by TChris

Let's hope Walter Cronkite, writing for Huffington Post, can persuade the country to accept the obvious: the war on drugs is a failure.

The federal government has fought terminally ill patients whose doctors say medical marijuana could provide a modicum of relief from their suffering - as though a cancer patient who uses marijuana to relieve the wrenching nausea caused by chemotherapy is somehow a criminal who threatens the public.

People who do genuinely have a problem with drugs, meanwhile, are being imprisoned when what they really need is treatment.

And what is the impact of this policy?

It surely hasn't made our streets safer. Instead, we have locked up literally millions of people...disproportionately people of color...who have caused little or no harm to others - wasting resources that could be used for counter-terrorism, reducing violent crime, or catching white-collar criminals.

Check out these photos of this underground pot farm in Tennessee.

This grow was underneath a house in a cave. The entrance was through a secret hydraulic door in the garage that led to a concrete ramp that went about 50 yards into the ground. Inside the cave was living quarters and a secret escape hatch that led you through a tunnel that exited via another hydraulic door that opened up a rock on the outside.

The house was raided last year. [Via Crim Prof Blog.]

NORML has a new report on the effects of marijuana on the brain. The report is available here.

Whereas prohibitionist claims that pot use damages the brain continue to litter the debate regarding marijuana and health, scientific research now suggests what many cannabis enthusiasts have speculated all along: ganja is good for you.

In ways many of us could have never previously imagined, research now indicates that cannabinoids can promote the growth of neurons (nerve cells), protect the brain from trauma and cancer, and perhaps slow the progression of certain neurodegenerative diseases, such as Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, and Lou Gehrig's Disease. At the same time, clinical investigations have also put to rest the "stoner stupid" stereotype, finding that cannabis even when used long-term has little

by TChris

Thanks to Adam Liptak for calling attention to an underreported story and an underappreciated problem.

Almost every encounter with the criminal justice system these days can give rise to a fee. There are application fees and co-payments for public defenders. Sentences include court costs, restitution and contributions to various funds. In Washington State, people convicted of certain crimes are also charged $100 so their DNA can be put in a database. ...

The sums raised by these ever-mounting fees are intended to help offset some of the enormous costs of operating the criminal justice system. But even relatively small fees -- $40 per session, say, for a court-ordered anger management class or $15 for a drug test -- can have devastating consequences for people who emerge from prison with no money, credit or prospects, and who live in fear of being sent back for failing to pay.

Governments increasingly balance their budgets by imposing "user fees" on the individuals it drags into the court system. Those individuals are disproportionately poor, and it isn't unusual for them to sit jail time in lieu of paying fines and court costs. Liberty should not depend on wealth, and we shouldn't impose hidden taxes on the people who can least afford to pay them.

by TChris

Pennsylvania state senator Stewart Greenleaf recognizes that a "tough on crime" legislature should also be a "let's get it right" legislature. "If if we're going to have tough sentences," he says, "then we also have to make sure we're not going to convict innocent people." Good idea.

A partial step toward that goal is his proposed Innocence Commission Act. A Commission of "prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, corrections officials, police, victim advocates and others" would review cases in which DNA exonerated the wrongly convicted and "suggest changes to state laws, court procedures or police practices that might cut the error rate." Some suggestions, right off the bat:

The state could require police interrogations to be taped, improve independent oversight of crime labs or further streamline access to post-conviction DNA testing. State courts could let experts testify about how eyewitnesses can be wrong.

by TChris

Paul Butler explains why he worked as a federal prosecutor.

"I was hired to be a black prosecutor, and I was a damned good one," the George Washington University professor said Thursday in the Law School's Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture.

He also explains why he quit.

"I didn't go to law school to put black people in prison," Butler said.

What changed? Butler started listening to hip-hop. More prosecutors -- and anyone else who wants to understand how the criminal justice system is frequently perceived -- should give it a try.

by TChris

Requiring registration as a sex offender is an extreme measure that subjects the registered individual to shame and mistreatment while limiting employment, housing and rehabilitative opportunities. If sex offender registration makes sense at all -- and there's little empirical evidence that it protects society -- it should be reserved for the worst offenders who are most likely to reoffend.

In places like Michigan, where the legislative desire to appear "tough on crime" overcame rationality, some kids are forced to register because they had consensual sex with a friend.

by TChris

It's no longer quite so much fun to be an undercover cop (or a cop under the covers) for the Spotsylvania County Sheriff's office.

A Virginia sheriff said Friday he will no longer allow detectives to receive sexual services while investigating suspected prostitution after they spent $1,200 at massage parlors last month and sparked a public outcry.

The detectives spent so much, according to the sheriff, because it takes "multiple visits" to "build trust" with the massage parlor employees. Not to mention the $350 tip that one detective left after a particularly satisfying undercover experience.

If this ten page article in the New York Times Magazine on brain mapping as the future lie detector doesn't scare the daylights out of you, nothing will.

Someday the Government will try to introduce this in court, claiming it is more reliable than a polygraph. The defense will argue it's unreliable. A court will rule and the losing party will appeal. I wonder how Judge Alito will rule when it reaches the Supreme Court. That's an even scarier thought.

by TChris

Society can shuttle people between prison and criminal lifestyles, or it can help offenders break that cycle. A rational approach to drug crime (putting aside for the moment decriminalization of marijuana offenses) emphasizes help and support, including drug and alcohol counseling. Equally important to many who are ready to break the cycle is an education that will allow them to compete for meaningful jobs. That's why the congressional decision to make drug offenders ineligible for government-assisted student loans was appalling.

Fortunately, Congress is slowly moving the law toward rationality.

Students convicted while receiving federal aid will still lose their eligibility - for one year for a first possession offense, two years for a second and indefinitely for a third, with harsher penalties for selling. But under the new rules, which President Bush is expected to sign into law, offenders who weren't enrolled in school and getting taxpayer support at the time when they were convicted can apply for aid. The change is expected to benefit mostly older students ... who had finished school before they were convicted and now wish to go back.

An about-face would be an even better course correction.

by TChris

From time to time, laws are proposed (and sometimes enacted) that prohibit drivers from talking on cell phones while they drive. Never mind that talking on a cell phone is no more distracting than fiddling with the radio or typing addresses into a GPS navigation system, or pushing the dog away or arguing with a passenger. Laws against unsafe driving (reckless or inattentive driving) already address cell phone usage (as well as any other distraction) that actually prevents an individual driver from driving safely.

Calls for cell phone bans are fueled by stories like this one, where a 19 year old was arrested for reckless homicide because he struck a child while -- according to initial reports -- he was text messaging a friend. When the truth finally replaced hysteria, it turned out that the driver finished text messaging about a minute before the accident. And it appears that the child fell or moved back into the path of the car, after successfully crossing the street, in response to the shouting of his uncle's girlfriend. Despite the outrage of the understandably upset relatives of the child, there's no basis for their criticism of a grand jury that refused to charge the driver with a crime. And there's no need for laws that categorically prohibit drivers from using their cell phones.

The next time I shop at Target I will be thinking about this article in the Washington Post.

In the past few years, the retailer has taken a lead role in teaching government agencies how to fight crime by applying state-of-the-art technology used in its 1,400 stores. Target's effort has touched local, state, federal and international agencies.

Besides running its forensics lab in Minneapolis, Target has helped coordinate national undercover investigations and worked with customs agencies on ways to make sure imported cargo is coming from reputable sources or hasn't been tampered with. It has contributed money for prosecutor positions to combat repeat criminals, provided local police with remote-controlled video surveillance systems, and linked police and business radio systems to beef up neighborhood foot patrols in parts of several major cities. It has given management training to FBI and police leaders, and linked city, county and state databases to keep track of repeat offenders.

Target considers it's assistance "corporate giving." I'd much rather it gave to social service agencies that help the poor and its customers and called the program "community giving."