Matthew T. Mangino
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/Ipso Facto
June 15, 2012
Many experts predicted that a sour economy would usher in an increase in crime. Yet the recession did not result in out-of-work, law abiding citizens desperately resorting to crime to make ends meet. Crime continued to fall.
However, the economy’s impact on crime has not yet played itself out. State and local governments are still in decline -- government budgets have been adjusted with policing, corrections and the courts taking a hit.
The effect of the economic downturn on law enforcement agencies may be felt for years to come, or worse, permanently. The permanence of this change will be driven not just by the economy, but by the realization that it is no longer feasible for local government officials to allocate a significant portion of the general fund budgets for public safety.
More than 50 percent of police departments nationwide have reported personnel layoffs. Communities across the country are beginning to feel it. No more so than in New Jersey.
Police layoffs in Newark, which took effect December 1, 2010, seemed to have had an immediate effect on arrests. Between January and June of 2011, police recorded nearly 4,000 fewer arrests than they did during the same period in 2010.
The Economic Policy Institute reported there is more to cost-cutting than meets the eye. Cuts to the police force of five high-crime cities in New Jersey, including Newark, actually cost 12.9 times more than the budgetary savings of eliminating the officers, when the cost of rising crime was factored into the equation. Public safety cuts are not only dangerous, they’re bad business.
The reality of fewer policing resources has caused police departments to re-evaluate priorities. Although, cash strapped departments have pledged that emergency response will not be diminished -- there will inevitably be a change in the way police departments handle non-emergencies. The response time, if there is a response, for crimes like burglary, theft and vandalism -- quality of life crimes -- will be impacted.
That might not seem like a big deal, but New York City, the shining example of crime control, began their crusade against crime in the early 1990s by following James Q. Wilson’s Broken Windows theory. Wilson suggested vigorously cracking down on nuisance crimes and violent crime rates will drop. In 1990 there were 2,245 murders in NYC -- in 2011 there were 515.
The new economic reality may limit resource-driven crime control efforts like NYC’s, and that portends disaster. Professor James Alan Fox recently sounded the alarm. From July through December 2011 several crime categories showed an increase, including a 1.9 percent increase in murder.
Fox wrote in the Boston Globe, "Whatever the final data show, it would seem that the long-term downturn in crime has slowed, and may even have bottomed out … If we fail to invest sufficiently in crime prevention and crime control -- both personnel and programs, we may someday look back at 2011 and consider them the 'good old days.' "
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Showing posts with label Police. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Police. Show all posts
Friday, June 15, 2012
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Eyewitness Identification Comes to the Forefront
Eyewitness testimony is often thought of as the best and most reliable evidence presented during a criminal trial
According to Reason magazine, psychologists have long known about the fallibility of human memory. As far back as 1971, England's Criminal Law Review Committee warned that over-reliance on eyewitness testimony could lead to false convictions.
This is not to suggest that eyewitness identification is completely unreliable. In fact, eyewitness testimony remains the most common form of evidence used to prosecute alleged offenders. However, concern has grown as it became clear that mistaken identifications have played a significant role in wrongful convictions.
In "Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong," University of Virginia School of Law professor Brandon L. Garrett wrote that 190 of the 250 convictions overturned by DNA evidence where the result of faulty eyewitness identifications.
The issue of eyewitness identification is in the spotlight as a result of a recent New Jersey Supreme Court decision and the U.S. Supreme Court decision to review eyewitness identification.
New Jersey's Supreme Court decided last week to overhaul the state's rules for how judges and jurors evaluate evidence from police lineups, reported The New York Times . The decision could help transform the manner in which police officers administer lineups — a fundamental aspect of police work.
In its ruling, State of New Jersey v. Henderson , the New Jersey Supreme Court strongly endorsed decades of research demonstrating that traditional eyewitness identification procedures have limitations and can result in unintentional misidentifications. The decision provides a framework for defendants to challenge eyewitness evidence in criminal cases. The court, for the first time, attached consequences for investigators who fail to take steps to reduce the subtle pressures and influences on witnesses that can result in mistaken identifications.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the due process clause requires judges to exclude, at times, eyewitness testimony based on unreliability. In its 1977 decision Manson v. Brathwaite , the U.S. Supreme Court held that the trial court must first decide whether an eyewitness identification was in fact impermissibly suggestive. If the court finds that the procedure was impermissibly suggestive, it must then decide whether the objectionable procedure resulted in a "very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification." In carrying out the second part of the analysis, the court must focus on the reliability of the identification. If the court finds that the identification is reliable despite the impermissibly suggestive nature of the procedure, the identification may be admitted into evidence.
As the Supreme Court explained, "reliability is the linchpin in determining the admissibility of identification testimony." To assess reliability, the trial court must consider five factors:
• The opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime.
• The witness's degree of attention.
• The accuracy of his prior description of the criminal.
• The level of certainty demonstrated at the time of the confrontation.
• The time between the crime and the confrontation.
The U.S. Supreme Court will take up the issue of eyewitness identification this fall. In Perry v. New Hampshire , the Supreme Court must determine if due process protections apply to all eyewitness identifications made under suggestive circumstances or just those identifications made when the suggestive circumstances were the result of police actions.
The special master appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court found that science has proven that memory is malleable. A substantial body of eyewitness identification research has revealed that an array of variables can affect and dilute memory and lead to misidentifications.
The New Jersey Supreme Court agreed with the special master that "[t]he science abundantly demonstrates the many vagaries of memory encoding, storage, and retrieval; the malleability of memory; the contaminating effects of extrinsic information; the influence of police interview techniques and identification procedures; and the many other factors that bear on the reliability of eyewitness identifications."
Some states have instituted changes to their eyewitness identification procedures. In 2001, New Jersey's attorney general issued a memorandum to all law enforcement agencies establishing a statewide protocol for eyewitness identifications. In 2005, Wisconsin's attorney general issued a similar set of identification guidelines recommending, among other things, "double-blind, sequential photo arrays and lineups with non-suspect fillers chosen to minimize suggestiveness, non-biased instructions to eyewitnesses, and assessments of confidence immediately after identifications."
North Carolina was the first state to pass legislation mandating, among other things, pre-lineup instructions and blind and sequential lineup administration. The special master cited Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia, and Wisconsin as having passed similar laws regarding lineup practices.
Pennsylvania law regarding eyewitness identification seems to have lagged behind other jurisdictions.
In the state Supreme Court case Commonwealth v. Robinson , the defendant sought to offer expert testimony shedding light upon the reliability of eyewitness identifications. The court noted that the use of expert testimony to challenge eyewitness identification had already been rejected in Pennsylvania. The only new wrinkle with Robinson was the issue of cross-racial identification. The appellant argued that the victim, who was white, would have greater difficulty identifying an African-American suspect.
The court found that allowing an expert to testify that a cross-racial identification is less reliable than a same-race identification would improperly intrude upon credibility determinations that remain the sole province of the jury.
However, change may be coming in Pennsylvania with the regard to the use of expert witnesses. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer , this past March a state Superior Court panel ruled in Commonwealth v. Alicea , that lawyers could use an expert to explain to a jury why some people are especially vulnerable to being pressured into confessing to a crime they did not commit.
The Superior Court ruled that the testimony of an expert on police interrogation and false confessions would not infringe on the jury's ability to assess the credibility of Alicea's claim of a coerced confession. Judge Mary Jane Bowes wrote, "Even those jurors who are aware of police interrogation techniques, or believe that they are aware by watching media and television are unlikely to understand how these methods can lead to an innocent individual confessing."
Establishing evidence-based policies that govern the interaction between law enforcement and eyewitnesses provides the most promising means to avoid eyewitness misidentification and wrongful conviction.
Many municipal police departments in Pennsylvania have adopted at least some reforms as they relate to eyewitness identification. However, those reforms need to be adopted statewide and mandated for every police department in the commonwealth.
Matthew T. Mangino is the former district attorney of Lawrence County, Pa. You can read his blog, The Cautionary Instruction, every Friday at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette legal page Ispo Facto. Contact him at www.mattmangino.com.
Visit Pennsylvania Law Weekly
September 20, 2011
Eyewitness testimony is often thought of as the best and most reliable evidence presented during a criminal trial. Thirty years ago, Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote: "There is almost nothing more convincing than a live human being who takes the stand, points a finger at the defendant, and says, 'That's the one!'"
However, following the publication of hundreds of scholarly studies examining eyewitness identification this widely accepted form of evidence is being called into question.According to Reason magazine, psychologists have long known about the fallibility of human memory. As far back as 1971, England's Criminal Law Review Committee warned that over-reliance on eyewitness testimony could lead to false convictions.
This is not to suggest that eyewitness identification is completely unreliable. In fact, eyewitness testimony remains the most common form of evidence used to prosecute alleged offenders. However, concern has grown as it became clear that mistaken identifications have played a significant role in wrongful convictions.
In "Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong," University of Virginia School of Law professor Brandon L. Garrett wrote that 190 of the 250 convictions overturned by DNA evidence where the result of faulty eyewitness identifications.
The issue of eyewitness identification is in the spotlight as a result of a recent New Jersey Supreme Court decision and the U.S. Supreme Court decision to review eyewitness identification.
New Jersey's Supreme Court decided last week to overhaul the state's rules for how judges and jurors evaluate evidence from police lineups, reported The New York Times . The decision could help transform the manner in which police officers administer lineups — a fundamental aspect of police work.
In its ruling, State of New Jersey v. Henderson , the New Jersey Supreme Court strongly endorsed decades of research demonstrating that traditional eyewitness identification procedures have limitations and can result in unintentional misidentifications. The decision provides a framework for defendants to challenge eyewitness evidence in criminal cases. The court, for the first time, attached consequences for investigators who fail to take steps to reduce the subtle pressures and influences on witnesses that can result in mistaken identifications.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the due process clause requires judges to exclude, at times, eyewitness testimony based on unreliability. In its 1977 decision Manson v. Brathwaite , the U.S. Supreme Court held that the trial court must first decide whether an eyewitness identification was in fact impermissibly suggestive. If the court finds that the procedure was impermissibly suggestive, it must then decide whether the objectionable procedure resulted in a "very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification." In carrying out the second part of the analysis, the court must focus on the reliability of the identification. If the court finds that the identification is reliable despite the impermissibly suggestive nature of the procedure, the identification may be admitted into evidence.
As the Supreme Court explained, "reliability is the linchpin in determining the admissibility of identification testimony." To assess reliability, the trial court must consider five factors:
• The opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime.
• The witness's degree of attention.
• The accuracy of his prior description of the criminal.
• The level of certainty demonstrated at the time of the confrontation.
• The time between the crime and the confrontation.
The U.S. Supreme Court will take up the issue of eyewitness identification this fall. In Perry v. New Hampshire , the Supreme Court must determine if due process protections apply to all eyewitness identifications made under suggestive circumstances or just those identifications made when the suggestive circumstances were the result of police actions.
The special master appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court found that science has proven that memory is malleable. A substantial body of eyewitness identification research has revealed that an array of variables can affect and dilute memory and lead to misidentifications.
The New Jersey Supreme Court agreed with the special master that "[t]he science abundantly demonstrates the many vagaries of memory encoding, storage, and retrieval; the malleability of memory; the contaminating effects of extrinsic information; the influence of police interview techniques and identification procedures; and the many other factors that bear on the reliability of eyewitness identifications."
Some states have instituted changes to their eyewitness identification procedures. In 2001, New Jersey's attorney general issued a memorandum to all law enforcement agencies establishing a statewide protocol for eyewitness identifications. In 2005, Wisconsin's attorney general issued a similar set of identification guidelines recommending, among other things, "double-blind, sequential photo arrays and lineups with non-suspect fillers chosen to minimize suggestiveness, non-biased instructions to eyewitnesses, and assessments of confidence immediately after identifications."
North Carolina was the first state to pass legislation mandating, among other things, pre-lineup instructions and blind and sequential lineup administration. The special master cited Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia, and Wisconsin as having passed similar laws regarding lineup practices.
Pennsylvania law regarding eyewitness identification seems to have lagged behind other jurisdictions.
In the state Supreme Court case Commonwealth v. Robinson , the defendant sought to offer expert testimony shedding light upon the reliability of eyewitness identifications. The court noted that the use of expert testimony to challenge eyewitness identification had already been rejected in Pennsylvania. The only new wrinkle with Robinson was the issue of cross-racial identification. The appellant argued that the victim, who was white, would have greater difficulty identifying an African-American suspect.
The court found that allowing an expert to testify that a cross-racial identification is less reliable than a same-race identification would improperly intrude upon credibility determinations that remain the sole province of the jury.
However, change may be coming in Pennsylvania with the regard to the use of expert witnesses. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer , this past March a state Superior Court panel ruled in Commonwealth v. Alicea , that lawyers could use an expert to explain to a jury why some people are especially vulnerable to being pressured into confessing to a crime they did not commit.
The Superior Court ruled that the testimony of an expert on police interrogation and false confessions would not infringe on the jury's ability to assess the credibility of Alicea's claim of a coerced confession. Judge Mary Jane Bowes wrote, "Even those jurors who are aware of police interrogation techniques, or believe that they are aware by watching media and television are unlikely to understand how these methods can lead to an innocent individual confessing."
Establishing evidence-based policies that govern the interaction between law enforcement and eyewitnesses provides the most promising means to avoid eyewitness misidentification and wrongful conviction.
Many municipal police departments in Pennsylvania have adopted at least some reforms as they relate to eyewitness identification. However, those reforms need to be adopted statewide and mandated for every police department in the commonwealth.
Matthew T. Mangino is the former district attorney of Lawrence County, Pa. You can read his blog, The Cautionary Instruction, every Friday at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette legal page Ispo Facto. Contact him at www.mattmangino.com.
Visit Pennsylvania Law Weekly
Saturday, September 10, 2011
The Cautionary Instruction: How much would you pay for...
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/Ipso Facto
Matthew T. Mangino
September 9, 2011
There has not been a significant terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11. There have been a number of terrorist acts thwarted by intelligence agencies, law enforcement efforts and probably a little luck -- like the shoe bomber, Richard Reid in 2002; the 2006 liquid explosives plot targeting airliners, which resulted in a boon for the travel size shampoo manufacturers; the 2009 Detroit bound airliner plot; and last year’s car bomb in Times Square.
A decade after the horrendous September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Los Angeles Times reported that federal and state governments are spending about $75 billion a year on domestic security, setting up sophisticated radio networks, upgrading emergency medical response equipment, installing surveillance cameras and bombproof walls, and outfitting airport screeners to detect an ever-evolving list of mobile explosives.
“The number of people worldwide who are killed by Muslim-type terrorists, al Qaeda wannabes, is maybe a few hundred outside of war zones. It's basically the same number of people who die drowning in the bathtub each year," said John Mueller, an Ohio State University professor.
Professor Mueller asks, "So if your chance of being killed by a terrorist in the United States is 1 in 3.5 million, the question is, how much do you want to spend to get that down to 1 in 4.5 million?"
Your chance of being killed by a run-of-the-mill domestic murderer is at least 175 times greater than being killed by a terrorist. In 2009, there were 15,214 murders in the U.S., about 5.4 murders for every 100,000 people. The number of murders per capita is down considerably from the mid-1990s, but substantially higher than the death by terrorism threat.
Knowing that, how much would you pay for more police protection?
Congress doesn’t believe you’d pay anything more for police protection -- in fact congress is paying less. The Justice Department’s 2011 budget was slashed by nearly $1 billion -- a 2.9 percent decrease from last year. Local police departments, many of which are already reeling from the economic downturn, are going to feel the pinch.
The cuts represent about a 17 percent across the board reduction for a variety of law enforcement grant programs, and about $296 million less for the Community Oriented Policing Services program that covers the salaries and benefits of newly hired police officers for three years.
Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Bob Casey said cuts to state and local law enforcement and the COPS program, “will negatively impact the safety of my constituents and citizens across the country.”
Visit Matt Mangino
Matthew T. Mangino
September 9, 2011
There has not been a significant terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11. There have been a number of terrorist acts thwarted by intelligence agencies, law enforcement efforts and probably a little luck -- like the shoe bomber, Richard Reid in 2002; the 2006 liquid explosives plot targeting airliners, which resulted in a boon for the travel size shampoo manufacturers; the 2009 Detroit bound airliner plot; and last year’s car bomb in Times Square.
A decade after the horrendous September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Los Angeles Times reported that federal and state governments are spending about $75 billion a year on domestic security, setting up sophisticated radio networks, upgrading emergency medical response equipment, installing surveillance cameras and bombproof walls, and outfitting airport screeners to detect an ever-evolving list of mobile explosives.
“The number of people worldwide who are killed by Muslim-type terrorists, al Qaeda wannabes, is maybe a few hundred outside of war zones. It's basically the same number of people who die drowning in the bathtub each year," said John Mueller, an Ohio State University professor.
Professor Mueller asks, "So if your chance of being killed by a terrorist in the United States is 1 in 3.5 million, the question is, how much do you want to spend to get that down to 1 in 4.5 million?"
Your chance of being killed by a run-of-the-mill domestic murderer is at least 175 times greater than being killed by a terrorist. In 2009, there were 15,214 murders in the U.S., about 5.4 murders for every 100,000 people. The number of murders per capita is down considerably from the mid-1990s, but substantially higher than the death by terrorism threat.
Knowing that, how much would you pay for more police protection?
Congress doesn’t believe you’d pay anything more for police protection -- in fact congress is paying less. The Justice Department’s 2011 budget was slashed by nearly $1 billion -- a 2.9 percent decrease from last year. Local police departments, many of which are already reeling from the economic downturn, are going to feel the pinch.
The cuts represent about a 17 percent across the board reduction for a variety of law enforcement grant programs, and about $296 million less for the Community Oriented Policing Services program that covers the salaries and benefits of newly hired police officers for three years.
Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Bob Casey said cuts to state and local law enforcement and the COPS program, “will negatively impact the safety of my constituents and citizens across the country.”
Visit Matt Mangino
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