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  • Bad Person. Bad Judge.

    Too many people refuse to believe that there are some truly bad people out there. Some people are just bad. Police know this. Judges don’t.

    Is it unfair to throw someone in prison for a long time for a technical violation of parole? Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on the person.

    Just because you can’t convict a person doesn’t mean he’s not guilty. That’s when using probation and parole violations become so important.

    There’s an attempt in Baltimore to crack down on 960 of the most violent people in Baltimore. This is exactly the kind of plan that has worked with great success in other cities to dramatically reduce violence (google: “Boston Miracle). There’s a story in today’s Baltimore Sun about a bad man, Jerrod Rowlett.

    On one hand (the wrong hand) you could see this man as a victim now being locked up for a crime he wasn’t convicted of. On the other hand, the correct hand, this is a bad and violent man who can’t be convicted because his victims are too terrified to testify about his violent and drug-dealing ways. It’s bad that Rowlett shot anybody. But his last shooting is a preventable shame that should (but probably doesn’t) rest on the conscience of Judge Stewart’s.

    Jerrod Rowlett… racked up a dozen criminal charges at a young age and earned such a street reputation that Bealefeld [the police commissioner] knows him by name.
    …
    Rowlett’s first arrest came when he was 16 and accused of first-degree murder, but he was found not guilty. The next year he was convicted of carrying a handgun, but the five-year sentence was suspended. He was found guilty of assault in 2005 and got another five-year suspended sentence.

    In April 2006 city police raided a drug corner and charged him with dealing heroin. He made bail, and the following January a witness said Rowlett shot another man
    …
    Rowlett pleaded guilty in both cases.

    Baltimore Circuit Judge Lynn Stewart signed off on a plea deal that suspended the 15-year prison term, allowing him to walk away with only the time he had served while waiting for the deal, and five years’ probation. This earned him a place on the state’s year-old worst-offenders list.

    The judge in Rowlett’s case, who had agreed to the plea agreement, had stern words at his August hearing. “The court will work with you,” Stewart told him. “But make no doubt about it, sir. If you violate the probation, you’re going to be gone for a long time. Do you understand?”

    Looking down, he mumbled “Yes.”

    In April, police arrested Rowlett again on a gun charge, and probation agents jumped at the chance to send him to prison. Prosecutors dropped the charges when the victim, a family member, recanted the story, but the probation agents still sought a violation.

    Since Rowlett was in the target program, a state probation agent asked Stewart to imprison him anyway by issuing a “no bail” warrant, saying Rowlett failed to tell his agent about the arrest. Stewart declined to issue the warrant on May 7.

    Twenty days later, Rowlett became a suspect in a midday shooting in Northeast Baltimore. He’s now charged with attempted first-degree murder for the fourth time in his life, and he is off the streets – being held without bail until his trial.

    May he stay off the streets. This is one guy I’m willing to pay for to keep locked up and far away from me.

  • Carmelo Anthony in the New York Times

    I’m not a fan of basketball. But I am a little interested in Carmelo Anthony. The only reason I know him is that he (unwittingly) appeared in the Stop Fucking SnitchingDVD that got him and the DVD a lot of press. Bad press for him. Any press was good for the home-produced DVD.

    I felt sorry for the guy who was somehow blamed for the whole Stop Snitching philosophy simply for going back to his hometown of Baltimore and not freaking out when someone recorded him with a camcorder (he doesn’t say much in the DVD other than a little against the last Olympic basketball coach).

    Now he has an Olympic basketball diaryin the New York Times. His writing ain’t too deep. But still, he is in the Times. At least online.

  • Amsterdam Police Officer Killed


    Police Officer Gabriëlle Cevat was shot and killed on her way to work. Cevat saw a drunk driver, called the police station, and proceeded to stop the driver. She was wearing street clothes and displaying her police identification.

    Her killer, a 49-year-old Aruban-born resident of Amsterdam with a criminal record, was arrested in the apartment of his ex-girlfriend, who wasn’t home. Three teenagers who were home fled out a window of the apartment.

    Cevat is just the 5th Amsterdam police officer to be killed since World War II.

  • New international drug use stats

    For years everybody has been citing the same good but somewhat dated stats on comparative drug use in the U.S. and other countries (I know because I did so in my book).

    Well, while I was busy visiting family and friends in Amsterdam last week, a new study was released (in conjunction with the World Health Organization) that updates drug use stats in 17 countries. At first glance, it seems that nothing big has changed in the past 7 years. Here’s the main table.

    Guess what? Good news for all the red, white, and blue flag wavers! U.S.A.! We’re number 1! We’re number 1! In illegal drug use.

    No country comes close to use in cocaine use. And only one country comes close in marijuana: New Zealand. For some reason, that’s not a surprise to me.

  • Why the War on Drug Fails

    A friend and former student of mine, a police officer on Long Island, tells me:
    “Right now heroin is cheaper then crack and cocaine. So it has become the drug of choice. From Jan 07 to Aug 07 there was 42 heroin overdose just in two precinct in Nassau county.”

    There are eight precincts in Nassau County and a total population of 1.3 million. Let’s assume, because I don’t know better, that the 2 precincts represent 1/4 of the population. That’s an annual heroin overdose death rate of 22 per 100,000 people, about twice the national average.

    If we really cared about saving lives, we could save these lives. But we clearly don’t care because we persist in policies that cause deaths. If saving lives were our priority, we could follow the policies of countries with much lower overdose death rates.

    First of all, education. We treat all illegal drugs as equally bad. Zero Tolerance. But all drugs aren’t equally bad. Heroin is a horrible drug. Maybe the worst. Marijuana isn’t really bad at all. Cocaine is somewhere in between. This is important. I would love to give teenagers weed if only they wouldn’t try heroin. At least tell them the truth about weed so they’ll believe it when you tell them to fear heroin.

    Take the Netherlands. Yes, the Netherlands. The country that drug warriors love to laugh at and dismiss because they don’t want to fight our war on drugs. In Amsterdam, you can walk into a tax-paying store and legally buy weed, hash, even magic mushrooms. The government gives out heroin to addicts (not most addicts, however). Prohibitionists say that “sends the wrong message.”

    Here’s the message: in the Netherlands, drug usage rates and overdose rates are much lowerthan in the U.S. (and so is their incarceration rate, while we’re at it).

    Fewer people take drugs because they don’t play the prohibitionist’s drug game. Those that do take drugs don’t die. The overdose rate in the Netherlands is 0.75 per 100,000.

    Get this: in their entire country of over 16 million, there were 122 overdose deaths in a year. That’s fewer than Baltimore City alone. Probably fewer than Nassau County, too.

    We could save lives–tens of thousands of lives each year–if we really cared about saving lives. But we don’t. We see overdoses as unfortunate. Hell, maybe not even that. Overdose deaths “send a good message,” I’ve heard.

    The war on drugs isn’t about saving lives. It’s about maintaining prohibition. Too bad prohibition kills.

  • Nevada ACLU opposes gun control

    I’ve always said the ACLU and NRA should team up. They’re both defending constitutional rights. They’re just defending deferent rights.

    I’m proud to have sworn to defend the Constitutions of of the United States. And I can say in good faith that I did a better job than the President. (I also swore to defend the Constitution of the State of Maryland, but I’d be damned if I could tell you anything it says.)

    Whether it’s gun control or abortion rights–and I’m for both–people have to understand that just because you like something doesn’t make it a Constitutional Right. I like abortion rights, but I’ll be damned if I can find it in the Constitution. I don’t like guns, but the 2nd Amendment certainly protects something.

    In theory, neither the Supreme Court nor the ACLU is political. Of course they both are, but that’s another story. Still, I’m happy when either takes a position that supports what they stand for, and not what they want politically.

    The next time the Supreme Court rules for or against a law you like, take a step back and think about their interpretation of the Constitution and not just whether you like the law.

    So kudos to the Nevada ACLU for defending an individual’s Constitutional right to bear arms. Just because I’m against it, doesn’t mean it’s not a right worth defending. That’s the whole point about rights. If we don’t believe in the Constitution, then it’s just a piece of paper.

    Here’s the story on the Nevada ACLU and gun control.

  • Officer kills 5th criminal

    I received an email with a link to this story. Supercop or super killer. You decide.

  • This is the U.S. on drugs

    An op-ed from the L.A. Times by David W. Fleming and fellow LEAPmember James P. Gray.

    Only cops and crooks have benefited from $2.5 trillion spent fighting trafficking.

    July 5, 2008

    The United States’ so-called war on drugs brings to mind the old saying that if you find yourself trapped in a deep hole, stop digging. Yet, last week, the Senate approved an aid package to combat drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America, with a record $400 million going to Mexico and $65 million to Central America.

    The United States has been spending $69 billion a year worldwide for the last 40 years, for a total of $2.5 trillion, on drug prohibition — with little to show for it. Is anyone actually benefiting from this war? Six groups come to mind.

    The first group are the drug lords in nations such as Colombia, Afghanistan and Mexico, as well as those in the United States. They are making billions of dollars every year — tax free.

    The second group are the street gangs that infest many of our cities and neighborhoods, whose main source of income is the sale of illegal drugs.

    Third are those people in government who are paid well to fight the first two groups. Their powers and bureaucratic fiefdoms grow larger with each tax dollar spent to fund this massive program that has been proved not to work.

    Fourth are the politicians who get elected and reelected by talking tough — not smart, just tough — about drugs and crime. But the tougher we get in prosecuting nonviolent drug crimes, the softer we get in the prosecution of everything else because of the limited resources to fund the criminal justice system.

    The fifth group are people who make money from increased crime. They include those who build prisons and those who staff them. The prison guards union is one of the strongest lobbying groups in California today, and its ranks continue to grow.

    And last are the terrorist groups worldwide that are principally financed by the sale of illegal drugs.

    Who are the losers in this war? Literally everyone else, especially our children.

    Today, there are more drugs on our streets at cheaper prices than ever before. There are more than 1.2 million people behind bars in the U.S., and a large percentage of them for nonviolent drug usage. Under our failed drug policy, it is easier for young people to obtain illegal drugs than a six-pack of beer. Why? Because the sellers of illegal drugs don’t ask kids for IDs. As soon as we outlaw a substance, we abandon our ability to regulate and control the marketing of that substance.

    After we came to our senses and repealed alcohol prohibition, homicides dropped by 60% and continued to decline until World War II. Today’s murder rates would likely again plummet if we ended drug prohibition.

    So what is the answer? Start by removing criminal penalties for marijuana, just as we did for alcohol. If we were to do this, according to state budget figures, California alone would save more than $1 billion annually, which we now spend in a futile effort to eradicate marijuana use and to jail nonviolent users. Is it any wonder that marijuana has become the largest cash crop in California?

    We could generate billions of dollars by taxing the stuff, just as we do with tobacco and alcohol.

    We should also reclassify most Schedule I drugs (drugs that the federal government alleges have no medicinal value, including marijuana and heroin) as Schedule II drugs (which require a prescription), with the government regulating their production, overseeing their potency, controlling their distribution and allowing licensed professionals (physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc.) to prescribe them. This course of action would acknowledge that medical issues, such as drug addiction, are best left under the supervision of medical doctors instead of police officers.

    The mission of the criminal justice system should always be to protect us from one another and not from ourselves. That means that drug users who drive a motor vehicle or commit other crimes while under the influence of these drugs would continue to be held criminally responsible for their actions, with strict penalties. But that said, the system should not be used to protect us from ourselves.

    Ending drug prohibition, taxing and regulating drugs and spending tax dollars to treat addiction and dependency are the approaches that many of the world’s industrialized countries are taking. Those approaches are ones that work.
    _____________________________

    David W. Fleming, a lawyer, is the chairman of the Los Angeles County Business Federation and immediate past chairman of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. James P. Gray is a judge of the Orange County Superior Court.

  • Tasers for self-defense

    Tasers for home use? Guns for police officers? It’s not a bad idea.

  • Gun Control

    If you really hate guns and can’t stand gun ownership (I hate guns but canunderstand gun ownership), then you should take some solace in the fact that guns are used in suicide more than homicide and accidents put together. About 55% of our 31,000 annual gun deaths are suicide.