Source: http://www.paulksicinskilaw.com/blog/archives/11-2015
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 12:23:52+00:00

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Do the rules of evidence favor the prosecution?
It has come to light that a person was wrongfully convicted of a crime because government experts could not tell the difference between a human hair and a dog hair. "The FBI convicted this man using hair analysis. It was a dog's hair." Fusion.
Are rules of evidence tilted in the prosecution's favor? One of the unfortunate truths in criminal litigation is that trial courts frequently admit testimony from the government's experts and exclude the defendant's proposed expert testimony. Almost ten years ago, Professor D. Michael Risinger wrote that he feared that the criminal defendant would not be protected from conviction by the exclusion of "undependable expert testimony" because "prosecution [expert] witnesses almost always allowed to testify," yet the defendant's proffered expert testimony was, and still is, "rejected in a majority of cases." Professor Risinger's article surveyed weaker government experts who had been allowed through the trial courts' gates relative to the defendant's experts that were kept out. Most prophetically, Professor Risinger observed that while defense experts, at that time, were often not permitted to testify regarding eyewitness testimony, police officers and other law enforcement officials testified "concerning the general way criminal schemes and enterprises operate." D. Michael Risinger, Navigating Expert Reliability: Are Criminal Standards of Certainty Being Left on the Dock? 64 ALB. L. REV. 99 (2000) (collecting statistics about reported post-Daubert cases including in federal criminal cases). Professor Risinger noted that the government typically survived challenges to its expert testimony and the criminal defendant's expert testimony was excluded as much as 66% of the time. Id. at 109-110.
A 2015 study published in the Journal of Criminal Justice, “From Initial Appearance to Sentencing: Do Female Defendants Experience Disparate Treatment?,” takes a broader look at gender disparities within the criminal justice system. The four researchers — Natalie Goulette of the University of West Florida and John Wooldredge, James Frank and Lawrence Travis III of the University of Cincinnati — explored outcomes at two key stages of the criminal justice process. They examined decisions that judges made at a defendant’s first appearance hearing and during sentencing. Previous studies had investigated gender disparities in judicial decisions connected with only one of those two events, potentially neglecting the interaction of the outcomes at each phase. The researchers analyzed 3,593 felony cases that had been referred in 2009 to the County Office of the Prosecutor of a large, urban jurisdiction in the northern United States.
Women were less likely to be detained before trial. They were 46 percent less likely than men to held in jail prior to a trial.
Women who were released on bond were given lower bond amounts. Their bonds were set at amounts that were 54 percent lower than what men were required to pay.
Women were 58 percent less likely to be sentenced to prison.
For defendants who were sentenced to prison, there generally was no gender disparity in the length of the sentence. There were disparities in sentencing for some individual types of crime, however. For example, female defendants convicted of theft received longer prison sentences than male defendants convicted of theft. Women convicted of “other property offenses” – a category of crimes that includes arson, receiving stolen property and breaking and entering — received shorter prison sentences.
Black female defendants were, in some ways, treated differently than white female defendants. Black women were assigned higher bond amounts and were more likely to be sent to prison than white women. Women of both races were equally likely to be released prior to trial.
The authors hypothesize that judges might treat female defendants more leniently when they conform to the traditional gender roles of housewife and mother. Goulette and her colleagues found support for the “evil woman” theory, which suggests that this “chivalry” is reserved for certain groups of women who appear to be docile and in need of protection. The authors suggest that future research should explore the idea that, in some cases, some judges may treat female defendants more harshly if they believe it is in the defendants’ best interest or if the tougher sentence will serve to protect the women in the future. The researchers also suggest that policymakers consider ways to standardize the judicial process, which could reduce disparities by constraining judges’ discretion. The authors stress the need to more carefully monitor the decisions that judges make at a defendant’s first-appearance hearing. “Our findings suggest that decisions related to bond amounts impact pretrial detention which, in turn, is one of the strongest predictors of prison sentences,” the authors state.
Nationally, African Americans are nearly four times more likely to be charged with marijuana possession than whites, although their rates of marijuana use are similar, according to a 2013 ACLU report, “The War on Marijuana in Black and White,” https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu-thewaronmarijuana-rel2.pdf. "Whites are the majority of drug offenders, but blacks are the majority sent to prison on drug charges," writes Jamie Fellner, senior counsel in the U.S. program at Human Rights Watch and author of "Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States".
Pawasarat’s study of mass incarceration reveals harrowing rates of incarceration of African American males in Wisconsin. Using data from the 2010 Census, they find Wisconsin posts the highest black male incarceration rate in the nation at 12.8 percent. This is nearly double the national rate of 6.7 percent. Wisconsin’s rate of white male incarceration hovered just below the national rate at 1.2 percent. In Wisconsin, then, black males are more than ten times more likely than white males to serve time in a state prison or local jail. Oklahoma, the state with the second highest rate of African American male incarceration (9.7) demonstrates significantly less disparity, incarcerating one white male for every four black.
• Blacks in Wisconsin are 42 times more likely than whites to receive prison terms for drug convictions. Wisconsin has the highest racial disparity in drug sentencing in the nation.
• Blacks in Milwaukee are seven times more likely to be arrested for a drug offense than whites. Milwaukee has the second-highest racial disparity for drug arrests among all major U.S. cities.
• Nationally, the rate of drug arrests of African-Americans in more than 40 large cities increased 225% since 1980, compared with 70% among whites.
Under our Constitution, the condition of being a boy does not justify a kangaroo court. In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 28 (1967). Neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor the Bill of Rights is for adults alone. Id. at 13, 33-34, 41, 55, 57.
Under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966) incriminating statements made during custodial interrogations are inadmissible unless the individual is first advised that he has the right to remain silent, right to consult with counsel and to have counsel present during the interrogation, and right to have an attorney provided if he cannot afford one. Experience and reading cases interpreting Miranda indicate that courts will speak about how important Miranda is and then promptly say Miranda does not apply or has been waived. See, Oregon v. Mathiason, 429 U.S. 492, 495 (1977) (per curiam) (police do not have to give Miranda warnings to everyone they question). This judicial hostility to Miranda is exemplified by statements suppressed because of Miranda violations can still be used to impeach respondents who testify at trial. Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 714, 722-24 (1975); Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 226 (1971). Likewise, in Chavez v. Martinez, the Court held that the failure to give Miranda warnings during a custodial interrogation is not a constitutional violation of the Fifth Amendment where the non-Mirandized statements are not used against the suspect in court. 538 U.S. 760, 764, 767 (2003). The opinion again refers to Miranda as a prophylactic rule, weakening the argument that Miranda is a constitutional rule as expressed in Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 444 (2000).
Before Miranda was decided, the Supreme Court recognized additional protections for juveniles subject to police interrogations. Haley v. Ohio, 332 U.S. 596, 601 (1948). In Haley, the Court held that a child cannot be held to the same standards as an adult in interrogations because a fifteen-year-old defendant “cannot be judged by the more exacting standards of maturity. That which would leave a man cold and unimpressed can overawe and overwhelm a lad in his early teens.” Id.
Whether a reasonable person would feel that he or she was not at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave. Thompson v. Keohane 516 U.S. 99, 112 (1995). Whether there is a “formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement” of the degree associated with a formal arrest. California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121 1125 (1983).
AGE: J.D.B. v. North Carolina, 131 S. Ct. 2394 (2011).
This is separate from age in the context of a voluntariness test.
“children characteristically lack the capacity to exercise mature judgment and possess only an incomplete ability to understand the world around them.” Id. at 2403 "The common law has reflected the reality that children are not adults," at 2404. "A reasonable child subjected to police questioning will sometimes feel pressured to submit when a reasonable adult would feel free to go. We think it clear that courts can account for that reality without doing any damage to the objective nature of the custody analysis." Id at 2403.
Child’s age has a bearing on the Miranda analysis if the child’s age was known to the officer, or was objectively apparent to a reasonable officer.
“A child's age is far ‘more than a chronological fact.’ It is a fact that ‘generates commonsense conclusions about behavior and perception.’ Such conclusions apply broadly to children as a class. And, they are self-evident to anyone who was a child once himself, including any police officer or judge.” (internal citations omitted). So age is not a matter of chronological fact but more a measure of the intellectual ability to understand Miranda warnings given? Interestingly, 63.3 percent of children misunderstood at least one word that is critical to the meaning of the Miranda Thomas Grisso, Juveniles’ Capacities to Waive Miranda Rights: An Empirical Analysis, 68 Cal. L. Rev. 1134, 1153-54 (1980) Similarly, 44.8 percent of children, compared with 14.6 percent of adults, did not understand the warning that they have the right to consult with an attorney before interrogation and to have an attorney with them during interrogation. Id. About 24 percent of children, compared with 8.5 percent of adults, did not understand what it means that anything you say can be used against you in court. Id. at 1154. See, Kelli L. Ceraolo, Custody of the Confined: Consideration of the School Setting in J.D.B. v. North Carolina, 131 S. Ct. 2394 (2011), 91 Neb. L. Rev. (2013). The risk of false confessions increases with juveniles as “[t]hey think less strategically and more readily assume responsibility for peers than do adults,” Barry C. Feld, Police Interrogation of Juveniles: An Empirical Study of Policy and Practice, 97 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 219, 244-46 (2006). and “are more likely to comply with authority figures and to tell police what they think the police want to hear.” Id.
But see, Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 663-665 (2004) holding that it was reasonable for lower court not to consider defendant’s age in finding that 17-year-old defendant was not in custody for Miranda purposes because he was not threatened with arrest, was offered breaks, his parents were just outside in the lobby, and he was released home. Though the Court held that the state court’s failure to consider Alvarado’s age for purposes of custody inquiry was not unreasonable, five Justices did endorse the proposition that age should be generally taken into account in the Miranda analysis of custody.
Compare People v. Croom, 883 N.E.2d 681, 689 (Ill. App. 4th Dist. 2008) (declining to adopt a modified reasonable person standard to account for the juvenile’s youth and experience on the grounds that such a modification “incorporates a subjective factor into an objective test”); In re Interest of Tyler F., 755 N.W.2d 360, 370-371 (Neb. 2008) (declining to consider suspect’s age in a custody inquiry); State v. Turner, 838 A.2d 947, 965 n. 17 (Conn. 2004) (rejecting the defendant’s “age, his unfamiliarity with our criminal justice system, [and] his presence in this country for two years” as relevant to the objective Miranda custody inquiry) with In re R.H., 2008 WL 501595 at*5 (Ohio App. 2008) (expressly acknowledging the 11-yr-old suspect’s youth as relevant to the custody inquiry); M.B. v. State, 927 So.2d 219, 223 (Fla. App. 2d Dist. 2006) (accounting for the juvenile suspect’s age and experience with law enforcement as part of a custody analysis); Commonwealth v. A Juvenile, 402 Mass. 275, 277 (1975) (The test for custody is how a reasonable person in the juvenile’s position would have understood his/her position)(emphasis added).
Who conducted the interrogation? School official = almost never custodial. In re L.A., 21 P.3d 952, 960-61 (Kan. 2001) (school security officer was not required to read Miranda warnings during investigation of violation of school policy); People v. Shipp, 239 N.E.2d 296, 298 (Ill. App. 1968) (defendant’s statements to principal admissible because “the calling of a student to the principal’s office for questioning is not an ‘arrest’ and he is not in custody of police of other law enforcement officials”); v. Ira I., 791 N.E.2d 894, 901 (Mass. 2003) (questioning of students by assistant principal does not constitute custodial interrogation because the assistant principal was acting in the scope of his employment and the police did not control, initiate, or influence the investigation). Courts have gone even further in refusing to find custodial interrogations by school administrators, even where the school administrator plans to turn over incriminating statements to law enforcement. See, e.g., Com. v. Snyder, 597 N.E.2d 1363, 1369 (Mass. 1992) (stating that “the fact that the school administrators had every intention of turning the marihuana over to the police does not make them agents or instrumentalities of the police in questioning Snyder”).
Where was the questioning done? Was the student mandated to report to the office? California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121, 1122, 1125 (1983) (questioning in a police station interrogation house was not found to be custodial where the interrogated appeared in the station voluntarily); Orozco v. Texas, 394 U.S. 324, 325-27 (1969) (holding Orozco was in custody when he was questioned in his bedroom by multiple officers); Husband v. Turner, 07-CV-391-bbc, 2008 WL 2002737, at *3 (W.D. Wis. 2008) (finding that minor who was questioned by police at school was in custody because he was escorted to a closed room by security and never told he was free to leave or to refrain from answering questions).
According to court data obtained through an open records request, the Milwaukee Police Department writes a disproportionate number of citations in some of the city’s poorest areas. Although only 12 percent of Milwaukee residents live in two of the city’s poorest ZIP codes (53206 on the North Side and 53204 on the South Side), people in those ZIP codes received 17 percent of the 430,000 tickets written from 2011 to 2014.
The disparity in citations by income is also illustrated by comparing the number of tickets written in the 53206 ZIP code, where half the residents live in poverty, to the number written in the 53215 ZIP code, a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood where about a third of residents live in poverty, the same as the citywide average. Police wrote about one ticket for every four people in 53206 compared to one ticket for every 11 people in 53215 in 2014.
I just came across an incredible quote attributed to various people: "Everything you want is on the other side of fear." It is an incredible thought. It reminded me of what Benjamin Franklin said when he spoke to the Pennsylvania Assembly: those who fear liberty to gain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
I have to wonder if we have acted out of fear in placing more police officers (school resource officers or SROs) in schools. SROs are typically accountable first to the police department and then to the school, which might pay part of an SRO’s salary or administrative costs. Nonetheless, handbooks for recruiting and retaining SROs explain that an SRO can overrule a school administrator who wants to prevent the arrest of a student. Peter Finn et.al., A Guide to Developing, Maintaining, and Succeeding with your School Resource Officer, 2005. www.cops.usdoj.gov/files/ric/CDROMs/SchoolSafety/Law_Enforcement/AGuidetoDevelopingMaintainingSuc ceeding.pdf, p. 51. See also, Cathy Girouard, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Dept. Of Justice, OJJDP Fact Sheet: School Resource Officer Training Program (2001), https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/fs200105.pdf.
Nonetheless, those who advocate police officers in school arresting students might suggest that “things are different here.” They point to the increased number of school based arrests as proof that police officers are needed in schools. One must understand the tautological nature of using proactive arrest numbers. To the extent that police arrest students more frequently based on the fear that students will commit crimes, in turn, generate statistics that confirm higher crime rates among students, which in turn, reinforce the underpinnings of the very fear that gave rise to the initial arrests. In short, police officers may be subjecting students to heightened scrutiny and more probing investigative tactics that lead to more arrests that are then used to justify those same tactics. This insidious cycle has served to create an ever-widing gap in the perception of fairness that students have about law enforcement and the criminal justice system.
This is not to say that there is not violence in schools. But in responding to this problem we should be guided not by fear but by evidence. Police officers should be used for what they are trained: law enforcement. School safety can be addressed without on-site SROs. The role of counselors and mentors can be better filled by people primarily trained in these areas. Wisconsin needs to stop its current war against public education and remember that investing in education improves achievement and promotes safer schools. Ways to do that include increased hiring of quality teachers, staff, counselors, and other positive role models; building safe, clean schools; and providing training and supports for teachers and staff related to behavior management. Schools should have a concise, clear policy on when an arrest of a student is appropriate. Jurisdictions like Clayton County, GA and Jefferson County, AL have created plans to limit the referrals to the juvenile justice system, suspensions and expulsions by establishing a rubric and system for meting out discipline.

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