Our regular blog will return in a few days. Today, Thanksgiving Day, we are too busy to write a blog. We are spending the entire day counting our blessings. We have so much for which we are thankful.
We wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving, too.
Stephanie & Marty
There is an odd relationship between the Iowa Department of Corrections (IDOC) and Community-Based Corrections (CBC). It’s a stranger marriage than you’ll find in any Ozark Mountain community. However, Beth Lenstra, with the Iowa Legislative Services Agency (LSA) – Fiscal Division, has prepared a two-page summary of the CBCs that simply and thoroughly explains the history, programming, and other facets of the CBCs. It is located at: http://www.legis.iowa.gov/DOCS/LSA/Fiscal_Topics/2012/FTBAL003.PDF
Even after reading the LSA’s clear explanation, it remains a mystery as to how these two entities are separate, yet combined. Years ago, I was in charge of an eighteen-month long dislocated workers grant. The half-million dollar grant came about because of a plant closing that affected over 600 hard-working Iowans. In assisting unemployed workers with their needs, I was employed by a conglomeration of local governments, regulated by state standards, and disbursing federal money with federal, state, and local oversight. But still, I find it difficult to understand the connections between the IDOC and CBCs.
One of the problems to understanding this arrangement is the CBCs’ lack of a spokesperson for all eight District Departments. It would be much easier to understand if there was a state office for the CBCs. But then, they wouldn’t have a need for local boards. But why should local boards approve a budget, only to have it march through the IDOC offices for oversight? I know the answer, but it doesn’t make sense to me. If there was a central office for CBCs, and they could go directly to the Legislature for budget approval, it wouldn’t be a regional program anymore; it would be a state agency. Besides, if each individual CBC had to go directly to the Legislature for funding you can imagine the competition between the eight districts. It’s bad enough that the CBCs have a slight touch of competition with the IDOC. Things do appear to be working well as it is. Nonetheless, I would prefer to have a bit more separation in the process.
Maybe I’ll try to understand hockey, instead.
Most people have a junk drawer in the home. I don’t have enough drawers to save one just for junk. However, I do have junk files. I’ll save a tidbit of news, or a fact sheet, or some other insignificant piece of paper until I decide to clean out the file.
I was going to clean out the junk file today and found a piece of junk that turned out to be a real treasure. Why did I save an Iowa Legislative Fiscal Topic on “Undercover Funds”? I know I had a reason for putting it in the junk file.
A closer examination showed that the practice of supplying undercover agents in Iowa with money to purchase drugs started a year before I began lobbying. “The annual General Fund appropriation for undercover funds began in FY 1991 at $275,000.” That’s a lot of money “to purchase small amounts of narcotics in an effort to build intent to deliver cases.” The Fiscal Topic was printed in September, 2011 (which is why this paper was probably on top of the pile). It has a brief history and the purpose for the money. I assumed it was used to set up drug dealers by making a controlled buy. I couldn’t believe what I discovered. It’s also used “to pay confidential informants for information relative to an ongoing investigation.” Snitches!
There’s been a lot written about snitches. In Mexico, the drug cartels find the snitches and hang them up in public after they’ve been disemboweled. The cartels post signs to warn others. Okay, so that’s Mexico. But we’re civil here in America, right? Sure, but just barely.
Think like a criminal for a moment. So, you get caught with some drugs; not much, but you can’t find yourself going through the criminal justice system so you make a deal. The cops give you $500 to snitch on who sold you the drugs. Heck, you don’t want someone coming down on you, so you tell them it was someone else – someone who is not involved in the drug trade – an innocent person. In some cases, this begins a chain reaction.
Police dressed in paramilitary garb rush into a private home with weapons pointed yelling: “On the floor. ON THE F…ING FLOOR!” And they find out that the person whose home was raided doesn’t even know what a marijuana plant looks like. http://www.amazon.com/Overkill-Paramilitary-Police-Raids-America/dp/B0034ANHS0 It happens more than you think.
What about the guy who got paid $500? You can’t prosecute him. You just paid him off and didn’t charge him with a crime. What’s he going to do if the cops go back to him? Tell the judge that the cops paid him $500 and didn’t prosecute? And if the snitch has one ounce of street smarts (and most do) he’s not going to have any drugs on him – this time. What charge is going to stick?
Most of the money for these undercover funds comes from a federal Byrne-Justice Assistance Grant (JAG), 75% in the past 4 years. The state has put up an additional 25%. But the funds have been dwindling over the last decade. This year, there are no Byrne JAG funds expected. It’s going to be interesting to see if the state continues its contribution into this black hole.
One thing missing from the analysis is related to a heavy drop in the funds available for FY 2009. Compiling the Byrne-JAG money and the state money, FY 2008, 2010, and 2011 each had a total available of over $200,000. However, in FY 2009, the total amount was just shy of $88,000. Don’t you want to know if drug arrests went down that year? I do.
The Iowa Freedom of Information Council held its annual luncheon, program and meeting earlier this month. The program this year was a little off the beaten path of open records and public meetings. At least, I thought so.
The program was entitled “Media Coverage of the Courts: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”. I didn’t notice much of a focus on media coverage, but there was a strong presence of discussion around Iowa’s retention vote on justices and judges.
The makeup of the panel gave an indication of where the discussion was headed. The panel consisted of former Iowa Supreme Court Justice Michael Streit, Iowa District Court Judge Jeffrey Neary, Attorney Bill Brown with BrownWinick, and Rachel Paine Caufield, a professor at Drake University in the Department of Politics and International Relations.
Streit was the first panelist to speak and he set the tone. He was one of the three justices removed from the Supreme Court last year when Iowa voters refused to retain him and two other justices who must stand retention votes after their first full year and every eight years thereafter. It was interesting to hear his introduction that brought some dark Iowa history to those of us in attendance.
In April of 1933, a mob of farmers physically removed Judge Charles Bradley from his courtroom in the O’Brien county seat of Primghar. They mistreated him, but didn’t kill him (he died a few months later from causes not related to this incident). He was abducted because the farmers were worried that more mortgage foreclosures by the banks would be ordered by Bradley. Streit was presenting an example that judicial officers can be subjected to the whim of the people for doing what the law says the judge must do – sort of like the Varnum v. Brien case that many attribute to non-retention of the three Iowa Supreme Court justices last November.
District Court Judge Jeffrey Neary was the second panelist to speak. He began by explaining how he became the focus of media attention in 2003. In 2003, Judge Neary dissolved a civil union between two women, years before same sex marriage was legal in Iowa. He told the audience that he followed the law, using comity [the informal and voluntary recognition by courts of one jurisdiction of the laws and judicial decisions of another] and the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution. However, a movement formed in northwestern Iowa to have him ousted. A campaign to have a judge removed from the bench was almost unheard of until many residents of northwestern Iowa became upset with Judge Neary’s decision. He was fortunate enough to make it through the effort to have him removed, but he did learn through this experience that judges need to be accessible. The judicial branch needs to “put a picture of a face on the ballot”, Judge Neary said. “We should be pro-active.”
Bill Brown, a partner in the Des Moines law firm of BrownWinick, was the third panelist to speak. Bill warned the audience that he would be coming from a different perspective from the others. This is the point where I thought the discussion would get back to the title of the program. Not once did Bill mention the media and the courts. He began with a historical footnote as well. Bill taught us (me, at least) that Teddy Roosevelt wanted to get rid of the Court because it said that the Worker Safety Act was unconstitutional based upon the reading of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. He explained the basis of the Varnum case, which was the Racing Ass’n of Cent. Iowa v. Fitzgerald [RACI] case that came years before (February 3, 2004). He correctly claimed that Lambda Legal, a national legal organization that supports the rights of lesbians and gay men, scouted around the county for a case like RACI to use as a foundation to bring about the result Iowa has seen from Varnum. My question is: why shouldn’t they? It was smart strategy. He complained that the Roe v. Wade decision was based upon a “penumbra” because no one Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave us the right to privacy. He saw problems with the Miranda v. Arizona decision of 1966. And he came to the conclusion that the problem is lawyers and the lack of political balance.
Brown carried on the criticism of the Varnum decision and the process in which Supreme Court justices are selected. He brought to the discussion a sour grapes attitude; but a sour grapes attitude unlike the two speakers before him.
Brown’s array of reasons why there needs to be different methods of selecting justices made me go back to why people on both sides of this issue should remember to be careful what you ask for. There is no better example than the Twenty-second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which limits a President to two terms of office. Republicans wanted this Amendment because they didn’t want to have to go through another long era of not being able to defeat a strong Democratic candidate like Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, when Reagan came along, various Republicans wanted a repeal of the Twenty-second Amendment. Of course, that was before anyone knew he had Alzheimer’s.
Professor Caufield did have a different approach. She had better sound bites, for one thing. Besides her position as a professor at Drake, Caufield is also a research fellow with the American Judicature Society’s Elmo B. Hunter Citizens Center for Judicial Selection. She began by saying that “Varnum serves as a very convenient signpost.” It brings about keywords that have been thrown around for the past decade; words like “judicial activism” and “irresponsible courts”. The irresponsibility phrase is based on some people’s questioning of the Court’s inability or unwillingness to throw the legislation back to the Iowa Legislature to fix it. “Judicial activism” is a phrase that insinuates the Court “makes legislation.” Those are catchy little phrases that undermine the real process. “The Court’s job is to review,” Caufield stated. When it looks like they have done something other than that the “public is not interested in a lecture on constitutional law.” “We don’t have a bumper sticker message”, she noted; as she pointed out that critics of the courts have the upper hand. Thirty-three states have the merit selection process that Iowa has, often called the Missouri Plan.
I came away from the discussion knowing that there exists another example of what could happen if nothing is done, or if something drastic is done. Iowa could manage to have a clone of Judge Roy Moore. To refresh your memory, Judge Roy Moore was the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, but was removed from the bench in 2003 “for defying a federal order to remove his controversial 5,300-pound monument of the Ten Commandments inside the state’s judicial building.”
There is no doubt in my mind that if nothing is done, the tables will turn in time to produce a Supreme Court that will not use precedent (stare decisis) to rule on a point of law. On the other hand, if a big change is made in the merit selection process, or it’s abandoned, it will be a matter of time before Iowa gets a panel of justices that will not use stare decisis to rule on a point of law.
Really, it’s not broken. Let’s not fix it. In any case (no pun intended), I’m still waiting to hear about “Media Coverage of the Courts.”
The execution of Troy Davis two weeks ago reminded me of a point in my life when I became active in fighting the reinstatement of the death penalty in Iowa. I no longer recall specific dates, but I do remember the moments.
Harold Lamont (Wili) Otey was executed by the State of Nebraska on September 2, 1994. Perhaps a year before that, sometime in the fall, he must have had a stay, because I’m quite sure that the vigil I attended on behalf of Otey was a fall event. Iowans Against the Death Penalty had organized a rally on the west steps of the Iowa Capitol. The weather was balmy early in the evening, but it became breezy and crisp after sunset. I had attended a few IADP meetings, but I was not an active participant, until this night.
Television cameras had set up, print reporters had their notepads in hand, and a radio station reporter had a microphone that he put up to each speaker’s face. The first few people to speak were quite predictable. They said all the right things and cited all the statistics. The news media was about to leave when I asked if I could read a poem.
I was given approval and began reading a poem written by Carl Sandburg; one he wrote in the 1920s.
Killers
C. Sandburg
I AM put high over all others in the city today.
I am the killer who kills for those who wish a killing today.
Here is a strong young man who killed.
There was a driving wind of city dust and horse dung blowing and he stood at an intersection of five sewers and there pumped the bullets of an automatic pistol into another man, a fellow citizen.
Therefore, the prosecuting attorneys, fellow citizens, and a jury of his peers, also fellow citizens, listened to the testimony of other fellow citizens, policemen, doctors, and after a verdict of guilty, the judge, a fellow citizen, said: I sentence you to be hanged by the neck till you are dead.
So there is a killer to be killed and I am the killer of the killer for today.
I don’t know why it beats in my head in the lines I read once in an old school reader: I’m to be queen of the May, mother, I’m to be queen of the May.
Anyhow it comes back in language just like that today.
I am the high honorable killer today.
There are five million people in the state, five million killers for whom I kill
I am the killer who kills today for five million killers who wish a killing.
As I was reading this, I felt a television camera in my face; the radio reporter’s microphone under my chin. Like the queen of the May, I became the leader of the parade, but there would be no execution. After I finished, the media packed up and left.
One lone reporter remained and reported the real story. Darkness had replaced dusk. Sirens wailed in the downtown area west of the Capitol and the wind picked up, as the rustling of the leaves became more of a backdrop to the eerie sensation surrounding the participants.
Among the people at the west steps was John Ely, the state senator from Cedar Rapids who led the abolition movement in the Iowa Senate during the 1965 repeal. He had spoken earlier, and I thought I had been in midst of a hero. But another hero emerged from the darkness and stood to the side.
He stood with his hands in the trench coat he was wearing, and it was difficult to see his face. But someone in the crowd knew it was former Governor Harold Hughes, a man who risked his political career by signing the bill that abolished capital punishment in Iowa. He was wearing an earring now. It’s part of the reason why I wear one, which is a longer story. He asked if he could address the crowd.
In his loud baritone voice, that never needed an audio system to be heard, Governor Hughes mentioned that he had listened to all the speakers before him. He waited until the media left so that he could again proclaim his dislike of capital punishment. He wanted us to know that he was with us. His conscience couldn’t let the night go by without speaking out one more time.
After that night, I became more than active; I dedicated a large part of my life to the abolitionist movement. People in Georgia maintaining vigilance as the state put Troy Davis to death brought back memories. I truly believe that a stronger movement is coming. As we said in 1995, during Iowa’s serious attempt to reinstate the death penalty, “Don’t kill for me!”
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
– The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
What could be more explicit?
Albert Florence was a passenger in a car traveling on a New Jersey road when the driver was pulled over by a New Jersey State Trooper. Florence was taken in to custody on a non-indictable civil matter unrelated to the traffic stop. Even though he claimed the unpaid matter had been taken care of, the trooper brought him to the jail to be booked. In the booking process, Florence was told to strip, hold his hands out, lift his genitals, and raise his tongue with his mouth open. All of this took place with a jailer standing within an arm’s length.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Florence was transported from the Burlington County Jail to the Essex County Correctional Facility after 6 days. At Essex, he went through a similar naked routine as he did upon entering the Burlington County Jail. This time “he and four other detainees were instructed to enter separate shower stalls, strip naked and shower under the watchful eyes of two corrections officers. After showering, Florence was directed to open his mouth and lift his genitals. Next, he was ordered to turn around so he faced away from the officers and to squat and cough.” After a day spent in the Essex County facility, the charges against Florence were dropped and he was released.
Strip searching is getting out of hand.
Shoshana Hebshi has become somewhat of a household name since September 11 of this year. Spend some time reading her blog of Sept. 12 on her website http://shebshi.wordpress.com/. She is continuing to write further on this matter and I, for one, plan to check in periodically. If you don’t know, Shoshana is a married suburban mother of twins who just happens to have a parent who is Jewish and one who is Saudi Arabian. She sat next to two men from India on a plane from Denver to Detroit. Someone on the plane reported that the three (who didn’t know each other from Adam) were engaged in suspicious activity – evidently the two men used the lavatory. Upon landing in Detroit, the plane was diverted to an isolated designation and the three were removed from the plane in handcuffs, interrogated, strip searched, and allowed to leave after a considerable amount of time.
Shoshana describes her observances, her fear, her apprehension, and her embarrassing moments. She had to urinate before being removed from the plane, but she couldn’t in the cell because of the lack of cleanliness, and because “[n]ear the ceiling above the toilet there was a video camera.”
When she was free to leave after hours of being held, a federal officer “apologized for what had happened and thanked me for understanding and cooperating.” Yuk! Thanks for cooperating? And, if she hadn’t? He told her: “It’s 9/11 and people are seeing ghosts. They are seeing things that aren’t there.” He said they had to act on a report of suspicious behavior, and this is what the reaction looks like.” She doesn’t know how this will affect her. For one thing, she claims she will no longer fly on September 11. I would quit flying altogether. Of course, I haven’t flown since 1999.
Shoshana sums it up properly by noticing what we all have experienced. “This country has operated for the last 10 years through fear. “ In a more recent blog she wrote that “the story is not about me. It’s about our rights. We live in a country that was founded on distinct principles of freedom and democracy. We have a constitution to protect those tenets. There is nothing clearer than that.”
Two years ago, several high school girls in Atlantic, Iowa, were strip-searched as a result of a claim by another student that her $100 was missing. A lawsuit over the incident was settled on Tuesday (Sept. 20) of this week when an attorney for the school issued the following media release: “After the investigation of all the facts involving the searches of several girls at the Atlantic High School several years ago, the Atlantic Community School District has determined that the searches violated the school’s policy and state law regarding school searches. The school district acknowledges that the involved girls did nothing wrong.”
Albert Florence, Shoshana Hebshi, and four unnamed girls in the Atlantic Community School District were all ordered by different levels of government (state, federal, local) to remove clothing from their body and stand naked in front of an agent of government [Note: The girls in Atlantic were never totally naked, and each had to disrobe to different degrees of nudity, shaking bras and panties being part of the procedure]. None of them were charged with a crime. None of them were a threat to the government or to society. Yet, they were forced into humiliation and embarrassment. They cooperated. But what if they hadn’t?
Does our Fourth Amendment mean anything anymore? The Atlantic high school girls are compensated for what they had to endure; Shoshana Hebshi has been in contact with the ACLU; but here’s the scary part. On Wednesday, October 12, the United States Supreme Court will conduct oral arguments in the case of Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, 621 F. 3d 296 (3d Cir. 2010). The sole question before the High Court is “whether the Fourth Amendment permits a jail to conduct a suspicionless strip search of every individual arrested for any minor offense no matter what the circumstances.” This is Albert Florence’s case. Don’t think for one minute that this is a slam-dunk case.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that “the strip search procedures described by the District Court at BCJ and ECCF are reasonable.” The Appeals court reversed the “District Court’s grant of summary judgment” and remanded the case “for further proceedings consistent with [its] opinion.” In coming to this conclusion, two of the three circuit judges based their reasoning on balancing “the Jails’ security interests at the time of intake before arrestees enter the general population against the privacy interests of the inmates.” They gave more weight to the security interests.
And there you have it. Ben Franklin’s famous quote was almost obscure until ten years ago. Since terrorists have successfully drove Americans into a state of fear following 9-11, we have “sacrificed liberty for the sake of a little temporary safety,” and have deserved neither. We have allowed the government to ransack our bodies. Children are constantly told not to allow strangers to touch them or allow them to see their private parts. How do you then explain to a child what happens at airports when TSA workers grab people inappropriately – including some toddlers?
We’re losing our safety, our liberty, and our dignity. But most importantly, we’re losing our Fourth Amendment. Sadly, no one seems to be offering a reward for its safe return.
