By Laura Johnston, The Plain Dealer
October 29, 2009, 12:22PM
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cuyahoga County commissioners today approved a revised version of an internal report that delved into the financial impact of the federal corruption investigation.
But first, the county removed eight names from a list of "individuals in question" prepared by the auditor's office.
That was after two prominent Cleveland attorneys attacked the report -- compiled by former Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Blake and released last week -- that listed them, as well as individuals who have pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges or have been named in federal search warrants.
The attorneys' names appeared in a story published earlier this year in the Plain Dealer, in which both were asked about search warrants that had been served.
A footnote was added to the report: "The Auditor’s Office conducted a broad review of properties of owners who were mentioned in any way in one or more of the foregoing sources, i.e., articles appearing in The Cleveland Plain Dealer, federal grand jury subpoenas and FBI search warrants, or whose owners were mentioned in those same sources."
The attorneys' names were removed, along with people uninvolved in the corruption investigation, such as a couple whose last name is the same as a Plain Dealer reporter's.
Blake's 76-page report compiled information from internal investigations by seven county departments, interviews with 22 county employees, several contractors, and nearly 400,000 pages of e-mails and attachments.
The report concludes that with a $1.5 billion budget, any money lost through corruption-related crimes does not affect the county’s overall financial health. It should not affect the county's ability to borrow money, the report said.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach holds swearing-in ceremony at Cleveland school
By Peter Krouse, The Plain Dealer
October 26, 2009, 1:46PM
October 26, 2009, 1:46PM
Photo by Lisa DeJong / The Plain Dealer
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Fighting public corruption and upholding civil rights will be among Steven Dettelbach's priorities as the new U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio.
Dettelbach, 43, was privately sworn in as U.S. attorney in September but chose Martin Luther King Jr. High School at East 71st Street and Hough Avenue in Cleveland for a public ceremony this morning. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown administered the oath of office. Dettelbach selected the school because of its emphasis on law and municipal careers. He plans to begin an internship program between his office and the school.
Among the morning's speakers was 16-year-old sophomore Dontea Gresham, who proclaimed his intention to one day run for U.S. president. Dontea reminded the few hundred invited guests of Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous admonition, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Dettelbach comes to his new job with extensive civil rights experience, having served in the criminal section of the Justice Department's civil rights division. One noteworthy case he prosecuted involved Thai immigrants brought illegally to the United States and enslaved in a southern California sweatshop. Dettelbach will serve as chairman of the subcommittee on civil rights for the U.S. Attorney General's advisory committee.
As a former federal prosecutor in Cleveland, Dettelbach helped prosecute Nate Gray, a close friend to former Cleveland Mayor Michael White. Gray was convicted of paying bribes to public officials in several cities, including former East Cleveland Mayor Emanuel Onunwor. Dettelbach has been recused from his office's ongoing probe of public corruption in Cuyahoga County because his former firm, Baker & Hostetler, represented parties involved in the investigation. His pick for first assistant U.S. Attorney, Carol Rendon, will likely have to do the same when she comes on board because of her representation of probe targets at her firm. In his speech, Dettelbach promised to root out public corruption to ensure taxpayer money is spent "on the best product, not someone's best friend."
While there were plenty of glowing comments about Dettelbach, friend and former federal prosecutor Craig Morford offered up some lighter insight. He called Dettelbach "a bit of a goofball" who took his job seriously, but not himself. He recalled a story from Dettelbach's former Harvard Law School roommate who said Dettelbach once recorded the sound of a vacuum cleaner to play while going to bed because the white noise helped him sleep.
Dettelbach went to Dartmouth College before entering Harvard Law School, where he became friends with another future lawyer named Barack Obama. Dettelbach did not stay in touch with Obama over the years, but he did become active in his presidential campaign.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sentencing Errors Might Spring Inmates
More than 14,000 ex-prisoners also might be affected
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 3:04 AM
By Alan Johnson
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Thousands of ex-offenders could be released from state supervision and more than 200 current inmates might get out of Ohio prisons early because of a sentencing glitch. Many of the affected current and former inmates committed felonies -- and some are sex offenders, an official said.
Ohio prisons director Terry Collins said yesterday that rulings in three related lawsuits handed down by the Ohio Supreme Court this year are forcing the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to review more than 14,000 other cases. The glitch affects only offenders sentenced after the state's 1996 "truth-in-sentencing law" took effect.
"If the sentencing order didn't say they had mandatory supervision and the number of years, the order was void," Collins said. The judges' sentencing oversight was cited in three specific cases and expanded, by virtue of the Supreme Court rulings, to cover thousands of similar cases.
The ruling directly affects three groups: 14,816 former prisoners sentenced to "post-release control" (the post-1996 successor to parole); more than 208 inmates sent back to prison for violating post-release control rules, and an undetermined number of inmates currently in prison. Collins said he didn't know the number of cases affected, or how many have sentencing problems. "My concern is that we may well have to take some people off supervision by the Ohio Adult Parole Authority," he said. "We would no longer have the ability to supervise them from a legal perspective."
Agency officials are in contact with common pleas judges statewide. A telephone hot line has been set up to help schedule re-sentencing hearings, by teleconference when possible.
In addition, the agency's victim-services department is contacting crime victims and family members to inform them that offenders who they thought were under state supervision might not be supervised for much longer. "I'm always concerned about the victims of crime," Collins added. "Every time something happens with one of these cases, it opens up memories again."
In a related development, an advocacy group representing prisoners and their families demonstrated yesterday outside the prison system's central offices, 770 W. Broad St., seeking release of inmates incarcerated under pre-1996 sentencing laws.
CURE-Ohio said that many of the 4,000 old-law prisoners who are eligible for parole should be released because many are serving longer terms than those sentenced for the same crimes under the new law. In addition, that move could save $100 million and help alleviate prison crowding, now at 32 percent over stated capacity, a CURE spokeswoman said.
Prison officials said it's doubtful the savings would be anywhere near $100 million, even if all 4,000 were released.
ajohnson@dispatch.com
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 3:04 AM
By Alan Johnson
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Thousands of ex-offenders could be released from state supervision and more than 200 current inmates might get out of Ohio prisons early because of a sentencing glitch. Many of the affected current and former inmates committed felonies -- and some are sex offenders, an official said.
Ohio prisons director Terry Collins said yesterday that rulings in three related lawsuits handed down by the Ohio Supreme Court this year are forcing the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to review more than 14,000 other cases. The glitch affects only offenders sentenced after the state's 1996 "truth-in-sentencing law" took effect.
"If the sentencing order didn't say they had mandatory supervision and the number of years, the order was void," Collins said. The judges' sentencing oversight was cited in three specific cases and expanded, by virtue of the Supreme Court rulings, to cover thousands of similar cases.
The ruling directly affects three groups: 14,816 former prisoners sentenced to "post-release control" (the post-1996 successor to parole); more than 208 inmates sent back to prison for violating post-release control rules, and an undetermined number of inmates currently in prison. Collins said he didn't know the number of cases affected, or how many have sentencing problems. "My concern is that we may well have to take some people off supervision by the Ohio Adult Parole Authority," he said. "We would no longer have the ability to supervise them from a legal perspective."
Agency officials are in contact with common pleas judges statewide. A telephone hot line has been set up to help schedule re-sentencing hearings, by teleconference when possible.
In addition, the agency's victim-services department is contacting crime victims and family members to inform them that offenders who they thought were under state supervision might not be supervised for much longer. "I'm always concerned about the victims of crime," Collins added. "Every time something happens with one of these cases, it opens up memories again."
In a related development, an advocacy group representing prisoners and their families demonstrated yesterday outside the prison system's central offices, 770 W. Broad St., seeking release of inmates incarcerated under pre-1996 sentencing laws.
CURE-Ohio said that many of the 4,000 old-law prisoners who are eligible for parole should be released because many are serving longer terms than those sentenced for the same crimes under the new law. In addition, that move could save $100 million and help alleviate prison crowding, now at 32 percent over stated capacity, a CURE spokeswoman said.
Prison officials said it's doubtful the savings would be anywhere near $100 million, even if all 4,000 were released.
ajohnson@dispatch.com
Monday, October 26, 2009
States Pressed Into New Role on Marijuana
New York Times
Published: October 25, 2009
Published: October 25, 2009
Photo by Dana Romanoff for NY Times
GREELEY, Colo. — Health and law enforcement officials around the nation are scrambling to figure out how to regulate medical marijuana now that the federal government has decided it will no longer prosecute legal users or providers.
Mayor Ed Clark supported a ban on marijuana dispensaries in Greeley, Colo., which the City Council passed last week. Medical marijuana is legal in Colorado, as cards in a Garden City dispensary explain, but some cities ban distribution.
Mayor Ed Clark supported a ban on marijuana dispensaries in Greeley, Colo., which the City Council passed last week. Medical marijuana is legal in Colorado, as cards in a Garden City dispensary explain, but some cities ban distribution.
For years, since the first medical marijuana laws were passed in the mid-1990s, many local and state governments could be confident, if not complacent, knowing that marijuana would be kept in check because it remained illegal under federal law, and that hard-nosed federal prosecutors were not about to forget it. But with the Justice Department’s announcement last week that it would not prosecute people who use marijuana for medical purposes in states where it is legal, local and state officials say they will now have to take on the job themselves.
In New Hampshire, for instance, where some state legislators are considering a medical marijuana law, there is concern that the state health department — already battered by budget cuts — could be hard-pressed to administer the system. In California, where there has been an explosion of medical marijuana suppliers, the authorities in Los Angeles and other jurisdictions are considering a requirement that all medical dispensaries operate as nonprofit organizations.
“The federal government says they’re not going to control it, so the only other option we have is to control it ourselves,” said Carrol Martin, a City Council member in this community north of Denver, where a ban on marijuana dispensaries was on the agenda at a Council meeting the day after the federal announcement.
At least five states, including New York and New Jersey, are considering laws to allow medical marijuana through legislation or voter referendums, in addition to the 13 states where such laws already exist. Even while that is happening, scores of local governments in California, Colorado and other states have gone the other way and imposed bans or moratoriums on distribution even though state law allows it.
Some health and legal experts say the Justice Department’s decision will promote the spread of marijuana for medical uses because local and state officials often take leadership cues from federal policy. That, the experts said, could lead to more liberal rules in states that already have medical marijuana and to more voters and legislators in other states becoming comfortable with the idea of allowing it. For elected officials who have feared looking soft on crime by backing any sort of legalized marijuana use, the new policy might provide support to reframe the issue.
“The fact that the feds are backing off is going to allow changes that are going to make it more accessible,” said Bill Morrisette, a state senator in Oregon and chairman of a committee that oversees the state’s medical marijuana law. Mr. Morrisette said he expected a flurry of proposals in the Legislature, including a plan already floated to have the state grow the marijuana crop itself, perhaps on the grounds of the State Penitentiary in Salem.
“It would be very secure,” he said. Here in Greeley, anxiety and enthusiasm were on display as the City Council considered a ban on dispensaries.
Most of those who testified at the hearing, including several dispensary operators, opposed the ban and spoke of marijuana’s therapeutic benefits and the taxes that dispensary owners were willing to pour into Greeley’s budget, which has been battered by the recession.
But on the seven-member Council, the question was control. Mr. Martin, for example, said that he hated to see the spread of marijuana, but that the barricades had fallen. Still, he said he opposed a local ban on dispensaries.
“If we have no regulations at all, then we can’t control it, and our police officers have their hands tied,” Mr. Martin said. Mayor Ed Clark, a former police officer, took the opposite tack in supporting the ban, which passed on a 6-to-1 vote. “I think we do regulate them, by not allowing dispensaries,” Mr. Clark said.
The backdrop to the debate here in Colorado is a sharp expansion in marijuana dispensaries and patients, fueled in part by the State Board of Health decision in July not to impose limits on the number of patients handled by each marijuana provider. The state attorney general, John W. Suthers, said the federal government’s retreat, combined with the growth in demand, had created a legal vacuum.
“The federal Department of Justice is saying it will only go after you if you’re in violation of state law,” Mr. Suthers said. “But in Colorado it’s not clear what state law is.”
In New Hampshire, by contrast, where the state legislature is scheduled to meet this week to consider overriding the governor’s veto and passing a medical marijuana law, government downsizing has colored the debate. The state agency that would be responsible for licensing marijuana dispensaries has been battered by budget cuts, said Senator Sylvia B. Larsen, the president of the New Hampshire Senate and a Democrat. Concerns about the department, Ms. Larsen said, have made it harder to find two more votes in the Senate to reach a two-thirds majority that is needed to override a veto by Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat.
An even odder situation is unfolding in Maine, which already allows medical marijuana and where residents will vote next month on a measure that would create a new system of distribution and licensing.
An even odder situation is unfolding in Maine, which already allows medical marijuana and where residents will vote next month on a measure that would create a new system of distribution and licensing.
The marijuana proposal, several political experts said, has been overshadowed by another fight on the ballot that would overturn a state law and ban same-sex marriage. The added wrinkle is that opponents of same-sex marriage, said Christian Potholm, a professor of government at Bowdoin College, have heavily recruited young, socially conservative voters, who by and large tend to not be concerned about medical marijuana expansion.
“The 18- to 25-year-old vote is going to be overrepresented because of the gay marriage situation, so overrepresented in favor of medical marijuana,” Professor Potholm said.
Some legal scholars said the federal government, by deciding not to enforce its own laws (possession and the sale of marijuana remain federal crimes), has introduced an unpredictable variable into the drug regulation system. “The next step would be a particular state deciding to legalize marijuana entirely,” said Peter J. Cohen, a doctor and a lawyer who teaches public health law at Georgetown University. If federal prosecutors kept their distance even then, Dr. Cohen said, legalized marijuana would become a de facto reality.
Senator Morrisette in Oregon said he thought that exact situation — a state moving toward legalization, perhaps California — could play out much sooner now than might have been imagined even a few weeks ago. And the continuing recession would only help, he said, with advocates for legalization able to promise relief to an overburdened prison system and injection of tax revenues to the state budget.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Red-Light Camera Issue Now in Voters' Hands
BY LOREN GENSON • Gazette Staff Writer • October 25, 2009
Zainesville, Ohio
After a yearlong grassroots campaign to end the use of red-light cameras, the measure finally will go before voters Nov. 3 for final approval.
Chillicothe Police Chief Roger Moore worries the initiative that would ban the cameras also could ban local law enforcement from doing their jobs. Moore said he doesn't take a stance on the issue of red-light cameras, but said the initiative on the November ballot would make it difficult for his officers to do their jobs.
"I understand what they're trying to do, but I don't know how we'll be able to run law enforcement," said Moore.
Rebekah Valentich, president of Citizens Against Photo Enforcement said the initiative petition committee has no intent to prevent officers from doing their jobs.
"We want police officers to do their jobs, that's why we're so against the cameras," Valentich said.
The argument Moore raises also has been posed by the city to the state Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of the cameras. The Supreme Court did not rule on the city's claims, except to deny their motion to strike the issue from the ballot because it was filed too late.
The proposed ordinance would ban the city from using "any traffic law photo-monitoring device or mobile speed enforcement vehicle fro the enforcement of a qualified traffic law violations, unless a law enforcement officer is present at the location of the device or vehicle and personally issues the ticket to the alleged violator at the time and location of the violation."
Moore said that language is too confining and would make impossible for officers to run radar and issue tickets.
"If you're running radar and you pull someone over a half-mile up the road, you have to bring them back to where you clocked them and by then it won't be the time of the violation," Moore said. "I know they only meant red-light cameras, but the way it's worded it can prevent us from issuing tickets."
When asked if he's interpreting the wording a little to strictly, Moore said maybe, but his main concern is how defendants might use the ordinance to get out of tickets in court.
"It will give people an easy way to try and fight any ticket they get," Moore said.
But the CAPE group disagrees. Valentich said the group included that wording to prevent speed vans from being used. The initial contract with Redflex required speed vans within the city; however, Mayor Joe Sulzer opted not to use them.
"We had to include that language because we didn't want them implementing these vans," Valentich said.
CAPE attorney David Kastner said there's nothing in the ordinance that would restrict officers from performing their duties and only asks that radar be used by an officer present at the scene.
"Currently, there's no officer there," Kastner said. "You get a ticket in the mail and it looks like it's from Chillicothe, but it's not, it's from Cleveland or somewhere else. That's not what the citizens want."
Aside from the law enforcement questions, another question is how the city will proceed with issuing Redflex tickets. Joe Sulzer signed a five-year contract with Redflex Inc. in February 2008 and Law Director Toni Eddy said she was unclear of what would happen if the city halted photo enforcement. "If Redflex were to assert a breach of contract claim against the city, there is a potential for financial repercussions," she said.
Assistant Law Director Jim Mann said he would wait to see how voters decide in November before detailing what actions the city would take. "This doesn't get down to whether we support Redflex or not," he said. "We think it's a very badly worded piece of legislation." But the CAPE attorney disagrees and said the city the ordinance would not restrict law enforcement.
"To say that this will apply to all law enforcement equipment is incorrect," Kastner said. "All the proposed ordinance is saying is that these devices must be used by an officer."
Zainesville, Ohio
After a yearlong grassroots campaign to end the use of red-light cameras, the measure finally will go before voters Nov. 3 for final approval.
Chillicothe Police Chief Roger Moore worries the initiative that would ban the cameras also could ban local law enforcement from doing their jobs. Moore said he doesn't take a stance on the issue of red-light cameras, but said the initiative on the November ballot would make it difficult for his officers to do their jobs.
"I understand what they're trying to do, but I don't know how we'll be able to run law enforcement," said Moore.
Rebekah Valentich, president of Citizens Against Photo Enforcement said the initiative petition committee has no intent to prevent officers from doing their jobs.
"We want police officers to do their jobs, that's why we're so against the cameras," Valentich said.
The argument Moore raises also has been posed by the city to the state Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of the cameras. The Supreme Court did not rule on the city's claims, except to deny their motion to strike the issue from the ballot because it was filed too late.
The proposed ordinance would ban the city from using "any traffic law photo-monitoring device or mobile speed enforcement vehicle fro the enforcement of a qualified traffic law violations, unless a law enforcement officer is present at the location of the device or vehicle and personally issues the ticket to the alleged violator at the time and location of the violation."
Moore said that language is too confining and would make impossible for officers to run radar and issue tickets.
"If you're running radar and you pull someone over a half-mile up the road, you have to bring them back to where you clocked them and by then it won't be the time of the violation," Moore said. "I know they only meant red-light cameras, but the way it's worded it can prevent us from issuing tickets."
When asked if he's interpreting the wording a little to strictly, Moore said maybe, but his main concern is how defendants might use the ordinance to get out of tickets in court.
"It will give people an easy way to try and fight any ticket they get," Moore said.
But the CAPE group disagrees. Valentich said the group included that wording to prevent speed vans from being used. The initial contract with Redflex required speed vans within the city; however, Mayor Joe Sulzer opted not to use them.
"We had to include that language because we didn't want them implementing these vans," Valentich said.
CAPE attorney David Kastner said there's nothing in the ordinance that would restrict officers from performing their duties and only asks that radar be used by an officer present at the scene.
"Currently, there's no officer there," Kastner said. "You get a ticket in the mail and it looks like it's from Chillicothe, but it's not, it's from Cleveland or somewhere else. That's not what the citizens want."
Aside from the law enforcement questions, another question is how the city will proceed with issuing Redflex tickets. Joe Sulzer signed a five-year contract with Redflex Inc. in February 2008 and Law Director Toni Eddy said she was unclear of what would happen if the city halted photo enforcement. "If Redflex were to assert a breach of contract claim against the city, there is a potential for financial repercussions," she said.
Assistant Law Director Jim Mann said he would wait to see how voters decide in November before detailing what actions the city would take. "This doesn't get down to whether we support Redflex or not," he said. "We think it's a very badly worded piece of legislation." But the CAPE attorney disagrees and said the city the ordinance would not restrict law enforcement.
"To say that this will apply to all law enforcement equipment is incorrect," Kastner said. "All the proposed ordinance is saying is that these devices must be used by an officer."
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Chief Justice John Roberts Speaks Out On Drunk Driving Case
Associated Press linked from AOL News WASHINGTON (Oct. 20) — Chief Justice John Roberts spoke out in vain Tuesday against a lower court ruling he says will "grant drunk drivers 'one free swerve'" that could potentially end someone's life.
Roberts wanted the Supreme Court to review the lower court ruling t failed to persuade enough of his colleagues. The court declined to hear an appeal from Virginia officials who had their drunk driving conviction of Joseph A. Moses Harris, Jr. thrown out by that state's Supreme Court. Police were notified by an anonymous tipster that Harris was driving intoxicated, but the arresting officer did not see Harris break any traffic laws.
The majority of the justices did not say why they did not take the case, but Roberts in a written dissent, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, said the Virginia court's decision will put people in danger.
"The decision below commands that police officers following a driver reported to be drunk do nothing until they see the driver actually do something unsafe on the road — by which time it may be too late," Roberts wrote.
Roberts noted that close to 13,000 people die in alcohol-related car crashes a year, which equals to one death every 40 minutes.
Roberts said a majority of the courts have said it doesn't violate the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure to pull over drunk drivers based on anonymous tips from programs like the "Drunk Busters Hotline."
But some courts, including some in Wyoming, Massachusetts and Connecticut, have agreed with Virginia in saying that police must see a traffic violation before pulling over a suspected drunk driver based on an anonymous tip.
But some courts, including some in Wyoming, Massachusetts and Connecticut, have agreed with Virginia in saying that police must see a traffic violation before pulling over a suspected drunk driver based on an anonymous tip.
The Supreme Court should have stepped in and made the rule clear, Roberts said.
"The stakes are high. The effect of the rule below will be to grant drunk drivers 'one free swerve' before they can be legally pulled over by police," Roberts said. "It will be difficult for an officer to explain to the family of a motorist killed by that swerve that the police had a tip that the driver of the other car was drunk, but that they were powerless to pull him over, even for a quick check."
"The stakes are high. The effect of the rule below will be to grant drunk drivers 'one free swerve' before they can be legally pulled over by police," Roberts said. "It will be difficult for an officer to explain to the family of a motorist killed by that swerve that the police had a tip that the driver of the other car was drunk, but that they were powerless to pull him over, even for a quick check."
Richmond, Va., police were called on the morning of Dec. 31, 2005, and told that an intoxicated Harris was driving a green Altima down the street. A police officer saw Harris drive slowly through an intersection where he didn't have to stop and put on his brake lights well in advance of a red light.
Harris then pulled over to the side of the road, where the police officer smelled alcohol on his breath. Harris also failed the field sobriety tests, but the police officer did not see him break any traffic laws. Harris was convicted of driving while intoxicated, but the Virginia Supreme Court threw out his conviction. The court said since the police officer did not see erratic driving behavior like swerving, there was not a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to warrant the stop.
Harris's lawyer said the Supreme Court should let that decision stand because "society's reasonable expectation of privacy requires some facts to support the tipster's allegation that the driver was intoxicated." If that's correct and the Fourth Amendment bans the use of anonymous tips on drunk drivers without police verification, "the dangerous consequences of this rule are unavoidable," Roberts said. "But the police should have every legitimate tool at their disposal for getting drunk drivers off the road. I would grant certiorari to determine if this is one of them."
The case is Virginia v. Harris, 08-1385.
Should parents who accidently cause the death of their children be criminally charged?
The 'Rollover' Conundrum: To Charge or Not to Charge?
By Ashby Jones
WSJ Law Blog
What to do about “rollover” deaths? That question is plaguing some prosecutors around the country, who don’t exactly know best how to handle situations in which a slumbering adult accidentally “rolls over” and suffocates to death a sleeping infant. Is it manslaughter? Criminal negligence? Or is it simply an accident that shouldn’t be punished?
The WSJ’s Chris Herring tackles the issue in the Journal’s weekly Law Journal column. He opens with the following pair of cases:
In March, a slumbering Indiana father accidentally suffocated his six-month-old son to death while both were sleeping on a sofa. Law-enforcement officials later determined that the man had used methamphetamine and smoked marijuana before falling asleep that night.
A month later, in Milwaukee, a one-month-old infant died while in bed with his parents and brother, possibly due to suffocation. Before coming home to sleep that night, the baby’s mother had had three drinks at a nearby bar.
The tragedies are similar, but the way law-enforcement officials handled them is not. In the pending Indiana case, the father, Darik Morell, was charged with neglect of a dependent resulting in death, a felony that carries a 20- to 50-year prison sentence. . . .
No charges, in contrast, were filed in the Milwaukee case, or in two other bed-sharing deaths in the area since March. The main question, writes Herring: At what point does carelessness, absent malicious intent, become punishable by criminal law?
Experts say that often, there is no right answer. “Prosecutors have enormous discretion in these sorts of things,” says Dan Blinka, a criminal-law professor at Marquette University. “They can choose to see these as simply tragic accidents, or they can see them as homicides.”
Prosecutors are divided on how to apply the standard to bed-sharing cases or other accidental deaths, such as those that stem from auto accidents caused by fatigued drivers. (Click here, for instance, for a recent Washington Post story on a similar issue: What to do to the parents when a child dies in the backseat of a hot, parked car?)
Mike Dugan, a district attorney in Oregon’s Deschutes County who charged two parents with criminally negligent homicide, has drawn a fairly hard line on bed-sharing death cases: He will prosecute them when they involve alcohol or drugs. “I’m not telling people not to sleep with their kids,” he says. “But I am telling them that if you do it while you’re drunk or high and it results in a death, chances are we’re going to charge you.”
LB readers, this is an interesting one. Do you think prosecutors should go after all of these cases? None of them? Should they draw the line, as Dugan has, when drugs or alcohol are involved?
By Ashby Jones
WSJ Law Blog
What to do about “rollover” deaths? That question is plaguing some prosecutors around the country, who don’t exactly know best how to handle situations in which a slumbering adult accidentally “rolls over” and suffocates to death a sleeping infant. Is it manslaughter? Criminal negligence? Or is it simply an accident that shouldn’t be punished?
The WSJ’s Chris Herring tackles the issue in the Journal’s weekly Law Journal column. He opens with the following pair of cases:
In March, a slumbering Indiana father accidentally suffocated his six-month-old son to death while both were sleeping on a sofa. Law-enforcement officials later determined that the man had used methamphetamine and smoked marijuana before falling asleep that night.
A month later, in Milwaukee, a one-month-old infant died while in bed with his parents and brother, possibly due to suffocation. Before coming home to sleep that night, the baby’s mother had had three drinks at a nearby bar.
The tragedies are similar, but the way law-enforcement officials handled them is not. In the pending Indiana case, the father, Darik Morell, was charged with neglect of a dependent resulting in death, a felony that carries a 20- to 50-year prison sentence. . . .
No charges, in contrast, were filed in the Milwaukee case, or in two other bed-sharing deaths in the area since March. The main question, writes Herring: At what point does carelessness, absent malicious intent, become punishable by criminal law?
Experts say that often, there is no right answer. “Prosecutors have enormous discretion in these sorts of things,” says Dan Blinka, a criminal-law professor at Marquette University. “They can choose to see these as simply tragic accidents, or they can see them as homicides.”
Prosecutors are divided on how to apply the standard to bed-sharing cases or other accidental deaths, such as those that stem from auto accidents caused by fatigued drivers. (Click here, for instance, for a recent Washington Post story on a similar issue: What to do to the parents when a child dies in the backseat of a hot, parked car?)
Mike Dugan, a district attorney in Oregon’s Deschutes County who charged two parents with criminally negligent homicide, has drawn a fairly hard line on bed-sharing death cases: He will prosecute them when they involve alcohol or drugs. “I’m not telling people not to sleep with their kids,” he says. “But I am telling them that if you do it while you’re drunk or high and it results in a death, chances are we’re going to charge you.”
LB readers, this is an interesting one. Do you think prosecutors should go after all of these cases? None of them? Should they draw the line, as Dugan has, when drugs or alcohol are involved?
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