Tough, Transparent or Neither?

David Simon of The Wire fame has an interesting piece on his blog.  It's long (over 4500 words) so I will boil it down:

• Police and prosecutors are pulling statistical tricks on the public because The Sun is no longer adequately staffed to properly cover the crime beat.
• The police have ceded to State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein complete authority to charge murder cases.  This makes his rate of convictions artificially high and the police rate of unsolved murders artificially low.

There's a lot more to the article, of course--the details and explanations, some self-justification, and a proposed solution.  But here's what I found most interesting: that a State's Attorney who campaigned on the promise of transparency and the willingness to take on tough cases has apparently retreated on both fronts.  

According to Simon, Bernstein is using his unilateral power to charge cases to cherry pick the best cases, a tactic that should keep his conviction rate high for political purposes.  Bernstein directly criticized his predecessor for dropping tough cases, but at least she took the hit in her statistics.  She just blamed the police for lousy work.  But, says Simon, Bernstein can make his conviction statistics look great by not charging cases to begin with.

To which I say, what statistics?  I went to a meeting of the Baltimore Criminal Justice Coordinating Council earlier this year at which Bernstein gave his "annual" report.  (His predecessor gave a quarterly report.)  Bernstein talked completely in generalities, with not a single benchmark with which to measure his performance.

I asked for a follow-up meeting, and learned from him that it was a "little too early" to report out on the accomplishments of his new violence unit (that was nearly a year old) and that he had little handle on other statistics, sources of statistics, or plans to publish statistics.  During his campaign he said he would post his conviction rates on his website, but 18 months into his tenure they have yet to appear.  Where's the transparency?

Perhaps it's still "a little too early" for Bernstein, but when it comes to murder cases he had better get his conviction rates out there quickly before the police take back their power to charge.  Bernstein's wife, Sheryl Goldstein, who headed the Mayor's Office on Criminal Justice, announced her resignation hours after Police Commissioner Fred Bealefeld announced his.  Goldstein and Bealefeld were joined at the hip. 

It was Goldstein who greased all the wheels for her husband when it came to police-prosecutor relationships.  I worried at the outset that the situation was a little too cozy but saw negligible reporting or concern from the Sun (which underscores Simon's point on adequate beat coverage.)

But with a new police commissioner and no wife in the mayor's office, Bernstein will have to stand on his own two feet.  I doubt the new top cop will give up the right to charge cases.  Prosecutors and police should cooperate and collaborate, but also balance each other.  It's not healthy for one to dictate to the other.

And while we wait for a new police commissioner perhaps Bernstein can start working on the transparency he promised.  We might find out which claim is true: Bernstein's that he's tough, or Simon's that he's cherry picking.  

A Neighborhood's Frustration

When I first began this blog the thing I learned first was how illiberal liberal folks could be.

I began on Marc Steiner's Center for Emerging Media website, and almost instantly Marc got flak from liberal groups.  Even Marc himself suggested that I wanted to lock everybody up and "throw away the key."

I know this isn't unique.  I saw in yesterday's paper that many educated people are unhappy that eminent Hopkins neurosurgeon Ben Carson will speak at Emory University because they disagree with his views on evolutionary biology and ethics.  It's astonishing how people choose to stop up their ears to those with other perspectives.

Funny thing is, if liberals read my blog with open minds they would see that I am no Attila-the-Hun.  I support improved prisoner re-entry programs, bail reform, effective alternatives to incarceration, a radically new approach to drug crimes, reducing the barrier of criminal records to employment, and so forth.

But I do believe that there are people who need to be locked up for the public's safety and well-being.  Not forever (for most), but until the period of their greatest dangerousness passes.  This makes liberals scream.  They want more rehabilitation and prevention programs. 

Fine.  There's no conflict there.  But the existing criminal justice system still needs to improve its focus, prioritization and performance right now with the resources at hand.

Two young criminals are scheduled for trial on gun charges today, men who were brought to my attention by the Washington Village Development Association (WVDA.)  WVDA has been as active an anti-crime neighborhood group as I have ever seen.  They monitor the activities and cases of drug dealers and violent criminals, go to court, lobby police, prosecutors and legislators for action, and send e-mails to judges to voice their displeasure, e-mails like this one:

...On 1/24/2011, the Court sentenced [Robert] Uzzell to seven (7) years in jail.  However, The Dishonorable Circuit Court Judge, Pamela (I’m-going-to-legalize-drugs-from-my-bench) White, suspend [sic] the jail sentence—placing Uzzell on three (3) years of supervised probation and returning him to the streets of Baltimore...[Emphasis in the original.]

What prompted the WVDA e-mail was Uzzell's arrest on gun charges while on Judge White's probation. And the fact that  at the time Judge White put him on probation he had just finished another probation for drug dealing, with a prior arrest for using a gun to deal drugs.

A co-defendant, Corey Gibson, was also on probation for possessing over 65 units of cocaine and marijuana, a felony.  Judge Timothy Doory gave him probation without a conviction for this, something I don't criticize.  If the young man really wanted to turn his life around, not having a felony conviction would help him get a job.

But Doory didn't care much about the job thing after all.  When Gibson was arrested again Doory did nothing because the new charges were dropped.  Prosecutor Nancy Olin mentioned to Doory that Gibson had made no effort to find a job while on probation but failed to argue for any enforcement of this requirement.  Doory merely hoped that being in jail for three months on the new arrest had "gotten [Gibson's] attention."

What a tired, typical excuse for inaction.  Less than a month later Gibson and Uzzell were charged with gun crimes. Their level of dangerousness, and WVDA's frustration, is escalating.

Then there's 36-year-old career criminal Larry Lloyd, a likely addict who is less of a violent threat than Uzzell and Gibson but nevertheless a bane to the WVDA.  His many, many arrests for drug possession, drug-dealing, loitering, assault, harassment, etc. have resulted in short jail sentences, probation, more probation, or dismissals.  He's had plenty of chances at drug treatment and turning himself around, to no avail.  

A few years ago Lloyd was put on probation, convicted again while on probation, and returned to probation by Judge Lynn Stewart.  Then police charged him with felony drug charges, only to have the case dropped last December.

Why?  Because Judge Gale Rasin suppressed the evidence.  I listened to the hearing, expecting to find that the police had botched the case.  Instead I found that it was Rasin who botched Fourth Amendment analysis.  It's the second time I've seen this judge fail to follow the law to reach a result she personally preferred.  Basically, she ruled that the police can't approach a suspect and tell him they heard he had drugs on him without instantly violating his rights.

Nevertheless, WVDA says that prosecutors raised their hopes by promising to charge Lloyd with violating Judge Stewart's probation.  They never followed through. 

It's hard to blame WVDA for ill-tempered e-mails with experiences like these.   Are they supposed to wait for some new social programs to deal with the Uzzells, Gibsons, and Lloyds of their community?

Or could the criminal justice system at least be trying to do a better job right now?

The Phylicia Barnes Case: A Questionable Start for the Defense and Prosecution

Kudos to The Baltimore Sun for reporting the conflict of interest that Mead, Flynn, & Gray, a criminal defense law firm, got itself into in the high-profile Phylicia Barnes murder case.

According to The Sun, the firm represents Daniel Nicholson IV, a city detective who is currently under investigation for misconduct and was also charged with assault in Baltimore County last year.  He happens to be the lead detective who investigated the disappearance and murder of Phylicia Barnes.  Nicholson's credibility in the Barnes case will be at issue every step of the way.

Yet when Michael Johnson was recently arrested for the murder of Barnes, there was Mead, Flynn & Gray, challenging the police evidence and arguing that Johnson be released on bail.  It's a blatant lapse of ethical judgment.  Perhaps the publicity and money to be earned from the case blinded the firm's attorneys to their higher duty.

The Sun wasn't blind.  And when asked about it, Johnson's other attorney, Russell Neverdon, suggested that Mead, Flynn & Gray will not participate in future proceedings.   It's a no-brainer that shouldn't even have come up. 

The prosecution isn't putting its best foot forward, either.  For some reason State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein has entrusted this case to one of his least effective trial attorneys, one who has long lacked a reputation for hard work.  

It's the same prosecutor who lost the case against Eric Stennett for murdering Police Officer Kevon Gavin in 2001.  After fleeing the scene of a shooting, Stennett sped through city streets at 80 m.p.h. and crashed into Gavin's police cruiser, causing a fiery, fatal explosion.  

While there were multiple problems with how the police handled evidence in the shooting and crash, even the defense attorney conceded that Stennett was at least guilty of manslaughter in the officer's death.  But the jury acquitted him completely, stunning everyone.  

More recently, in 2010, the same prosecutor tried a murder case against a city police officer who shot a fleeing theft suspect in the back.  Another acquittal.

With this prosecutor's dismal record in high-profile cases , Bernstein is taking a big chance.  Maybe he expects that Phylicia Barnes is so sympathetic a victim that a jury will be loathe to let her accused murderer go, whoever prosecutes.   Maybe he will assign a very competent, meticulous prosecutor to second-chair the case.  

But why take any risk?