JUDGES QUESTIONED ON "YEAR AND A DAY" SENTENCES
McDonough Goodner
JAABLOG has obtained a copy of the October 11, 2007 letter and corresponding statistics from James R. McDonough, Secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections, to Ms. Lisa Goodner, the State Courts Administrator. Ms. Goodner has forwarded a copy to each of the Circuits, and it's my understanding that the Chief Judges of the Counties with high discretionary admissions are being asked to explain why so many people scoring non-prison sanctions are sent to prison. The letter focuses on probation violations and "year and a day" ("366") sentences.
This information is of particular interest to practitioners in Broward. Regular readers of the blog know that Broward County sends primarily non-violent offenders to prison at nearly twice the rate, per capita, of Palm Beach and Miami-Dade Counties, without stemming rising crime rates (the papers have reported that homicides are projected to nearly double in Broward this year; see prior posts on JAABLOG or check the Department of Corrections website for the admission statistics).
The letter and stats help explain one reason why our numbers are so out of whack with those of our neighbors:
- In 2006-2007, 60.15% of the 6,695 "366" offender admissions were VOPs
- 73.49% of the "366" offender admissions scored non-state prison sanctions
- Broward County sentenced 331 discretionary offenders to "366"
- Palm Beach County sentenced 28 discretionary offenders to "366"
- Miami-Dade County sentenced 52 discretionary offenders to "366".
Of course, Broward does not lead the State in "366" discretionary sentencing. That honor goes to Hillsborough County, with 757 discretionary admissions, and Polk County, with 767 discretionary admissions (a single judge in Hillsborough and Polk account for 757 and 721 discretionary and non-discretionary "366" admissions, respectively; the letter states that a single judge in Broward accounts for 177 discretionary and non-discretionary "366" admissions, but I believe they are counting both Kaplans as one judge).
So, why do Broward’s numbers dwarf our neighbors? Is this a function of allowing judges to remain in criminal divisions year after year with hardened, cynical views? Is it a question of an outmoded State Attorney who can’t acknowledge that Broward has grown into a diverse metropolis that can no longer afford to be guided by the small town, deep south approach to criminal justice that he has implemented here for the last 30 years? Is it a function of a judiciary that fears retaliation from a strong, politically entrenched State Attorney’s Office? Or is it simply a traditional judicial mind set that will dissipate slowly as younger judges come on board, cognizant of the modern and enlightened approach that prevails in Palm Beach and Miami?
Of particular concern is the fact that former Chief Judge Ross had included the language "Reconsider use of 364 day type sentences" (NOT "consider year and a day sentences in lieu of county time", as previously reported) in a memo to judges detailing suggestions to cut the jail cap in the not so distant past (see prior post on JAABLOG 12/14/06 and 10/13/06). Concerns were raised at the time that prison admissions might increase in the wake of efforts to reduce the jail cap. Let’s hope this isn’t the case, particularly in light of the fact that the continuing efforts to bring the jails into compliance are a focus of the County Commission and judicial administration.
Please take the time to review the letter and statistics. Reference them when arguing to judges. While the budget crisis is obviously driving a good portion of the recent call for sentencing reforms, it’s nice to have no less an authority than the Department of Corrections and Governor Crist supporting issues that should have been scrutinized a long time ago. Who knows when this type of opportunity to fix the disparities between the tri-county area will rise again.
Bill Gelin
LETTER AND STATS
TIME MAGAZINE:
What's Wrong With Florida's Prisons? (10/17):
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1672366,00.html
"Despite its Sunshine State image, Florida's prisons and juvenile detention centers are often associated with the more troubled corrections systems of its Deep South neighbors."
"The state is facing lawsuits alleging that its prisons subject too many inmates, including the mentally ill, to a prisoner "warehousing" culture of unlawfully extreme isolation and deprivation, usually with little or no rehabilitation efforts to prevent recidivism. Other suits decry what one calls excessive as well as "malicious and sadistic" use of pepper spray and other chemicals to keep mentally ill prisoners under control."
The guy on the left looks like Cannarozzi.
And somebody should tell the lady in the picture about Lexis and Westlaw.
An excellent article addressing what we have already know to be the major problem associated with the jail overpopulation issue.
So let me get this straight. 366 sentences are bad because of prision overcrowding and county sentences are bad because of jail caps. So I guess we should put them back on the streets to terrorize the taxpayers. This a great, Don you should focus on this during your campaign.
Makes sense to me. If the legislature had intended for people to go to prison without 44 points, then why did they invent the scoring system? Something is seriously wrong in Broward. It's time to clean house - if judges can't follow the law or the intent of the legislature then they should be reprimanded and corrected by the Chief Judge.
How about not putting everyone on probation or in jail for crappy cases that are dismissed, time served, or broken down in other places?
Satz is the problem here and the judges who are too afraid to time serve on residue cases or driving cases. Grow up, grow some cajones people. How come judges are so chicken to do the right thing here?
Does Satz's office get credit from Tallahassee for the number of convictionsz it gets? I've heard this throught the years, could not verify. Makes sense though. Put them all on probation, get your conviction one way or another. Who cares about the people that are destroyed, right?
FORMER Chief Judge Ross - that has such a nice ring to it!
While most of us make a nice living off of criminals. It is quite basic, dont break the law and you dont get violated or sentenced to jail. The Legislature did not say under 44pts means no prision it left it up to the discretion of the Judge. As usual around here its always someone elses fault clients get busted, god forbid personal responsibility ever is mentioned.
Analyze it. Most of the judges worked for Satz. They worked under judges like Futch and Coker and Ross and Goldstein. They were trained to believe defendants were worthless as a group, not to be treated as individulas. They become judges. They are mentored by other judges who pass on the motto that defendants are scum to be processed throught the system. Judges won't undercut the state not because they are afraid of the state, but part of the same culture.
Defendants have to take vop offers from the state. Most judges here still cheat defendants out of a jury trial in vops with a new law violation by setting the final first. Or they launch defendents who dispute the p.o. at final after rejecting state offers. The judges care more about an easy work day then defendants exercising their rights, and they are usually the products of Satz culture, whether they worked for him over the last 30 years or just workend in the Broward Courthouse and modeled their behavior on the status quo. That's why the jails and prisons are clogged.
Hey McDonough - why not talk your buddy Crist into term limits for the State Atty and Public Defender if you want to change the culture?
331 to 28 to 52 . This place is a joke.
so what and who cares. no one runs nothing changes.
of all you whiners how many would really want your clients living in you neighbohood? NONE
they live in their neighborhoods so why don't we leave them alone? when was the last time you were stopped for tint? or riding your bike at night without a light? or drinking a beer while you walked your dog?
You all miss the point.
It never stops. It's drugs. It's poverty.
Miami, Palm Beach, NYC, whatever. They know it. Time served. Don't file penny ante cases. They can't be deterred with punishment anyway. Grow up already.
Broward traps people in the system. Probation, jail, prison, back on probation after they get out.
So what just let them back on the street to terrorize good hard working people. Guess you never had your house robbed?
Talking about DWLS, Reisdue, Dirty urine VOP, technicals.
Oh, the terror.
From Orlando Sentinel
Man gets arrested for the 108th time
Henry Pierson Curtis | Sentinel Staff Writer
George Dallas Jr. added his 108th arrest this week to a decade-long spin through the justice system, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
Known on the street as "Squeeze," the 29-year-old Ivey Lane resident was arrested Wednesday on a warrant for violating home confinement. During a pat down, deputies found a cigar tube of crack cocaine pinched between his buttocks.
Just three weeks earlier, Dallas had been sent to the county jail on a no-bond status for a prior drug arrest. Three days later, a judge sent him home with an ankle monitor to await trial, according to the sheriff's office.
From Oct. 9 through Oct. 15, the ankle monitor GPS showed he defied the judge by leaving home five different times. That's why he was picked up Wednesday, said Deputy Drew Williams.
"It's a constant revolving door," Williams said of Ivey Lane residents seeing the people who sell dope, rob and burglarize their homes return to the street within days. "What bothers us is that we're out here and we have to talk to the victims. When someone breaks into your home, it changes your home forever."
Dallas arrests include a 2003 charge of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Canute "Dread" Roberts, who raised and sold vegetables on Ivey Lane. The case was dismissed when a witness failed to testify, according to the sheriff's office. He has been convicted 17 times of various crimes.
Dallas remained held without bail Thursday on charges of violating home confinement and in lieu of $2,600 bail on a charge of cocaine possession, jail records show.
Great article. Yes lets keep people like Squeeze on our streets.
Residue, Dirty Urine, wanna add in Possesion and Delivery cases too. How do you think these junkies get money to support their habits? Robbing peoples homes and cars etc?
I have a better idea, lets all hold hands with william "lenin" Gelin and sing kumbaya. that will make things all better. Maybe I will grow my hair long and put posters of jane fonda on my wall
Keep True to the Message. Ignore those with their own agendas or who suffer from terminal chapped lips from kissing the butts of those that they think will do them a return favor. The day of the political hand oilers have been exposed and continues to erode. They'll have to go back to selling snake oil now. Continue the cleanup of Broward County Judiciary and the Old Rundown Political Machine. It will grind to a halt when enough sand has been thrown into it.
It seems to me that that's exactly what's happening. Screech .....
Really, tell us why you feel that way?
What has really changed?
Ok, Dale is not Chief do we have something better? Where is the 24 hr magistrate court Judge. Would it be a real shock it never happened? This is the same guy who said the County Court Judges could elect their own Chief then dictated the new Chief himself. Man cant even write a memo or follow up memo. Same guy who left in Dale's Criminal Court Chief. It political, get it? If he wants more then one term he has to keep his electorate happy, not the blog.
What happened to Bill's conspiracy theory on the Wheel. Nada. No proof that any one got anything more then they should not have.
How about Charlie Green, Feiner, Holmes, and the other Judges this blog went after, still Judges with different divisions but nothing changed.
Where's Specler? Still in Central.
Bill Scherer sill rich and powerful? Yes, Skip the same, Yep. Forman Family, of course.
Where are the grassroots JAAB candidates for Judge? No where to be found. Got so bad they had to make up a rumor of this Mancini guy running against Satz.
True, there are new people in charge, but nothing has changed.
Golden rule still applies, he with the gold makes the rules. The rich and powerful still call the shots and politics will always rule the day.
814
NC must be boring for you to blog so much.
Sadly the reality you live in does not match the rest of us. We dont have mansions in Coral Springs and NC with undergroung bunkers and gun turrets. Some of us dont want to carry multiple arms on us to feel safe going to work every day.
p.s. Dear FBI: This commentary is a work of fiction not about any person in particular and not a threat to anyone.
Agreed. The rich and powerful call the shots. Everywhere. But here they are compassionless and anything but visionary. Why don' they get it? why can't they change with the times? Why do they behave this way when this is still a liberal democratic county?
Good point. Things here based on this article need to be changed but there has to be a reasonable middle ground. Going from one extreme to just letting them back on the streets is not the answer.
privates don't care about the prison admissions. it's pd clients going down and that will never change.
let them eat cake
Gelin C.I. wrote: Year and a day prison sentences are a state atty satz statistic ploy. the felony asa are told that delivery of drugs, burglaries and other offenses they must offer 1yr 1 day prison. Then satzy can say look at my office we lock em up, we're tough on crime. Sadly vast majority shouldn't go to prison. Even more sadly satzy ain'tt going anywhere. We need judges not afraid to do the right thing. Tobin's not the answer.
like the "office policy" 18 mos for deliveries and middle of the guidelines for HOQ.
It's back to "follow the money" if anyone is willing and knowledgeable to do so--prisons are a great source of business income--why else so many private profit-oriented companies vying fo the prixes--more inmates to fill beds--it's forms the basis for the enormous higher statistics coming out of Broward--who's got what invested?
The VOP trap, the over- infliction of greatr penalties--even unlawfully [read contrary to statutes], fraud upon the court in collusion of the judges with Satz's office and oficers of the court.
Is there some back pay or payoff going on here?
And why does Satz protect dirty cops and not prosecute them for their crimes and put them in the prison they deserve.
And Satz, who, as an attorney, but elected as the State Atty., is not accountable to the Bar Rules or disciplinary committee and is also not accountable to the Ethics Commission who doesn't deal with official malpractice in its ethics violations catalogue, yet Satz come down from his throne to personally prosecute people who allegedly hurt his precious cops--even the dirty ones.
Jeb Bush told me that since Satz is elected, the goverrnor has not control over his criminal and malfeasant activities and Satz has discretition to violate the law and the constitution because he is elected, not appointed. so what makes you think Crist, Jeb's AG during this idiocy, will be any different as the Gov., especially with McCollum as the back-up, the definition of his office on hi state website is to defend Satz when someone accuses him or is ASS SA's of cheating to get convictions through fraud, perjury, etc to sent those to prison.
Then look at the pedigree of the ROC Court and Criminal Admin Judges--CArney through Gardiner--true judicial garbage.
None of this is any surprise and the cowardice of the BACDL is a monumental suipport network to its continuance because it accepts and therefore condones the process.
No--they should be prosecuted for kidnapping and false imprisonment--liefe and 3d felonies, respectively and imprisoned under their own fraud upon the court for vi9lating, not just abusing the law and discretion.
Judges violating the law should be a capital offense and execution the only remedy--this is a death penalty state--let's let these real criminals get the execution they give to others.
We need the legislature to pass law that penalizes judges and prosecutore and atorneys who violate the law and public trust 3x what regular civilians get because they undermine th fabric of our entire system of justice to make it unavailable, with a little help from their friends in the BADCL.
is there any question which judges make up a majority of the year and day sentences the vast minority skew the stars for the silent majority.
does o Connor know the phrase with hold ses like reasonable judges in Miami