Education or prison? Measure 11 skews our spending priorities.
I routinely try to convince a judge to be lenient; it’s part of my job. I’m opposed to Measure 11 because it’s vindictive and not tailored to individual defendants. But I’m also opposed to it because it’s expensive and not cost-effective. Mandatory minimum sentences, and extremely long sentences, and the outrageously-expensive process for imposing the death penalty, are lousy...
Read MoreIn Post-Conviction Relief appeal, Oregon Court of Appeals will consider actual-innocence claim
I represent in a post-conviction relief appeal a fellow who was convicted of sex offenses ten years ago. The victim of the offenses has since come forward to deny that my client committed the offenses; rather, she was persuaded to accuse my client by a relative who disliked my client. In the post-conviction trial court, the state moved to dismiss, arguing that post-conviction relief is not...
Read MoreThe right to a grand jury indictment has lost its usefulness.
Grand juries once protected citizens from official harassment, because prosecution for serious criminal charges was not possible unless an independent grand jury decided that the evidence warranted it. The right to a grand-jury indictment in criminal cases is protected by the Fifth Amendment, and many states, including Oregon, have a comparable constitutional provision. Although grand juries were...
Read MoreOnly a crazy person would plead insanity
The insanity defense has a reputation as a loophole that lets serious criminals wriggle out of the criminal justice system into a relaxing stay in a cushy hospital. That image is a little tarnished; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest isn’t quite a documentary, but it definitely has some realistic elements. In Oregon, an insanity disposition is worse for most people than an ordinary conviction. A...
Read MoreWhy are we still spending money building more prisons?
Gov. Kitzhaber has wisely suggested that we stop building a new prison in Junction City and use the savings for other services, notably education. http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/updates/25841770-55/kitzhaber-spending-education-state-budget.csp Prisons are full of people with poor educations and poor job prospects, and I suspect that a public dollar spent on education will do more...
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