Christopher Zoukis's Blog, page 6
September 18, 2017
Federal Appeals Court Says Police Can Lie to Search Homes
By Christopher Zoukis
A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit, the Atlanta-based federal appeals court, in U.S. v. Eric Jermaine Spivey et al. upheld a police search defendants had challenged as “shocking,” even if police used deception to obtain the residents’ consent to search their home.
Eric Spivey and Chenequa Austin lived in Lauderhill, Florida, and ran a lucrative operation making and using bogus credit cards. Stored in the house they shared was high-end merchandise they obtained fraudulently, plus equipment and materials used to produce fake cards. After their home was burglarized, they filed a police report, and had a home security system installed.
When the same thief later burglarized their home again, Spivey and Austin filed another police report, and gave police video footage of the intruder taken by their new home security system. When local police arrested a suspect for the burglaries, he informed them of the extensive evidence of credit-card fraud he had observed in the home, saying the wealth of high-end merchandise led him to re-burglarize the same house.
That drew the interest of the South Florida Organized Fraud Task Force, which decided to investigate the residents of the twice-burgled home. On the pretext of doing further investigation of the burglaries (and without informing the residents a suspect was already in custody, much less what their suspect had told them he found in the residence), the Task Force dispatched two investigators to the home: a local police detective and a special agent from the U.S. Secret Service, which is not authorized to investigate local burglaries but enforces federal financial crime laws, including those on credit-card fraud.
On the visit, the Secret Service agent was described to Spivey and Austin as a crime-scene technician. He wore a local police jacket and pretended to dust for the burglar’s fingerprints. The residents invited the investigators inside and took them through the house, enabling them to observe much other evidence of card fraud, including card-making equipment and stacks of credit and debit cards.
Indicted by a federal grand jury, the residents tried to have that evidence excluded, pointing to the cops’ deception in posing as burglary investigators to gain consent for their search. After a federal district court rejected that argument, the issue went to the three-judge appeals panel. Circuit Judge William H. Pryor Jr., an Alabaman appointed by President George W. Bush and mentioned by President Trump as a possible Supreme Court nominee, wrote the 2-1 majority opinion sustaining the lower court’s ruling.
The Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures, Pryor wrote, does not apply when a defendant has voluntarily consented to a search, and even though the investigators misled Spivey and Austin on who they were and why they were there, the residents had allowed the search without coercion. Voluntary consent turns not on police motives, but rather on defendants’ mental state. Just as confessions are allowed under the Fifth Amendment even when police use non-coercive deceit in questioning, police use of deception to gain consent to a search does not automatically invalidate consent to a search. But another panel member, Circuit Judge Beverly B. Martin, a Georgian appointed by President Barack Obama, vigorously dissented, arguing investigators could easily have gotten a search warrant, and allowing such deceptions “undermines the public trust in police.”
This article first appeared on Blogcritics.com.
About Christopher Zoukis
Christopher Zoukis is an outspoken prisoner rights and correctional education advocate who is incarcerated at FCI Petersburg Medium in Virginia. He is an award-winning writer whose work has been published widely in major publications such as The Huffington Post, Prison Legal News, New York Daily News and various other print and online publications. Learn more about Christopher Zoukis at christopherzoukis.com and prisoneducation.com.
A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit, the Atlanta-based federal appeals court, in U.S. v. Eric Jermaine Spivey et al. upheld a police search defendants had challenged as “shocking,” even if police used deception to obtain the residents’ consent to search their home.
Eric Spivey and Chenequa Austin lived in Lauderhill, Florida, and ran a lucrative operation making and using bogus credit cards. Stored in the house they shared was high-end merchandise they obtained fraudulently, plus equipment and materials used to produce fake cards. After their home was burglarized, they filed a police report, and had a home security system installed.
When the same thief later burglarized their home again, Spivey and Austin filed another police report, and gave police video footage of the intruder taken by their new home security system. When local police arrested a suspect for the burglaries, he informed them of the extensive evidence of credit-card fraud he had observed in the home, saying the wealth of high-end merchandise led him to re-burglarize the same house.
That drew the interest of the South Florida Organized Fraud Task Force, which decided to investigate the residents of the twice-burgled home. On the pretext of doing further investigation of the burglaries (and without informing the residents a suspect was already in custody, much less what their suspect had told them he found in the residence), the Task Force dispatched two investigators to the home: a local police detective and a special agent from the U.S. Secret Service, which is not authorized to investigate local burglaries but enforces federal financial crime laws, including those on credit-card fraud.
On the visit, the Secret Service agent was described to Spivey and Austin as a crime-scene technician. He wore a local police jacket and pretended to dust for the burglar’s fingerprints. The residents invited the investigators inside and took them through the house, enabling them to observe much other evidence of card fraud, including card-making equipment and stacks of credit and debit cards.
Indicted by a federal grand jury, the residents tried to have that evidence excluded, pointing to the cops’ deception in posing as burglary investigators to gain consent for their search. After a federal district court rejected that argument, the issue went to the three-judge appeals panel. Circuit Judge William H. Pryor Jr., an Alabaman appointed by President George W. Bush and mentioned by President Trump as a possible Supreme Court nominee, wrote the 2-1 majority opinion sustaining the lower court’s ruling.
The Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures, Pryor wrote, does not apply when a defendant has voluntarily consented to a search, and even though the investigators misled Spivey and Austin on who they were and why they were there, the residents had allowed the search without coercion. Voluntary consent turns not on police motives, but rather on defendants’ mental state. Just as confessions are allowed under the Fifth Amendment even when police use non-coercive deceit in questioning, police use of deception to gain consent to a search does not automatically invalidate consent to a search. But another panel member, Circuit Judge Beverly B. Martin, a Georgian appointed by President Barack Obama, vigorously dissented, arguing investigators could easily have gotten a search warrant, and allowing such deceptions “undermines the public trust in police.”
This article first appeared on Blogcritics.com.
About Christopher Zoukis
Christopher Zoukis is an outspoken prisoner rights and correctional education advocate who is incarcerated at FCI Petersburg Medium in Virginia. He is an award-winning writer whose work has been published widely in major publications such as The Huffington Post, Prison Legal News, New York Daily News and various other print and online publications. Learn more about Christopher Zoukis at christopherzoukis.com and prisoneducation.com.
September 11, 2017
Gold Medal Winner!
We are honored to announce that The Federal Prison Handbook has been given a Gold Medal in the 2017 International Book Awards! You can get a copy here--> http://bit.ly/FedPrisHandbook
September 4, 2017
New Charges Against Inmate-Author: An Attempt to Muzzle Him?
By Kamea Zelisko
How about these for credentials for an authority on prison issues: authoring a handbook on prison life, three books on subjects examining ways education can benefit inmates, plus a steady stream of articles in national magazines, newspapers and blogs on a wide range of legal and other incarceration-related topics. No less an authority than the American Bar Association last year named the author’s Prison Law Blog (now named prisonerresource.com) on prison law one of the nation’s 100 best blogs on any legal topic.
The author, Christopher Zoukis, has one additional asset in understanding and explaining these subjects that few other authors can claim: he’s been incarcerated since 2006 in a federal prison in Petersburg, Virginia, and unless the newest set of disciplinary charges against him delay it, is scheduled to be released to a halfway house in Charleston, South Carolina, early next year.
Despite the acclaim he’s received, and the value of his writings in explaining important, but not widely understood, issues for prisoners, their families and the general public, he’s once again in trouble with prison authorities, and has drawn more time in solitary confinement.
The most curious part of the story is why: his disciplinary offense, each of the times he’s faced solitary confinement or other discipline in the prison, was not due to brawling in the exercise yard, smuggling in contraband, or any of the other infractions most commonly found behind bars. Instead, Chris’ disciplinary offense, plain and simple, has been that prison officials have objected to the writing for which he’s been so widely praised.
Make no mistake: he’s not a polemicist, writing calls to insurrection or revolution. His offense, from the point of view of prison administrators and security officials, is being hard-working and widely read on topics of interest to persons concerned with prison life. On 10 occasions in a row over the past five years, he’s been written up by prison security officials, who ought to be more interested in bigger issues, like gangs, drugs and violence, but still apparently have ample time to worry about an inmate who’s managed to become a well-respected writer while in prison.
To be clear, prison authorities say they don’t object to the content of Chris’ writing, as much as they do to the fact he’s successful at it and visible because of it. The usual charge brought against him: he’s “running a business” behind bars (a Code 334 prohibited act in the Federal Bureau of Prisons). Of course, that’s not the easiest thing to do in prison, not that very much is easy in prison. Inmates can’t access computers or the internet, and their visits and use of phone and email services are limited and monitored.
On several occasions, helped by his family, Chris hired noted federal criminal defense attorneys Alan Ellis and Todd Bussert to defend against the prison disciplinary charges. In 2012, following the release of his first book, Chris was issued three incident reports for his writing activities. While the charges were eventually thrown out, this was only after Chris spent five months in solitary confinement. In 2014, following the release of College for Convicts, Chris was issued four more incident reports. Again they were wiped out, though not until after Chris was sanctioned to years loss of communication privileges.
And this year, following the release of his Federal Prison Handbook and the issuance of three more incident reports, a hearing in mid-July found him guilty of again running a business. The business? Being an author (even though it’s legal to write and publish books from behind bars). While two of the latest incident reports were expunged during his disciplinary hearings, he is currently in the process of appealing the sole conviction, which he fully believes will be overturned on appeal, as so many before have.
Clearly, though, at least some prison officials would rather not have to worry about prisoners’ writing, or what it might reveal to the outside world. They would rather engage in wonton censorship – the law, prison policy and federal regulations be damned.
The sad truth of all of this is that, as Chris’ lawyer Alan Ellis observes, “Chris is really a poster boy for the Bureau of Prisons. He came in as a thug and turned his life around with his writing.” Indeed, he has spent the bulk of his time in prison furthering his own education; earning his bachelor’s degree in 2016 from Adams State University, where he is currently enrolled in their Masters of Business Administration program.
Another attorney, Brandon Sample, who is familiar with the case and Bureau of Prisons operations, succinctly put the issue into perspective by saying, “The Bureau of Prisons touts itself as ‘the model’ correctional system in the United States. But there is nothing ‘model’ about taking retribution on a prisoner, like Chris, for the exercise of First Amendment rights.”
While officials with the Bureau of Prisons, in this case and others, might have done a very good job at whitewashing and making their actions look almost clinical in application, the truth of the matter is that federal prisons, and state prisons too, are hotbeds of censorship and repression. While prison administrators hold themselves out as upholding the law, they often break it and the policies that they are sworn to uphold. The difference between the guards and the inmates in this respect is that only the inmates are held accountable for their actions, even when their actions are protected by sacred documents, such as the U.S. Constitution.
How about these for credentials for an authority on prison issues: authoring a handbook on prison life, three books on subjects examining ways education can benefit inmates, plus a steady stream of articles in national magazines, newspapers and blogs on a wide range of legal and other incarceration-related topics. No less an authority than the American Bar Association last year named the author’s Prison Law Blog (now named prisonerresource.com) on prison law one of the nation’s 100 best blogs on any legal topic.
The author, Christopher Zoukis, has one additional asset in understanding and explaining these subjects that few other authors can claim: he’s been incarcerated since 2006 in a federal prison in Petersburg, Virginia, and unless the newest set of disciplinary charges against him delay it, is scheduled to be released to a halfway house in Charleston, South Carolina, early next year.
Despite the acclaim he’s received, and the value of his writings in explaining important, but not widely understood, issues for prisoners, their families and the general public, he’s once again in trouble with prison authorities, and has drawn more time in solitary confinement.
The most curious part of the story is why: his disciplinary offense, each of the times he’s faced solitary confinement or other discipline in the prison, was not due to brawling in the exercise yard, smuggling in contraband, or any of the other infractions most commonly found behind bars. Instead, Chris’ disciplinary offense, plain and simple, has been that prison officials have objected to the writing for which he’s been so widely praised.
Make no mistake: he’s not a polemicist, writing calls to insurrection or revolution. His offense, from the point of view of prison administrators and security officials, is being hard-working and widely read on topics of interest to persons concerned with prison life. On 10 occasions in a row over the past five years, he’s been written up by prison security officials, who ought to be more interested in bigger issues, like gangs, drugs and violence, but still apparently have ample time to worry about an inmate who’s managed to become a well-respected writer while in prison.
To be clear, prison authorities say they don’t object to the content of Chris’ writing, as much as they do to the fact he’s successful at it and visible because of it. The usual charge brought against him: he’s “running a business” behind bars (a Code 334 prohibited act in the Federal Bureau of Prisons). Of course, that’s not the easiest thing to do in prison, not that very much is easy in prison. Inmates can’t access computers or the internet, and their visits and use of phone and email services are limited and monitored.
On several occasions, helped by his family, Chris hired noted federal criminal defense attorneys Alan Ellis and Todd Bussert to defend against the prison disciplinary charges. In 2012, following the release of his first book, Chris was issued three incident reports for his writing activities. While the charges were eventually thrown out, this was only after Chris spent five months in solitary confinement. In 2014, following the release of College for Convicts, Chris was issued four more incident reports. Again they were wiped out, though not until after Chris was sanctioned to years loss of communication privileges.
And this year, following the release of his Federal Prison Handbook and the issuance of three more incident reports, a hearing in mid-July found him guilty of again running a business. The business? Being an author (even though it’s legal to write and publish books from behind bars). While two of the latest incident reports were expunged during his disciplinary hearings, he is currently in the process of appealing the sole conviction, which he fully believes will be overturned on appeal, as so many before have.
Clearly, though, at least some prison officials would rather not have to worry about prisoners’ writing, or what it might reveal to the outside world. They would rather engage in wonton censorship – the law, prison policy and federal regulations be damned.
The sad truth of all of this is that, as Chris’ lawyer Alan Ellis observes, “Chris is really a poster boy for the Bureau of Prisons. He came in as a thug and turned his life around with his writing.” Indeed, he has spent the bulk of his time in prison furthering his own education; earning his bachelor’s degree in 2016 from Adams State University, where he is currently enrolled in their Masters of Business Administration program.
Another attorney, Brandon Sample, who is familiar with the case and Bureau of Prisons operations, succinctly put the issue into perspective by saying, “The Bureau of Prisons touts itself as ‘the model’ correctional system in the United States. But there is nothing ‘model’ about taking retribution on a prisoner, like Chris, for the exercise of First Amendment rights.”
While officials with the Bureau of Prisons, in this case and others, might have done a very good job at whitewashing and making their actions look almost clinical in application, the truth of the matter is that federal prisons, and state prisons too, are hotbeds of censorship and repression. While prison administrators hold themselves out as upholding the law, they often break it and the policies that they are sworn to uphold. The difference between the guards and the inmates in this respect is that only the inmates are held accountable for their actions, even when their actions are protected by sacred documents, such as the U.S. Constitution.
August 28, 2017
Female Inmates Learn to Transcribe Books to Braille
By Christopher Zoukis
They may look hard to figure out for most, but a whole lot of raised dots are translating to new opportunities for a group of female inmates in New Hampshire.
The state’s department of education has joined up with the New Hampshire Department of Corrections to teach a handful of female prisoners how to transcribe learning and reading materials into Braille.
The women will complete their training by the end of 2017, and then will go to work as transcribers on materials from the department of education and the American Printing House for the Blind.
Molly Martel is one of the 14 women in the Hampshire program, and she looks forward to transcribing menus, textbooks and novels into Braille. She’s currently serving her fifth year of a 20-40 year sentence for murdering a friend. "To know I could actually do something good for somebody, that is good to know," Martel said in a media interview.
Nicole Belonga is another inmate that is happy to be learning Braille. She’s working on a 15-30 year sentence for manslaughter in the death of her daughter, and knows that gaining employment once she is released will be an uphill battle. "I'm scared," she said in a media interview. "It's going to be pretty hard to get a job, and I'm not delusional about it. To know that it was something that I could get certified to do when I am home was a big draw for me."
The training is not easy. To learn Braille, each student has to memorize the Braille cell, which is made up of six possible dot configurations in two columns. After learning how to write in Braille, students must slowly start the transcription process, first by transcribing words, then moving on to sentences before tackling full documents. In the prison, the ladies must learn the Braille cell visually, not by touch. Staring at the dots for long periods of time can take a toll on the eyes, but most are determined to push through and become acclimatized to this unique method of reading after several weeks. To achieve certification, each inmate must submit a transcribed 35-page document to the Library of Congress.
The New Hampshire Braille transcription program was created to give the State’s female inmates work skills and experience, while also helping to ease the expanding need for Braille transcribers in region. It's one of about 30 such prison programs nationwide.
Many are familiar with Louis Braille, and credit him as the inventor of this language for the blind, but he was actually building on something called “night writing” that was invented by Charles Barbier in the early 1800s. Barbier saw soldiers use lamps to read combat messages after dark – a move that showed their position to the enemy and resulted in their deaths. He created a series of raised dots so the soldiers could read by touch instead of sight. It was a noble effort, but Barbier's system was a bit cumbersome.
At the age of 11, Braille, who was not born blind, but accidentally stabbed himself in the eye with an awl when he was young, modified Barbier's night writing, making it more efficient and easier to decode. It took Braille nearly nine years to perfect his system.
The National Federation for the Blind estimates that 2.3 percent (7,358,400) of non-institutionalized American adults (ages 16-75) have a visual disability. According to information collected in 2012 by the U.S. Department of Justice, 7.1 percent of state and federal prisoners suffered from vision impairment.
When one thinks of the prison population it's easy to forget that it's comprised of a very diverse mix of able-bodied and differently-abled people. With vision impairment being an issue both in and out of prison, programs where inmates can learn an employable skill such as Braille transcription benefit society as whole.
Christopher Zoukis is the author of Federal Prison Handbook: The Definitive Guide to Surviving the Federal Bureau of Prisons, College for Convicts: The Case for Higher Education in American Prisons (McFarland & Co., 2014) and Prison Education Guide (Prison Legal News Publishing, 2016). He can be found online at ChristopherZoukis.com, PrisonEducation.com and PrisonLawBlog.com.
They may look hard to figure out for most, but a whole lot of raised dots are translating to new opportunities for a group of female inmates in New Hampshire.
The state’s department of education has joined up with the New Hampshire Department of Corrections to teach a handful of female prisoners how to transcribe learning and reading materials into Braille.
The women will complete their training by the end of 2017, and then will go to work as transcribers on materials from the department of education and the American Printing House for the Blind.
Molly Martel is one of the 14 women in the Hampshire program, and she looks forward to transcribing menus, textbooks and novels into Braille. She’s currently serving her fifth year of a 20-40 year sentence for murdering a friend. "To know I could actually do something good for somebody, that is good to know," Martel said in a media interview.
Nicole Belonga is another inmate that is happy to be learning Braille. She’s working on a 15-30 year sentence for manslaughter in the death of her daughter, and knows that gaining employment once she is released will be an uphill battle. "I'm scared," she said in a media interview. "It's going to be pretty hard to get a job, and I'm not delusional about it. To know that it was something that I could get certified to do when I am home was a big draw for me."
The training is not easy. To learn Braille, each student has to memorize the Braille cell, which is made up of six possible dot configurations in two columns. After learning how to write in Braille, students must slowly start the transcription process, first by transcribing words, then moving on to sentences before tackling full documents. In the prison, the ladies must learn the Braille cell visually, not by touch. Staring at the dots for long periods of time can take a toll on the eyes, but most are determined to push through and become acclimatized to this unique method of reading after several weeks. To achieve certification, each inmate must submit a transcribed 35-page document to the Library of Congress.
The New Hampshire Braille transcription program was created to give the State’s female inmates work skills and experience, while also helping to ease the expanding need for Braille transcribers in region. It's one of about 30 such prison programs nationwide.
Many are familiar with Louis Braille, and credit him as the inventor of this language for the blind, but he was actually building on something called “night writing” that was invented by Charles Barbier in the early 1800s. Barbier saw soldiers use lamps to read combat messages after dark – a move that showed their position to the enemy and resulted in their deaths. He created a series of raised dots so the soldiers could read by touch instead of sight. It was a noble effort, but Barbier's system was a bit cumbersome.
At the age of 11, Braille, who was not born blind, but accidentally stabbed himself in the eye with an awl when he was young, modified Barbier's night writing, making it more efficient and easier to decode. It took Braille nearly nine years to perfect his system.
The National Federation for the Blind estimates that 2.3 percent (7,358,400) of non-institutionalized American adults (ages 16-75) have a visual disability. According to information collected in 2012 by the U.S. Department of Justice, 7.1 percent of state and federal prisoners suffered from vision impairment.
When one thinks of the prison population it's easy to forget that it's comprised of a very diverse mix of able-bodied and differently-abled people. With vision impairment being an issue both in and out of prison, programs where inmates can learn an employable skill such as Braille transcription benefit society as whole.
Christopher Zoukis is the author of Federal Prison Handbook: The Definitive Guide to Surviving the Federal Bureau of Prisons, College for Convicts: The Case for Higher Education in American Prisons (McFarland & Co., 2014) and Prison Education Guide (Prison Legal News Publishing, 2016). He can be found online at ChristopherZoukis.com, PrisonEducation.com and PrisonLawBlog.com.
August 18, 2017
Pups in Prison a Promising Rehabilitative Tool
By Christopher Zoukis
It’s the 1920s, and Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary is both the biggest and the most expensive public building of the era. New rehabilitation tools are being tested here, such as isolation. A new prisoner is arriving today. He’s been sentenced for murder...of a cat. His name is Pep, and he’s a dog. And the charges were completely trumped up.
In reality, Pep was no killer. He was a labrador retriever that was donated to Eastern State as part of a new inmate therapy program. The story of the killer dog was a cute attempt to add a bit of tongue-in-cheek drama in the newspapers about his donation to the prison. While the news headline got a little out of hand, Pep is often credited with launching the prison pet therapy movement, a reformation method where inmates’ rehabilitation includes the care and training of a pet.
It turns out that these prison pet programs are impactful on both sides of the bars. Many of the dogs used in prison pet therapy were on death row themselves. When paired with inmates, they get a second chance at life.
For the inmates, bonding with a pet while behind bars improves compassion and helps to bridge feelings of mistrust among both staff and others in the prison population.
The Pontiac Tribune reports that despite a 50 percent national average recidivism rate, the Leaders Dogs for the Blind program, which has partnered with prisons since 1939, placing puppies with inmates who train the pups to be service dogs, boasts just 11-13 percent of those that participated in the program return to jail after their release. Reports of hardened criminals weeping when their dogs are trained and given to the individuals needing them are common.
Another program, Canine Cellmates, pairs inmates with dogs in Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail. Like the Leaders Dogs program, the inmates train pups to become working service dogs. The program sees dogs and inmates living side by side for months. The dogs eat in the prisoners’ cells, and training and discipline programs run concurrently for the canines and their temporary owners.
“The dogs actually become therapy dogs in this program, we just don’t tell them that,” said Susan Jacobs Meadows, Canine Cellmate’s executive director.
The inmates at Fulton report a very high level of satisfaction with the program, and the unconditional love given by the dogs has the potential to completely change the course of an inmate’s life.
"She don't judge me, like people does. I know she loves me. All day. Every day," said one inmate whose plans are now to become a dog trainer upon his release.
The Prison Pet Partnership program in Gig Harbor’s Washington Corrections Center for Women is also a success story. Through the program, homeless animals are rescued and trained for service for people with disabilities. The inmates assist with the training, and also operate a boarding and grooming facility on the grounds.
“Our program benefits all involved — the animals who are given the chance to lead lives of service, the inmates who learn valuable skills so they may find gainful employment upon release, and the individuals with disabilities who receive well-trained dogs to help increase their level of independence,” the program’s mandate states.
Why are prison pet therapy programs so successful? Prisons, and the circumstances that people into them, are harsh. When puppies bound into an inmate’s arms, not caring who that person is or what they have done, combine with inmates that are giving a meaningful purpose to care for a living creature, knowing that the dog will go on to change someone else’s life, it's a powerful thing. Prison pet therapy is a win-win situation that helps to rehabilitate prisoners while teaching them vocational skills for the workplace, and social skills for life.
Christopher Zoukis is the author of Federal Prison Handbook: The Definitive Guide to Surviving the Federal Bureau of Prisons, College for Convicts: The Case for Higher Education in American Prisons (McFarland & Co., 2014) and Prison Education Guide (Prison Legal News Publishing, 2016). He can be found online at ChristopherZoukis.com, PrisonEducation.com and PrisonLawBlog.com.
It’s the 1920s, and Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary is both the biggest and the most expensive public building of the era. New rehabilitation tools are being tested here, such as isolation. A new prisoner is arriving today. He’s been sentenced for murder...of a cat. His name is Pep, and he’s a dog. And the charges were completely trumped up.
In reality, Pep was no killer. He was a labrador retriever that was donated to Eastern State as part of a new inmate therapy program. The story of the killer dog was a cute attempt to add a bit of tongue-in-cheek drama in the newspapers about his donation to the prison. While the news headline got a little out of hand, Pep is often credited with launching the prison pet therapy movement, a reformation method where inmates’ rehabilitation includes the care and training of a pet.
It turns out that these prison pet programs are impactful on both sides of the bars. Many of the dogs used in prison pet therapy were on death row themselves. When paired with inmates, they get a second chance at life.
For the inmates, bonding with a pet while behind bars improves compassion and helps to bridge feelings of mistrust among both staff and others in the prison population.
The Pontiac Tribune reports that despite a 50 percent national average recidivism rate, the Leaders Dogs for the Blind program, which has partnered with prisons since 1939, placing puppies with inmates who train the pups to be service dogs, boasts just 11-13 percent of those that participated in the program return to jail after their release. Reports of hardened criminals weeping when their dogs are trained and given to the individuals needing them are common.
Another program, Canine Cellmates, pairs inmates with dogs in Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail. Like the Leaders Dogs program, the inmates train pups to become working service dogs. The program sees dogs and inmates living side by side for months. The dogs eat in the prisoners’ cells, and training and discipline programs run concurrently for the canines and their temporary owners.
“The dogs actually become therapy dogs in this program, we just don’t tell them that,” said Susan Jacobs Meadows, Canine Cellmate’s executive director.
The inmates at Fulton report a very high level of satisfaction with the program, and the unconditional love given by the dogs has the potential to completely change the course of an inmate’s life.
"She don't judge me, like people does. I know she loves me. All day. Every day," said one inmate whose plans are now to become a dog trainer upon his release.
The Prison Pet Partnership program in Gig Harbor’s Washington Corrections Center for Women is also a success story. Through the program, homeless animals are rescued and trained for service for people with disabilities. The inmates assist with the training, and also operate a boarding and grooming facility on the grounds.
“Our program benefits all involved — the animals who are given the chance to lead lives of service, the inmates who learn valuable skills so they may find gainful employment upon release, and the individuals with disabilities who receive well-trained dogs to help increase their level of independence,” the program’s mandate states.
Why are prison pet therapy programs so successful? Prisons, and the circumstances that people into them, are harsh. When puppies bound into an inmate’s arms, not caring who that person is or what they have done, combine with inmates that are giving a meaningful purpose to care for a living creature, knowing that the dog will go on to change someone else’s life, it's a powerful thing. Prison pet therapy is a win-win situation that helps to rehabilitate prisoners while teaching them vocational skills for the workplace, and social skills for life.
Christopher Zoukis is the author of Federal Prison Handbook: The Definitive Guide to Surviving the Federal Bureau of Prisons, College for Convicts: The Case for Higher Education in American Prisons (McFarland & Co., 2014) and Prison Education Guide (Prison Legal News Publishing, 2016). He can be found online at ChristopherZoukis.com, PrisonEducation.com and PrisonLawBlog.com.
August 8, 2017
Is There Really Gender Bias in the Justice System?
By Christopher Zoukis
Have you ever watched Investigation Discovery? It’s a television network owned by Discovery Communications. Investigation Discovery, or ID, as it is commonly called, shows documentary-style programs and re-enactments focusing on violent crimes, complete with expert commentary from journalists, law enforcement officers and those impacted by the crimes. Psychologists also weigh in on the shows.
In viewing ID programming, you might notice that female and male criminals are profiled in markedly different ways—especially when it comes to murders. Male killers are painted as “born evil," often portrayed as dark, brooding souls who spend time and effort planning violent crimes from the dark recesses of their minds. Either that, or they are portrayed as simple, hapless fools in love that committed crimes for the women that controlled them.
Female killers, on the other hand, are shown to have “snapped” after years of being normal, are driven to their crimes through desperation, or are portrayed as clingy, obsessive and crazy.
The male actors in the re-enactments are big, tough, often unattractive brutes. They glare at the camera and menace around their scenes. The female actors are either demure, frightened, sweet and sympathetic, or they are portrayed as sirens, wearing sky-high heels, blood-red lipstick and displaying ample cleavage. The female criminals are almost always portrayed as beautiful, even if their real-life counterparts are not considered conventionally attractive.
The conversation in society about male and female criminals is also fraught with stereotypes: men kill because of innate aggression; women kill for love or out of desperation. In reality, prisons do have higher male populations, and men serve longer and harsher sentences compared to women for similar crimes.
But is there a real gender bias at play here, or is it something else? Do men really commit more crimes? Are female criminals truly more sympathetic figures?
According to a study completed by Deborah W. Denno, Arthur A. McGivney Professor of Law at Fordham Law School, there is plenty of evidence to back up these gender stereotypes when it comes to criminals.
Denno completed one of the largest longitudinal studies of biological and sociological predictors of crime in America. The Biosocial Study revealed that men do commit more crimes overall that their crimes are more violent in nature than are women’s, and that both sociological and environmental factors can predict crimes among men.
Biological factors were stronger predictors of crimes for women. So, broadly, men become aggressive due to their environments and women due to their biology. Denno went into depth on this topic in the Gender Differences in Biological and Sociological Predictors of Crime talk that she presented at a symposium on Biology, Behavior, and the Criminal Law in 1997.
However, Denno’s research is far from singular. Denise-Marie Ordway is a research reporter and editor for the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstien Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy’s Journalists Resource publication. Ordway cites research from the University of Pennsylvania that says heart rates are also a contributing factor to the differences in crime rates between the genders.
“As of February 2017, 93.3 percent of federal inmates were men, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons,” Ordway writes. One study has found that men with lower heart rates are 39 percent more likely to be convicted of violent crimes, 25 percent more likely to be convicted of non-violent crimes, and 39 percent more likely to incur injuries from an assault. " A low heart rate explains some of the link between gender and crime. Although findings do not document causality and do not suggest that a low heart rate completely accounts for the gender gap, they are, to our knowledge, the first to show that lower heart rates in males partly explain their higher levels of offending,” Ordway concludes.
She also notes that the University of Pennsylvania study correlated higher resting heart rates in female criminals, which may partly explain why the female prison population is so much lower than the male population. Men overall have lower resting heart rates compared to women. Other studies have shown low heart rates can be partly responsible for driving people to seek out adrenaline-spiking, risk-taking experiences that boost their heart rates.
Even Johnathan Strickland, a writer and podcaster for the very popular explainer website How Stuff Works, has jumped into this ongoing discussion of gender differences in the criminal justice system. Strickland discovered that even in populations where females outnumbered males, crimes committed by men were more aggressive and violent.
So far, research conducted by groups with different interests in the subject of gender bias and crime come up with similar basic results: men commit more crimes than women, and men’s crimes are more violent. While there is no definitive, all-encompassing answer as to why, various studies have turned up strong evidence for socio-economic factors, biology and even gender-conforming stereotypes. As the issue of what truly constitutes gender continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how the topic of gender as related to criminal behaviour evolves as well.
-Christopher Zoukis is the author of Federal Prison Handbook: The Definitive Guide to Surviving the Federal Bureau of Prisons, College for Convicts: The Case for Higher Education in American Prisons (McFarland & Co., 2014) and Prison Education Guide (Prison Legal News Publishing, 2016). He can be found online at ChristopherZoukis.com, PrisonEducation.com and PrisonLawBlog.com.
Have you ever watched Investigation Discovery? It’s a television network owned by Discovery Communications. Investigation Discovery, or ID, as it is commonly called, shows documentary-style programs and re-enactments focusing on violent crimes, complete with expert commentary from journalists, law enforcement officers and those impacted by the crimes. Psychologists also weigh in on the shows.
In viewing ID programming, you might notice that female and male criminals are profiled in markedly different ways—especially when it comes to murders. Male killers are painted as “born evil," often portrayed as dark, brooding souls who spend time and effort planning violent crimes from the dark recesses of their minds. Either that, or they are portrayed as simple, hapless fools in love that committed crimes for the women that controlled them.
Female killers, on the other hand, are shown to have “snapped” after years of being normal, are driven to their crimes through desperation, or are portrayed as clingy, obsessive and crazy.
The male actors in the re-enactments are big, tough, often unattractive brutes. They glare at the camera and menace around their scenes. The female actors are either demure, frightened, sweet and sympathetic, or they are portrayed as sirens, wearing sky-high heels, blood-red lipstick and displaying ample cleavage. The female criminals are almost always portrayed as beautiful, even if their real-life counterparts are not considered conventionally attractive.
The conversation in society about male and female criminals is also fraught with stereotypes: men kill because of innate aggression; women kill for love or out of desperation. In reality, prisons do have higher male populations, and men serve longer and harsher sentences compared to women for similar crimes.
But is there a real gender bias at play here, or is it something else? Do men really commit more crimes? Are female criminals truly more sympathetic figures?
According to a study completed by Deborah W. Denno, Arthur A. McGivney Professor of Law at Fordham Law School, there is plenty of evidence to back up these gender stereotypes when it comes to criminals.
Denno completed one of the largest longitudinal studies of biological and sociological predictors of crime in America. The Biosocial Study revealed that men do commit more crimes overall that their crimes are more violent in nature than are women’s, and that both sociological and environmental factors can predict crimes among men.
Biological factors were stronger predictors of crimes for women. So, broadly, men become aggressive due to their environments and women due to their biology. Denno went into depth on this topic in the Gender Differences in Biological and Sociological Predictors of Crime talk that she presented at a symposium on Biology, Behavior, and the Criminal Law in 1997.
However, Denno’s research is far from singular. Denise-Marie Ordway is a research reporter and editor for the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstien Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy’s Journalists Resource publication. Ordway cites research from the University of Pennsylvania that says heart rates are also a contributing factor to the differences in crime rates between the genders.
“As of February 2017, 93.3 percent of federal inmates were men, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons,” Ordway writes. One study has found that men with lower heart rates are 39 percent more likely to be convicted of violent crimes, 25 percent more likely to be convicted of non-violent crimes, and 39 percent more likely to incur injuries from an assault. " A low heart rate explains some of the link between gender and crime. Although findings do not document causality and do not suggest that a low heart rate completely accounts for the gender gap, they are, to our knowledge, the first to show that lower heart rates in males partly explain their higher levels of offending,” Ordway concludes.
She also notes that the University of Pennsylvania study correlated higher resting heart rates in female criminals, which may partly explain why the female prison population is so much lower than the male population. Men overall have lower resting heart rates compared to women. Other studies have shown low heart rates can be partly responsible for driving people to seek out adrenaline-spiking, risk-taking experiences that boost their heart rates.
Even Johnathan Strickland, a writer and podcaster for the very popular explainer website How Stuff Works, has jumped into this ongoing discussion of gender differences in the criminal justice system. Strickland discovered that even in populations where females outnumbered males, crimes committed by men were more aggressive and violent.
So far, research conducted by groups with different interests in the subject of gender bias and crime come up with similar basic results: men commit more crimes than women, and men’s crimes are more violent. While there is no definitive, all-encompassing answer as to why, various studies have turned up strong evidence for socio-economic factors, biology and even gender-conforming stereotypes. As the issue of what truly constitutes gender continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how the topic of gender as related to criminal behaviour evolves as well.
-Christopher Zoukis is the author of Federal Prison Handbook: The Definitive Guide to Surviving the Federal Bureau of Prisons, College for Convicts: The Case for Higher Education in American Prisons (McFarland & Co., 2014) and Prison Education Guide (Prison Legal News Publishing, 2016). He can be found online at ChristopherZoukis.com, PrisonEducation.com and PrisonLawBlog.com.
July 25, 2017
Charged Up! podcast: The cost of debt in prison
A podcast with author Christopher Zoukis talking about the most important lessons life behind bars teaches you about finance in the real world.
http://www.creditcards.com/credit-car...
http://www.creditcards.com/credit-car...
June 30, 2017
Appeals Court Tosses FCC Rate Controls on Most Prison Calls
Advocates of government action on lowering phone rates for calls to prison and jail inmates were handed a major setback June 13 when three-judge panel of a Washington, D.C. federal appeals court ruled the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lacked legal authority to impose rate limits on intrastate calls to inmates.
In October 2015, the agency – then under Democratic control – voted 3-2 along party lines to issue rules blocking state prisons or local jails from charging inmates more than 11 cents per minute on local and long-distance calls, plus a variety of changes, including caps or bans on a host of other charges, such as for video and other technically advanced services. About 80 percent of inmate calls are intrastate.
A coalition of inmates, their families, and other activists supported the agency’s action, and some even argued for farther-reaching steps, arguing that the high expense of inmate calls interferes with keeping ties with their families and communities. Studies show inmates who stay in contact with their families while incarcerated have lower recidivism rates.
In 2016, companies providing inmate calling services filed a challenge to the new FCC rules in a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., as did a group of eight states. Both groups argued many of the regulations exceeded the agency’s authority.
Certain parts of the FCC rules drew challenges from one group or the other. For example, the states challenging the rules said the low FCC-set cap on intrastate call rates would keep state prisons and local jails from recovering their costs for security-related services and technology updates needed for inmate phone systems. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners also opposed the FCC rules as exceeding the agency’s authority.
Earlier this year, while reviewing the legal challenges, the appellate court twice froze large sections of the rules, including the intrastate rate cap. After the Trump administration took control, the FCC’s new chairman – who had been one of the two dissenting agency members when the rules were adopted – announced the FCC would stop defending the rule in court. He pledged he’d work on relief from expensive prison and jail phone rates, but “in a lawful manner.” It was left to a variety of intervening advocates to defend the FCC rules.
But on June 13, the three-judge panel handed down a 2-1 decision knocking down the intrastate rate cap. Writing for the majority, Judge Harry Edwards held the FCC had misinterpreted the Telecommunications Act, as well as earlier decisions by the agency and courts. The appeals court also dismissed the way the FCC rules calculated industry cost data, saying it was arbitrary and capricious, lacked justification in the rulemaking record, and was unsupported “by reasoned decisionmaking.”
The court also found the FCC exceeded its authority in imposing reporting requirements on video visitation communications. While sending a few issues back to the agency for further work, the decision likely means the end—for the time being—of the effort to impose federal regulations on most phone calls to jail and prison inmates.
In October 2015, the agency – then under Democratic control – voted 3-2 along party lines to issue rules blocking state prisons or local jails from charging inmates more than 11 cents per minute on local and long-distance calls, plus a variety of changes, including caps or bans on a host of other charges, such as for video and other technically advanced services. About 80 percent of inmate calls are intrastate.
A coalition of inmates, their families, and other activists supported the agency’s action, and some even argued for farther-reaching steps, arguing that the high expense of inmate calls interferes with keeping ties with their families and communities. Studies show inmates who stay in contact with their families while incarcerated have lower recidivism rates.
In 2016, companies providing inmate calling services filed a challenge to the new FCC rules in a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., as did a group of eight states. Both groups argued many of the regulations exceeded the agency’s authority.
Certain parts of the FCC rules drew challenges from one group or the other. For example, the states challenging the rules said the low FCC-set cap on intrastate call rates would keep state prisons and local jails from recovering their costs for security-related services and technology updates needed for inmate phone systems. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners also opposed the FCC rules as exceeding the agency’s authority.
Earlier this year, while reviewing the legal challenges, the appellate court twice froze large sections of the rules, including the intrastate rate cap. After the Trump administration took control, the FCC’s new chairman – who had been one of the two dissenting agency members when the rules were adopted – announced the FCC would stop defending the rule in court. He pledged he’d work on relief from expensive prison and jail phone rates, but “in a lawful manner.” It was left to a variety of intervening advocates to defend the FCC rules.
But on June 13, the three-judge panel handed down a 2-1 decision knocking down the intrastate rate cap. Writing for the majority, Judge Harry Edwards held the FCC had misinterpreted the Telecommunications Act, as well as earlier decisions by the agency and courts. The appeals court also dismissed the way the FCC rules calculated industry cost data, saying it was arbitrary and capricious, lacked justification in the rulemaking record, and was unsupported “by reasoned decisionmaking.”
The court also found the FCC exceeded its authority in imposing reporting requirements on video visitation communications. While sending a few issues back to the agency for further work, the decision likely means the end—for the time being—of the effort to impose federal regulations on most phone calls to jail and prison inmates.
June 28, 2017
Alabama Enacts New Law to Speed Death Penalty Appeals
The Alabama Senate gave final passage on May 18th to the “Fair Justice Act” (Senate bill 187), a measure designed to speed up state appeals in death penalty cases, and on May 26th, Gov. Kay Ivey signed it into law.
That was also the day that Alabama carried out its long-delayed execution of Tommy Arthur, a 75-year-old inmate who had been convicted of a murder committed in 1982. Over the last 16 years, his execution had been scheduled on seven different dates, but each time was postponed by a series of legal appeals. The widely-publicized case highlighted how inmates in the state sometimes can remain on Death Row for decades.
The new bill, which will cover sentencing from July 1, sets new deadlines for filing appeals under state law, as well as how long state courts can take in deciding on those appeals. It would, for capital cases, amend Alabama’s Rule 32 on post-conviction appeals based on trial defects, such as jury misconduct or ineffective assistance of counsel, by requiring that such appeals be brought at the same time as any other appeals the defendant may make.
Without this change, inmates facing death sentences can wait up to a full year after a direct appeal of their conviction before filing a Rule 32 appeal and beginning what can be a lengthy appeals process. The new law affects only appeals based on state law, so does not have any effect on appeals based on federal legal or constitutional claims.
State Attorney General Steve Marshall, a supporter of the bill, said it will allow death penalty appeals to “proceed in a fair and efficient manner,” providing justice to all parties and avoiding prolonging the suffering of victims’ families. He estimates the new state law could bring an average five to six-year reduction in the time it takes the state to carry out death sentences, which would save the state more than $100,000 in total incarceration costs per condemned inmate. As of mid-June, Alabama had 182 inmates with death penalty convictions.
Marshall also claims that even with the sped-up timeline for appeals, the new law will not reduce inmates’ opportunities for appeal, and will bring them better legal representation by requiring that they be appointed counsel for Rule 32 post-conviction appeals within 30 days of receiving a death sentence.
But opponents of the measure, including the American Bar Association, disagree. ABA president Linda A. Klein wrote legislators saying the bill would be “unlikely to achieve its intended goal of streamlining justice,” since it might “unduly limit counsel’s ability” to investigate potential issues for post-conviction appeals. Although the group takes no position on the death penalty itself, the ABA said the Alabama law runs counter to guidelines it has adopted for how appeals for such cases, including post-conviction appeals, should be handled.
Streamlining appeals procedures is not the only capital case topic on which Alabama has legislated recently. In April, Gov. Ivey signed into law a bill passed by wide margins in the legislature to end the state’s unique law allowing judges to impose the death penalty even when a jury has recommended life imprisonment instead.
That was also the day that Alabama carried out its long-delayed execution of Tommy Arthur, a 75-year-old inmate who had been convicted of a murder committed in 1982. Over the last 16 years, his execution had been scheduled on seven different dates, but each time was postponed by a series of legal appeals. The widely-publicized case highlighted how inmates in the state sometimes can remain on Death Row for decades.
The new bill, which will cover sentencing from July 1, sets new deadlines for filing appeals under state law, as well as how long state courts can take in deciding on those appeals. It would, for capital cases, amend Alabama’s Rule 32 on post-conviction appeals based on trial defects, such as jury misconduct or ineffective assistance of counsel, by requiring that such appeals be brought at the same time as any other appeals the defendant may make.
Without this change, inmates facing death sentences can wait up to a full year after a direct appeal of their conviction before filing a Rule 32 appeal and beginning what can be a lengthy appeals process. The new law affects only appeals based on state law, so does not have any effect on appeals based on federal legal or constitutional claims.
State Attorney General Steve Marshall, a supporter of the bill, said it will allow death penalty appeals to “proceed in a fair and efficient manner,” providing justice to all parties and avoiding prolonging the suffering of victims’ families. He estimates the new state law could bring an average five to six-year reduction in the time it takes the state to carry out death sentences, which would save the state more than $100,000 in total incarceration costs per condemned inmate. As of mid-June, Alabama had 182 inmates with death penalty convictions.
Marshall also claims that even with the sped-up timeline for appeals, the new law will not reduce inmates’ opportunities for appeal, and will bring them better legal representation by requiring that they be appointed counsel for Rule 32 post-conviction appeals within 30 days of receiving a death sentence.
But opponents of the measure, including the American Bar Association, disagree. ABA president Linda A. Klein wrote legislators saying the bill would be “unlikely to achieve its intended goal of streamlining justice,” since it might “unduly limit counsel’s ability” to investigate potential issues for post-conviction appeals. Although the group takes no position on the death penalty itself, the ABA said the Alabama law runs counter to guidelines it has adopted for how appeals for such cases, including post-conviction appeals, should be handled.
Streamlining appeals procedures is not the only capital case topic on which Alabama has legislated recently. In April, Gov. Ivey signed into law a bill passed by wide margins in the legislature to end the state’s unique law allowing judges to impose the death penalty even when a jury has recommended life imprisonment instead.
Alabama Executes Inmate First Sentenced to Death 34 Years Earlier
On May 26, 75-year-old Tommy Arthur died by lethal injection in Alabama's Holman Correctional Facility, ending a decades-long legal drama begun 34 years earlier.
Sentenced to death for the 1982 murder-for-hire shooting of the sleeping husband of the woman with whom he was having an affair, Arthur was scheduled for execution seven times between 2001 and 2016, but each time the state was stymied by challenges brought by his volunteer legal team.
At the time of the slaying, Arthur was on work release while serving a life sentence for the 1977 second-degree murder of his common-law wife's sister. Judy Wicker, the wife of the slain man originally claimed her husband had been killed by an unknown intruder, but eventually recanted, saying she paid Arthur $10,000, part of the proceeds she received from a her husband's life insurance policy.
Testifying against Arthur repeatedly in his trials for aggravated murder, Wicker was convicted of charges related to her husband’s murder and ended up serving 10 years. Two of Arthur’s trials produced convictions that were overturned on appeal, before he was finally found guilty and again sentenced to death in 1992.
The day before his execution, Arthur won a brief stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, only to see it lifted later the same day, and his request for the high court to hear an appeal was denied. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented to both actions, saying she remained concerned about the use of the sedative midazolam in the state’s three-drug execution protocol, questioning its constitutionality in case it failed to render the condemned inmate incapable of feeling excruciating pain as the two other drugs paralyzed his respiratory system and stopped his heart.
Sotomayor’s dissent also cited examples of apparently botched executions in recent years, and noted one federal appeals court had blocked the state of Ohio from using a three-drug execution protocol that included midazolam. Press accounts of the execution described Arthur as seeming to drift off to sleep after being given the sedative, however.
Sotomayor’s dissent also took issue with the state denying Arthur’s counsel the right to have his cellphone when witnessing the execution, in order to be able to call a court to seek legal relief if the execution appeared to be causing Arthur unusual pain. She stated the state had no legitimate reason to block Arthur’s lawyer from having his cellphone while witnessing the carrying out of his client’s death sentence, and as a result the condemned inmate would “leave his constitutional rights at the door” when he entered the execution chamber.
A federal district court judge had upheld the state’s excluding the lawyer’s phone. In February the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Arthur’s challenge to the constitutionality of Alabama’s three-drug execution protocol.
The Supreme Court’s brief consideration of Arthur’s final appeal moved his execution time from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.— an hour before the execution order was due to expire. Afterward, a statement from state Attorney General Steve Marshall said the execution had brought to an end Arthur’s “protracted effort to escape justice” 34 years after he was first sentenced, and would allow the victim’s family to begin their long-delayed process of recovery.
Sentenced to death for the 1982 murder-for-hire shooting of the sleeping husband of the woman with whom he was having an affair, Arthur was scheduled for execution seven times between 2001 and 2016, but each time the state was stymied by challenges brought by his volunteer legal team.
At the time of the slaying, Arthur was on work release while serving a life sentence for the 1977 second-degree murder of his common-law wife's sister. Judy Wicker, the wife of the slain man originally claimed her husband had been killed by an unknown intruder, but eventually recanted, saying she paid Arthur $10,000, part of the proceeds she received from a her husband's life insurance policy.
Testifying against Arthur repeatedly in his trials for aggravated murder, Wicker was convicted of charges related to her husband’s murder and ended up serving 10 years. Two of Arthur’s trials produced convictions that were overturned on appeal, before he was finally found guilty and again sentenced to death in 1992.
The day before his execution, Arthur won a brief stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, only to see it lifted later the same day, and his request for the high court to hear an appeal was denied. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented to both actions, saying she remained concerned about the use of the sedative midazolam in the state’s three-drug execution protocol, questioning its constitutionality in case it failed to render the condemned inmate incapable of feeling excruciating pain as the two other drugs paralyzed his respiratory system and stopped his heart.
Sotomayor’s dissent also cited examples of apparently botched executions in recent years, and noted one federal appeals court had blocked the state of Ohio from using a three-drug execution protocol that included midazolam. Press accounts of the execution described Arthur as seeming to drift off to sleep after being given the sedative, however.
Sotomayor’s dissent also took issue with the state denying Arthur’s counsel the right to have his cellphone when witnessing the execution, in order to be able to call a court to seek legal relief if the execution appeared to be causing Arthur unusual pain. She stated the state had no legitimate reason to block Arthur’s lawyer from having his cellphone while witnessing the carrying out of his client’s death sentence, and as a result the condemned inmate would “leave his constitutional rights at the door” when he entered the execution chamber.
A federal district court judge had upheld the state’s excluding the lawyer’s phone. In February the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Arthur’s challenge to the constitutionality of Alabama’s three-drug execution protocol.
The Supreme Court’s brief consideration of Arthur’s final appeal moved his execution time from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.— an hour before the execution order was due to expire. Afterward, a statement from state Attorney General Steve Marshall said the execution had brought to an end Arthur’s “protracted effort to escape justice” 34 years after he was first sentenced, and would allow the victim’s family to begin their long-delayed process of recovery.
