Ontario’s justice system in a ‘crisis’ for aboriginals: Frank Iacobucci report

Ontario’s justice system is in a “crisis” concerning First Nations people who are overrepresented in prisons yet cut out of participating in juries, says a hard-hitting independent review released Tuesday.

Former Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci spent more than a year leading an investigation into the lack of native people participating on jury trials and inquests.

In the course of his probe, he found he could not ignore “systemic racism” in the courts, prison and jury process including mistreatment of First Nations inmates in penitentiaries, general disrespect by police and “discriminatory public reaction to First Nations complaints.”

Iacobucci urged the Ontario government to implement 17 recommendations to fix the courts, prison and jury process, saying the problem “warrants urgent response.”

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Chicago Installed Thousands of Cameras on its Rail Platforms. Crime Jumped by 21 Percent.

A couple of weeks ago, Chicago Transit Authority president Forrest Claypool announced that the agency would install high-definition surveillance cameras in 850 rail cars. There are already more than 3,600 cameras throughout the rail system, in stations and on trains, and the CTA spent a lot of money putting them there—approximately $26 million. “With more cameras, we will be able to step up our efforts to fight crime on the system,” said Claypool.

But the Chicago Sun-Times reports that rail-station crime has actually increased since the cameras were installed. The Sun-Times found that, in 2012, the number of crimes reported at CTA rail stations jumped by 21 percent year over year, and by 32 percent from 2010, prior to when most of the cameras were installed. Many of these crimes involve theft, drug use, vandalism, and fare evasion. (CTA spokesman Brian Steele told me that much of the rise in crime is due to a 41 percent jump in fare evasion.) Violent crime, however, is down by 30 percent, while arrest rates are slightly up.

Given those stats, should we consider the CTA’s camera program a crime-fighting success or a money-wasting failure?

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Students Occupy University President’s Office To Protest Naming Stadium After Private Prison Company

Last week, the administration of Florida Atlantic University raised eyebrows when officials announced that they had sold the naming rights to the school’s new football stadium to the GEO Group, the nation’s second-largest private prison company.

And students aren’t taking the deal lying down. On Monday afternoon, dozens of activists staged a sit-in inside university President Mary Jo Saunders’ office demanding FAU revoke their agreement with GEO Group. After two hours, Saunders agreed to schedule a public meeting with the university community, according to the Palm Beach Post:

After some negotiations, Saunders emerged from her office for a brief meeting with the protesters, who have accused the GEO Group of human rights violations at its facilities, some of which are in Florida.

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Manning's Right to a Speedy Trial Not Violated After 1,000 Days, Judge Rules

Bradley Manning has not had his rights violated while waiting in a cell for almost three years before being granted a trial, judge Colonel Denise Lind ruled in a pre-trial hearing Tuesday.

Manning's lawyer, David Coombs, had argued that the prosecution was guilty of "extreme foot-dragging" and "shameful" lack of diligence, which violated Manning's right to a speedy trial—in a final bid that could have had the charges against Manning dismissed.

A soldier in the military has had his or her speedy trial rights violated when it takes over 120 days before an arraignment, Kevin Gosztola reports at FireDogLake, which is the case for Manning. However, Lind ruled in favor of the prosecution who said some of those days didn't actually count in the speedy trial rule, due to “excludable delays” initiated by the prosecution.

The pre-trial hearings will now be certain to move to a full court martial trial in June.

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Ashley Smith strapped to chair for 8 hours after banging her head

Guards at a Nova Scotia prison used “extraordinary force” when they strapped Ashley Smith in a specially designed restraining chair for eight hours in 2007 for banging her head on the floor of her cell, says the lawyer for the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies.

Jurors at the inquest into Smith’s October 2007 death viewed dramatic video Tuesday showing the teen being strapped into a chair at the Nova Institution because she was harming herself in her segregation cell.

“It’s an extraordinary deprivation of her liberty. She was in that chair for eight hours strapped in like that. It’s an extraordinary use of force on someone who was essentially compliant with them,” Breese Davies said in an interview outside the inquest.

“There doesn’t seem to have been any effort to take measures to de-escalate the situation with her,” Davies said.

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The court sides with secrecy

When Congress and the executive branch collude to keep Americans in the dark about whether their privacy is being invaded, the Supreme Court should be willing to lift the veil of secrecy — at least to the extent of forcing the government to explain how often it is monitoring the confidential conversations of Americans. The court abdicated that important watchdog role Tuesday when it ruled 5 to 4 that a group of journalists, lawyers and activists couldn't challenge the constitutionality of a shadowy electronic surveillance program. It's only the latest example of the court's refusal to afford victims (or potential victims) of post-9/11 policies their day in court.

Tuesday's decision came in a lawsuit filed by several people — including lawyers for suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay — who claim that a 2008 law authorizing the surveillance of non-Americans abroad violates the constitutional rights of Americans whose phone conversations and emails might be caught up in the electronic dragnet. That would be a challenging case to make, but the Supreme Court won't even allow the plaintiffs to try. It dismissed their suit on the grounds that they lack "standing" to sue because they can't prove that their conversations with sources and clients abroad actually have been monitored.

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This is a LATimes editorial.  Tom

The Impact of Federal Budget Cuts on State and Local Public Safety

Federal Public Safety Funding at Historically Low Levels

Over the past two years, federal support for the criminal justice assistance grant programs through the Department ofJustice has been decreased by 43 percent.Some programs have been eliminated; others have taken deep cuts. For instance, since FY2012 the Byrne Justice AssistanceGrant (Byrne JAG) program has been cut by 34 percent, the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Hiring grantsby 44 percent, the in-person drug treatment supported by the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment for State Prisoners(RSAT) program by 67 percent, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) by 75 percent, the juvenile delinquency prevention initiatives funded by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act Part A (JJDPA) by more than 50 percent, and reimbursement to state and local governments though the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) by 27 percent.

These programs are at historically low levels of funding. The additional deep cuts mandated by sequestration could leave the federal-state-local public safety partnership virtually unfunded by FY2021. 

 

Surveying the Field

To better understand the impact of cuts already enacted and cuts anticipated by sequestration, the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA) and the Vera Institute of Justice conducted a survey of state and local criminal justice stakeholder organizations in the summer of 2012. A total of 714 organizations responded to the survey, the majority representing state and local law enforcement agencies. The survey asked respondents to describe the impact of recent cuts in their communities. 

 

What the Survey Found

More than three-quarters (77 percent) of respondents reported that their grant funding has decreased since FY11. Of those, nearly half (44 percent) reported a decrease in funding of at least one-third. Also, 14 percent reported that their grant funds had been cut by more than half. In addition, 52 percent of respondents reported a reduction in their organization’s workforce by, on average, 3.4 full-time equivalent employees. It is important to note that at the time of the survey, the FY12 grant funding had not yet been released. Therefore, these responses reflect only cuts in FY11 funding

 

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The Supreme Court Will Hear A Republican Party Lawsuit To Make Citizens United Even Worse

The Supreme Court’s election-buying decision in Citizens United v. FEC enabled wealthy corporations to spend unlimited money to change the course of American elections, and a subsequent lower court decision gave the green light to super PACs funded by unlimited donations from millionaires, billionaires and corporations. Today, the Supreme Court announced it would hear another case — brought by none other than the Republican National Committee — that would go even further towards transforming American democracy into the Wild West.

Despite recent election-buying decisions permitting unlimited donations to super PACs and other groups that exist independently of campaigns and political parties, federal law still limits individual donations to candidates and to the parties themselves. In the next election cycle, these limits include a $2,600 cap on individual donations to a single candidate, and an overall limit of $123,200 in contributions to candidates, political party committees and similar organizations. The Republican Party’s lawsuit seeks to eliminate most of these limits on election-buying — most importantly, by removing the $123,200 cap on total contributions.

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Christie Blatchford: Coralee Smith describes the harrowing deterioration of her daughter, Ashley

A warm, wee slice of the Maritimes has arrived at the Ontario coroner’s inquest examining the grim prison death of teenager Ashley Smith.

With a gracious handshake and proffered condolences from the presiding coroner, Dr. John Carlisle, Ashley’s mother Coralee swept into court Wednesday.

Within 10 minutes, speaking with a soft New Brunswick accent, Ms. Smith from the witness stand was proudly introducing her grandson, Jordan, and her other daughter, Donna, to the small room.
The trio travelled from the family’s home in Moncton for Ms. Smith’s appearance here. Though a so-called “party” with standing at the inquest, which means she is represented by a lawyer, she is testifying here of her own volition.

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