Category Archives: Law

Revenge of the Slummin’ Solon

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Aww, just when I thought we were rid of the guy, his tainted legacy comes back to haunt us.

GalbraithI speak of the person formerly known as The Most Hated Man in the Senate, Peter Galbraith. In a building full of people convinced that their shit don’t stink, he stood out for his towering self-regard. He saw himself as a master lawmaker and deal-broker, when in fact he was an egotistical meddler always willing to block the process if he thought things could be done better.

By which I mean, of course, that things should be done the way he wanted them done.

One of his more notorious episodes is now making life more difficult for his former Senate colleagues, who now have to relitigate the aid-in-dying law because of a classic Galbraithian power play.

Back in the spring of 2013, after an exhaustive debate across multiple sessions, the state legislature was poised to enact a bill that would have allowed terminally ill patients to seek lethal medication under strictly controlled conditions. The version that passed the House was modeled on Oregon’s successful law.

The Senate vote was expected to be very close. And at a crucial moment, Galbraith and another guy I’m pleased to call “former Senator,” Bob Hartwell, forced a radical rewrite of the bill that basically stripped away all the controls and protections. Galbraith was the driving force behind the idea; he wanted aid-in-dying without any state controls. The idea appealed to no one else, but he refused to budge. In the end, a House-Senate conference committed settled on a Frankenstein monster of a bill that imposed Oregon-style protections at first, but is set to remove them in the year 2016.

It was a ridiculous bill, but it did get aid-in-dying onto the books. And by all accounts, it’s been a success so far: very few people have used it, and even fewer have actually taken a fatal dose, but it does provide a safety valve for those truly in extremis without posing any visible danger to anyone else.

It works. But because of the Galbraith-Hartwell maneuver, the bill has to be reopened this year. Otherwise, we’d enter a Wild West situation, as the Vermont Press Bureau’s Neal Goswami outlines:

If the law is not changed, physicians will no longer be required to tell patients in person and in writing of their diagnosis, prognosis, range of treatment options, risks of taking medication and probable result of taking medication.

Nobody wants that. But thanks to Galbraith and Hartwell, the issue has to be reopened. This week, the Senate Health & Welfare Committee held a hearing on a bill that would continue the current protections beyond 2016. This has given opponents of aid-in-dying a second crack at killing the legislation. According to Goswami:

… opponents of Act 39 will look to repeal it and have allies in the Legislature who will sponsor amendments with that purpose when the legislation to keep the safeguards hits the Senate floor.

Great. We spent endless hours debating aid-in-dying and arrived at a substantial consensus. The resulting bill has worked as intended. But now, in a session already overloaded with contentious issues like the budget, taxes, Lake Champlain cleanup, education reform, and health care, we may have to live through a repeat of the 2013 debate.

And we have Peter Galbraith and his running buddy Bob Hartwell to thank for that. I really, really hope we’ve seen the last of those two assclowns.

Shocker: Gun bill “hits snag”

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As VPR’s Peter Hirschfeld reports, the bill that would expand background checks for gun sales “has hit a major snag.”

The snag’s name is Judiciary Committee chair Dick Sears, a.k.a. The Human Snag.

“I don’t believe that the background check portion of the bill has the votes in this committee to pass out of this committee,” Sears said Tuesday.

That’s a nicely passive-aggressive way of putting it. Sears is opposed to the background check portion, and nothing gets through his committee without his consent. I dare say if Sears was the only member of the committee opposed, it still wouldn’t get through.

Hirschfeld notes that it’s still “theoretically” possible that the provision could be passed through some other committee (I’d suggest Agriculture, just for sh*ts and giggles). But the Senate is notoriously deferential to its senior members, and nobody demands more deference than good old Dick.

No surprise anyway. The background check debate was a shadow play from the start. The bill had no chance, given the loud and well-organized opposition of the gun-rights community. Like the Allied soldiers at Gallipoli, it wasn’t a question of whether this bill would die on the beach. The question was, which beach would it die on.

Background check bill, welcome to Sears Beach.

I think they call this “inexpedient to legislate”

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In the words of Charlie Pierce, Here’s Some Stupid For Lunch. VTDigger: 

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday tabled a bill that would increase the scope of the state’s criminal DNA collection because of a backlog in processing existing samples.

The decision came after Dr. Trisha Conti, director of the Vermont Forensics Laboratory, told lawmakers that the lab has approximately 2,500 samples waiting to be processed and added to the state database.

Yeah, well, hmm. It begs the question, why didn’t anyone check with the Lab before proposing the expansion?

It doesn’t speak well of our government’s internal communication skills, does it?

A law passed in 2008 mandates DNA testing for every convicted felon in Vermont; the proposed bill would have included anyone convicted of a misdemeanor that could have led to jail time. That would have generated several thousand more DNA samples to the workload.

The backlog came about because the state lab has only one analyst doing the work, and she’s been on maternity leave. And if you think that’s funny, get a load of this:

At the time the [2008] law passed, funding was designated for two chemist positions. A chemist already employed by the lab, whose federally funded position was set to expire, filled one position. The other position was not filled.

Hahahaha. So the legislature expanded DNA testing and budgeted money for the necessary staff, and the administration never spent it. Well, two administrations: Douglas and Shumlin. Yeah, funny.

Paco Aumand, deputy commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, added that they’ve had a hard time “finding qualified people to take these scientific jobs at compensation that the state of Vermont is paying.”

So we pass a law to protect ourselves from repeat offenders, and then we don’t come up with the money to actually follow through. Wonderful.

Oh, and in case you even had to ask: Governor Shumlin’s 2016 budget doesn’t include funding for a second lab tech. Of course it doesn’t.

Dick Sears moves the target

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Interesting piece by the Associated Press’ Dave Gram (now serving as the Burlington Free Press’ de facto Statehouse Bureau) about legislative consideration of the state’s troubled sex offender registry. 

As you may recall, state law requires that the registry pass a “clean audit” before offenders’ addresses can be posted online. And the registry has failed two audits. The most recent, issued last summer, found “critical errors” in 11 percent of cases.

Not good.

But maybe, just maybe good enough for Dick Sears, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and a man determined to get those addresses online. He has said there should be a zero percent error rate on the fundamentals, such as whether an individual should be on the registry in the first place. He said so again last Friday, according to Gram.

But he told a different story at a Judiciary Committee meeting on January 8:

“You can’t keep waiting for a positive audit, without defining what a positive audit is. If we were to define (the error rate), it would probably be 10 percent,” Sears said, according to a recording of the session.

Defender General Matthew Valerio interjected, “Or 5, or 2.”

Sears added, “Or 5 or 2 or 1 (percent).”

That first statement, quickly amended, is pretty damn alarming. He redefined “a positive audit” as reporting a 10 percent error rate? 

Yikes.

While he immediately parroted Valerio’s words, his original statement is still hanging out there: “a positive audit… would probably be 10 percent.”

Sears then acknowledged that perfection might be impossible to attain: “Human beings enter the information.”

He’s right, of course. The problem is, posting the addresses of people labeled as sex offenders is a huge deal with potentially massive consequences. What if a person is wrongly labeled? What if an offender moves frequently, as is often the case, and an old address stays on the list? How about the new resident at that address?

Sears is dead set on getting those addresses online. And it sounds like he’s lowering his standards in order to achieve his goal. Let’s hope we don’t see a bill emerging from his committee that redefines a “clean audit” as an error rate of 10 percent or less.

Postscript. This story is one small sign of the diminishment of our Statehouse press corps. The key event occurred almost three weeks ago, and was not reported at the time. Gram retrieved the Sears comments from the official recording of the January 8 hearing.

As far as can be told, no reporters actually attended the hearing. Now, hearings go on every day, and Gov. Shumlin was inaugurated on January 8. Under the circumstances, it’s not surprising that no reporters attended the committee hearing. But it’s an indication of how thin our Statehouse coverage is, and how many stories go unreported that are well worth our time and attention.

A picture is worse than a thousand words, I guess

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Where do you draw the line between journalism and exploitation?

I know where the Burlington Free Press draws it, after reading its downright grisly, torture-porny article on yesterday’s testimony in the Allen Prue murder trial. The article colorfully entitled:

Medical examiner: Jenkins looked ‘beat up’

The Freeploid was happy to report WCAX’s mistaken broadcast of a crime scene photo that showed the murder victim’s body. (Or, as the ever-sensitive Mike Donoghue put it in a Tweet, “naked body of slain teacher.”) Which was wrong, and WCAX News Director Anson Tebbetts fell all over himself apologizing for it.

So, it’s wrong to show a picture. But apparently it’s all right to publish every detail of Medical Examiner Stephen Shapiro’s testimony, including the following phrases:

“Jenkins’ bruised and marked body”

Shapiro “…told the jury about the marks left by different types of strangulation. Shapiro said he determined Jenkins’ official cause of death to be manual strangulation, meaning done by hand.”

Gee, thanks for that clarification. I wouldn’t have guessed.

‘She looked beat up,’ Shapiro said, later adding. ‘She did not do this to herself.’

“Shapiro used a laser pointer to highlight different scrapes and bruises… including six circular marks.”

This was followed by a thorough retelling of the effects of a stun gun on a human body:

Shapiro said the effect of a stun gun is not quite the same as a Taser, since the Taser almost instantaneously incapacitates the person. The stun gun, on the other hand, causes pain but does not incapacitate.

“A stun gun that’s pressed up against your body is more of a compliance weapon,” Shapiro said.

You can almost feel the burn, can’t you?

The first sentence of the story began with “Several loved ones of Melissa Jenkins inhaled sharply and covered their eyes…”

If they happen to read today’s Free Press, I think they’ll be inhaling sharply and covering their eyes all over again.

I know how the Free Press would defend itself. It’s a high-profile murder case, the trial is open, the testimony is fair game, and The People Have A Right To Know.

But do we have to know every detail? Or is this another case of Clickbait Uber Alles?

To me, this story crossed a line. And it makes the Freeploid’s sanctimony over WCAX seem downright hypocritical.

 

I’ve been there

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Easy targets of the week: the Hardwick couple who ended a disabled boy’s life by pouring vodka into his IV bag. The overweight, slovenly-looking couple, now charged with second-degree murder. They’re fat, they’re ugly (as all the quick-draw commenters on the WCAX website point out), and they killed a helpless boy.

Sorry, I can’t join the multitude in crying bloody murder.

Because I’ve been there.

I’ve been in a situation where someone I loved was in a severely disabled condition. Not life-threatening, but no chance of meaningful recovery either. I know what it’s like to see complete helplessness and unending suffering, to watch the days and weeks and months and years pass by with no change and no hope. To look into the future and see more of the same, unending.

To be a caretaker, and watch the clock moving in slow motion. To have nothing to say, nothing to do, nothing meaningful to offer except my presence, for whatever the hell that was worth.

And yeah, I’ve asked myself “what’s the point?” I’ve thought that a quick, hopefully painless death would have been the best possible thing for all concerned.

I never did anything about it, but I can tell you the thoughts came to mind.

I don’t know what happened with Isaac Robitille. I don’t know what was really in the minds of Melissa Robitille and Walter Richters: did they mean to kill Isaac, or merely sedate him?

The bare bones of their story don’t reveal enough to pass judgment. They do bring out painful memories of despair, of helplessness, of boredom, of wondering what it was all about and when it would end. And I can tell you, no matter how much assistance you get from the medical and social-services people, it’s not enough to ease the heavy burden you carry 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

I don’t know how well Robitille and Richters handled the situation. But I know enough to realize that there’s plenty of room for another side to this story. A side that, if true, would make a murder conviction a senseless piling-on to a tragic situation by a system that’s supposed to dispense justice.

It’s possible that they concocted a scheme to rid themselves of the anchor around both their lives; that one of them held Isaac down while the other dumped vodka into the tube, knowing it would kill him, and watching him die before calling the police.

I will say that Isaac’s BAC of .146 doesn’t support that version of events. It seems low to me. If they’d really intended death, I’d think they would have used a higher dose.

But I don’t know. All I know, in fact, is that I don’t know. And although they seem like easy targets, I won’t be passing judgment anytime soon.

Maybe never.

 

 

Waving the bloody shirt in Pennsylvania

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The scoundrel finds his last refuge.

The scoundrel finds his last refuge.

Tom Corbett is a desperate man.

The Republican Governor of Pennsylvania is way, way down in the polls in his fight for re-election. Somewhere between 15-20 points down to Democrat Tom Wolf. And there’s a really messy scandal coming to light about his time as state Attorney General: eight of his staffers were enthusiastically sharing porn by email. Two men who became top Corbett Administration officials have had to resign. Others are hanging by a thread.

So Tom Corbett could use a nice big fat distraction. And he’s got one, courtesy of Goddard College’s commencement invitation to Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Corbett’s response: a proposed bill that would bar convicted criminals from seeking publicity from their crimes. The bill is now fast-tracking its way through the Legislature; if it gets into law, expect it to be struck down as a violation of the First Amendment.

But no matter. Corbett’s not seriously interested in the bill; all he wants to do is wave the bloody shirt, and turn the spotlight away from the cratering of his political career.

The bill, according to lead sponsor Mike Vereb, “would allow crime victims or prosecutors acting on their behalf to bring a civil action to halt conduct by an offender if it causes the victim or the victim’s family severe mental anguish.” He slammed Goddard for giving Mumia a platform to deliver a “taxpayer-funded rant.”

Let’s take the latter first. Mumia’s remarks, according to those — unlike Vereb — who actually read them, were the usual blandly inspirational stuff of commencement addresses. He did not speak of the crime that put him behind bars for life. He did not mock the family and friends of the late Officer Danny Faulkner. He did not recite the lyrics to “Fuck Tha Police.” 

If the family and friends of Danny Faulkner are suffering any severe mental anguish, it’s not because a small liberal-arts college in a small Vermont town invited Mumia to give a brief recorded address to 20 students. It’s because of all the conservative ragemongering that capitalized on the event.

Mike Vereb said, “The words of the victims should be louder than the criminals.” Well, they would have been if people like Mike Vereb had let the Goddard event pass quietly by.

In fact, they still were louder. A whole lot louder. How many people actually heard Mumia’s words? And how many have heard the words of Faulkner’s family, friends, and supporters?

It’s people like Mike Vereb and Tom Corbett who are indulging in taxpayer-funded rants. They are the ones causing “severe mental anguish” by endlessly reciting the details of the crime and pushing the Faulkner family back into the spotlight. And, figuratively, waving Danny Faulkner’s bloody shirt for a brief moment of political advantage.

Could somebody please draft a bill that would bar public officials from going on taxpayer-funded rants that cause severe mental anguish?

The for-profit gulag

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Need some reasons why Vermont should end its dependency on out-of-state, for-profit prisons?

Y’know, aside from the fact that it’s wrong, that sending people two thousand miles away is arguably cruel and unusual punishment, and that it may well make rehabilitation more difficult because the inmates are isolated from everyone they know?

Yes, aside from all that.

And aside from the fact that prison contractor Corrections Corporation of America is a particularly scummy operation that’s gotten into trouble for inadequate medical care leading to inmate deaths, overbilling government clients, persistently understaffing prisons so that violence and drug abuse become widespread, providing “substandard food and medical conditions,” and aggressively lobbying for tougher detention and sentencing laws so they can fill their prisons, specifically backing Arizona’s notorious SB 1070, which turned every law enforcement official in the state into a de facto immigration enforcer?

Yes, even aside from all that. A couple of recent stories about Vermont’s dealings with the prison industry ought to give fresh impetus to the movement to bring our inmates home.

First, Vermont’s four-year contract with CCA expires next summer. But, as VPR’s Peter Hirschfeld reported this week, “the process isn’t likely to dramatically improve conditions” for Vermont’s out-of-state inmates:

[Corrections Commissioner Andy] Pallito says Vermont won’t bring a strong hand into its negotiations.

“There’s something like 100,000 beds in the out-of-state market,” Pallito said. “We’re only looking at 400 or 500 or 600 beds in total, and so we’re a pretty small consumer.”

… “Because we’re such a small consumer in this market, we’re kind of not in a position where we can dictate a lot of the contract particulars,” Pallito said. “And so we’re a little bit at the mercy of the bidders.”

“Kind of,” “a little bit.” What deft understatement.

So we’re pretty much at the mercy of whichever prison operator deigns to bother with our penny-ante contract. Or is desperate enough to fill vacant beds that it’ll go after the Vermont business. But they’re unlikely to cut us any slack.

The Florence Correctional Center, where 28 Vermont inmates are subject to CCA's tender mercies.

The Florence Correctional Center, where 28 Vermont inmates are subject to CCA’s tender mercies.

And second, an August 22 “disturbance” among a relative handful of Vermont inmates warehoused in Arizona resulted in 13 of them going into solitary confinement for over a month. The incident went unreported in Vermont until late September, when the Department of Corrections confirmed it to Seven Days’ Mark Davis.

This is troubling because, as outgoing State Rep. Suzy Wizowaty, head of Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform, noted, “If this had happened in Vermont, we would have heard about it.” And if CCA had its way, we won’t hear anything more:

In a written statement, CCA confirmed the incident and the inmates’ subsequent punishment, but did not provide additional details.

It’s unclear when CCA got around to informing the state of Vermont, but it wasn’t until September 10 — nineteen days after the incident — that DOC sent an investigative team to the Arizona prison where they “found no problems… and took no action.”

Meanwhile, as far as we know, the 13 inmates are still held in solitary, “confined to individual cells for 23 hours a day.” And according to Richard Byrne, the DOC’s out-of-state unit supervisor,

… it is unclear how long the punishment will last — CCA, not Vermont DOC, is in charge.

Great.

If you’d like to read more about the for-profit entity who’s “in charge” of our inmates, try reading “The Dirty Thirty: Nothing to Celebrate About 30 years of Corrections Corporation of America,” published in 2013 by Grassroots Leadership.

I say “try reading,” because you might just want to stop after a few pages and wonder why your Vermont tax dollars are going into the coffers of this corporate gang.

Hey, Bill Sorrell. I understand you’re running for re-election. Again. If you’re looking for a handy cause to burnish your fading reputation have a real, strong, positive impact, how about pushing for some serious sentencing reform? Maybe even a thorough review of Vermont’s inmate population, to see which ones could be released without endangering public safety? Given the number of nonviolent and elderly inmates (second highest percentage of inmates over 55 of any state), maybe we could get away without signing another contract with CCA.

You’d be a hero to your liberal base, Bill. Think about it.

Our finer educational institutions engage in some unproductive ass-covering

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Thank goodness for the Clery Act, the federal law that forces educational institutions to track and report sex crimes on campus. It’s blown some fresh air into some very stuffy corridors. And compelled us all to take a hard look at what actually goes on in our supposedly safe, high-toned precincts.

The latest, as reported by VPR, is that reports of sexual assaults “saw dramatic increases” in 2013 at Dartmouth and Middlebury Colleges.

Said institutions reacted, sadly, by blaming the messenger. Middlebury:

“While these numbers are a source of real concern, and we will remain vigilant in enforcing our policies, it is also possible that these numbers reflect a greater willingness among individuals to report violations,” said Shirley M. Collado, dean of the College.

And even worse, from Dartmouth:

We believe that the increase in the number of reports is a result of Dartmouth’s efforts to strengthen a climate of reporting rather than an increase in the actual incidence of sex offenses.

“It is possible.” “We believe.” No evidence offered, just a very convenient belief.

Now, I’m sure they’re right, at least in part. But it’s still a disappointing reaction. Especially from Dartmouth, which has much to atone for in these areas.

A little free PR advice. Here’s what you SHOULD have said.

We view this news with dismay. We believe that the increase may be caused, in part, by an improved climate of reporting; but any incidence of sexual assault on our campus is unacceptable.

We have tried to create an atmosphere in which our students learn that sexual assault is unacceptable, and in which they feel absolutely free to report any assaults. Clearly, we have more work to do.

There. Was that so hard?

 

Vile overreaction at Goddard College

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Well, you knew that inviting Mumia Abu Jamal to speak would prompt a backlash. Especially when the professional ragemongers at Fox News got hold of it. (Seriously, Rupert Murdoch should make a donation to Goddard for giving his minions some raw meat to chew on.)

And, as we might have guessed, the reaction is thoroughly despicable. Goddard staff are getting obscenely violent emails and voice mails. My old colleague John Odum has written it up at his new outpost, POVt.net, and I suggest you check it out. I’ll give you just a sample here, and apologies for the language. This is not the worst one, by the way.

“Hey, if I rape one of your students and slit her throat – can I become a Graduation Day Speaker?”

Yes, there’s worse than that. According to John, the college has contacted the Vermont State Police. For those unfamiliar, this is a small college out in the boonies with a very roomy and impossible-to-secure campus. The commencement ceremonies are small affairs, with each program getting its own; the group that invited Mumia has only 23 students. It’d only take one nutjob to turn commencement into a crime scene.

I hope the VSP takes this seriously and provides appropriate security. I hope the troopers set aside their understandable feelings about Mumia and do their jobs like professionals.

And no, in no way does inviting Mumia Abu Jamal mean that Goddard “deserves” this kind of reaction.