criminal law
A disturbing sex trend called 'stealthing' is on the rise
A disturbing sex trend called ‘stealthing’ is on the rise
‘Stealthing’ is the non-consensual removal a condom during sex. Alexandra Brodsky’s article in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law [PDF] is powerful, nuanced and well-presented.
And I, too, can be powerful, nuanced, and well-presented when necessary. But this won’t be one of those times, so I want to make a language warning here for family and friends sensitive to vulgarities…
Men who ‘stealth’ are pieces of shit. Victims are left trying to equate it with rape when the perpetrators should be required to show why it is not. Here’s a choice quote from the USA Today article linked above:
The study also pointed to online forums where men often brag about removing a condom during sex or offer advice on how to get away with it. Some of the men in the forum have even suggested it's their right to, "spread one's seed".
Such men should be sterilized. It is the State’s right to protect women from these cowards whose masculinity is tenuous and insecure that they are too scared to attempt a real relationship in which consent for unprotected sex is freely given at some point.
New Orleans: an unethical District Attorney and an overworked Public Defender
Prosecuted by her legal counterpart: ‘It destroyed my life in so many ways’
This DA should resign, now:
At least six defense attorneys and investigators say they faced threats of criminal charges by the Orleans parish district attorney for doing their jobs, the Guardian has found. Since DA Leon Cannizzaro took office in 2009, the attorneys have been accused of kidnapping, impersonation and witness tampering in the course of defending their clients. Each case has failed to stand up to scrutiny: all charges that have been brought were eventually dropped or overturned.
Disgusting.
Anderson Cooper did a great segment on 60 Minutes about how an underfunded, understaffed and overworked New Orleans Public Defender’s Office has started refusing felony cases. Chief PD Derwyn Bunton says he and his 52 attorneys cannot possibly represent the 20,000 clients they get annually in a way that comports with the ethical standards to which all attorneys are held, and to which criminal defendants are Constitutionally entitled.
It’s a divisive choice, but I think it’s the right one. Public Defenders Offices are notoriously underfunded all over the country, seen as low-hanging fruit when a politician or bureaucrat needs to cut budgets. But they should be among the last budgets cut. Many criminal defendants are guilty, and many are not. Because of that, all are entitled to the same Constitutionally mandated set of rights, chief among them being the right to representation.
No, public defenders don’t need and shouldn’t get astronomical budgets. But they should not have to divide 20,000 cases between 52 lawyers, either. That’s 384 cases per lawyer per year. Would you want to share your public defender with 383 other people? Would you feel confident that you will get your Constitutional rights to competent representation and a fair trial?
Didn’t think so.
Mentally incompetent Utah man dies in hospital after jail episode left him paralyzed
Mentally incompetent Utah man dies in hospital after jail episode left him paralyzed
Is this the kind of country where we let mental illness go untreated to the point where someone in jail for fighting with a couple of cops is effectively allowed to commit suicide, while on suicide watch?
Jail video shows a naked Hall with disheveled long hair and beard running headfirst into a wall three times before climbing up on the sink and falling headfirst to the floor. At the time, Hall had been waiting five months for a bed and treatment at the Utah State Hospital. Utah designates 100 beds at the hospital for inmate mental health treatment, but once the beds are occupied, additional defendants await openings from jail cells.
And this:
The Utah LegislatureThe Utah Legislature recently set aside $3 million in an effort to resolve a federal lawsuit filed by the Salt Lake City-based Disability Law Center, which alleges mentally ill defendants are not provided a speedy trial and suffer in jail without treatment because the state does not provide enough hospital beds and specialists to treat them.
Why couldn’t they set aside $3 million before they were sued, to solve the problem before anyone died?
U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans
U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans
John Shiffman and Kristina Cooke, reporting for Reuters Washington bureau:
The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to “recreate” the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant’s Constitutional right to a fair trial.
This goes well beyond spying. This is, I would argue, exactly why people object to such domestic spying.
The logic is that those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear. However, the “Special Operations Division” probably isn’t infallible, since, well, no one is, and that means that you may have nothing to hide, and think you have nothing to fear, and be completely wrong.
Innocent people may have been convicted as a result of what appear on their face to be unconstitutional, extrajudicial practices.
Those arguing that the price for protection from terrorists and other would-be evil doers is letting the National Security Agency have a peak at our Gmail will have a much more difficult time making the same case for falsifying an evidence trail.
The defense was often held in the dark and, apparently, at least in some cases, investigators misled both the prosecution and judicial evidentiary discretion.
Oh, and as a cherry on top, here’s a gem from near the end of the Reuters story:
A DEA spokesman declined to comment on the unit’s annual budget. A recent LinkedIn posting on the personal page of a senior SOD official estimated it to be $125 million.
The monitoring of internet communications for sensitive information, it would seem, goes both ways.
Christmas in jail
John Futty, reporting for The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio:
Judge Michael J. Holbrook placed Young on probation yesterday for five years and ordered that she spend a minimum of three days in jail each Christmas while on probation.
This made me smile. Now, crime is bad, and Christmas in jail is bad. But what a creative way to punish a fraudster without wasting taxpayer money on a non-violent offender.
Norwegian rape victim Marte Deborah Dalelv "pardoned" by UAE
Norwegian rape victim Marte Deborah Dalelv “pardoned” by UAE
I wrote yesterday about Ms. Dalelv’s 16-month sentence for sex outside marriage, among other absurd charges to levy against a victim of rape, in the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. I’m happy to report that, according to Reuters, the 24-year-old has been “pardoned” and will be able to go back to Norway.
The fact that UAE called it a “pardon” is as unconscionable as the sentence itself, but freedom by any name is better than being jailed in the kind of nation that would punish a rape victim.
Dubai: Where rape is only a crime if you're the victim
Dubai: Where rape is only a crime if you’re the victim
Update: she has been “pardoned.”
A Norwegian woman was raped, reported it to police, and was charged and convicted of extramarital sex, drinking alcohol, and perjury. She was sentenced to 16 months in jail.
For being raped.
And that’s three months longer than her attacker.
This is a major problem of international law. What happens when the economic and business relationship between two states places citizens in the crosshairs of antiquated and ignorant laws? What is the remedy when the Western expectations of a visitor are shattered by foreign norms that, well, prompt Western folks to use words like “antiquated” and “ignorant.”
The Norwegian government has the woman safely housed in what sounds like a naval base, but there is a warrant out for her arrest.
We will find out. I’ll be keeping an eye on this story.
Witness intimidation reform on the horizon in Philadelphia
Witness intimidation reform on the horizon in Philadelphia
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Craig R. McCoy reports on a recent special commission report on the problem and some suggested solutions. In a city where street wisdom warns that “snitches get stitches,” this is an encouraging development.
Nebraska court strikes down restrictions on internet use for sex offenders on free speech grounds
Nebraska court strikes down restrictions on internet use for sex offenders on free speech grounds
Professor David Post of Temple Law served as an expert for the plaintiffs — yes, sex offenders — in this case. His focus, as he points out in his Volokh Conspiracy post, was on the overbroad nature of the statute barring internet use by sex offenders, which he believes, and the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska agreed, was beyond what the First Amendment allows.
Your first thought might be “who cares about a sex offender’s free speech rights?”
The answer, of course, is that the Constitution cares, particularly after they have served prison time and otherwise complied with constitutionally sound penalties for their crimes.
The core of the court’s holding lies in the following passage:
The ban not only restricts the exchange of text between adults; it also restricts the exchange of oral and video communication between adults. Moreover, the ban potentially restricts the targeted offenders from communicating with hundreds of millions and perhaps billions of adults and their companies despite the fact that the communication has nothing whatsoever to do with minors.1
This looks to me like a well-meaning statute, meant to keep sex offenders away from kids online, that was very poorly drafted. You could achieve the desired goal using far narrower provisions. I hope someone proposes a corrected statute to that effect.