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Most people don't realize that in most states it's a serious crime to take a picture or film a police officer.  Recording a cop with your cell phone while he's busily beating a helpless citizen, for example, means you go to jail — not the cop!

So….Which offense do you think carries the greatest penalty — rape or recording a cop?

Wrong.  In Illinois, for example, they carry the same sentence: 15 years in prison.   That’s right: using your cell phone to record cops committing crimes can land you in prison for 15 years (although it’s perfectly legal for the cop to record you).

An eye-opening news video entitled "Valley Man Faces 75 Years in Prison for Recording Law Enforcement" documented the plight of Illinois citizen Michael Allison.  Allison was facing 75 years in prison for five counts of openly audio taping public officials – a sentence usually reserved for murderers.  When he sued police for discriminatory law enforcement, the judge at trial refused to provide a court reporter.  Understandably wanting a record of the proceedings, including the cops’ testimony, Allison told the judge he would record them himself.  He was later arrested and the recording confiscated. 

These laws are not limited to Illinois.  Designed to protect cops and public officials from public scrutiny, they exist in many states across the country.  And one has to question why they exist at all in a supposedly free and open society — much less carrying sentences usually reserved for murderers and rapists.  Are cops and officials that afraid of having their conduct exposed to the light?

I wonder if taping a cop in China, Russia or North Korea is punished as severely as in Illinois – if at all?
 

DUI BLOG

A man originally convicted of first-degree murder in a driving while impaired case is being released from prison today. Authorities had alleged at his trial that he was drinking and taking prescription medication before he was involved in a fatal accident September 4, 1996. Two Wake Forest students were killed in that car accident, a third was injured.

The man was convicted of first-degree murder in 1997, the first person to be convicted of such a crime in a DWI case. The North Carolina Supreme Court agreed with the criminal defense that prosecutors were wrong in seeking the first-degree murder charge. The state’s highest court threw out the conviction.

In 2003, the man faced a new trial, and eventually pled guilty to a second-degree murder charge. The judge imposed a sentence of 15 to 18 years in prison on the subsequent conviction, with credit for roughly six-and-a-half years of time served.

While the case set precedent that first-degree murder charges are not available to prosecutors in a DWI case, the events led to tougher DWI laws in North Carolina. In 1997, North Carolina DWI laws were stiffened as a result of the case. The new DWI law in 1997 set a mandatory minimum sentence for habitual drunk drivers and included a license revocation provision for North Carolina drivers charged with DWI.

The man is scheduled for release from prison after serving roughly 15 years. He will be released on post-release supervision for nine months in Iredell County. During his supervised release, strict terms will be monitored by his probation officer.

Source: Winston-Salem Journal, “Figure in landmark impaired-driving case leaves prison today,” Michael Hewlett, April 11, 2012

Greenville DUI Attorney Blog | North Carolina Underage Drinking Lawyer | Pitt County First DUI Law Firm

It is a well-documented fact that our prison population continues to grow at a rate outpacing that of the population.  As of the end of 2009, we now have the dubious distinction of having the largest per-capita prison population in the world — according to Wikipedia and U.S. Department of Justice statistics, 749 of every 100,000 citizens, or about 1% of adults in the U.S.

In a well-reasoned and fascinating article appearing in today’s issue of The New Yorker entitled "The Caging of America", author Adam Gopnick analyzes the reasons behind this growing phenomenon.  In doing so, he comments upon an almost uniquely American development:
 

New York, NY.  Jan.30 — …(A) growing number of American prisons are now contracted out as for-profit businesses to for-profit companies. The companies are paid by the state, and their profit depends on spending as little as possible on the prisoners and the prisons. It’s hard to imagine any greater disconnect between public good and private profit: the interest of private prisons lies not in the obvious social good of having the minimum necessary number of inmates but in having as many as possible, housed as cheaply as possible. No more chilling document exists in recent American life than the 2005 annual report of the biggest of these firms, the Corrections Corporation of America. Here the company (which spends millions lobbying legislators) is obliged to caution its investors about the risk that somehow, somewhere, someone might turn off the spigot of convicted men:

Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities. . . . The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.

It is, of course, the "American Way" for big corporations to spend millions through lobbyists to influence legislation and policies which contribute to increased profits.  Are we that far from our fellow citizens being incarcerated because of laws that are designed to improve the "business" of prisons — i.e., increase the supply of prisoners?  

Is it already happening?

(Thanks to attorney Deandra Grant of Richardson, Texas.)
 

DUI BLOG

In today’s DUI double standard department…

Waco Man Gets Life Sentence for Driving Drunk

Waco, TX.  June 10 — A man has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of drunken driving — his ninth such charge since 1984.

Defense attorney Melanie Walker had told jurors no one was seriously injured in last year’s rollover accident and her client suffers from alcoholism.

However, prosecutor Lauren McLeod said alcoholism is no excuse for criminal behavior.

The Waco Tribune-Herald reports that the 52-year-old Sneed and his wife both testified that she was driving. Karroll Sneed told jurors she fled over fears of being jailed on misdemeanor warrants. Sneed said he took the blame out of concern for his wife, who had recently suffered a stroke.

Life in prison for a DUI?  Rape gets 15 years, 2nd degree murder 25.  Just an aberration, right?  Wrong.  See, for example, Third DUI = Life in Prison (Mississippi, alcoholic with 2 priors), Another Life Sentence for Drunk Driving (Texas, alcoholic with 9 priors), 99 Years for Drunk Driving (Texas, alcoholic with 7 priors). 

One of the premier DUI attorneys in the country, Troy McKinney of Houston, made an Open Records Act demand on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, asking:  How many Texans are serving sentences of 60 years to life in prison for drunk driving? Not for drunk driving resulting in injury or death — just for drunk driving (or driving over .08%). The response from the Department:

21 to 25 years    125 

26 to 30 years     39 

31 to 40 years     55 

41 to 59 years     16

And finally:

60 to 98 years     23 

99 years 6 Life     13

Repeat: These are sentences just for drunk driving or driving over .08% — not for DWI causing death or serious injury. To trigger the longer sentences, the DWI was at least the offender’s fourth offense.

It would be a fairly safe assumption that these prisoners are alcoholics. In other words, life in prison for having a genetically-predisposed disease and being unable to control it…..without help.

So, what if they got help? What does it cost to keep a citizen in prison for the rest of his life? For even one year? And what does it cost to offer that person rehabilitative therapy? Even, perhaps, to involuntarily commit him to a facility for treatment of the disease?

Justice and humanity aside, do the math….

DUI BLOG