South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog

The FBI's yearly report on crime data was released this week, and shows that a record number of Americans were arrested for marijuana possession in 2007:

872,721 Americans were arrested for marijuana in 2007, and of those arrests, 89% or 775,138 were arrests for simple possession - not buying, selling, trafficking, or manufacture (growing) . . . This represents an increase in marijuana arrests of 5.2% from the previous year and the fifth straight year marijuana arrests have increased from the previous year. Now a marijuana smoker is arrested at the rate of 1 every 37 seconds and almost 100 marijuana arrests per hour.

In comparison, Grits points out that "597,447 were for violent crimes, and 1,610,088 were for property crimes. That means just 15.54% of arrests were for violent crimes or property offenses." Dallas criminal defense lawyer Robert Guest takes this a step further, finding that the clearance numbers (crimes solved) for 2007 were:

Murder 60%

Rape- 40%

Robbery- 25%

When marijuana is legal the police can work on the 40% of annual uncleared murders. We owe it to the victims of real crime to quit wasting law enforcement resources on marijuana consumers.

What do you want your police solving and/or preventing? Pot smoking, or violent/property crime?

South Carolina had a total of 213,355 arrests, of which 10,681 were arrests for violent crimes, 302 were arrests for murder, and 30,679 were arrests for drug crimes

Just days before the FBI released their statistics showing that over 872,000 Americans were arrested in 2007 for marijuana, our esteemed Drug Czar stated on C-Span that "we did not arrest 800,000 marijuana users," and went on to explain that "we arrest people because they are usually involved with things like violent offenses . . ."

Right around 1:38 on the video:

Posted by Bobby G. Frederick | Permalink | Email This Post | Comments (0)

Posted In: Prison Nation , War on drugs

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Yesterday a Joint Economic Committee meeting was held by the House and Senate, called by Virginia Senator Jim Webb, to discuss the efficacy of our country's failed drug laws. There was testimony by prosecutors and legal scholars that the current emphasis on incarceration rather than treatment has proven to be costly and ineffective.

Senator Webb and the witnesses at the hearing say that despite record numbers of arrests and incarceration of drug offenders, there has been no reduction in the availability and use of drugs. "Despite the number of people we have arrested, the illegal drug industry and the flow of drugs to our citizens remain undiminished," Webb said. Also at the hearing, Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott "said prevention programs such as prenatal care, early-childhood education, summer jobs and access to college would prove more cost effective than spending $65 billion a year to lock people up, as the United States does today."

According to the article, Senator Webb acknowledges that the subject matter is "politically perilous," and advocating for less prison sentences will be seen as being "soft on crime." Senator Webb said that there is no pending legislation, he just wants to get the facts out. No republicans showed up for the meeting, and there was not much media coverage of the event, as noted at Sentencing Law and Policy.

That is the main barrier to fixing the drug laws - no politician wants to be seen as "soft on crime." But it is encouraging at least to see some who are talking about it, and putting it into the public's view. The beginning of making changes in the current policy is to educate the public on the facts of the "drug war," addiction, and the ineffectiveness of current policies.

When the will of the people is to stop incarcerating America, politicians will change the laws to reflect treatment and prevention rather than incarceration for non-violent offenders. There needs to be public debate, and more people in positions of authority like Senator Webb need to speak up if there is going to be any change in our collective will as a nation.

Posted by Bobby G. Frederick | Permalink | Email This Post | Comments (0)

Posted In: Prison Nation , War on drugs

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Woman in Black thinks that a mandatory month in prison should be a prerequisite to working as a judge or prosecutor. I agree. Before we are allowed to make decisions as to just how many months or years a human being will be locked inside a steel cage, we should know just what we are talking about.

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Posted In: Prison Nation

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Despite all of the attention focused nationally on the overcrowding of our jails and prisons, our attorney general is pushing a bill that will remove the possibility of parole for any felony in South Carolina. The bill would accomplish two main purposes: to eliminate the possibility of parole for felonies, and to create an alternative court for non-violent offenders.

Under the current scheme, a no parole offense is defined by § 23-13-100 as a Class A, B, or C felony, or any crime that is exempt from classification but punishable by a maximum term of 20 years or more. A person who is convicted of a no parole offense is not eligible for parole and cannot be released until they have served at least 85% of their sentence.

The proposed bill, H.4309, would revise § 23-13-100 to include Class D, E, and F felonies, or any crime that is exempt from classification but punishable by a maximum term of 1 year or more, and it would include Class A and B misdemeanors as well.

The proposed bill would also establish a system of "middle courts," modeled after drug courts, but not limited to drug offenses. Horry County Drug Court has been praised as a success. It is a wonderful idea, and in theory it should divert many people away from the prison system. I think we all want the drug court, and the proposed middle court expansion, to work, but we need to step back and take a look at what is happening in drug court:

1) Some people are finishing the program, remaining drug free, and avoiding prison to boot. These are the success stories that we want to hear about. Horry County's drug court began in August of 2005, and has graduated 12 people so far.

2) I am told that most people do not graduate, but I have not seen any numbers on how many have been admitted and how many have flunked out, other than only 12 have graduated in the past 3 years.

3) Before being admitted into the program, the defendant must plead guilty, be sentenced, and then the sentence is deferred pending completion of the program.

4) To be admitted into the program, the defendant must waive any right to appeal or enjoin any decision of the drug court/ middle court judge, and the defendant must waive any right to post conviction relief.

5) If the defendant is dismissed from the program, the defendant does not receive any due process or hearing, and the full sentence is immediately imposed.

So I ask, if most people do not graduate from this program, is it promoting the rehabilitation and re-entry of non-violent offenders into society and reserving the state's prisons for dangerous offenders, or is it giving the prosecutors an easy out to obtain convictions and often lengthy sentences, without the terrible headache of appeals and PCR's? So far, it seems that this bill will not only serve to keep people in prison longer, but it will help the prosecutors to send more people there in the first place.

I am not saying that we should scrap the idea, but I do think that we should make sure that it is achieving its stated goals, and I don't think that this should be used as a way to get around defendant's due process rights.

Posted by Bobby G. Frederick | Permalink | Email This Post | Comments (2)

Posted In: Local , Prison Nation

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The figure of 1 in 100 adults incarcerated, although shocking, is not the worst of the statistics revealed by the Pew Center Study. At the beginning of 2008, 1,596,127 persons were in state or federal prisons, and another 723,131 persons were in local jails, making the total adult inmate count 2,319,258.

The figure of 1 in 100 is based on total adult population. The study also breaks down the percentage incarcerated by race, age, and gender:

1 in 54 men aged 18 or older are currently incarcerated.
1 in 106 White men aged 18 or older are currently incarcerated.
1 in 36 Hispanic men aged 18 or older are currently incarcerated.
1 in 15 Black men aged 18 or older are currently incarcerated.
1 in 9 Black men aged 20-34 are currently incarcerated.

The figure of 1 in 100 adults incarcerated is arrived at as follows:
Prison population 1,596,127 + Jail population 723,131 = Total behind bars 2,319,258.
Total adult population 229,786,080 divided by Total behind bars 2,319,258 = 99.1
One in every 99.1 U.S. adults incarcerated.

Posted by Bobby G. Frederick | Permalink | Email This Post | Comments (0)

Posted In: Prison Nation

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A study by the Pew Center on the States reports that more than 1 in 100 Americans are currently behind bars. The United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation in the world.

A recent New York Times article discussing the study notes that:

[p]rison costs are blowing a hole in state budgets. On average, states spend almost 7 percent on their budgets on corrections, trailing only healthcare, education and transportation.

In 2007, according to the National Association of State Budgeting Officers, states spent $44 billion in tax dollars on corrections. That is up from $10.6 billion in 1987, a 127 increase once adjusted for inflation. With money from bonds and the federal government included, total state spending on corrections last year was $49 billion. By 2011, the report said, states are on track to spend an additional $25 billion.

This is not an abstract problem viewed from a distance - this is an issue that affects all of us. Horry County is currently building a $50 million addition to the J. Reuben Long Detention Center, which will require 50 additional employees. Charleston County is building a $100 million expansion to their jail, and Spartanburg County is considering a $46 million expansion to their jail.

Overcrowding in the Lexington County Jail has become a problem, and Lexington Sheriff James Metts is pushing a plan to build new jails in Laurens, Lee, and Colleton Counties to house illegal immigrants. The Beaufort County Jail is severely overcrowded and, like many counties, Beaufort is debating how much to raise property taxes to cover the costs of expansions.

Posted by Bobby G. Frederick | Permalink | Email This Post | Comments (0)

Posted In: Prison Nation

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