The Statesman's Mike Ward reports further on proposals to stave off Texas' overincarceration crisis by better utilizing the probation system, recounting testimony from Tuesday's meeting of the criminal justice subcommittee of House Appropriations. Also see extensive Grits coverage of the subject here.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Ending task force boosts drug enforcement in Lubbock
Since the demise of Lubbock's South Plains Narcotics Task Force, the number of drug arrests in that city has increased significantly, reports a local TV station. Mostly that's because police can focus on their own communities:
Apparently busting drug users in Lubbock is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. It's so easy, they aren't even trying to flip snitches anymore:
So why does anybody want to keep these things around again?
So even for those who think the strategy of pursuing low-level users is an appropriate law enforcement tactic -- and their number does not include the author of this blog -- the drug task force system is drastically limiting the efficiency of Texas law enforcement.Monitoring narcotic activity takes manpower, and police say that's one way they've benefited from the break up of the South Plains Regional Narcotics Task Force.
The Lubbock Police Department was the largest entity involved in the Task Force before it ended in August. Agents were responsible for drug activity in 18 total counties, which they say can be hard to monitor. Now the police department is concentrating on the area they know best. ...
"We can get a whole lot more done right here, we can make several cases a day, where we were making several cases a week before.
Apparently busting drug users in Lubbock is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. It's so easy, they aren't even trying to flip snitches anymore:
Lubbock narcotics officers are changing their tactics. In the past, if a person was arrested for narcotics, they were sometimes given the option of giving up information or going to jail. Now, (Lubbock PD Lt.) Shavers wants everyone to go to jail.
The Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee in December recommended abolishing Texas' drug task force system, a move civil rights groups have advocated for several years. Now, it turns out that when a drug task force goes away, drug enforcement isn't diminished. Instead, the number of drug arrests actually increases. Plus the state has identified serious needs on which it could better spend the grant money that pays for these unaccountable pseudo-agencies.They also have several more cases pending., [sic] many are a result of being able to spend more time in Lubbock.
So why does anybody want to keep these things around again?
Can I see your papers, comrade? No, not THOSE papers
Today's candidate for worst-legislation-I've-seen-yet has to be HB 516 by Betty Brown, R-Kaufman, which will be heard in the House Elections Committee today at 2 p.m.
Rep. Brown's legislation would add a new layer of paperwork and bureaucracy to the voter registration process for no other reason than to discourage people from registering.
HB 516 would require county clerks to gather copies of citizenship documentation from everyone who registers to vote. A Texas driver's license or ID card isn't good enough: If you're a Texan, take your driver's license out and look at it -- it doesn't say if you're a citizen.
That makes the proposed law unworkable for most voters. The most common forms of identification would no longer be adequate to register to vote. The bill says drivers licenses or ID cards issued by the Department of Public Safety could only be used for proof of voter eligibility if they stated whether or not the person had supplied proof of citizenship. Since Texas DPS' drivers licenses and ID cards do not include that information, they could not be used for that purpose. The only documents Texans could use to register to vote would be passports (which most people don't have), birth certificates (photocopies of which are easily forged), or naturalization papers.
I had to locate my own birth certificate recently. It took about 45 minutes of digging around in my files to locate a document I may not have laid eyes on in 15 years. I wonder how many people really have their birth certificate so easy to hand that this bill would cause them no inconvenience?
Voters already are required to supply the pertinent information about citizenship; if they must give a "copy" of records, that requires increased bureaucracy, increased labor, increased taxpayer cost, plus creates the need for long-term storage of what will soon become immense stacks of paper.
Here's the part that turns this into a most-ridiculous-bill candidate: HB 516 would require re-engineering every voter registration form in the state to include an envelope that allows people to send in documentation along with their voter registration card. That's a huge expense, yet the bill carries no fiscal note. That means the costs will be borne by the counties if it is enacted.
Plus there's no records retention policy in the bill. How long must these documents be maintained, who may access them, and for what purpose? The bill is silent on all these questions. County courthouses across the state are already leasing extra space to store records. Even in small towns, one frequently must now go to a separate annex -- many of them seem to be in old Safeway storefronts, curiously -- in order to view real property records and other holdings of the county clerk. This bill gives them more paper to store, paper for which there is no stated use.
Who will ever look at this material, and why? Other means using matching databases are easier for checking citizenship than combing through paper documentation for each individual voter, the same way aggregated lists are matched to purge felons and deceased voters. All the bill really seems to accomplish is to make it more difficult to register to vote.
Finally, another huge oversight: As written, the documents given for proving citizenship would all be open records. This bill is an identity theft nightmare waiting to happen.
It used to be that Republicans were for small government, less bureaucracy, fiscal conservatism and government efficiency. HB 516, though, is further evidence that today, it's Big Government Conservatism that's in vogue.
Rep. Brown's legislation would add a new layer of paperwork and bureaucracy to the voter registration process for no other reason than to discourage people from registering.
HB 516 would require county clerks to gather copies of citizenship documentation from everyone who registers to vote. A Texas driver's license or ID card isn't good enough: If you're a Texan, take your driver's license out and look at it -- it doesn't say if you're a citizen.
That makes the proposed law unworkable for most voters. The most common forms of identification would no longer be adequate to register to vote. The bill says drivers licenses or ID cards issued by the Department of Public Safety could only be used for proof of voter eligibility if they stated whether or not the person had supplied proof of citizenship. Since Texas DPS' drivers licenses and ID cards do not include that information, they could not be used for that purpose. The only documents Texans could use to register to vote would be passports (which most people don't have), birth certificates (photocopies of which are easily forged), or naturalization papers.
I had to locate my own birth certificate recently. It took about 45 minutes of digging around in my files to locate a document I may not have laid eyes on in 15 years. I wonder how many people really have their birth certificate so easy to hand that this bill would cause them no inconvenience?
Voters already are required to supply the pertinent information about citizenship; if they must give a "copy" of records, that requires increased bureaucracy, increased labor, increased taxpayer cost, plus creates the need for long-term storage of what will soon become immense stacks of paper.
Here's the part that turns this into a most-ridiculous-bill candidate: HB 516 would require re-engineering every voter registration form in the state to include an envelope that allows people to send in documentation along with their voter registration card. That's a huge expense, yet the bill carries no fiscal note. That means the costs will be borne by the counties if it is enacted.
Plus there's no records retention policy in the bill. How long must these documents be maintained, who may access them, and for what purpose? The bill is silent on all these questions. County courthouses across the state are already leasing extra space to store records. Even in small towns, one frequently must now go to a separate annex -- many of them seem to be in old Safeway storefronts, curiously -- in order to view real property records and other holdings of the county clerk. This bill gives them more paper to store, paper for which there is no stated use.
Who will ever look at this material, and why? Other means using matching databases are easier for checking citizenship than combing through paper documentation for each individual voter, the same way aggregated lists are matched to purge felons and deceased voters. All the bill really seems to accomplish is to make it more difficult to register to vote.
Finally, another huge oversight: As written, the documents given for proving citizenship would all be open records. This bill is an identity theft nightmare waiting to happen.
It used to be that Republicans were for small government, less bureaucracy, fiscal conservatism and government efficiency. HB 516, though, is further evidence that today, it's Big Government Conservatism that's in vogue.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Rick Roach: A bigger fool or hypocrite?
"If I'm ever a prosecutor again, which will never happen, I would be much less Rambo-ish and more compassionate in the way I handle an offense, particularly for users," meth-head Panhandle prosecutor Rick Roach told the New York Times in an extensive article.
It's hard to know if Roach is a bigger fool or a bigger hypocrite. You be the judge.
As evidence of foolishness, Roach told the Times he had contemplated a patent for mixing meth and "performance enhancing" prescription drugs to boost his libido, which he said had declined due to taking medicine cabinet full of drugs for depression he'd bought without prescriptions over the Internet.
Roach was one of the most aggressive pursuants of drug-related asset forfeiture cases among all District Attorneys in the state. Now, investigators want to know what happened to the money, reported the Times:
For more see the links here. Via Talk Left
CLARIFICATION: A police officer friend emails to correct my usage of the word "snitch" regarding Roach's secretary: "A snitch is someone who provides information for a profit - either being for money, leniency, or favorable treatment. All other people are simply witnesses who have come forward for no personal gain." Point well taken.
It's hard to know if Roach is a bigger fool or a bigger hypocrite. You be the judge.
As evidence of foolishness, Roach told the Times he had contemplated a patent for mixing meth and "performance enhancing" prescription drugs to boost his libido, which he said had declined due to taking medicine cabinet full of drugs for depression he'd bought without prescriptions over the Internet.
"They were all debilitating on my libido, which created problems with my wife," he said. Viagra, he said, left him with a splitting headache. He said that in Breckenridge he had started injecting methamphetamine, finding eventually that, mixed with the sexual enhancer Levitra, it had the desired effect.Still, though foolishness has made a strong case, I think hypocrisy might still win out. Check out the lead to the Times' story:
"I was going to patent it," he said with a hollow laugh. "I'm definitely a mixed-up person."
No one prosecuted the war on drugs in the Texas Panhandle more zealously than Richard James Roach. As the blustery and hot-tempered Republican district attorney for five counties overrun with methamphetamines, he had eked out an election victory in 2000 vowing a crackdown and was soon gleefully reeling off the harsh sentences he had wrung from juries: 36 years, 38 years, 40 years, 60 years, 75 years - even 99 years. "I think it's quite clear that the good citizens of this district are fed up with drugs," he said.
He had barely missed riding the issue to victory in an earlier race. "My campaign is centered around doing something with the dope dealers," he told a local newspaper in 1996, complaining that "it's kind of hard to fight drugs when you've got dirty law enforcement."
Hmmmm. Dirty law enforcement? Yeah, that'd be terrible.
Roach was one of the most aggressive pursuants of drug-related asset forfeiture cases among all District Attorneys in the state. Now, investigators want to know what happened to the money, reported the Times:
Officials also were looking into his handling of millions of dollars in cash confiscated from drug traffickers along the Interstate 40 corridor that skirts the sparsely populated counties of Gray, Wheeler, Roberts, Hemphill and Lipscomb, where only 33,500 people live, fewer than 8 per square mile.Rick Roach isn't a typical prosecutor, but among officialdom he was a tolerated one. His employees knew he was taking drugs, the voters and his political opponents suspected it, but he was just re-elected in November. He'd still be prosecuting today if it hadn't turned out his secretary was a snitch for the DEA and the FBI.
For more see the links here. Via Talk Left
CLARIFICATION: A police officer friend emails to correct my usage of the word "snitch" regarding Roach's secretary: "A snitch is someone who provides information for a profit - either being for money, leniency, or favorable treatment. All other people are simply witnesses who have come forward for no personal gain." Point well taken.
Opposing red-light cameras
This morning at 8 a.m., I'll be at the Texas House Urban Affairs Committee to testify in support of Rep. Gary Elkins HB 259, which disallows the use of surveillance cameras at Texas intersections for traffic enforcement. See here for earlier Grits coverage of the upcoming hearing. I thought folks might want to see the text of the ACLU of Texas fact sheet I walked around to committee members yesterday, with a few hyperlinks added where I had them to hand.
UPDATE: HB 259 was voted favorably out of committee this afternoon.
The New York Times reported last month that "rear-end accidents have shot up at intersections with cameras."
Revenue Generation is Real Motive
Houston officials say they would accept more cash from the Legislature in lieu of red light cameras. The New York Times reported last month: "there has been criticism of the cameras' use to generate revenue from fines … and of revenue sharing arrangements with providers of the technology. Those arrangements, critics contend, have led to the placement of cameras not necessarily where they would promote safety, but where they will rack up the most violations."
Picture Snapped Doesn't Mean Guilt
Red light cameras give the ticket to the wrong person unless the owner of the car is driving. If someone driving a rental car runs a red light, will the rental company pay? If not, why not?
Even if a picture is taken, camera systems may target the wrong people. Houston's EZ-Pass system last year was capturing snapshots of vehicles that failed to pay their tolls, but the Houston Press reported they sometimes sent tickets to the wrong people.
Surveillance Cameras Are Prone To Abuse
Many camera systems zoom in and out and can rotate to view sidewalks or even inside neighboring buildings. Traffic cameras are designed to take high-definition photographs of license plates from a moving vehicle. That means they can photograph inside cars, too, if the operators choose to do so.
In 2003, in response to 9/11, the Texas Legislature made all information about location, specifications and operating procedures from surveillance cameras secret. ACLU believes that bill went too far, since now no one can know what video data the government gathers about them or what is being done with it. It would be unwise to massively expand the scope of government surveillance without fixing that statute to allow greater public accountability. There have been many examples of abuses:
In China, cameras installed ostensibly for traffic enforcement were used to identify and persecute dissidents after the Tiananmen Square uprising.
1 in 10 women were targeted for voyeuristic reasons by male camera operators in a study of London's infamous surveillance camera system.
UPDATE: HB 259 was voted favorably out of committee this afternoon.
Support HB 259 (Elkins) Banning Red Light Cameras
Red light cameras are unfair, they increase injury accidents,
soak the taxpayers, and pave the way for privacy abuses.
A study released in January of all seven red light camera systems in Virginia found that the number of injury accidents has increased since they were installed.soak the taxpayers, and pave the way for privacy abuses.
Red Light Cameras Increase Injury Accidents
The New York Times reported last month that "rear-end accidents have shot up at intersections with cameras."
Revenue Generation is Real Motive
Houston officials say they would accept more cash from the Legislature in lieu of red light cameras. The New York Times reported last month: "there has been criticism of the cameras' use to generate revenue from fines … and of revenue sharing arrangements with providers of the technology. Those arrangements, critics contend, have led to the placement of cameras not necessarily where they would promote safety, but where they will rack up the most violations."
Picture Snapped Doesn't Mean Guilt
Red light cameras give the ticket to the wrong person unless the owner of the car is driving. If someone driving a rental car runs a red light, will the rental company pay? If not, why not?
Even if a picture is taken, camera systems may target the wrong people. Houston's EZ-Pass system last year was capturing snapshots of vehicles that failed to pay their tolls, but the Houston Press reported they sometimes sent tickets to the wrong people.
Surveillance Cameras Are Prone To Abuse
Many camera systems zoom in and out and can rotate to view sidewalks or even inside neighboring buildings. Traffic cameras are designed to take high-definition photographs of license plates from a moving vehicle. That means they can photograph inside cars, too, if the operators choose to do so.
In 2003, in response to 9/11, the Texas Legislature made all information about location, specifications and operating procedures from surveillance cameras secret. ACLU believes that bill went too far, since now no one can know what video data the government gathers about them or what is being done with it. It would be unwise to massively expand the scope of government surveillance without fixing that statute to allow greater public accountability. There have been many examples of abuses:
In China, cameras installed ostensibly for traffic enforcement were used to identify and persecute dissidents after the Tiananmen Square uprising.
1 in 10 women were targeted for voyeuristic reasons by male camera operators in a study of London's infamous surveillance camera system.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Thanks readers! You put Grits in Wampum's Koufax final!
Wow, that's cool. Grits has made the finals of Wampum's Best-of-the-Left "Koufax Award" for the category of Best Single Issue blog (the Texas Justice System). Charles Kuffner nominated me, so thanks both to him and to readers who voted. Go here to vote for Grits using the comments section at the end of the post, and check out the other fine blogs listed there, too. The finals list is filled with real heavy hitters. Having only been up and running for a little over four months, it's quite an honor to be listed on the same chart with folks I read and respect like Jeralyn and Juan Cole.
I've gotten a lot of nice compliments recently on the blawg, all of which I appreciate a lot. And I'm gratified to note that Grits had its 20,000th visitor sometime yesterday (since I added the site meter on 10-28). But perhaps the best compliment Grits received this week, after making Wampum's finals, was from Doc Berman of the Sentencing Law and Policy blog, who called my coverage of Texas' sentencing issues "masterful" (even if he did alter the quote he chose to omit the honorific Grits has playfully adopted for him -- he's not really a Ph.D., he protests). I appreciate that. I'm sometimes writing about some very obscure stuff, and often wonder how many people really care about the ins and outs of the prison budget or how proposed probation legislaton would work. It's nice to know somebody with some chops on the issue thinks what I'm doing is valuable.
Anyway, blogging will be light today, so head over to Wampum to vote for Grits to be Best Single Issue Blog on the Left, then come back and check out the good stuff I put up for you over the weekend. And thanks for stopping by.
UPDATE: Wampum's site was down for a bit and the links didn't work. It's back up now, though, so if you tried to vote and couldn't, please give it another shot. Thanks, sh
I've gotten a lot of nice compliments recently on the blawg, all of which I appreciate a lot. And I'm gratified to note that Grits had its 20,000th visitor sometime yesterday (since I added the site meter on 10-28). But perhaps the best compliment Grits received this week, after making Wampum's finals, was from Doc Berman of the Sentencing Law and Policy blog, who called my coverage of Texas' sentencing issues "masterful" (even if he did alter the quote he chose to omit the honorific Grits has playfully adopted for him -- he's not really a Ph.D., he protests). I appreciate that. I'm sometimes writing about some very obscure stuff, and often wonder how many people really care about the ins and outs of the prison budget or how proposed probation legislaton would work. It's nice to know somebody with some chops on the issue thinks what I'm doing is valuable.
Anyway, blogging will be light today, so head over to Wampum to vote for Grits to be Best Single Issue Blog on the Left, then come back and check out the good stuff I put up for you over the weekend. And thanks for stopping by.
UPDATE: Wampum's site was down for a bit and the links didn't work. It's back up now, though, so if you tried to vote and couldn't, please give it another shot. Thanks, sh
Sunday, February 13, 2005
McCall: Police shouldn't track vehicles without subpoena
Should law enforcement be able to get information about your car -- e.g., where your vehicle has traveled and when, where you're going right now and how fast, how well you're driving -- from a private commercial service without your consent or a judge's review?
I'm happy to report that at least one member of the Texas House of Representatives thinks the answer should be "no," and his bill to fix the situation was one of the first ones heard in committee this session. HB 160 is a good bill by Texas House member Brian McCall, R-Plano, which provides two new privacy protections for consumers. It would require formal disclosure about the details of any tracking system, like the much-touted OnStar system, to people who purchse or rent a vehicle. And it would require law enforcement agents to obtain a subpoena to retrieve information tracked about newer cars by commercial services.
Information that would be restricted from law enforcement without a subpoena includes a litany of things most people never consider that someone else might be tracking:
There's no good reason for police to get that kind of personal information about our movements without asking a judge. And nobody should be tracked by the government or some private business without being told. I'd like it even better if the bill said the consumer had to be able to turn the tracking system entirely off. I'd also prefer that a full-blown search warrant be required instead of just a subpoena.
The bill in its current form, though, is a dramatic improvement over the status quo, which just allows police to pick up the phone and ask for the information informally.
The bill was left pending last Monday, Feb. 8, after a public hearing in the House Transportation Committee.
I'm happy to report that at least one member of the Texas House of Representatives thinks the answer should be "no," and his bill to fix the situation was one of the first ones heard in committee this session. HB 160 is a good bill by Texas House member Brian McCall, R-Plano, which provides two new privacy protections for consumers. It would require formal disclosure about the details of any tracking system, like the much-touted OnStar system, to people who purchse or rent a vehicle. And it would require law enforcement agents to obtain a subpoena to retrieve information tracked about newer cars by commercial services.
Information that would be restricted from law enforcement without a subpoena includes a litany of things most people never consider that someone else might be tracking:
- Speed and direction the vehicle is going
- History of where the vehicle travels
- Records about steering and brake performance
- Seat belt status
There's no good reason for police to get that kind of personal information about our movements without asking a judge. And nobody should be tracked by the government or some private business without being told. I'd like it even better if the bill said the consumer had to be able to turn the tracking system entirely off. I'd also prefer that a full-blown search warrant be required instead of just a subpoena.
The bill in its current form, though, is a dramatic improvement over the status quo, which just allows police to pick up the phone and ask for the information informally.
The bill was left pending last Monday, Feb. 8, after a public hearing in the House Transportation Committee.
A Snitch in Time
Since reading Prof. Natapoff's article on the consequences of snitching, I've developed a renewed interest in the subject. Here's a few things I wanted to link to so I'd have them. If you want to know more about the shadowy world of confidential informants, I suggest you take a look:
First, what is a snitch? The definition is not flattering.
The Wall Street Journal reported in December on disparities in use of snitches by federal US Attorneys, which the November Coalition has posted online. Highlight quote: "The big fish gets off and the little fish gets eaten." The Journal reported that decisions about who gets rewards for cooperation are "often haphazard and tilted toward higher-ranking veteran criminals who can tell prosecutors what they want to know."
Northwestern University law school's Center on Wrongful Convictions recently produced a booklet (pdf, 16 pages) arguing that snitch testimony is the leading cause of wrongful convctions in the United States.
Check out the Dallas News/WFAA-TV account of Texas' worst bad snitch case in recent memory -- euphemistically known as the Dallas "sheetrock" or fake-drug scandal. In that case, a local drug dealer/snitch, making upwards of $200,000 per year in confidential informant fees alone, set up innocent migrant workers with large quantities of fake drugs. Half the cocaine supposedly seized by the Dallas PD in 2001 turned out to be fake drugs used to set up innocent people. (Investigators initially thought the substance was ground sheetrock, but it later turned out to be pool chalk.) Texas Monthly's account of the case is here. At least one person was set up by the same confidential informant using smaller amounts of real drugs, and dozens of additional cases were made based on his word.
Of course, lying snitches can get people killed, not just wrongfully incarcerated.
The problem is, these guys just tell prosecutors whatever they want to hear -- "Just let me go, man, I can get you Osama bin Laden."
In 1999, the Chicago Tribune showed how untrustworthy jailhouse snitches lied in death penalty cases.
Meanwhile, I wasn't aware of this somewhat dated PBS Frontline story on snitches in the drug war, including interviews with a confidential informant, "Tony," who said he set up innocent people.
Always a good reminder: After 9/11 and the PATRIOT Act, the feds decided to turn ISPs, phone companies, banks and other businesses into snitches.
Jeralyn has noted before that the "Snitch System Undermines Justice."
Of course, cops make certain obligations to snitches, and occasionally an informant is in a position to hold them accountable. In this case a snitch sued, he said, as a warning to other snitches: The reason "I'm going forward with this thing is that I want other people to know the FBI does not take care of its people."
This book looks like an interesting read, but the price is a little dear. Maybe it's in the library, or maybe the job can pay for it.
Finally, I think snitches are corrupting the justice system, just like I don't think highly of the societal contributions of undercover drug cops, especially these task-force clowns focused on making large volumes of low-level busts. But neither do I think it's a good idea to identify confidential informants by name, online, in a database, as these folks have. CI's are tools of the prosecutors and police; it's wrong to subject them to persecution for succumbing to their weak position. Plus there's too great a chance that undocumented allegations of snitching will cause somebody to be wrongfully accused or even killed. (Housekeeping note: Whenever Grits has named a Confidential Informant, it's always somebody like Othella Kimbrew in Palestine, whose identity has already been made public in court documents or press accounts.)
If anybody knows of other resources on snitching, I'd appreciate you letting me know in the comments.
UPDATE: See other Grits writing on snitches linked at the bottom of this post.
First, what is a snitch? The definition is not flattering.
The Wall Street Journal reported in December on disparities in use of snitches by federal US Attorneys, which the November Coalition has posted online. Highlight quote: "The big fish gets off and the little fish gets eaten." The Journal reported that decisions about who gets rewards for cooperation are "often haphazard and tilted toward higher-ranking veteran criminals who can tell prosecutors what they want to know."
Northwestern University law school's Center on Wrongful Convictions recently produced a booklet (pdf, 16 pages) arguing that snitch testimony is the leading cause of wrongful convctions in the United States.
Check out the Dallas News/WFAA-TV account of Texas' worst bad snitch case in recent memory -- euphemistically known as the Dallas "sheetrock" or fake-drug scandal. In that case, a local drug dealer/snitch, making upwards of $200,000 per year in confidential informant fees alone, set up innocent migrant workers with large quantities of fake drugs. Half the cocaine supposedly seized by the Dallas PD in 2001 turned out to be fake drugs used to set up innocent people. (Investigators initially thought the substance was ground sheetrock, but it later turned out to be pool chalk.) Texas Monthly's account of the case is here. At least one person was set up by the same confidential informant using smaller amounts of real drugs, and dozens of additional cases were made based on his word.
Of course, lying snitches can get people killed, not just wrongfully incarcerated.
The problem is, these guys just tell prosecutors whatever they want to hear -- "Just let me go, man, I can get you Osama bin Laden."
In 1999, the Chicago Tribune showed how untrustworthy jailhouse snitches lied in death penalty cases.
Meanwhile, I wasn't aware of this somewhat dated PBS Frontline story on snitches in the drug war, including interviews with a confidential informant, "Tony," who said he set up innocent people.
Always a good reminder: After 9/11 and the PATRIOT Act, the feds decided to turn ISPs, phone companies, banks and other businesses into snitches.
Jeralyn has noted before that the "Snitch System Undermines Justice."
Of course, cops make certain obligations to snitches, and occasionally an informant is in a position to hold them accountable. In this case a snitch sued, he said, as a warning to other snitches: The reason "I'm going forward with this thing is that I want other people to know the FBI does not take care of its people."
This book looks like an interesting read, but the price is a little dear. Maybe it's in the library, or maybe the job can pay for it.
Finally, I think snitches are corrupting the justice system, just like I don't think highly of the societal contributions of undercover drug cops, especially these task-force clowns focused on making large volumes of low-level busts. But neither do I think it's a good idea to identify confidential informants by name, online, in a database, as these folks have. CI's are tools of the prosecutors and police; it's wrong to subject them to persecution for succumbing to their weak position. Plus there's too great a chance that undocumented allegations of snitching will cause somebody to be wrongfully accused or even killed. (Housekeeping note: Whenever Grits has named a Confidential Informant, it's always somebody like Othella Kimbrew in Palestine, whose identity has already been made public in court documents or press accounts.)
If anybody knows of other resources on snitching, I'd appreciate you letting me know in the comments.
UPDATE: See other Grits writing on snitches linked at the bottom of this post.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Tom Coleman Appeals Conviction
Tom Coleman, the infamous undercover sheriff's deputy whose testimony was discredited in the Tulia drug stings, appealed his perjury conviction, the Amarillo Globe News reported today. (He'd announced after the trial that he would do so.) For more background, see Grits' guest blogger coverage of Coleman's trial in January.
Ron Mock Suspended!
The Houston defense attorney who has had more clients sent to Texas' death row than anyone else has been suspended for three years by the Texas state bar. Off the Kuff has the details.
TX House Committee to debate red light cameras
Harris County state Rep. Gary Elkins' HB. 259, which would revoke cities' authority to issue civil citations to drivers for running red lights using cameras, will be debated in the Texas House Urban Affairs Committee on Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. I'll be there, all gussied up in my Sunday-go-to-meeting-clothes, to testify on behalf of ACLU of Texas.
The cities of Garland and Houston voted to pursue red light cameras last year despite an overwhelming vote in 2003 by the Texas' House of Representatives to disallow their use. After the idea died in the Texas House by a margin of 103-34, Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, inserted language into another, unrelated bill allowing "civil fines" for red-light violations (traffic violations are Class C criminal violations in Texas), without informing her colleagues of its true import. That made a lot of people angry, not the least of whom is Jim Keffer, the sponsor of the legislation she amended. Even though he supported red light cameras last time, he is now a joint author of Elkins' bill.
Like a lot of important issues regarding security and justice, whether cities should give tickets for red light running based on cameras isn't really a partisan issue. Here's an initial handicapping for Tuesday's vote: on its face it looks tight. Of the seven committee members, Chairman Talton, R-Pasadena, and Rep. Rodriguez, D-Austin, opposed red light cameras in 2003, while Houston reps Kevin Bailey (D) and Martha Wong (R) supported them. Democratic Rep. Jose Menendez was absent for last session's vote, but he is virulently against the bill, he says curtly, because the San Antonio police chief wants the cameras, and SA has a lot of traffic accidents.
That leaves two freshmen as swing votes: Houston Democrat Alma Allen, and Nacogdoches Republican Roy Blake, Jr.. Rep. Allen beat Ron Wilson in the Democratic primary last year; Wilson who opposed red light cameras. Blake's predecessor, Wayne Christian, who left his seat to run for Congress, also opposed them. If camera supporters can hold onto their base and pick off one of these freshmen, Elkins' bill may be in trouble. Certainly the vendors' lobbyists are out in force.
But hold on, there's another big wildcard at play here: Elkins, Keffer, and many others see Harper-Brown's amendment in 2003 as a sneaky approach that subverted the obvious and overwhelming will of the Texas House. It's quite possible that even Bailey and Wong, who supported cameras last session, might be convinced that they should allow the full House an opportunity to correct the institutional offense, regardless of their own position on the matter. Indeed, the bill has built early momentum precisely because so many members in the House took umbrage at being deceived. Elkins' co-sponsor list is impressive. Many think that the institutional integrity concerns about pre-empting the will of 103 House members will be given a lot of weight. In that case, speculating (quite) optimistically, such an appeal to their better angels could result in a near-unanimous, 6-1 vote for HB 259, though as is common practice, the bill will likely be left pending at least a week after the public hearing.
If HB 259 has problems in committee, Rep. Carl Issett, R-Lubbock, has filed another bill, HB 665, which has been referred to the House Transportation Committee but not yet set for hearing. That bill outright bans red light cameras, whereas Elkins' bill just deletes Harper-Brown's permissive language. So the anti-camera crowd will get another shot at the brass ring in a different committee no matter what, plus Elkins and Co. can easily amend the provision to legislation passing through the House floor.
That all makes me hopeful that, at the end of the day, the Urban Affairs Committee won't stand in the legislation's way. Given its history, the issue deserves to be debated again by all 150 House members.
The cities of Garland and Houston voted to pursue red light cameras last year despite an overwhelming vote in 2003 by the Texas' House of Representatives to disallow their use. After the idea died in the Texas House by a margin of 103-34, Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, inserted language into another, unrelated bill allowing "civil fines" for red-light violations (traffic violations are Class C criminal violations in Texas), without informing her colleagues of its true import. That made a lot of people angry, not the least of whom is Jim Keffer, the sponsor of the legislation she amended. Even though he supported red light cameras last time, he is now a joint author of Elkins' bill.
Like a lot of important issues regarding security and justice, whether cities should give tickets for red light running based on cameras isn't really a partisan issue. Here's an initial handicapping for Tuesday's vote: on its face it looks tight. Of the seven committee members, Chairman Talton, R-Pasadena, and Rep. Rodriguez, D-Austin, opposed red light cameras in 2003, while Houston reps Kevin Bailey (D) and Martha Wong (R) supported them. Democratic Rep. Jose Menendez was absent for last session's vote, but he is virulently against the bill, he says curtly, because the San Antonio police chief wants the cameras, and SA has a lot of traffic accidents.
That leaves two freshmen as swing votes: Houston Democrat Alma Allen, and Nacogdoches Republican Roy Blake, Jr.. Rep. Allen beat Ron Wilson in the Democratic primary last year; Wilson who opposed red light cameras. Blake's predecessor, Wayne Christian, who left his seat to run for Congress, also opposed them. If camera supporters can hold onto their base and pick off one of these freshmen, Elkins' bill may be in trouble. Certainly the vendors' lobbyists are out in force.
But hold on, there's another big wildcard at play here: Elkins, Keffer, and many others see Harper-Brown's amendment in 2003 as a sneaky approach that subverted the obvious and overwhelming will of the Texas House. It's quite possible that even Bailey and Wong, who supported cameras last session, might be convinced that they should allow the full House an opportunity to correct the institutional offense, regardless of their own position on the matter. Indeed, the bill has built early momentum precisely because so many members in the House took umbrage at being deceived. Elkins' co-sponsor list is impressive. Many think that the institutional integrity concerns about pre-empting the will of 103 House members will be given a lot of weight. In that case, speculating (quite) optimistically, such an appeal to their better angels could result in a near-unanimous, 6-1 vote for HB 259, though as is common practice, the bill will likely be left pending at least a week after the public hearing.
If HB 259 has problems in committee, Rep. Carl Issett, R-Lubbock, has filed another bill, HB 665, which has been referred to the House Transportation Committee but not yet set for hearing. That bill outright bans red light cameras, whereas Elkins' bill just deletes Harper-Brown's permissive language. So the anti-camera crowd will get another shot at the brass ring in a different committee no matter what, plus Elkins and Co. can easily amend the provision to legislation passing through the House floor.
That all makes me hopeful that, at the end of the day, the Urban Affairs Committee won't stand in the legislation's way. Given its history, the issue deserves to be debated again by all 150 House members.
Sorry, if you had a reasonable expectaton of privacy to keep him from photographing up your skirt, our dogs couldn't sniff for drugs at traffic stops
FleshBot lays out the thinking man's dilemma behind a vexing legal problem: The Supreme Court's inadequate definition protecting Americans' "reasonable expectation of privacy," as evidenced in the Caballes case, disallows significant punishment for things like photographing up young girls' skirts in the neighborhood mall. Says FleshBot:
Perhaps the Baron will correct me if I'm wrong, but the through-the-looking-glass logic that says one has no reasonable expectation of privacy against others looking up her skirt stems from the same set of legal reasoning that brought us the pathetic Caballes decision claiming use of drug sniffing dogs at a traffic stop isn't a search. A dog is an extension of the human senses, the logic goes, so the smell of marijuana from an enclosed trunk is in "plain view" if one uses a dog to enhance the sense of smell. Similarly, if a woman's privates are in plain view from some legally available vantagepoint, perhaps using a telephoto lens, anyone has the right to point a camera at them under the same legal logic.
If you're operating a government surveillance camera in Texas, thanks to Sen. Wentworth's legislation, you can legally do so without anyone knowing you're watching, or what you do with the tape.
That's the new reality behind the proliferation of surveillance cameras that nobody talks about. Under current Supreme Court interpretations of Americans' Fourth Amendment rights, there really are no limits on what can be filmed or how it can be used if it's arguably visible to the public somehow, someway.
For the Fourth Amendment to retain any relevance in the technology-dominated 21st century will require a complete overhaul of the old framework for protecting privacy, and new definitions for what constitutes legitimate government surveillance. Judges have failed to protect our Fourth Amendment rights, and by extension, many important privacy rights that Americans take for granted. It's now time to turn to the legislative process to bolster them again, first to the states.
Via TechLaw Advisor
The responsible, privacy-respecting part of us thinks it’s reprehensible that a Virginia man caught secretly filming teenagers at a local mall received a mere ten day prison [sic: jail] sentence thanks to a loophole in most states’ “video voyeurism” laws: apparently it’s only illegal to photograph someone without their consent if it’s done in situations in which they have “a reasonable expectation of privacy”, such as dressing areas or locker rooms. The perverted part of us, however, is all “Cool! More upskirt photos!” So as you can see, we’re a little conflicted about the whole thing.For my part at least, the responsible, privacy respecting part, ultimately, has won out, and I'll be at the Texas Legislature next week on behalf of ACLU of Texas asking legislators to support new regulations on voyeurism and other abuses of government surveillance cameras. In doing so, I suspect my message will be less like Fleshbot's, and more like those articulated in this recent piece from the UK Guardian:
Victims of video voyeurism are often horrified to find out that what has happened to them isn't even illegal in most states.
``It was really frustrating and depressing,'' said Jolene Jang of Seattle, who was secretly filmed at a festival five years ago by a man who lowered his camera to shoot up her dress. `'I felt helpless.'"
The Internet has only exacerbated the problem. Type the words ``upskirt'' and ``downblouse'' into the search engine Google, and millions of Web sites pop up.
Lawmakers nationwide have begun to respond, reworking laws written before advancements in camera technology led to a boom in digital voyeurism.
Most states with video voyeurism laws prohibit unauthorized videotaping or photographing of people who are in private areas, such as dressing rooms, or in situations where they have ``a reasonable expectation of privacy.''
The description has been too broad for several state courts, which have ruled people do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy underneath their clothing when they're in public.
In 2003, state Sen. Jeff Wentworth added language to an otherwise agreed bill making all information about government surveillance cameras secret, including the location of cameras, policies restricting voyeurism or other misuse, who has access to surveillance data, what the information will be used for, how long it will be maintained, etc. In the wake of that ignominious legislation, some police agencies are keeping surveillance data secret from citizens, but sharing the information with private businesses and other entities.
Perhaps the Baron will correct me if I'm wrong, but the through-the-looking-glass logic that says one has no reasonable expectation of privacy against others looking up her skirt stems from the same set of legal reasoning that brought us the pathetic Caballes decision claiming use of drug sniffing dogs at a traffic stop isn't a search. A dog is an extension of the human senses, the logic goes, so the smell of marijuana from an enclosed trunk is in "plain view" if one uses a dog to enhance the sense of smell. Similarly, if a woman's privates are in plain view from some legally available vantagepoint, perhaps using a telephoto lens, anyone has the right to point a camera at them under the same legal logic.
If you're operating a government surveillance camera in Texas, thanks to Sen. Wentworth's legislation, you can legally do so without anyone knowing you're watching, or what you do with the tape.
That's the new reality behind the proliferation of surveillance cameras that nobody talks about. Under current Supreme Court interpretations of Americans' Fourth Amendment rights, there really are no limits on what can be filmed or how it can be used if it's arguably visible to the public somehow, someway.
For the Fourth Amendment to retain any relevance in the technology-dominated 21st century will require a complete overhaul of the old framework for protecting privacy, and new definitions for what constitutes legitimate government surveillance. Judges have failed to protect our Fourth Amendment rights, and by extension, many important privacy rights that Americans take for granted. It's now time to turn to the legislative process to bolster them again, first to the states.
Via TechLaw Advisor
Friday, February 11, 2005
Tell me baby do you want it?
Texas Governor Rick Perry wants it. The House Appropriations Committee Chairman thinks it's a good idea. The Senate Criminal Justice Committee recommended it after months of study. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice wants it stronger (pdf). Two former House Corrections Committee chairmen think it's essential.
What is it? Probation reform. It's the catchphrase of the week at the Texas Legislature. It's supposed to keep Texas from having to build more prisons. So what does it mean?
Rep. Haggerty's HB 575 is key to lowering probation caseloads. Even so, the state needs to hire hundreds more probation officers. They've got to fund more drug treatment. The question is how to pay for it?
Testifying Wednesday on behalf of ACLU of Texas' legislative committee, Ann del Llano offered the Appropriations subcommittee on criminal justice an array of options for reforming Texas' probation system, and identified several lucrative sources of revenue. Take a close look at the handout she gave them. (Disclosure alert: I work with Ann on ACLU's legislative committee.) It turns out, Texas could probably finance most of its extant drug treatment and probation service needs from one source: discretionary accounts held by local District Attorneys from hot check and asset forfeiture funds. Check out the size of the slush funds we're talking about:
What is it? Probation reform. It's the catchphrase of the week at the Texas Legislature. It's supposed to keep Texas from having to build more prisons. So what does it mean?
Rep. Haggerty's HB 575 is key to lowering probation caseloads. Even so, the state needs to hire hundreds more probation officers. They've got to fund more drug treatment. The question is how to pay for it?
Testifying Wednesday on behalf of ACLU of Texas' legislative committee, Ann del Llano offered the Appropriations subcommittee on criminal justice an array of options for reforming Texas' probation system, and identified several lucrative sources of revenue. Take a close look at the handout she gave them. (Disclosure alert: I work with Ann on ACLU's legislative committee.) It turns out, Texas could probably finance most of its extant drug treatment and probation service needs from one source: discretionary accounts held by local District Attorneys from hot check and asset forfeiture funds. Check out the size of the slush funds we're talking about:
District Attorney discretionary hot check and asset forfeiture funds should be appropriated to these solutions that work. The Harris County District Attorney testified that he has at least $26 million sitting in his discretionary funds. These funds should be accounted for in all 254 counties and then appropriated to needed programming.If the state's going to seize assets from drug transactions, they needn't just become some slush fund to be dispensed at the whimsy of the local DA. It makes tons of sense to use that money for drug treatment, instead. It will be argued that asset forfeiture money is needed to provide matching funds to finance drug task forces, but if the Legislature follows the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee's recommendation and abolishes the drug task force system, that federal grant money could be used for other things like treatment and drug courts.
Gov. Perry: "Better ways" than more prisons
In yesterday's Austin Statesman, Governor Perry lent his voice to the recent chorus of Texas Republicans calling for reforms to the probation system in lieu of prison building. Reported Mike Ward:
Gov. Rick Perry joined the debate, labeling new prisons as last on his list of justice priorities."Democrat Sylvester Turner, who chairs the subcommittee on criminal justice on the Appropriations Committee, similarly offered promising predictions about how the Legislature would react to the overincarceration crisis:
"There are better, more efficient ways to deal with this prison population than going and building more prisons," he said.
"We're talking about changing our whole mind-set on criminal justice, redefining and fundamentally changing the way our whole system works," said Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, who chairs the panel. "We simply don't have the money to continue building more and more new prisons that will just fill up and then make us build even more.
"We can't afford that system any more."
You know, as unlikely as it seems, if I didn't know any better, I'd think these folks were working together in a bipartisan way looking for pragmatic solutions to one of the state's biggest problems. According to the article, legislators in Tuesday's budget hearing explicitly spoke in terms of a tradeoff -- more treatment programs in lieu of more prison beds:
Instead of earmarking millions to pay for new prisons and leased prison beds to hold a growing population of new convicts, lawmakers discussed a tradeoff: Figure out what the new beds would cost, then allow prison officials to spend much of that money on expanded probation programs, rehabilitation and drug treatment services that would give the lawbreakers a much better chance of returning to the streets as law-abiding citizens -- and are much cheaper.
Ward called the proposed reforms a "clear and potentially significant shift in state policy," and opined that, "Not so many years ago, such public talk about spending big money on alternatives to prison, in a state that prides itself as being tough on crime, would have stood little chance of passing."
That certainly has been the conventional wisdom in the past, but it doesn't appear to represent the current consensus: "Committee members nodded in agreement as they discussed diverting future funds out of prisons and into those programs," reported Ward.
Regardless of which party is backing proposed probaton reforms, I find myself nodding along with them.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Can You Spot the Missing $50?
An informant-based drug case generated by the Dogwood Trails Narcotics Task Force went to trial in Palestine, TX this week. The Palestine Herald-Press, which has been known to publish task force press releases under its associate editor's byline, gave this account of the key transaction.
Read it closely. See if you can spot the missing $50:
So where's the missing $50?
If you figure it out, I'd suggest you contact the Anderson County District Attorney and let him know.
It's really no wonder the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee and President Bush want to get rid of these flaky task forces. BTW, stemming from incidents in June 2002, this is not one of the 72 cases from the racial profiling incident in Palestine last fall, but I was especially interested in the details after learning more about snitches recently.
Read it closely. See if you can spot the missing $50:
Allyson Mitchell, Anderson County assistant district attorney, said the drug transaction in the parking lot of the Oak Hill Apartments involved McKenzie, Baker and the confidential informant.
Moments before the transaction, the trio exited Baker's apartment and got inside a car in the complex' parking lot, according to the state
"That's when the deal took place," Mitchell told the Herald-Press. "He (the confidential informant) bought $250 of crack cocaine from Seneca (McKenzie)...He was able to identify him out of a lineup later."
A short time after the alleged drug deal, McKenzie was pulled over by authorities for having an expired registration sticker, according to Mitchell.
"He had $1,100 on him and $200 of it were the Dogwood Trails Narcotics Task Force's impress funds," Mitchell said.
The task force's funds - which were used by the confidential informant - were identifiable through serial numbers, she added.
Okay, so the confidential informant was observed leaving the house and getting into the vehicle with the suspect. The drug deal took place inside the vehicle, they pull away, and a short time later they're pulled over on a pretext stop. The CI said he paid $250 for the drugs, but only $200 was found on the alleged drug dealer. They were under surveillance the whole time.
So where's the missing $50?
If you figure it out, I'd suggest you contact the Anderson County District Attorney and let him know.
It's really no wonder the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee and President Bush want to get rid of these flaky task forces. BTW, stemming from incidents in June 2002, this is not one of the 72 cases from the racial profiling incident in Palestine last fall, but I was especially interested in the details after learning more about snitches recently.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Actions speak louder than words for Rs on criminal justice
I'm not complaining or nothing, but I'm surprised not even to see a mention of criminal justice issues in the Texas Public Policy Foundation's legislative briefing book. They're considered the Texas Republican leadership's most closely-trusted think tank, but they didn't mention Texas' looming overincarceration crisis nor offer proposals to solve it, focusing instead on the need to stop the state from delivering services that the market could deliver, and lessening the tax burden on businesses.
So far, most Republican voices speaking out on Texas criminal justice issues have had good things to say (meaning, naturally, that I broadly agree with them). The House Appropriations Committee chairman is opposed to building more prisons. The Senate Criminal Justice Committee recommended no new prisons but unanimously backed expanding probation and drug courts. Two Republican former chairmen of the House Corrections Committee are pushing for more treatment services and fixing the probation system. What's more, the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, led by a Republican former sheriiff, recommended abolishing Texas' drug task force system in December, a position echoed last week by President Bush in his new budget.
Perhaps actions speak louder than words. Certainly it's more evidence of Doc Berman's observation that a "new right" may be developing on criminal justice reform.
So far, most Republican voices speaking out on Texas criminal justice issues have had good things to say (meaning, naturally, that I broadly agree with them). The House Appropriations Committee chairman is opposed to building more prisons. The Senate Criminal Justice Committee recommended no new prisons but unanimously backed expanding probation and drug courts. Two Republican former chairmen of the House Corrections Committee are pushing for more treatment services and fixing the probation system. What's more, the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, led by a Republican former sheriiff, recommended abolishing Texas' drug task force system in December, a position echoed last week by President Bush in his new budget.
Perhaps actions speak louder than words. Certainly it's more evidence of Doc Berman's observation that a "new right" may be developing on criminal justice reform.
Snitching Undermines Justice Institutions
Over the weekend CrimProf blog ran a feature highlighting Loyola (CA) law school prof Sasha Natapoff, and linking to her January article on Snitching: The Institutional and Communal Consequences, in the University of Cincinnati Law Review. If you have even a remote professional interest in the subject of snitches, or "confidential informants," to use the bureaucratic lingo, you simply have no choice but to read Natapoff's fine article. It's long, but if you print it out and take two hours to go through it like I did, it's worth it. Even if your interest in the criminal justice system is more policy oriented and you've never met a snitch, Natapoff is taking the debate over use of informants to a whole new level.
Lots of good stuff here. For example, she rightly describes the mechanics of informant agreements as an "extreme form of plea bargain," and fleshes out the implications. "The government (provisionally) agrees to reduce or eliminate a suspect's liability, while the suspect (temporarily) forswears his right to contest liability, while promising to provide information incriminating others," she writes. That's problematic, though, because:
What a proud record: More informants than the East German secret police. Worse, she shows, informant use arguably causes as much crime as it's stopping:
That begs the question, though, how much crime did the drug task force create in Palestine with its decision to spend two years paying for Mr. Kimbrew to arrange drug transactions? I see real-world examples of law enforcement creating crime all the time, just like Professor Natapoff describes. She's right on the money.
Some of her proposals are common-sense, open government type reforms that may even have a chance in conservative states. ACLU of Texas proposed requiring corroborating evidence for snitches and improving defense attorney's discovery access to information about informants in recent testimony to the Texas Senate Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. Natapoff also suggested more data collection and analysis about confidential informant use, and restricting informant awards. Give her a read -- really good stuff from the ivory tower.
Lots of good stuff here. For example, she rightly describes the mechanics of informant agreements as an "extreme form of plea bargain," and fleshes out the implications. "The government (provisionally) agrees to reduce or eliminate a suspect's liability, while the suspect (temporarily) forswears his right to contest liability, while promising to provide information incriminating others," she writes. That's problematic, though, because:
the informant deal lacks the safeguards of the typical plea: specificity, completeness, finality, enforceability, judicial review and publicity, and, in the case of most informal negotiations, counsel. It is precisely these safeguards, however, on which courts and scholars have relied in justifying the system's heavy reliance on plea bargaining. Absent these protections and limits, the informant deal pushes plea bargaining towards the limits of its own legitimacy.Pushed it right off the cliff, as far as I'm concerned, but seldom if ever have I seen the problems with this malevolent institution more sagely adumbrated. Natapoff estimates that an astonishing one in twelve black men returning to their communities from prison might be "active informants at any one time. By way of comparison, at the height of its power, the East German secret police -- one of history's most infamous deployers of informants -- had 174,000 informants on its payroll, approximately one percent of the entire East German populaton."
What a proud record: More informants than the East German secret police. Worse, she shows, informant use arguably causes as much crime as it's stopping:
a central harmful aspect of informant use is the official toleration of crime. ... The informant 'revolving door' in which low-level drug dealers and addicts are arrested and released with orders to provide more information arguably perpetuates the street-crime culture and law enforcement tolerance of it. At the very least, it violates the spirit of 'zero tolerance' and 'quality of life' community policing policies aimed at improving the communal experience of high crime communities. ... For communities already suffering from high crime rates, criminally active informants thus exacerbate a culture in which crime is commonplace and tolerated.Ain't that the truth? In Palestine, a drug task force allegedly busted a man named Othella Kimbrew bringing large amounts of drugs into town in late 2002, but instead of getting him to finger bigger dealers up the food chain, they set the fellow loose for almost two years as a confidential informant in that 17,000 person town, giving him money to convince addicts to agree to help him buy crack. Hardly any of the 72 people, all black, who were arrested based on his testimony in October were actually crack dealers (only four were busted with significant weight). Instead, by offering money to individual addicts to score drugs for him, Kimbrew roped drug users into charges of delivery and/or sale.
That begs the question, though, how much crime did the drug task force create in Palestine with its decision to spend two years paying for Mr. Kimbrew to arrange drug transactions? I see real-world examples of law enforcement creating crime all the time, just like Professor Natapoff describes. She's right on the money.
Some of her proposals are common-sense, open government type reforms that may even have a chance in conservative states. ACLU of Texas proposed requiring corroborating evidence for snitches and improving defense attorney's discovery access to information about informants in recent testimony to the Texas Senate Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. Natapoff also suggested more data collection and analysis about confidential informant use, and restricting informant awards. Give her a read -- really good stuff from the ivory tower.
More big-government conservatism
Pete details the good news and bad news on the drug war in the Bush budget. I know Grits readers will be surprised to read that booming deficits didn't stop President Bush from proposing $268 million in new drug war spending. Big-Government Conservatism: Do you think it's a trend?
Oklahoma man dead following task force arrest
A man arrested by the LeFlore County Drug Task Force in southeastern Oklahoma died in the county jail from unknown causes, the Fort Smith Times Record reported yesterday. Bobby Gene Willis was arrested last Wednesday in a task force raid on his home that allegedly turned up 70 lbs of marijuana. Jailers told the paper that Willis complained of a sore back but appeared to have no other medical problems. Autopsy results will take up to ten days. Willis' was the second death in the LeFlore county jail in the last eight years.
Meth-head prosecutor gets off light
Meth-head Texas Panhandle prosecutor Rick Roach pled guilty to a weapons possession charge, reports TalkLeft, but not to drug charges, even though they caught him redhanded with drugs in his office. He'll get a better deal than he ever gave anybody as district attorney. See here for more background.
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