Rara avis sighted: a bipartisan bill
Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the FIRST STEP Act, a bill for criminal justice reform that’s been designed by members of both parties and is also supported by the law enforcement community.
This bill is apparently Jared Kushner’s baby. Here are a few of the details:
Proponents have sought changes for years, arguing that mandatory sentencing, including for repeat offenders, has led to excessively long imprisonment for relatively minor crimes. And they note those sentences tend to disproportionately fall on African-Americans.
The legislation also would place federal prisoners closer to home, allow more home confinement for lower-level offenders and expand prison employment programs.
Trump announced his support at a White House event where he was flanked by lawmakers and joined by Kushner, who has made criminal justice reform a centerpiece of his portfolio. Members of both parties have long predicted criminal justice reform had the potential to win bipartisan support, but it has taken years for the legislation to materialize.
“Did I hear that word ‘bipartisan’? Did I hear that word? That’s a nice word,” Trump said.
I have always been against mandatory sentencing in most situations. Allowing judges leeway has its own problems, to be sure, but the problems engendered by taking that latitude away are actually worse.
Trump has managed to confound his critics several times by taking an action that does not fit with the image the MSM tries to project of him as a loose cannon flailing around with racist or white supremacist tendencies. It is possible he had no input in the formulation of this — perhaps it is entirely Jared Kushner’s idea — but he still had to give his approval and allow the initiative to move forward. I like these occasional good actions. They leave the MSM dumbfounded that he is not an unreconstructed racist or a reactive president. I hope he continues this kind of activity.
F:
Agreed.
They’ll ignore it for the most part and revert to their in-grained demonization.
Nothing must get in the way of The Narrative (which necessarily includes the undeniable “fact” of Trump’s awfulness).
Maybe a few people will be able to see what’s really happening in spite of the 24/7 media enfilade.
Maybe a few.
But the MSM, which should never be underestimated, will switch to the Khashoggi story (which is now beginning to include Turkey’s demand for Gulen’s extradition) and Trump’s purported dereliction (this from the crew who championed Obama’s capitulation to the mullahs along with all the deception and lies that that entailed, along with the death and destruction in Syria and Yemen…but, Trump!) And—just in time—the caravan invasion that is not a caravan invasion but, wait, that is a caravan invasion! is coming back into view.
No, the malice of the MSM should not ever be underestimated.
So. Is Mr. Kushner going to run for the Presidency in 2024 (assuming no falling-out with Pres. Trump)?
I am always leary of reforms whose underlying premise is effectively that lawbreakers should be allowed to escape proportional consequence.
Far too many liberal judges to leave imposed consequence solely up to their ‘judgement’.
As for “bipartisanship” elected democrats neither know the meaning of the word nor are they agreeable to anything that doesn’t advance their agenda.
Yes to a judge’s discretion with first time offenders within a limited range of consequences. No to any offence involving violence or depraved indifference.
“And they note those sentences tend to disproportionately fall on African-Americans.”
That might have something to do with the fact that blacks disproportionately commit crimes. For example, blacks are about 12% of the population but commit over 50% of the murders.
This law would cover federal crimes, yes? I read Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, a lot, and he says that a great deal of the inequities at law for poor minorities (or poor whites, for that matter) come when local prosecutors grossly over-charge and pressure the people with only public defenders into plea bargains, sometimes for things they didn’t do.
This is part of the reach out to blacks but I am not so sure it is good policy. I think it would better to curtail the ability of prosecutors to arrange plea agreements. The innocents and minor offenders are pressured to plead guilty instead of plead their innocence and the bad guys plead down to lessor offenses.
The Devil is aways in the details but this is not a good start.
Trump did great — and so did Kushner.
But the bigger problem is the local gov’t, tho with guidance from the Feds, more states & cities can follow.
After all, Trump really is some kind of leader.
Dem media won’t give him much credit – Sad!
Must read Trump on Twitter direct.
But I’m told that one reason why there are so many plea-bargains is that there often are not enough judges nor enough time to hear all the cases that would otherwise be brought to court. That seems believable to me.
PowerLine has been blogging about this agenda for years, and specifically this iteration of it.
They’re ag’in’ it.
First, on the general principles as noted above, that blacks are arrested and sentenced more because they commit crimes more, and second that leftist judges will give the most lenient sentence they can, never mind the safety of the people that the mostly-recidivist criminal population will be able to victimize that much sooner.
As for this specific law, PL points out that the Dems pulled a bait-and-switch to change or water down elements that were promised to Kushner and the GOP as safe-guards.
I tend to believe PL, most of the time.
This is their most recent post.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/11/team-leniency-extends-its-generosity-to-child-pornographers.php
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/15/criminal-justice-republicans-trump-993292
(via PowerLine today)
“Advocacy groups lobbying for the prison-and-sentencing agreement, led in the White House by Trump son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, cheered a recent statement of support from the Fraternal Order of Police. But they suffered a setback Thursday when the National Sheriffs’ Association, alongside the Major Cities Chiefs’ Association and the Major County Sheriffs of America, warned Senate leaders that they couldn’t support the current version without five changes, as a starting point.
Without those changes at a minimum, the groups wrote in a Thursday letter, “this legislation creates a high-risk path for dangerous criminals with gun crime histories to early release from prison.”
…”
AesopFan,
Thank you for providing specifics that confirm the principles I believe to be relevant. Dems never agree to anything that isn’t of greater benefit to their agenda than to their enemies. And make no mistake they have no greater enemy than we, nor any enemy they hate more than a conservative who is also of the Christian faith.
Kushner is of course Jewish and I suspect, an odd mixture of a RINO and a liberal “useful idiot”.
Trump really needs to make this part of a broader picture of empowering citizens. Cutting back federal regulations, lowering taxes–all these thing allow people to govern themselves at a local level. Lower sentencing and early release must be accompanied by local mentoring and rehab programs where former prisoners can integrate with law-abiding citizens and break away from their former criminal and gang mentality. Suppose a local VFW started a program for them to volunteer to assist vets so they could chat with them while pushing their wheelchairs? Suppose they helped stack books at their local library and got to know people who could read? Suppose they helped to cook at a homeless shelter?
Too many young people grow up without having a sense of accomplishment. This can only be fixed when their accomplishments are quietly acknowledged by normal people who know them. These kinds of efforts really give people a chance to say what kind of community they want to live in. Local politicians will get the message and maybe pass it up to DC.
I work in a state court system, and — short of decriminalizing almost everything — plea bargaining really is absolutely necessary. In the average case, the evidence is so obvious that there’s no question that a jury would convict the defendant as charged. That’s why the defendants are willing to plead. If all of those cases had to go to a full trial — which takes many months for each one — we’d be backed up by years and years. Some defendants would be sitting in jail awaiting trial all that time, and others would be out on bail with their lives on hold and, for the worst bad guys, with the freedom to commit new crimes that would also have to go to trial. It’s not just a question of having enough judges and lawyers and courtroom space — where on earth would we find the tax money to pay for it all, not to mention all those jurors? Trials are hugely expensive. As for jurors, as it is, most misdemeanor and non-major felony trials in this rural area get plea-bargained, along with a good share of the major felonies. Even so, one recent local major-felony trial was adjourned twice because they couldn’t find enough potential jurors to get to a 12-person trial jury. Can you imagine how much it would cost and how often the average citizen would have to serve on a jury if every crime, or even most crimes, went to trial? And I predict that in most cases you’d end up with the same defendants convicted of the same charges.
That’s not to say there aren’t big problems with the plea bargaining system. Of course there are. But be very skeptical of anyone who tries to tell you that innocent people or poor people are routinely pressured to plead to crimes they didn’t commit. There are definitely certain prosecutors and certain localities — Brooklyn, for instance — where there have been systematic prosecutorial abuses that go far beyond just plea negotiations. Ordinarily, though, most attorneys and judges are trying their best to do things efficiently and as fairly as they can, within the limits of any fallible human system.
As for federal sentencing laws, I don’t have an opinion. Most sentencing takes place in state and local courts, which wouldn’t be affected. New York has fairly strict sentencing laws. I don’t agree that they have to be that strict in every case, but without some kind of standardization, I’m not sure how we’d keep at least some consistency. On the other hand, New York is doing a great deal with alternate judicial systems such as diversion programs that give people a chance to try to rehabilitate themselves instead of going to prison. Maybe there’s some hope in that direction.
Lower sentencing and early release must be accompanied by local mentoring and rehab programs where former prisoners can integrate with law-abiding citizens and break away from their former criminal and gang mentality.
It would be great if this worked but evidence is thin that it does. You might want to read “Blueprint,” which takes Stephen Pinker’s argument that a lot of behavior is genetic and adds the DNA evidence. A large part of criminals’ behavior is not affected by rehabilitation attempts.
As for abuse of prosecution, the riots in Ferguson Mo were fed largely by a history of abuse of local fines for minor violations to fund the city.
I understand that courts are overloaded but there is some abuse of plea bargaining.
Ferguson doesn’t have anything on Washington DC. In 2015 DC issued nearly 2.5 million traffic tickets. DC has a population of 693,972 people,
Quick, we can do something to make the Democrats happy!
Hmmm, what makes this so appealing, again?
Ferguson went from majority white middle class to majority black in a generation (the blacks pushed out by gentrification have to move somewhere). This collapsed the tax base while increases government service demands. The existing local agencies turned to fines as a way to fund the gap. This would have been true even if the locality was run by minorities and/or leftists (Baltimore has plenty of traffic cameras).
My wife was recently on a jury trial where some underclass Baltimore resident stabbed another one in the gut. They were naturally on drugs, and one felt the other had “dissed” him. Eleven wanted to convict but one jury member was a young leftist hippy type that took in poor black homeless people (“his children”, direct quote) and wanted everyone to know that crimes committed while on drugs weren’t real crimes. It’s hard for me to believe the system is too hard on people.
I can’t agree with this “criminal justice reform.” Certainty of punishment is much more of a deterrent than letting the criminal take his chances on getting a lenient judge or doing a plea deal.
Economic crimes should not receive jail time — a fine of all the money stolen, plus cost of investigation and prosecution, plus a penalty of somewhere between 20 and 50% should be the punishment. If asset forfeiture (including transfers to the wife and family) doesn’t cover the fine, indenture until it’s all paid, plus interest.
Non-lethal crimes should receive fixed sentences: first offense 2, second 8, third 32, fourth 64 years.
Crimes involving death, the risk of death, or lifetime physical or mental disability, should receive life without parole, or, if there is no doubt about guilt, execution. Murder, attempted murder (if your gun misfires or the victim gets to a hospital in time, why does that excuse you?), arson, kidnaping, assault with intent (or wilful disregard) to kill, lethal drug distribution, human trafficking, child sexual abuse, terrorism, espionage, and treason. (I would like to include rape, but since rape now includes any sex that you later regret, obviously, rape can’t be included in capital crimes.)
We should abolish almost all prisons, which are nothing but graduate schools for crime, and graft generators for the guards. Since I’m a great believer in multiculturalism, I think we should take a lesson from our Russian brethren and substitute healthy outdoor work on a low-calorie diet. Only people who can’t be restrained from escaping should be imprisoned, in a Florence Admax-level prison. A first offender would have the option of job training instead of hard labor. Also, we should learn from our Chinese friends – execution should be by a bullet in the back of the head in back of the police station, with the charge for the bullet sent to the defendant’s family.
The notion that the “criminal should go free because the constable erred” is idiotic and should be replaced. Cops are not judged on whether there is a successful prosecution, but whether, by police standards, the right perpetrator has been arrested and sufficient evidence gathered. The judge in a case where the constable erred should have authority to punish the cop, not release the criminal. The only grounds for appeal should be whether the criminal did not factually commit the crime. I’d like to see a European-type Investigating Magistrate, who would gather all the facts and evaluate the probability of guilt. The criminal trial would begin with a recitation of the facts as found by the magistrate and the declaration of probability of guilt. (E.g., O.J. Simpson, 99%!)
That would be criminal justice reform!
The existing local agencies turned to fines as a way to fund the gap. This would have been true even if the locality was run by minorities and/or leftists (Baltimore has plenty of traffic cameras).
Oh, I know but that was a bigger factor in the riots, I think, than the Brown shooting. The media and Obama politicized it but the anger was based on the use of fines to fund the city. I read a pretty good analysis around that time about how that was a local practice. I think there was also something about how many small municipalities there were in St Louis County.
Sure, but instead of a general moderate movement against fines and their abuses we got a racialized pro-criminal movement rooted in animus and conspiracy theory that played loose with the truth and mostly seemed to accomplish little more then increasing the murder rate in the ghetto.
Everyone hates speed cameras. I once had to pay thousands of dollars getting jacked by some small town speed trap scam. Reform of this type should have been an easy sell to me. Instead I stopped watching the NFL because I don’t need to spend my free time being told how awful whiteness is and I’m getting the fuck out of Baltimore.
I would suggest mandatory sentencing is ok, BUT at any given time, if a judge comes to the conclusion that it’s not appropriate, that he can write, or ask the defense attorney to prepare, a brief to present to 10 other judges in the district for review (4 chosen by the prosecution, 4 by the defense, 2 by the judge) to review the brief and say “relax the guidelines”.
Something like that reins in judicial excesses, while allowing exception where needed.
The court should be able to do this before the jury makes a decision, so they can decide if the sentence might be unjust and avoid Jury Nullification
Likewise, it retains the power of the legislature to set them as standards for most trials.
Mrs. Whatsit – thank you for that.
MikeK is correct that there is little evidence for mentoring and rehab programs working. It makes everyone feel better to think that’s what’s happening, but it’s not so.
Richard Saunders, a slight correction – or perhaps modification. Certainty of punishment is far enough down the road for the criminal that it doesn’t have much advantage over a dice roll on leniency (though it has some). Frequent rewards and punishments, even small ones, have more effect that waiting to hit someone with the big one. Criminals are discouraged by being caught often more than getting slammed the 1 in 10 times they get caught.
You will observe that this is much harder, of course. But as an example, it is part of why New York has a lower homicide rate than Chicago. The policing is different.
Neo, Andrew McCarthy disagrees with you on the merits of the bill:
http://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/first-step-act-trump-embraces-left-wing-racism-rhetoric/
McCarthy says … Current law “was not disproportionate or unfair. The argument that it was, commonly made by race-obsessed Democrats, is rooted in the noxious “disparate impact” theory of racial discrimination and a misrepresentation of history.”