by TChris

TalkLeft has frequently discussed the risks associated with the proliferation of Tasers as a police weapon. The latest example of that concern comes from Chicago.

A 14-year-old boy went into cardiac arrest after police shot him with a Taser stun gun, raising new questions about the weapon. ... The boy was regaining consciousness Wednesday but was not yet talking.

Police say that the boy lunged at an officer, but the facts are in dispute.

Cook County Public Guardian Robert Harris said his office is considering civil action after its investigation found the boy was no longer violent and sitting on a couch when police arrived. "I'm consistently hearing this boy never moved off the couch," Harris said. "If he did, it was after he got hit with the Taser gun." County officials said they have no information to indicate the boy attacked anybody.

The controversy surrounding Tasers hasn't stopped law enforcement agencies from asking for more of the weapons. Elected officials in a number of communities -- including Pittsburgh and the Illinois cities of Naperville and Canton -- will need to decide whether the risks outweigh the benefits. Those decisions may benefit from research (funded by a grant from the Department of Justice) into the effect of a Taser shock on the heart.

While it would be prudent to await the results of further research before buying (or approving the use of) Tasers, the problem may solve itself, as the continuing controversy has caused the value of the weapon's manufacturer, Taser International, Inc., to fall precipitiously. Investors have responded to reports that 84 people have died after being shocked by a Taser, and to news that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the company's dubious claim that the weapon is safe.

by TChris

LAPD Chief William Bratton is having trouble explaining why the department he heads hasn't changed its policy regarding shooting at moving vehicles, despite his recognition a year ago that the policy requires revision. Had the process moved more swiftly, a 13-year-old might be alive today.

Officer Steven Garcia, a 9-year veteran, fired 10 shots early Sunday at 13-year-old Devin Brown, who was driving a stolen 1990 Toyota Camry. Garcia, standing outside his police car, opened fire when Devin allegedly backed the Toyota toward the patrol unit.

Garcia is less than a model cop, having been disciplined for threatening an ex-girlfried so she wouldn't cooperate with an unrelated investigation of his conduct. Still, the larger issue is the department's failure to address the risks that inhere in shooting at a moving target.

The last high-profile incident in which an LAPD officer shot and killed a motorist occurred nearly a year ago in Santa Monica, where police killed a man who backed his car toward officers at the end of a televised 90-minute pursuit. At the time, Bratton announced that he wanted to place new, more stringent restrictions on officers firing at moving vehicles.

Bratton said the department is considering policies from four agencies — the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, San Francisco Police Department, Boston Police Department and Miami Police Department — that would "potentially prohibit shooting from a moving vehicle or at a moving vehicle unless the officer is threatened by deadly force other than the moving vehicle."

It's time to stop "considering" solutions; it's time to solve the problem.

Oregon has charged three mothers with passing drugs on to their babies through the umbilical cord or by breast-feeding.

Similar cases in other states have raised legal questions about holding drug-addicted mothers accountable. "No one is saying it's OK to use (drugs) or for pregnant women to use," said criminal defense attorney Karla Nash, who represents one of the women who has been charged. "But pregnant women should be able to communicate openly and honestly with health care providers without being concerned about prosecution."

Court rulings on these laws have varied widely across the country. Florida courts take this view:

Drug War warriors are running rampant across the land. Check out these billboards at DrugWar Rant. Grits for Breakfast exposes the overhyping of the new meth law craze as evidenced by a rush by states to ban psueduoephedrine.

Newspaper editorials like this one show mainstream media is going along.

The New York Times Magazine today has a lengthy article on whether ecstasy, reputedly a mind-altering drug, can help those suffering from cancer or post-traumatic stress disorder. We wrote about the new studies into the subject that the FDA has authorized here and here.

by TChris

Ventura County, California public defender Liana Johnsson wonders why women can be punished for appearing in public without a shirt while men are free to wander about sans top. Johnsson has been lobbying "to strike down the law that makes topless sunbathing illegal, arguing that it treats men differently from women."

To drive home her point, she produced a short video showing overweight men lounging on California beaches, their ample breasts apparent for all to see.

Not a pretty sight. But Johnsson's mission isn't based on aesthetics. Johnsson wanted to spark a debate about gender equality, but her more urgent objection to laws that define the exposure of a breast as criminally "indecent" is rooted in the harsh realities of the criminal law:

[Johnsson] sounded alarms when noting that because of a recent court ruling, women convicted of indecent exposure could find themselves listed as sex offenders under Megan's Law, alongside rapists and child molesters.

Some will point to a repeal of the law as further evidence of society's moral decay. In reality, repealing the little-enforced law won't change a thing.

"[Johnsson's] looked at places where women do sunbathe nude on the beach, and lo and behold, kids are not traumatized and society has not fallen apart," said Tina Rasnow, coordinator of Ventura County Superior Court's self-help legal access center.

by TChris

Because people sentenced for drug crimes are so often poor and disadvantaged, their shockingly harsh punishments gain little notice. Not so when prominent citizens are sent to prison.

David Collins of Pensacola, Florida "is among 53 mostly middle-aged and middle class defendants charged with offenses ranging from drug possession to trafficking." A state court judge today sentenced Collins to 3-1/2 years in prison.

Defense lawyer Drew Pinkerton said Collins, co-owner of Collins-Kiefer Seminars in suburban Gulf Breeze, will appeal but probably serve about 18 months even if he wins because Florida's drug trafficking law prohibits appeal bonds. "It's the most draconian law in the world," said Pinkerton, who insisted his client was a recreational user, not a trafficker. "This guy goes to prison for 42 months and half the burglars and robbers are walking around the street out there on probation."

From an editorial in the Columbia Spectator, Don't Fear the Reefer:

We’re happy that the New York Legislature voted last month to reform the arcane Rockefeller Drug Laws. We look forward to seeing judges give fairer prison sentences to nonviolent men and women convicted of selling or possessing narcotics. Yet while these laws are a step in the right direction, they don’t go far enough. A key component of any rational drug policy must include the legalization of marijuana.

....Marijuana isn’t that dangerous or addictive, and enforcement falls disproportionately upon the poor. It’s time to legalize it.

[Link via Drug War Rant.]

Excellent op-ed by Joe Domanick, senior fellow in criminal justice at USC Annenberg's Institute for Justice and Journalism today in the LA Times --Stop LA's Crime Engine. His premise:

A fixation on arrest and crime statistics to gauge police effectiveness is standard in law enforcement — and politics. But the question police chiefs should be asking is what strategies will both prevent crime, short-term and long-term, and help stabilize L.A.'s communities.

The gist of the argument:

by TChris

Commissions and study groups have repeatedly told Wisconsin's lawmakers that its soaring prison population burdens the state's taxpayers while doing little to prevent recidivism.

[T]hese groups of judges, attorneys, correctional officials, business people and academics offered wide-ranging solutions that emphasized more programming in prisons, closer supervision and treatment in the community and establishing some intermediate form of sanction between probation and prison.

Why hasn't the advice been heeded? As in other states, Wisconsin's politicians fear the consequences of being labeled "soft on crime."

"There's one answer to this: politics," said state Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, who has seen just about every effort at correctional reform in his 48 years in the Legislature. "Trying to develop long-range programs that don't show immediate results is not the best thing to campaign on."

Politicians also worry about jobs that depend on incarceration rates. Wisconsin's ratio of correctional employees to inmates is nearly one to three. The Wisconsin State Journal explores proposals for reform that have been offered to and rejected by the state's legislature.

The New York Times reported Friday that Taser International announced it will increase the power of its stun guns because some subjects did not become completely immobilized. Taser responds:

Late on Friday, the company issued a statement denying that it had introduced a new model or boosted the power output. Rather, Taser said it was providing software that lets the X26 maintain full power for five seconds of discharge. Prior versions delivered full power for two seconds, then stepped down.

So it's increasing the effect of the taser, not the power, what's the difference?

In related news, a class action was filed today against the company:

The Complaint alleges that the Company violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder. Specifically, the Complaint alleges that, throughout the Class Period, the Company issued a series of materially false and misleading statements to the market concerning the safety of its TASER guns. The Complaint also alleges the Defendants engaged in channel stuffing at the end of the fourth quarter of 2004 in order to meet sales projections and analyst's expectations.

by TChris

Are ever-increasing sentences the best answer to repeated criminal behavior? An editorial in today's New York Times points to a report prepared for the Council of State Governments that "argues that the country needs to reinvent its corrections system." The report suggests that governments should take steps to help offenders avoid a return to crime after their release from prison as the best hope of reducing recidivism.

This line of thinking is long overdue. The United States has 2.1 million people behind bars on any given day .... The portrait of the inmate population offered in the report leaves no doubt as to why two-thirds of the people who leave prison are rearrested within a few years. These people were marginally employable before they went to jail - nearly half earned less than $600 a month. They are even less employable afterward, thanks to criminal records. In addition, many of them suffer from mental illnesses that often go untreated after release.

Providing help with housing, employment, and mental health care might break the cycle that returns offenders to prison -- at a huge cost to society -- again and again. It's time for state governments to give serious thought to the proposals advanced in the report. (Executive summary here.)