners earn credit toward early release

* Creating parole programs for elderly prisoners who are no longer a threat.

Sentencing reform has united political progressives like the ACLU with conservatives in states like Texas, said Michael Jacobson, the director of the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonpartisan criminal law research center in New York.

"There's a sense now that you're just not getting a good return on your investment from dumping $70 billion a year into prisons," Jacobson said. "A surprising number of conservative folks talk about this issue the way the ACLU might talk about it -- we're spending too much and getting too little."

Two former Western Slope doctors indicted in deaths of four patients - The Denver Post

Two former Western Slope doctors indicted in deaths of four patients - The Denver Post

Two former Western Slope doctors could face life in prison after a federal grand jury indicted them on charges of committing health care fraud and dispensing painkillers that resulted in the deaths of four patients.

On Tuesday, Dr. Sam Jahani, 49, was arrested by federal agents in Texas, where he had recently been living. Authorities are still looking for Dr. Eric Peper, 53, who resides in Summerland Key, Fla.

The indictment alleges Jahani and Peper defrauded Medicaid, Medicare and Rocky Mountain Health Plans by prescribing painkillers to patients outside the scope of professional practice and billing those services to those health care benefit programs.

Jahani and Peper prescribed powerful painkillers such as Oxycontin in doses they knew would endanger the lives of patients or cause fatal overdoses, the indictment says.

"Jahani billed and caused his business to bill for services not rendered, including for services claimed to have been provided to patients after the patients' deaths," the indictment says.

The government estimated the doctors made $3.22 million in fraudulent claims from 2006 to 2010.

Jahani operated three clinics under the name Urgent Care Inc. in Delta, Montrose and Grand Junction. Peper was Jahani's employee at the clinics in Delta and Grand Junction.

The doctors' cases will be heard in Colorado.

Adams County jail plan draws uncertainty from local law enforcement - The Denver Post

Adams County jail plan draws uncertainty from local law enforcement - The Denver Post

A plan to cap the number of municipal prisoners housed in the Adams County Jail is causing nervousness among law enforcement in the targeted cities.

"It's going to be a challenge, and I can't tell you how it's going to wash out," said Thornton Police Chief Jim Nursey.

Under the bed-restriction plan, Adams County cities would get beds based on their population. Thornton would get eight beds and Westminster would get five.

Federal Heights would get only one, which doesn't sit well with city officials. Federal Heights — with a population of more than 11,000 — also patrols Water World, which can attract 8,000 people.

Police also see more than 344,000 vehicles a day traveling through Federal Heights' city limits. That boosts the city's crime rate and prompts worries that the new jail policy will put the wrong person back on its streets, said Federal Heights Police Chief Les Acker.

"The sheriff wants to release nonviolent prisoners, which is fine, but just what kind of history does that person have?" Acker said. "You can't predict the future."

However, for nearly two years, Adams County Sheriff Doug Darr — who by law does not have to house municipal prisoners — has said a housing crunch was coming, thanks to rugged economics and concerns that a smaller staff couldn't properly oversee the jail.

The Adams County Sheriff's Office budget was sliced by 5 percent in 2010 and another 3 percent this year.

Next year, a 3 percent cut is coming. That, coupled with a two-year hiring freeze, prompted the county to start closing housing units within the detention facility in Brighton.

Darr began working with municipal judges, prosecutors and police chiefs to find alternative housing for those municipal inmates who do not pose a threat to the community, said sheriff's spokesman Terrance O'Neill.

Officials on Friday said the bed-space restriction plan kicks in Aug. 15.

"The issue isn't necessarily jail capacity, but not having the personnel to safely administer that facility at this time," O'Neill said.

Cruel Isolation Of Prisoners

NY Times
For many decades, the civilized world has recognized prolonged isolation of prisoners in cruel conditions to be inhumane, even torture. The Geneva Conventions forbid it. Even at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, where prisoners were sexually humiliated and physically abused systematically and with official sanction, the jailers had to get permission of their commanding general to keep someone in isolation for more than 30 days.
So Americans should be disgusted and outraged that prolonged solitary confinement, sometimes for months or even years, has become a routine form of prison management. It is inflicting unnecessary, indecent and inhumane suffering on tens of thousands of prisoners.
The issue came to the fore most recently because of a three-week hunger strike by inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison in California near the Oregon border that began on July 1 in the Orwellian Security Housing Unit, where inmates are held in wretched isolation in small windowless cells for more than 22 hours a day, some for many years.
Possessions, reading material, exercise and exposure to natural light and the outside are severely restricted. Meals are served through slots in steel cell doors. There is little in the way of human interaction. Returning to the general prison population is often conditioned on inmates divulging information on other gang members, putting themselves in jeopardy.
How inmates in these circumstances communicated to organize the protest is unclear, but it quickly spread to other California prisons. About 6,600 inmates participated at its peak. California’s huge prison system is dysfunctional in so many ways. In May, the Supreme Court found conditions at the overcrowded prisons so egregious that they violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment and ordered the state to cut its prison population by more than 30,000 inmates. The case did not address the issue of long-term solitary confinement.
With their health deteriorating, those inmates continuing to fast resumed eating after state prison officials met a few modest demands. Inmates in Pelican Bay’s isolation unit will get wool caps for cold weather, wall calendars to mark the passing time and some educational programming. Prison officials said current isolation and gang management policies are under review. But the protest has raised awareness about the national shame of extended solitary confinement at Pelican Bay and at high-security, “supermax” prisons all around the country.
Once used occasionally as a short-term punishment for violating prison rules, solitary confinement’s prevalent use as a long-term prison management strategy is a fairly recent development, Colin Dayan, a professor at Vanderbilt University, said in a recent Op-Ed article in The Times. Nationally, more than 20,000 inmates are confined in “supermax” facilities in horrid conditions.
Prison officials claim the treatment is necessary for combating gang activity and other threats to prison order. It is possible to maintain physical separation of prisoners without ultraharsh levels of deprivation and isolation. Mississippi, which once set the low bar for terrible prison practices, saw a steep reduction of prison violence and ample monetary savings when it dramatically cut back on long-term solitary several years ago.
Holding prisoners in solitary also is very expensive, and several other states have begun to make reductions. In any case, decency requires limits. Resorting to a dehumanizing form of punishment well known to induce suffering and drive people into mental illness is beyond them.