Speedy Trial Takes One in the Nuts

You don't need to read the Constitution. It's right in the banner of this august blog. "The accused shall have the right to a speedy trial." It's kind of an important right. Otherwise the authorities can imprison you forever without a trial. You're not convicted, you're just incarcerated awaiting trial.

In Prince George's County, Maryland, a speedy trial apparently means something more than a year, sometime at the convenience of the manufacturer of the automated speeding system, who is given the power  to schedule the trials. Speeding Ticket Ace Will Foreman has been waiting more than a year to fight many of his automated speeding tickets in court. During the wait, the State has threatened to not register his company vehicles because he has unpaid speeding tickets.

Let's see what Wikipedia has to say about speedy trials:

Speedy trial refers to one of the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution to defendants in criminal proceedings. The right to a speedy trial, guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, is intended to ensure that defendants are not subjected to unreasonably lengthy incarceration prior to a fair trail. In adjudicating speedy trial claims, the Supreme Court has developed a four-part test that considers the length of the delay, the reasons for the delay, the defendant's assertion of his right to a speedy trial, and the prejudice to the defendant (Barker v. Wingo, 1972).

Violations of the principle, such as where the state has failed to bring the case to trial for an "unreasonable" length of time, may be a cause for dismissal of a criminal case.

In the United States, the length of time can either be defined by statute (for example, in New York, the prosecution must be "ready for trial" within six months on all felonies except murder, or the charges are dismissed by action of law without regard to the merits of the case), or determined by a court under a substantive theory based on the Sixth Amendment; which states: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial ..." This argument is typically made in cases in which a significant amount of time has lapsed between the date of the commission of the crime and the date of arrest.

Most, if not all, statutes defining the period of speedy trial time also include various exceptions to this rule. Examples of such exceptions are periods of time in which the delay preceding the trial is due to the request of the defense, or if there is good cause.

Allow me to interpret. You no longer have a right to a speedy trial. Not only will the Supreme Court  not establish a firm time, the Court requires the defendant prove he was not somehow prejudiced by being incarcerated without a trial. I think the Supremes missed the point on this one. The point is not that the incarceration prejudiced one's chance for a fair trail. The point is one was in jail for a long time without being convicted of a crime.

I'm unaware of anyone who has had a felony dismissed because he didn't get a speedy trial.

Still, even my jaded perspective was rattled by this blog post from NMissCommentator, "A blog from the hills of North Mississippi." The Supreme Court of Mississippi has recently ruled that Virgil Johnson's right to a speedy trial was violated simply because he was incarcerated for 680 days before being given his trial. Virgil Johnson had been convicted of shooting his "friend" in the neck, and the Mississippi Supreme Court had no intention of setting him free, speedy trial be damned.

From the Supreme Court decision, we sort of learn the reason for the delay.

The trial court found the delay was necessary due to the backlog of cases, and noted that several, older cases were set before Johnson’s that may have caused his case to be put off until the court’s next term. Further, the State provided three trial dates from the computer system used throughout Hinds County, which showed that Johnson’s case had been set for trial three months after he was arraigned.

Holy crap!  Mississippi couldn't give Virgil Johnson a speedy trial because they were too busy not giving a bunch of other people a speedy trial, and because ... because ... uh, uh ... I have no idea what the second sentence meant.

Instead of granting Virgil's motion to have the verdict set aside, the Mississippi Supreme Court told Virgil Johnson to count his lucky stars. It could have been worse. Other people had been in custody longer. The Mississippi Supremes even gave some numbers.

• Some guy named Sharp was held 731 days without a trial
• Some guy named Manix was held 1,430 days without a trial.
• Some guy named Moffett was held for 1,656 days without a trial.

At least there was a dissent in this case. Presiding Justice Dickinson, bless his heart, wrote:

It is no secret that, for the past twenty years, the Sixth-Amendment right to a speedy trial has been under attack and on life support. Although this Court’s previous decisions have suggested that—given the right set of facts—a speedy trial claim could possibly be won, today’s final, fatal blow mercifully puts the criminal-defense bar out of its misery. Whereas previous decisions have been less than clear, today’s plurality opinion is as subtle as a stick of dynamite—the Sixth-Amendment right to a speedy trial in Mississippi is dead.

In previous cases, this Court at least paid lip service to a few speedy-trial maxims, such as “an eight-month delay is presumptively prejudicial” ... But today, the plurality ... makes crystal clear this Court’s position on the right to a speedy trial: the life support plug has been pulled, and the right to a speedy trial exists no more.

Because I believe the Sixth-Amendment right to a speedy trial is as important to us today as it was when it was proposed by our Founding Fathers in 1789, and ratified by the people in 1791, I respectfully dissent.

As it turns out, not-so-speedy trial folks in Mississippi are a bunch of pikers. I took the trouble to look up the decision in Barker v. Wingo to read about how the U.S. Supreme Court gave everyone a good talking to about violating our right to a speedy trial.

Holy crap! Barker awaited his trial for more than five years, so that the State could try his accomplice first, three times. The U.S. Supremes ruled in 1972 that Barker had not been denied the right to a speedy trial.

No more incandescent light bulbs. No more right to a speedy trial.

Mama.

Fear and Loathing in Prince George's County

In Misconduct Abounding in Prince George's County, I explained how I came to learn of the sorry state of justice in Prince George's County, Maryland. I also detailed how their canine unit was at one time the most dangerous in the country. In this post, I examine how they handled unruly students after a "March Madness" basketball game last year.

I'll begin with a video from a Washington Post article. The video pretty much speaks for itself. Keep an eye on the guy who dances in from the right side of the screen and approaches the officer on horseback. You decide whether or not he struck  the horse or the officer. I apologize for the 15 second lead-in commercial asking you to help save the planet. Make sure you embiggen the video so that you can see the attack in all its disgusting glory.

You may not have been able to see the student attack the police, but the police apparently had no trouble seeing it. After beating him with riot sticks they, charged him with striking a mounted police officer. Once the homemade video surfaced and made the rounds, the charges were dropped.

Note that the attack by the police was well coordinated, as if the police were trained to suppress imminent threats with overwhelming force and violence.

More to come regarding Prince George's County. Stay tuned.

The Impending Execution of Martin Robles

Martin Robles sits on death row awaiting execution by the people of Texas. He apparently claims to be innocent. As evidence of that, I offer the following pen pal request he has posted on the DeathRow-USA web site.

Hello. My name is Martin Robles and I am looking for a penpal. I am from Corpus Christi, Texas and seeking someone who is cool with writing a death row inmate in their spare time.

I am a 25 year old Mexican who was wrongfully convicted and condemned to die for a double homicide involving gang members. I have little faith in the judicial system for I am a gang member myself and gang members just don't win. So I've accepted my fate and would like to make new friends before I pass away.

I'm 5'6'' with tattoos, bullet wounds, scars, and a pretty smile. I weigh about 180 and work out to stay in shape. I'm an ex-convict so I've spent 6 years in prison before for a murder conviction when I was 17 years of age. I got to spend 13 months of freedom before I was set up by the cops.

I like to fight, shoot dice, and explore the club scene. I like drinking on occasion and love sex. I've been incarcerated most of my adult life, so there's lots of things I've never experienced but I regret nothing.

I come from a loving family and wish to spend my remaining years getting to know someone as a friend. With that said, I leave as I came, with smiles and good intents.

Martin Robles

Martin Robles is one of those somewhat rare instances when I am unable to find much information about his crime, one way or the other. From one appellate decision I find this rather thin statement of facts.

Robles and an accomplice entered a dwelling while the occupants were asleep and shot and killed two persons. He was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death.

From another appellate decision I infer that some or a substantial portion of the evidence against Robles came from a snitch, and you should all know by now what little value I put in snitch testimony. Robles and his alleged accomplice were also portrayed as gang members who killed gang members.

In the case of Martin Robles, I have too little information on which to make an assessment. I find that troublesome. If we are going to execute people, we should at least make the basis for the execution well known. Certainly we should publicly provide more information than he was convicted by a jury.

Misconduct Abounding in Prince George's County

I have been working on a petition for absolute pardon for more than 2 months. I've spent several hundred hours so far. It keeps me from blogging as much as I would like, but I'm pleased with how it is coming along. It's quite important I perform that task well.

Previously I spent many, many hours attempting to provide some insight into how automated speeding tickets might be automating wrongful convictions. That effort resulted in eight extended blog posts including such classics as Automating Wrongful Convictions (with Demon Devices from Hell), Automating Wrongful Convictions: The Empire Strikes Back, Automating Wrongful Convictions: Optotraffic System Pwned, and the ever famous My Interview with Ace Foreman, Annotated.

This afternoon, those two widely disparate efforts intersected in Prince George's County, Maryland.

As I was once again compiling specific cases of false confessions for the clemency petition, I suddenly realized that a disproportionate number of them came out of Prince George's County, Maryland. I thought it odd that one county should have such a cluster of false confessions.

And I paused.

I had heard the name of that county before. It rang a bell. It hit me like a ton of judicial misconduct bricks. Forest Heights is in Prince George's County. Forest Heights is the city that has doubled its revenue by handing out obviously trumped up speeding tickets.

Unfortunately, I was right. The speeding tickets are just a microcosm of a much larger, much more serious problem. The fine folks who distribute justice in Prince George's County proved me correct when I would much prefer to be wrong. 

My curiosity piqued, I dared search Google for: misconduct Prince George's County.

Wow!

This will be the first of several posts about the shameful state of justice in Prince George's County, Maryland. I begin  with the country's use abuse of police dogs to maul its citizenry. I summarize from a March 2002 20/20 story.

I begin with Esther Vathekan. She was asleep in her own bed in 1995 when the police somehow mistook her for a burglar. They unleashed the hounds, and the dogs mauled her face.

It would a terrible tragedy even if it was a rare, honest mistake. But it was by no means a rare incident. Between 1987 and the date of the 20/20 story, the Prince George's County police dogs were involved in approximately 1300 hundred attacks. That's about one attack every four days. The Prince George's canine unit became the most dangerous canine unit in the country.

Between 1999 and the date of the 20/20 story, the canine unit had been the subject of 33 criminal investigations launched by the FBI. The county wouldn't control the dogs, and the state wouldn't control the dogs, so the feds stepped in.

Louis Azurdia accidentally set off an alarm while working to remove asbestos from a school  A canine police unit was dispatched to the school, and Azurdia was attacked by a dog. The police arrested Azurdia, then never charged him with a crime. He sued and won.

When Willie Walker was arrested, he was repeatedly bitten by a police dog. Though he was found to be guilty of no crime, he suffered permanent disfigurement.

Julius Booker abandoned an allegedly stolen van and attempted to flee on foot from a canine officer. Even after he was caught and handcuffed, the dog bit him repeatedly. "He let the dog continue to bite me. I couldn't do nothing, I was handcuffed face to the dirt, crying, begging for mercy." Booker was charged, tried and acquitted. He sued and won.

The dogs have torn out triceps and biceps. They have torn off ears. They have torn off noses. The police used them not to apprehend, but to punish, maim, and brutalize.

At some point, the situation became too much for the feds to bring individual criminal actions. The feds took action against the entire department.

From Wikipedia, we learn:

In July, 1999, the department was subject to a complaint by the United States Justice Department regarding alleged excessive use of force by police canine units. In January 2004, the department signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States Department of Justice allegations of excessive force. This resulted in the establishment of an independent monitoring group by Military Professional Resources, Inc., a private defense contractor.

Since then, things seem to have improved. Many of the canine officers and all of the dogs have been replaced. The dogs are now trained to "guard and bark" rather than "bite and hold." As long as the subject stays still, the dog will only bark, not bite.

According to the Memorandum of Agreement between the feds and the county, the county must report quarterly regarding their progress with respect to their canine unit. Here's a small segment of just one quarterly report.

During the current reporting period, the Canine Section’s performance has been outstanding. The Canine Section reported that during this quarter, there have been 174 deployments (ytd 590) which resulted in 14 apprehensions without a dog bite (ytd 40), and 2 seizures (apprehensions with a dog bite) (ytd 6) from July through September 2006.

That seems much better: 40 apprehensions without a dog bite versus 6 with a dog bite. Perhaps Prince Georgia's County will finally put their policing efforts in order.

Perhaps not.

Stay tuned.

The Impending Execution of Manuel Valle

Manuel Valle sits on death row, and has done so for 33 years now, awaiting execution by the people of Florida. From an early one of his many appeals, I offer the brief, oft-repeated statement of facts.

On April 2, 1978, Officer Louis Pena of the Coral Gables Police Department was on patrol when he stopped appellant and a companion for a traffic violation. The events that followed were witnessed by Officer Gary Spell, also of the Coral Gables Police Department. Officer Spell testified that when he arrived at the scene, appellant was sitting in the patrol car with Officer Pena. Shortly thereafter, Spell heard Pena use his radio to run a license check on the car appellant was driving. According to Spell, appellant then walked back to his car and reached into it, approached Officer Pena and fired a single shot at him, which resulted in his death. Appellant also fired two shots at Spell and then fled. He was picked up two days later in Deerfield Beach. Following his jury trial, appellant was also found guilty of the attempted first-degree murder of Spell and after a non-jury trial, he was found guilty of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

His conviction was apparently based, at least in part, on a confession. One of the grounds for appeal was that his confession should not have been allowed before the jury because he was not properly Mirandized.

I find no one, not even Manuel Valle, who claims that Valle did not commit the crime for which he is to die. Therefore, with respect to the propriety of his execution, I stand mute.