Untraceable guns, untraceable crime
June 25, 2008
According to the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, gun dealers nationwide “lost” an average of at least 82 firearms every day last year. For all of fiscal year 2007, this adds up to a grand total of more than 30,000 firearms that cannot be accounted for in dealers’ inventories. The Brady Center analyzed this month’s data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which led to these disturbing figures.
Untraceable guns are the perfect fit for criminals seeking to become untraceable themselves. That’s why the law already requires dealers to keep records of the guns it sells, and to whom. And gun laws aside, tracking inventory should be basic shopkeepers’ math. It doesn’t seem like that should be too much to ask of any honest, moral gun dealer.
Unfortunately, an enforcement agency like the ATF doesn’t have the resources to inspect every single gun store across the country. Between untraceable guns and legislative loopholes (like the fact that our government has failed to require gun shows to implement a thorough background check on customers), gun control looks more and more like an exercise in futility.
As a person who grew up in a house with guns, and whose father took the license to have such a weapon very seriously, I would hope there are many law-abiding gun owners out there who would not see more stringent enforcement of inventory regulations as an assault on the Second Amendment. Besides, according to that very amendment, even the militia “necessary to the security of a free State” is “well regulated.”
Francis Smith, Special Publications Assistant Editor
Sphere: Related ContentTaser International’s winning streak ends
June 11, 2008
As of last week, Taser International had won 69 straight court cases brought against it. On Friday, that run came to a $6 million dollar halt.
The electronic protection device maker lost its first liability lawsuit in federal court in California, bringing a shocking end to its winning streak.
The Monterey County Herald reported:
A federal jury has held Taser International responsible for the death of a Salinas man in U.S. District Court in San Jose on Friday, and awarded his family more than $6 million in punitive and compensatory damages.
An attorney for the family called the verdict a “landmark decision,” and indicated that it was the first time Taser International had been held responsible for a death or injury linked to its product.
Although they are not suing Taser, a Maryland family made headlines recently when they filed a $145 million dollar lawsuit against Frederick County after their son, Jarrel Gray, died last November after being shocked twice with a Taser by a county police officer.
After all of this: Should we reconsider how Tasers are being used?
RICHARD SIMON, Multimedia Reporter
Sphere: Related ContentPsst… your lawyer may not like you
June 3, 2008
Judging by its “most popular” list, Time.com struck a nerve with its article on Curtis Osborne, fetchingly headlined “If your lawyer wants you executed.”
Osborne, who faces execution in Georgia on Wednesday for murdering two people, was represented by court-appointed lawyer Johnny Mostiler. Another Mostiler client claims the lawyer said, of Osborne, “That little [n—] deserves the chair.”
(Mostiler himself, before his death in 2000, assured a judge that he never uses the N-word “out in public,” the story says. Not exactly lawyer-of-the-year material.)
There were other allegations of outrageously ineffective assistance of counsel, all of which were rejected by state and federal courts.
However, the courts never reached the merits of Mostiler’s alleged statement, finding that claim was procedurally barred. Time.com takes umbrage at that, calling it the “ultimate insult.”
But it seems to me that misses the point.
The infuriating beauty of the criminal defense bar is precisely its belief that every defendant is entitled to representation, no matter how heinous the crime, no matter the lawyer’s personal feelings about the client.
I was once surprised to learn that a noted capital defense attorney did not oppose the death penalty. When I asked him why, he said he’d sat too often across the table from truly evil people.
“Truly evil,” he said. Yet he made it his life’s work to save theirs.
No, I’m not in favor of lawyers using racist slurs or publicly condemning their clients. And yes, there are lawyers who work to prove their clients are innocent, as opposed to wrongfully convicted or sentenced.
But if capital defendants are entitled to lawyers who believe in their innocence and feel friendly toward them as individuals, then we might as well abolish the death penalty.
Because there’s no guarantee – let alone a constitutional guarantee – that a lawyer like that will come along in anyone’s lifetime.
BARBARA GRZINCIC, Managing Editor/Law
Sphere: Related ContentTop cop, prosecutor lament fate of crime-fighting bills
May 20, 2008
Baltimore’s police commissioner and state’s attorney are still irked at how their crime fighting bills fared in the House Judiciary Committee during the recent legislative session.
As part of his report to the city’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council last week, Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III reviewed the failure of proposals to require gun owners to report lost firearms, to decrease diminution credits for gun offenders, and to further limit who can own a gun.
Baltimore City State’s Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy, whose office supported many of the same bills as the police department, echoed Bealefeld’s doleful tone.
“We were beat up together,” she said, reciting gang-related bills that died in committee.
Bealefeld said lobbying the Baltimore City delegation during the session was like “preaching to the choir,” but that legislators from rural counties were far less receptive, as they falsely perceived such problems as unique to Baltimore.
“Cecil County we cannot forget,” Jessamy quipped.
Jessamy said while having criminal defense attorneys on the Judiciary Committee (including its chairman, Del. Joseph F. Vallario Jr.) “is a good thing for the system,” it has meant annual disappointment for her office, legislatively speaking. “What I cannot stomach,” Jessamy said, “is this total disregard for the wishes of the people.”
Baltimore City Solicitor George A. Nilson suggested creating a “criminal profile” of the members of the committee to hold them accountable to their constituents. He said he would consider airing Jessamy’s complaints in an upcoming meeting with House Speaker Michael E. Busch.
Baltimore City Clerk of Court Frank M. Conaway Sr. promised to speak to his son, who is on the Judiciary Committee, and suggested buttonholing Vallario instead of going over his head to Busch.
He also said Jessamy and Bealefeld should be somewhat grateful they don’t have to tangle with Vallario’s predecessor. Former Judiciary Chairman Joseph E. Owens was famous for his opposition to crime-and-justice legislation, Nilson confirmed.
“Killer Joe Owens was much worse,” Conaway said.
BRENDAN KEARNEY, Legal Affairs Writer
Sphere: Related ContentCrime victims tour Supermax prison
April 11, 2008
Not exactly your average launch party.
This morning, the Dept. of Correctional Services hosted its eighth annual crime victims’ prison tour at the state’s Supermax prison. The tour was part of National Victims’ Rights Week, which begins nationally on Monday.
The invite list was exclusive: about 40 crime victims and victim advocates were expected to attend.
According to the release, “victims who have attended past prison tours have remarked that they have been very beneficial in allowing them to see that offenders are not ‘treated to a life of luxury’ or ‘coddled.’”
They also claim:
“At the same time, victims are often gratified to know that the 98% of inmates who will one day be released are offered numerous programs and services designed to help them break their addictions and turn their lives around for a successful return to society.”
On Monday morning, there will be a kickoff ceremony for victims’ rights week at the Public Safety Education and Training Center in Sykesville.
Supermax houses 160 state-sentenced men and 120 federal detainees.
JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor
Sphere: Related ContentWrite your own ending to “The Wire”
March 5, 2008
There are only five days left until the conclusion of “The Wire,” a show that’s brought national attention to Charm City, and we want to know what you think will go down in the series’ final epsiode.
Will McNulty meet his maker? Will Marlo finally get what’s coming to him, or get off scot-free? And what will happen in the faux Baltimore Sun newsroom between Gus and Scott? What will become of Bunk, Lester, and Kima, to name a few?
Here’s your chance to end it your way. Comment below (anonymous, if you’d like) and tell us what you hope Sunday’s episode will bring.
If you need some inspiration before crafting your version, listen to former WYPR host Marc Steiner’s countdown-to-the-end interviews with writers and cast. Here’s a link to the one with Ed Burns. (Or maybe you’d like to go straight to the one with David Simon?)
Here’s what Simon told Steiner about season five: “I don’t believe [society] can actually even recognize our fundamental problems, much less begin to address them. And that is what the last season of The Wire was about…“
What was the fifth season about for you?
Don’t forget to comment, and don’t be afraid to start the conversation!
JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor
Update: When you’re done, you may want to check out this Bloomberg review of the final episode (note: there are some spoilers).
Sphere: Related ContentLaw blog round-up
March 3, 2008
Here are a few law links for your unseasonably warm Monday:
- Dan Rodricks did a radio show last week on the Baltimore EXILE anti-gun program (PDF). In case you missed it, here’s a link. It was Feb. 27 from noon to 1 p.m.
- The EvidenceProf Blog discusses the Court of Appeals’ decision last month in Bellamy v. State (PDF), which dealt with the hearsay rule’s exception for admissions by a party-opponent. (The court said statements of the prosecutor in a criminal case fall into that category.)
- The Washington Post had a story yesterday giving the latest developments in the church-driveway dispute in Calvert County, which I wrote about last month in a story about the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The lede (yes, that’s how it’s spelled in journalist-speak) is: “In a test of wills, church vs. state, the church wins the first round.”
- Top in-house lawyers are not doing too badly for themselves, a new Altman Weil survey says.
CARYN TAMBER, Legal Affairs Writer
Sphere: Related ContentMarc Steiner: ‘We have to rethink the way we fight crime’
January 22, 2008
Today, WYPR host Marc Steiner speaks out on his past work as a juvenile counselor and what he thinks needs to be done in Baltimore on the Open Society Institute’s “Audacious Ideas” blog.
In Make things work NOW, he writes:
What I am proposing is that the city, state, philanthropies and businesses spend millions of dollars in gang prevention and youth intervention. Hire, train and supervise hundreds of ex-felons to work in the streets with youth and families. Take the health department experiment of Operation Safe Streets and expand it city-wide. In one sector where OSS is working there hasn’t been a murder in a year. We don’t have time to do this piecemeal.
Read Marc’s proposal and tell us what you think.
JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor
Sphere: Related ContentTo Conaway, the Deputy Commish cuts an imposing figure
January 17, 2008
No matter who delivers the Baltimore Police Department’s monthly report to the city’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council or what that report contains, Baltimore City Circuit Court Clerk Frank M. Conaway Sr. usually has a probing question or two.
Not at Wednesday’s meeting, where burly Deputy Commissioner Anthony E. Barksdale reviewed last year’s drop in violent crime and this year’s decrease in homicides in Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III’s stead.
“I had some questions, but…” said the much slighter Conaway, eyeing Barksdale’s significant profile from a seat away and drawing chuckles from council members.
“Want me to charge him with intimidation … just by being there?” State’s Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy asked.
Almost an hour later, after a briefing by the city health commissioner on controversial heroin treatment, buprenorphine, the meeting adjourned. On his way out, Conaway bid farewell to Barksdale.
“Good to see you,” Conaway said. Barksdale laughed and acknowledged the clerk.
After Conaway left the room, Jessamy called across the table to Barksdale:
“Tell Fred he has to bring you to every meeting.”
BRENDAN KEARNEY, Legal Affairs Writer
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