NEWSSUPREME COURT

How has Florida responded to the U.S. Supreme Court's May ruling that juvenile life without parole sentences are unconstitutional in non-murder cases? By doing virtually nothing.

Florida has been ground zero for this issue, with  116 of the country's 181 juveniles serving life for non-murder crimes. Only a few of these cases have made it back into court since the high court's ruling, and many of those defendants limped away with sentences that seem identical to life: 92 years, 90 years, 50 years.

And one of the state's most prominent defendants convicted as a juvenile, Kenneth Young, is scheduled to come before the state clemency board next week, and he expects to be sent away empty-handed. I first wrote about Young in 2009, when PBS' Religion and Ethics Newsweekly profiled his case. Young was sent to prison for life without the chance of parole for a crime he committed when he was 14. His crime: he helped a 25-year-old drug dealer, who his mother owed thousands of dollars for crack, commit a series of armed robberies. The dealer paid him for his help: $50 cash, a pair of Air Jordans and a six-pack of Heineken. Hardly someone with no chance to be a productive member of society.

Since Young's conviction, the judge who sentenced him has explained that he didn't know at the time what the sentence meant. "It was not my intent at the time of his sentencing that Mr. Young never be considered for release. So I support Mr. Young’s bid for consideration for clemency,” the judge wrote to the clemency board. Even one of the victim's in the case called Young her "hero" for stopping the dealer from assaulting her during the robbery.

News outlets are reporting that the clemency board -- which includes Crist and three cabinet members -- will deny Young's petition for clemency next week. But there's still time to make our voices heard. Urge the board to grant Kenneth Young clemency today.

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is speaking out, and he's making himself heard loud and clear on the death penalty.

Stevens, who retired in June after serving 35 years on the bench and authoring countless opinions that changed the shape of American history, put his public face forward this weekend with an appearance on "60 Minutes" and an article in the New York Review of Books on the death penalty.

His NYRB article fronts as an examination of David Garland's new book, "Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition," but the article is much more than that. It's an historical analysis of death penalty jurisprudence from a man who studied and lived and created this history, and it shares some of Stevens' personal journey from support for executions in 1976 to his belief today that the death penalty is unconstitutional.

Stevens brings the history of death penalty decisions at the nation's highest court to life and suggests that if the makeup of the court had been different at a few key moments, the death penalty may not have survived. He points to the racial disparities, to the disturbing ties between elected prosecutors and death penalty cases and to legislative biases in authorizing or abolishing the death penalty.

"To be reasonable," he writes, "legislative imposition of death eligibility must be rooted in benefits for at least one of the five classes of persons affected by capital offenses." He goes on to examine these five classes (victims, survivors, paricipants in the judicial process, the general public and the defendants themselves), finding arguments against execution in considering each group. Vengeance shouldn't be a primary motivator, jury selection biases the system toward the death penalty, death cases grind on our judicial systems and any deterrent effect is questionable, he writes.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard heated arguments yesterday on whether a special federal court overreached when it ordered the state of California to reduce its prison population by 40,000 -- and all accounts point to a court divided along the usual lines.

The court's conservative justices questioned the connection lower courts made between prisons packed at 195 percent of capacity and the failure to deliver medical and mental health care. Meanwhile, the liberal justices called the state's bluff in asking for more time.

California attorney Carter Phillips had only just begun when he called the lower court order "premature." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg quickly reminded him that this issue has been pending for 20 years, SCOTUSblog reports. “How much longer do we have to wait? Another 20 years?” she demanded. Ginsburg and her fellow bleeding heart criminal-lovers on the bench went on to explore compromises (give the state more time to fix the problem? allowing 145 percent capacity rather than the court-ordered 137.5 percent?)

Political attack ads are commonplace this time of year. Though we’re accustomed to seeing them from mayoral and legislative candidates, there are a rising number of judges taking to the airwaves as well. These judicial campaigns seem to resemble the other partisan campaigns a little more each year -- and that is troublesome.

More and more judges are being slammed in political ads, turning what is supposed to be an impartial position into one just as laced with political overtones and just as tainted with special interest funding as any other political office. And that raises concerns about the legitimacy of the criminal justice system and how this increased politicalization of the judiciary may affect the fairness of our courts.

No better example of the increased politicization exists right now than the case of Illinois Supreme Court Justice Thomas L. Kilbrade. Kilbrade is up for retention next week as his first decade in the judiciary is expiring. Attack ads grossly exaggerating the justice’s rulings are all over the radio and television there, characterizing Kilbrade as being soft on crime and more or less a felon-friendly judge, suggesting he has “sided” again and again with pedophiles and rapists. This despite experts maintaining that all of Kilbrade’s rulings were according to law and not according to the nature of the crime.

Who’s behind this campaign against the judge? An organization that doesn’t like the way Kilbrade has ruled in favor of patients and claimants in malpractice and negligent civil cases. The head of the Illinois Civil Justice League has outright stated that their goal is to remove Kilbrade from the bench and that they will do whatever it takes to accomplish this goal. While their ads may not be illegal, they certainly seem unethical. These actions have brought out judges, prosecutors, and legal experts (from varied political backgrounds) who all speak to the misleading nature of the ads and go so far as to call the campaign “appalling."

President Bush's handlers were so touchy about getting the right audiences for his public speaking appearances that they not only rejected potential dissidents who might try to disrupt or derail his flow with a tricky question or critical comment, but turned people away based on the bumper stickers on their cars.

And the top federal court has effectively declared the handlers were well within their right to do so.

In fact, the Supreme Court this week declined to even hear the case of two Colorado residents, Leslie Weise and Alex Young, who were thrown out of a Bush event held in a private museum but paid for in part by taxpayers' money. The court did not say why it would not hear their case, which was an appeal of two previous federal court rulings that held there was no "clearly established" constitutional right preventing the individuals' ouster from the March 21, 2005 forum in Denver.

"No specific authority instructs this court (let alone a reasonable public official) how to treat the ejection of a silent attendee from an official speech based on the attendee’s protected expression outside the speech area,” wrote Judge Paul Kelly of the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Three members of the activist group Denver Progressives, Weise, Young and Karen Bauer had tickets to the event -- which was billed as a  Social Security forum (Bush was in the midst of trying to push through a form of privatization at the time) -- and had passed all the security checks to get in. But once inside they were asked to leave without explanation. The next day, according to their lawyer at the time, the three were told by the Secret Service it was the bumper sticker on their car, "No More Blood for Oil," that had triggered their ejection.

The White House said volunteers -- not staffers -- turned the three out. Nonetheless, spokesman Trent Duffy told reporters at the time that, "from what I was told, it was fairly obvious to them that (Weiss, Young and Bauer) had plans to disrupt the event ... it was a judgment call." Their lawyer flatly denied that they were there for any other reason than to listen to what the president had to say on Social Security.

It was like a scene out of The Matrix. Less than 24 hours after 20-year-old Yaser Afifi found what looked like a global positioning system (GPS) tracking device lodged underneath his car and put photos up on the Internet to try and identify it, the Men in Black were seen poking around in his driveway. After a brief, seemingly innocuous exchange with them, he drove off, only to be pulled over minutes later by police wearing bulletproof vests and traveling in unmarked SUVs. The FBI wanted their tracking device back.

“We’re going to make this much more difficult for you if you don’t cooperate,” one agent supposedly told Afifi when he asked whether they had put the GPS under his car. Afifi shared his story with Wired magazine this week.

Afifi's experience may seem out of the norm for law enforcement activities, but it is not, so far, outside the law. The courts have offered mixed rulings on whether the government can secretly affix cars with GPS without first seeking a court order. For example, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled last month that the government could not monitor individuals in their vehicles without a warrant, but the Fourth District and Ninth Circuit Courts ruled over the summer that it could.

Legal experts say that in order to make the practice -- or the restriction of it -- uniform, the U.S. Supreme Court needs to step in. Afifi contacted the ACLU soon after he discovered the device and was told his was just the kind of case "we throw lawyers at" in hopes of getting the issue an airing before the High Court.

Afifi, who is a native U.S. citizen of Egyptian descent, is a marketing student at Mission College in Santa Clara, where he also resides. His father was the president of the Muslim Community Association in Santa Clara before he moved the family back to Egypt in 2003. Afifi returned to the States to pursue an education and says he works to help provide for his brothers overseas.

He told Wired that he was contacted two years ago by an FBI agent who said they had an anonymous tip that he might be a "threat to national security." Afifi said he would be willing to answer their questions after consulting his lawyer. He never heard from them again. (Read more after the jump.)

In the last few terms, the right-leaning majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has seemed eager to reinforce the immunity that prosecutors have traditionally enjoyed from being sued in civil court for any wrongdoing. But that immunity was tested again in a case heard by the court yesterday, Connick v. Thompson, which centers on whether a prosecutor's office can be held liable for failing to train its attorneys to follow the rules.

The justices returned for a new term this week (with the newly arrived Justice Elena Kagan) and the transcript of yesterday's arguments shows that they jumped right in. Attorneys for defendant John Thompson were arguing that a New Orleans jury was right to award him damages after finding that the office run by prosecutor Harry Connick had been negligent in failing to train its attorneys in proper handling of evidence -- which led to his wrongful conviction and near execution. Lawyers for Connick's office argued that Thompson had failed to show a pattern of misconduct.

The justices had tough questions for both sides, and the media analysis is all over the map. Writing at Law.com, Tony Mauro points out the Ruth Bader Ginsburg in particular seemed peeved that several prosecutors in Connick's office had failed to follow evidence standards set under the critical case Brady v. Maryland. But there was skepticism from the bench as well, with Justices Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor asking exactly how much training would be enough to meet a constitutional standard. Knowing the makeup of this court and its steadfast protection of prosecutors, I'm not holding my breath for a ruling holding prosecutors accountable for their actions. (Read more after the jump.)

It's oral argument season again. The U.S. Supreme Court is back in action, and once again I find myself wishing that the justices would join the 21st century and stream some damn video online. The proceedings before our nation's highest court are revered, widely followed and hugely important, and they should be available for us to watch. An online stream would open wider the doors of our democracy and surely fuel wider interest in the American court system.

The justices are hearing oral arguments today in Connick v. Thompson, a case focused on whether a prosecutor's office can be held liable for the misconduct of its employees. I'll write more about this case tomorrow (but my comments will be based on a transcript, rather than a video, since I'm not able to attend and video isn't available).

It's on the occasion of a case like this -- with broad interest and importance in the criminal justice community -- that I find myself pining for a video feed from the court. Oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court provide a moment of intense intellectual debate on some of the thorniest issues facing our society, and these lofty conversations shouldn't be reserved for an audience of a few hundred insiders and tourists. (Read more after the jump.)

Next time you hear someone say they don't know what they'd do without their GPS, keep in mind: the police are getting pretty fond of it too.

In fact, law enforcement is relying on it more than ever to track and charge suspects, and at least two federal appeals courts in the country say they can do it -- without a warrant. But a third court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, recently ruled that the police cannot affix a satellite-based global positioning system (GPS) to a suspect's car without a warrant, follow his movements for a month, and then use the information to build a case against him. It would be akin to conducting a search without a warrant, said the court, and violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which protects citizens from illegal search and seizures.

As a result, the court reversed appellant Antoine Jones's drug conviction on Aug. 6, ruling that "it was obtained with evidence procured in violation of the Fourth Amendment." To read the court's full ruling, click here (pdf).

But the Obama Administration says it's going to fight the reversal, arguing in a Sept. 20 appeal that "the defendant's movements were exposed to public view" and that court precedent dictates that "what a person knowingly exposes to the public ... is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection." In other words, Jones did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy driving around in his car. Read the appeal here (pdf).

Two other federal district courts -- the Ninth Circuit Court and the Fourth District Court -- both ruled this summer that the police have the right to put GPS devices on unwitting suspects' vehicles without warrant, sanctioning police in those western and mid-western states, respectively, to continue what amounts to spying on citizens without oversight (Change.org's Poverty in America blog covered the rulings' impact on low-income drivers). And it's happening all over the country -- last November police in Louisville, Kentucky, acknowledged the widespread use of GPS, particularly in its drug cases. According to a WHAS11 News investigation, about 30 percent of the time GPS was used, police there "did not get a judge to sign off on a warrant first."

All three of the cases brought to the federal appellate level involved drug trafficking and dealing. No doubt, GPS has become the latest tool in the government's War on Drugs and it's obvious why: police can obtain quick convictions by throwing what amounts to a dragnet over a suspected dealer/trafficker and his or her cohorts, following their every move 24/7 via satellite. Avoiding traditional court orders eliminates the need for "reasonable suspicion" and a lot of the usual, often tedious gumshoeing by detectives. (Read more after the jump.)

The U.S. Supreme Court will look at the health care shortfalls of California prisons this fall, and the issue is one of countless headaches that a new governor will inherit in November.

The state's prison health problems won't go away on their own, and leaders will need innovative solutions to address this issue during a state budget crisis. A report last month from the state inspector general found significant problems in 17 prisons reviewed, stating that "nearly all prisons were ineffective at ensuring that inmates receive their medications."

And an excellent five-part series of reports recently from Julie Small at Southern California Public Radio looks deep into this crisis and identifies a few of the initiatives that are working (like officers dedicated to getting prisoners to their doctor's appointments), and a few places where money and time are being wasted (like the lack of a computerized filing system).

"I think the problems really we’re dealing with are truly systemic ones," federal receiver Clark Kelso recently said. "It’s not we’ve got bad clinicians. It’s that they’re working in a Third World environment."

A special panel of federal judges put the state's prison health care system into receivership when it ruled in a class-action suit that the crowding and health care conditions in California prisons were unconstitutional, ordering the release of as many as 40,000 prisoners to rectify the solution. The state has made slow progress on parole and sentencing reforms to keep its prison population near flat -- but more drastic changes to the length of sentences and the handling of parole violations could go a long way to address the problem.

Kelso is the second person to hold the receiver's job, and the state is continuing to fight against the federal court's decision and the receiver's office; the Supreme Court will examine this jurisdictional issue when it hears Schwarzenegger v. Plata in the fall.