Edwin Bear, correspondent
Originally published 01:27 p.m., April 6, 2009
Updated 04:05 p.m., April 6, 2009
INDIANTOWN — Convicted felon Michael Clark is tired of wasting his life sitting behind bars.
He’s scheduled to be released from the Martin Correctional Institution on April 21 and he wants to see his daughter get married in May.
“My daughter told me please don’t get in trouble because I want you to give me away at the wedding,” Clark said.
That’s why Clark, 38, is preparing for his release date by taking a mandatory class about life after prison.
Martin Correctional Institution’s Correctional Sentence Specialist Jane VanTassel, a 16-year veteran of her profession, teaches each student enrolled to be presentable in public and respectful to others. Since February 2008, she has taught the basic tools necessary for a life outside prison.
“The overall goal is to keep the inmates from coming back,” VanTassel said. “We don’t need them. We want them to go out there and get a life.”
It costs $1.4 million to run the transition classes in facilities throughout the state, funded by the Florida State Legislature, said Joellyn Rackleff, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Corrections.
Inmates with 180 days or less from their projected release date are eligible. Every state prison in Florida is required to offer the class and each prisoner must complete 100 hours before they can be released, VanTassel said.
There are 40,000 inmates scheduled to be released this year. If the program is not in place at the facility where they’re locked up, they will be transferred to a facility that has it, Rackleff said.
Clark, who plans to move in with his mother in Miami-Dade County upon his release, said he has been in and out of prison since he was tried as an adult and convicted at the age of 15 for stabbing a friend who slapped him during an argument. He’s currently serving a 14-year sentence for burglary assault and battery with a deadly weapon.
Once some inmates are released, adjusting to life after prison and maintaining their freedom is not easy. Motivating inmates to set goals and stay out of prison is VanTassel’s objective.
Thomas Bell, 52, is scheduled for release July 22 and already has a job lined up. He said he was a contractor in Orlando before being sentenced to one year and one day for cocaine possession.
Even with his future more secure than most prisoners, who usually do not have a job ready after their release, he still thinks the program will help him adjust to life outside prison.
“It’s been very good,” he said. “Nobody wants to go out there blinded. Most people that go out blinded, they’re coming back.”
Edwin Bear is a Florida Atlantic University student working as a correspondent for Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers as part of a senior-level journalism course.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Early intervention works for mentally ill
OUR OPINION: They belong in treatment facilities, not in jails and prisons
You see them all the time: People who aimlessly wander the streets, obviously homeless and obviously in need of attention for their mental illnesses. Ever wonder what happens to them? Far too many end up in jail or prison, at great and unnecessary expense to taxpayers.
To keep just 1,700 of these people locked up, as Florida currently does, costs $250 million each year. When they are released from prison, as inevitably all of them are, their mental-health conditions have worsened.
There is a better way. Instead of warehousing these people in prisons, the state can diagnose and treat their illnesses. It can use supportive diversion programs in community-based facilities to put them on a path of recovery. This can be done at a fraction of the cost of locking them up.
This is what can be accomplished if state legislators approve HB 7103 and SB 2018. The legislation carries the ponderous title, Community Mental Health & Substance Abuse Treatment & Crime Reduction Act. Yet it represents years of work by a coalition of public and private leaders, including Gov. Charlie Crist, former Florida Chief Supreme Court Chief Judge R. Fred Lewis, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Steve Leifman and others.
A Senate committee considers the bill this week and other committee hearings await before a floor vote is taken. The bills deserve the enthusiastic support of all lawmakers. If it becomes law, the proposal would achieve that legislative rarity of doing a public good while being revenue neutral (meaning it doesn't require new money) at the outset, and save the state hundreds of millions of dollars in the long term.
This would be possible because the state would begin to reverse its extraordinarily wasteful practice of putting mentally ill people who commit crimes in prison instead of treating their illnesses. Florida is not alone in doing this, but it would become the model for other states to emulate.
The law would allow Florida to use community-based mental-health resources to intervene with the mentally ill before they go to jail or prison. This is what typically happens:
A mentally ill person commits a minor offense, say being disorderly. A police officer arrives, and attempts to calm the situation. The person, under emotional duress, is unable to comply, becomes more disruptive and is arrested on a more-serious charge.
This is where the legal insanity begins. Because the mentally ill person is unable to understand the charges, he is sent to a criminal-forensic hospital where, with the help of medications, he is calmed enough to face trial. If convicted, he is sent to prison where there is no treatment for his mental illness. If exonerated, he is released, untreated, and certain to suffer another emotional episode, which starts the process anew.
The proposal would authorize pilot projects in Miami-Dade, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Leon County and the Pensacola area. The programs would use managed-care principles, using appropriate diagnosis and medication, trauma services, drug and alcohol intervention and rehabilitative services such as education and job training. The intervention will give the mentally ill the help they need to everyone's benefit.
You see them all the time: People who aimlessly wander the streets, obviously homeless and obviously in need of attention for their mental illnesses. Ever wonder what happens to them? Far too many end up in jail or prison, at great and unnecessary expense to taxpayers.
To keep just 1,700 of these people locked up, as Florida currently does, costs $250 million each year. When they are released from prison, as inevitably all of them are, their mental-health conditions have worsened.
There is a better way. Instead of warehousing these people in prisons, the state can diagnose and treat their illnesses. It can use supportive diversion programs in community-based facilities to put them on a path of recovery. This can be done at a fraction of the cost of locking them up.
This is what can be accomplished if state legislators approve HB 7103 and SB 2018. The legislation carries the ponderous title, Community Mental Health & Substance Abuse Treatment & Crime Reduction Act. Yet it represents years of work by a coalition of public and private leaders, including Gov. Charlie Crist, former Florida Chief Supreme Court Chief Judge R. Fred Lewis, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Steve Leifman and others.
A Senate committee considers the bill this week and other committee hearings await before a floor vote is taken. The bills deserve the enthusiastic support of all lawmakers. If it becomes law, the proposal would achieve that legislative rarity of doing a public good while being revenue neutral (meaning it doesn't require new money) at the outset, and save the state hundreds of millions of dollars in the long term.
This would be possible because the state would begin to reverse its extraordinarily wasteful practice of putting mentally ill people who commit crimes in prison instead of treating their illnesses. Florida is not alone in doing this, but it would become the model for other states to emulate.
The law would allow Florida to use community-based mental-health resources to intervene with the mentally ill before they go to jail or prison. This is what typically happens:
A mentally ill person commits a minor offense, say being disorderly. A police officer arrives, and attempts to calm the situation. The person, under emotional duress, is unable to comply, becomes more disruptive and is arrested on a more-serious charge.
This is where the legal insanity begins. Because the mentally ill person is unable to understand the charges, he is sent to a criminal-forensic hospital where, with the help of medications, he is calmed enough to face trial. If convicted, he is sent to prison where there is no treatment for his mental illness. If exonerated, he is released, untreated, and certain to suffer another emotional episode, which starts the process anew.
The proposal would authorize pilot projects in Miami-Dade, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Leon County and the Pensacola area. The programs would use managed-care principles, using appropriate diagnosis and medication, trauma services, drug and alcohol intervention and rehabilitative services such as education and job training. The intervention will give the mentally ill the help they need to everyone's benefit.
PRISONS IN US OVERCROWDED
Get-tough policies that lock up offenders for longer sentences are propelling a projected increase of nearly 200,000 in the nation's prison population in the next five years, according a private study released Wednesday.
The increase - projected by the Pew Charitable Trusts study to be three times faster than overall population growth in the U.S. - is expected to cost states more than $27 billion.
"As a country, we have a problem," said Susan Urahn, managing director of policy initiatives for the Pew Charitable Trusts, which funded the study by its Public Safety Performance Project.
The study is the first of its kind to project prison populations in every state through 2011, based on state projections, current criminal justice policies and demographic trends.
Urahn said she hopes states use the study to prepare for the future - either by building more prisons or by adopting policies to slow the growth through alternative forms of punishment.
The projections, she said, are not inevitable. They can be altered by state policies as well as economic and cultural changes.
"What we have seen is there are a growing number of states really focused, not on being tough on crime or soft on crime, but on being smart about crime," Urahn said. "Every state faces unique circumstance and challenges."
There are more than 1.5 million inmates in the nation's state and federal prisons, a number that is projected to grow to more than 1.7 million by the end of 2011, a 13 percent increase. The nation's population, by comparison, is projected to grow by 4.5 percent in that time.
States are projected to spend up to $27.5 billion on the new inmates, including $12.5 billion in construction costs, according to the study.
Men far outnumber women in prison - nearly 14 to 1. But in the next five years, the number of women inmates is projected to increase by 16 percent compared with a 12 percent increase for men.
Florida is projected to add the most prisoners, about 16,000, followed by California, Texas, Arizona and Ohio.
New York, Connecticut and Delaware are the only states with no projected growth in the number of inmates. All three are projected to have stable inmate populations.
Florida's prison population has been growing since the 1980s, when many inmates had to be released early because of crowding problems, said William Bales, associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida State University.
Since then, the state has eased crowding by building more prisons and changing the way it sentences offenders, Bales said. The state eliminated parole and other forms of early release, but only 20 percent of those eligible for prison are sent there, he said. Instead, many lesser offenders are sentenced to home confinement and required to wear electronic monitoring devices.
"But if you go to prison, you will go for a long time," Bales said.
In Connecticut, the state reversed years of crowding problems in part by investing in programs for inmates who are about to re-enter society. The state also increased the number of probation officers to monitor those who have been released.
"Truth in sentencing, three strikes and you're out - it looks great on paper, but try to make it work," said Connecticut Rep. Michael Lawlor, a Democrat and co-chairman of the state legislature's Judiciary Committee.
Lawlor, a former prosecutor, said Connecticut lawmakers focused on ways to reduce recidivism rather than campaign pledges to get tough on criminals. As a result, he said, crime rates have dropped along with incarceration rates.
"There's a pretty long list of people who deserve to be locked up forever, but it's not the majority of people in prison," Lawlor said. "If you can get people into a room instead of a campaign debate it's really easy to come to consensus.
The increase - projected by the Pew Charitable Trusts study to be three times faster than overall population growth in the U.S. - is expected to cost states more than $27 billion.
"As a country, we have a problem," said Susan Urahn, managing director of policy initiatives for the Pew Charitable Trusts, which funded the study by its Public Safety Performance Project.
The study is the first of its kind to project prison populations in every state through 2011, based on state projections, current criminal justice policies and demographic trends.
Urahn said she hopes states use the study to prepare for the future - either by building more prisons or by adopting policies to slow the growth through alternative forms of punishment.
The projections, she said, are not inevitable. They can be altered by state policies as well as economic and cultural changes.
"What we have seen is there are a growing number of states really focused, not on being tough on crime or soft on crime, but on being smart about crime," Urahn said. "Every state faces unique circumstance and challenges."
There are more than 1.5 million inmates in the nation's state and federal prisons, a number that is projected to grow to more than 1.7 million by the end of 2011, a 13 percent increase. The nation's population, by comparison, is projected to grow by 4.5 percent in that time.
States are projected to spend up to $27.5 billion on the new inmates, including $12.5 billion in construction costs, according to the study.
Men far outnumber women in prison - nearly 14 to 1. But in the next five years, the number of women inmates is projected to increase by 16 percent compared with a 12 percent increase for men.
Florida is projected to add the most prisoners, about 16,000, followed by California, Texas, Arizona and Ohio.
New York, Connecticut and Delaware are the only states with no projected growth in the number of inmates. All three are projected to have stable inmate populations.
Florida's prison population has been growing since the 1980s, when many inmates had to be released early because of crowding problems, said William Bales, associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida State University.
Since then, the state has eased crowding by building more prisons and changing the way it sentences offenders, Bales said. The state eliminated parole and other forms of early release, but only 20 percent of those eligible for prison are sent there, he said. Instead, many lesser offenders are sentenced to home confinement and required to wear electronic monitoring devices.
"But if you go to prison, you will go for a long time," Bales said.
In Connecticut, the state reversed years of crowding problems in part by investing in programs for inmates who are about to re-enter society. The state also increased the number of probation officers to monitor those who have been released.
"Truth in sentencing, three strikes and you're out - it looks great on paper, but try to make it work," said Connecticut Rep. Michael Lawlor, a Democrat and co-chairman of the state legislature's Judiciary Committee.
Lawlor, a former prosecutor, said Connecticut lawmakers focused on ways to reduce recidivism rather than campaign pledges to get tough on criminals. As a result, he said, crime rates have dropped along with incarceration rates.
"There's a pretty long list of people who deserve to be locked up forever, but it's not the majority of people in prison," Lawlor said. "If you can get people into a room instead of a campaign debate it's really easy to come to consensus.
State OK with life for two Lee County Killers
Top prosecutor defends pair of recent sentences
BY PAT GILLESPIE
pgillespie@news-press.com
Despite the brutal killings they committed, Fred Cooper and Alberto Hernandez — Lee County’s most recent death-penalty-eligible defendants — were spared the ultimate punishment.
But State Attorney Stephen Russell said his prosecutors must follow the law, and not seek death based on emotion. Life sentences for the two are appropriate, he says, and the decisions were made after much thought.
“It’s not as simple as a blogger says, ‘Well, hang him,’” Russell said Thursday, a day after Hernandez accepted a plea agreement putting him away for life. “Some people see life — day in and day out in a cell — as worse punishment than a death that may take three minutes.”
Of the eight Lee County men on Florida’s death row, only two have been sent there in the past 10 years. The only Lee County death row inmate executed in the last 32 years was Arthur Goode, who raped and strangled 9-year-old Jason Verdow in Cape Coral in 1976 and was executed in 1984.
According to research by The News-Press, prosecutors have sought death for as many as two dozen murder defendants since 1999. Ten of those cases are still active, while two men were found not guilty. Most of the rest were convicted and sentenced to life in prison or at least 15 years behind bars.
Hernandez, 41, pleaded guilty Wednesday to first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse on the second day of his jury selection, guaranteeing him a life sentence. He faced the death penalty if convicted of raping and killing Michelle Fontanez, his stepdaughter, in 2006.
In February, Cooper, 30, was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and armed burglary, but his Pinellas County jury recommended he spend his life in prison instead. A judge followed the jury’s recommendation.
Saves testimony
Russell said he supports the decision to allow Hernandez to plead guilty to first-degree murder and spend his life in prison. The offer had been on the table from assistant state attorney Francine Donnorummo for a while, and Hernandez’s attorneys convinced him Wednesday to accept.
Donnorummo said she agreed to go through with the plea because Fontanez’s mother and brother preferred a life sentence for Hernandez and it saved the girl’s family from having to testify, and listen to testimony, about the girl’s injuries and death.
Russell said it is difficult to hear criticism from the public when Donnorummo held Fontanez’s hand in the hospital and was involved with the case since the beginning.
“It’s hard when I see people busting their butts,” Russell said of his prosecutors.
“They have kids. They’d rather spend more time with their kids, but they’re here.”
Donnorummo said evidence showed Fontanez was raped and then suffocated by Hernandez.
One of Hernandez’s attorneys, Assistant Public Defender Neil McLoughlin, said it would have been difficult for Hernandez to avoid the death penalty because of the details in the case.
“Usually when you have a child, (a jury’s) going to lean toward the death penalty,” McLoughlin said. “Especially if you’re a parent — if you have a child, they want revenge. To them, there’s absolutely no excuse for that.”
Russell said the decision to seek the death penalty is made after a group of senior prosecutors meets and presents its recommendation to Russell. Ultimately, it is his decision.
He said the penalty must make sense for the family and for the public. A family’s wishes influence a prosecutor, he said.
“It’s an important factor, but it’s not the ultimate factor,” Russell said. “At the end of the day, we have to take the emotion out of it.”
Foreman stands firm
Cooper’s case was a bit different.
The Bonita Springs man went to trial and was convicted of killing Steven and Michelle Andrews in their Gateway home in 2006.
The foreman on Cooper’s trial, Tim Bouchard, said he still believes the jury’s 8-4 recommendation for life is the right decision.
“I really couldn’t imagine what the death penalty would accomplish,” Bouchard said. “My personal opinion was it didn’t do anybody any good to sentence this man to death.”
Bouchard said after the trial ended, he considered voting for death. But after the state and defense presented evidence for and against death two days later, his choice for life was obvious. Listening to Cooper’s family testify about Cooper and his daughter changed Bouchard’s mind.
Criticism from readers on news-press.com was unfounded, he said.
“Unless you’re there on the jury making that decision, I don’t think you can throw the word ‘coward’ around,” Bouchard said, referring to readers’ responses. “It was a horrible, premeditated crime. But in the end, there were eight of us in the jury room that decided life was the right decision.”
Sheriff’s Sgt. Walter Ryan, who was lead detective in both cases, believes life sentences are appropriate for Cooper and Hernandez.
“What matters in this case — as well as all others I investigate — is that justice is served and families have some closure,” he said. “Although this life sentence will not bring back Michelle Fontanez, I am very pleased with the fact that Alberto Hernandez will never be able to be in a position to victimize another child for the remainder of his life.”
And for both murderers, it will be a long time of thinking, Ryan said.
“I feel having to spend the remainder of your life — never to see the light of day outside of steel bars and barbed wire, recollecting on the poor decisions you have made — is far more than just an easy way out of having to deal with the consequences of your decisions by being put to death,” Ryan said.
McLoughlin, who has visited several of the state’s facilities, said living in prison can be brutal.
“They’re not places you’d want to spend the rest of your life,” he said. “It’s sort of like being on the streets, where everyone has an angle. Unless you have a skill the tough guys want, you’re at the mercy of them. It’s not an easy life.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BY PAT GILLESPIE
pgillespie@news-press.com
Despite the brutal killings they committed, Fred Cooper and Alberto Hernandez — Lee County’s most recent death-penalty-eligible defendants — were spared the ultimate punishment.
But State Attorney Stephen Russell said his prosecutors must follow the law, and not seek death based on emotion. Life sentences for the two are appropriate, he says, and the decisions were made after much thought.
“It’s not as simple as a blogger says, ‘Well, hang him,’” Russell said Thursday, a day after Hernandez accepted a plea agreement putting him away for life. “Some people see life — day in and day out in a cell — as worse punishment than a death that may take three minutes.”
Of the eight Lee County men on Florida’s death row, only two have been sent there in the past 10 years. The only Lee County death row inmate executed in the last 32 years was Arthur Goode, who raped and strangled 9-year-old Jason Verdow in Cape Coral in 1976 and was executed in 1984.
According to research by The News-Press, prosecutors have sought death for as many as two dozen murder defendants since 1999. Ten of those cases are still active, while two men were found not guilty. Most of the rest were convicted and sentenced to life in prison or at least 15 years behind bars.
Hernandez, 41, pleaded guilty Wednesday to first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse on the second day of his jury selection, guaranteeing him a life sentence. He faced the death penalty if convicted of raping and killing Michelle Fontanez, his stepdaughter, in 2006.
In February, Cooper, 30, was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and armed burglary, but his Pinellas County jury recommended he spend his life in prison instead. A judge followed the jury’s recommendation.
Saves testimony
Russell said he supports the decision to allow Hernandez to plead guilty to first-degree murder and spend his life in prison. The offer had been on the table from assistant state attorney Francine Donnorummo for a while, and Hernandez’s attorneys convinced him Wednesday to accept.
Donnorummo said she agreed to go through with the plea because Fontanez’s mother and brother preferred a life sentence for Hernandez and it saved the girl’s family from having to testify, and listen to testimony, about the girl’s injuries and death.
Russell said it is difficult to hear criticism from the public when Donnorummo held Fontanez’s hand in the hospital and was involved with the case since the beginning.
“It’s hard when I see people busting their butts,” Russell said of his prosecutors.
“They have kids. They’d rather spend more time with their kids, but they’re here.”
Donnorummo said evidence showed Fontanez was raped and then suffocated by Hernandez.
One of Hernandez’s attorneys, Assistant Public Defender Neil McLoughlin, said it would have been difficult for Hernandez to avoid the death penalty because of the details in the case.
“Usually when you have a child, (a jury’s) going to lean toward the death penalty,” McLoughlin said. “Especially if you’re a parent — if you have a child, they want revenge. To them, there’s absolutely no excuse for that.”
Russell said the decision to seek the death penalty is made after a group of senior prosecutors meets and presents its recommendation to Russell. Ultimately, it is his decision.
He said the penalty must make sense for the family and for the public. A family’s wishes influence a prosecutor, he said.
“It’s an important factor, but it’s not the ultimate factor,” Russell said. “At the end of the day, we have to take the emotion out of it.”
Foreman stands firm
Cooper’s case was a bit different.
The Bonita Springs man went to trial and was convicted of killing Steven and Michelle Andrews in their Gateway home in 2006.
The foreman on Cooper’s trial, Tim Bouchard, said he still believes the jury’s 8-4 recommendation for life is the right decision.
“I really couldn’t imagine what the death penalty would accomplish,” Bouchard said. “My personal opinion was it didn’t do anybody any good to sentence this man to death.”
Bouchard said after the trial ended, he considered voting for death. But after the state and defense presented evidence for and against death two days later, his choice for life was obvious. Listening to Cooper’s family testify about Cooper and his daughter changed Bouchard’s mind.
Criticism from readers on news-press.com was unfounded, he said.
“Unless you’re there on the jury making that decision, I don’t think you can throw the word ‘coward’ around,” Bouchard said, referring to readers’ responses. “It was a horrible, premeditated crime. But in the end, there were eight of us in the jury room that decided life was the right decision.”
Sheriff’s Sgt. Walter Ryan, who was lead detective in both cases, believes life sentences are appropriate for Cooper and Hernandez.
“What matters in this case — as well as all others I investigate — is that justice is served and families have some closure,” he said. “Although this life sentence will not bring back Michelle Fontanez, I am very pleased with the fact that Alberto Hernandez will never be able to be in a position to victimize another child for the remainder of his life.”
And for both murderers, it will be a long time of thinking, Ryan said.
“I feel having to spend the remainder of your life — never to see the light of day outside of steel bars and barbed wire, recollecting on the poor decisions you have made — is far more than just an easy way out of having to deal with the consequences of your decisions by being put to death,” Ryan said.
McLoughlin, who has visited several of the state’s facilities, said living in prison can be brutal.
“They’re not places you’d want to spend the rest of your life,” he said. “It’s sort of like being on the streets, where everyone has an angle. Unless you have a skill the tough guys want, you’re at the mercy of them. It’s not an easy life.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ecuador seeks return of man facing death penalty
Associated Press
2009-04-06 11:14 PM
Ecuador's government is asking for the return of a man on Florida's death row.
Ecuadorean officials will hold a news conference Monday in Miami to ask for Nelson Serrano's return. They say Florida law enforcement officers violated the South American country's sovereignty to get Serrano extradited to the United States.
Serrano was sentenced to death in 2007 for fatally shooting four people in a Polk County factory a decade earlier over a business relationship gone sour.
Serrano was arrested in Ecuador in 2002. At the time, he held both Ecuadorean and U.S. passports.
Ecuador has no death penalty and will not extradite fugitives who face the punishment in other countries.
2009-04-06 11:14 PM
Ecuador's government is asking for the return of a man on Florida's death row.
Ecuadorean officials will hold a news conference Monday in Miami to ask for Nelson Serrano's return. They say Florida law enforcement officers violated the South American country's sovereignty to get Serrano extradited to the United States.
Serrano was sentenced to death in 2007 for fatally shooting four people in a Polk County factory a decade earlier over a business relationship gone sour.
Serrano was arrested in Ecuador in 2002. At the time, he held both Ecuadorean and U.S. passports.
Ecuador has no death penalty and will not extradite fugitives who face the punishment in other countries.
LCSO investigates death of inmate
DEMOCRAT STAFF REPORT
Jonathon G. Howe, 24, was found dead in his cell in the Leon County Jail today at 4:50 p.m., according to the Leon County Sheriff’s Office. He was discovered by a correctional officer in his cell.
The preliminary investigation has revealed that sometime between 3:45 p.m. and 4;50 p.m, Howe used a bed sheet to hang himself from a bed bunk in his cell. No foul play is suspected, but an autopsy will be conducted Friday to determine the cause of death.
Howe had been incarcerated in the jail since his arrest on Dec. 10, 2008, and was charged with burglary and violation of probation. Howe was housed in general population in Jail Pod “A” and had no behavioral history which would indicate he was a threat to himself or others.
Jonathon G. Howe, 24, was found dead in his cell in the Leon County Jail today at 4:50 p.m., according to the Leon County Sheriff’s Office. He was discovered by a correctional officer in his cell.
The preliminary investigation has revealed that sometime between 3:45 p.m. and 4;50 p.m, Howe used a bed sheet to hang himself from a bed bunk in his cell. No foul play is suspected, but an autopsy will be conducted Friday to determine the cause of death.
Howe had been incarcerated in the jail since his arrest on Dec. 10, 2008, and was charged with burglary and violation of probation. Howe was housed in general population in Jail Pod “A” and had no behavioral history which would indicate he was a threat to himself or others.
IPF Files Amicus Curiae Brief on Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis Issue
Jimmy Ates`releaseFrom the BLOG of the Innocence Project of Florida :
Thursday, April 2, 2009
IPF Files Amicus Curiae Brief on Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis Issue
IPF was recently appointed as the "point" office for coordinating work in Florida cases where the FBI provided false or misleading trial testimony related to Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis (CBLA). In this role, we filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in a death penalty case to assist the Florida Supreme Court in its review of a CBLA issue in that case and others that will come in front fo the court as we move forward.
Here is our press release with more information about the filing:
Innocence Project of Florida Files Amicus Brief with Supreme Court of Florida
IPF Urges Court to Allow Defendants to File for New Trial Based on FBI Junk Science
Today the Innocence Project of Florida (IPF), along with The Innocence Network, filed an amicus curiae brief with the Florida Supreme Court in the case of Wyatt v. State of Florida. IPF is urging the court to allow inmates, including Mr. Wyatt, the opportunity to present to the trial court recently received letters from the Federal Bureau of Investigation indicating that its agents gave false and misleading trial testimony regarding Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis (CBLA).
For over forty years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) performed CBLA, which purported to be able to "match" bullets found at a crime scene to bullets linked in some way to criminal defendants (i.e., bullets found at a defendant's home). In its most egregious form, CBLA was used to show that the two sets of bullets were manufactured at the same time or even came from one particular box of bullets. In other cases, the FBI told juries that two bullets came from the same batch of lead at the same factory, without also telling them that as many as 35 million bullets may have also been made from that same batch of lead.
"When an FBI expert told a jury that they could link a bullet from a crime scene to a single box of bullets owned by a defendant, the jury surely believed it," said Bobbi Madonna, Staff Attorney for IPF. "What they weren't telling juries is that this conclusion was not at all based in science and should have never been allowed inside a courtroom."
The FBI in 2005 discontinued the use of this procedure. A 2007 exposé conducted by 60 Minutes and the Washington Post showed that FBI agents often grossly exagerated the probative value of its CBLA conclusions at trial, which almost certainly misled juries and tainted verdicts.
"There had been some criticism and some skepticism developing about CBLA," noted Seth Miller, Executive Director of IPF. "But despite these criticisms, the FBI stood by their technique and their baseless conclusions until very recently."
In 2008, the FBI partnered with a Joint CBLA Task Force with the purpose of investigating every case in which they provided CBLA testimony. They have so far identified roughly 1,500 cases natiowide where CBLA testimony was presented at trial and have analyzed 156. Of those 156, the FBI has admitted to providing misleading testimony to the jury in 96 of them. The FBI began issuing case-specific letters in mid-2008, admitting that its agents provided improper testimony that likely prejudiced the trial. A disproportionate number of those letters--20 of the 96 total letters sent thus far--were issued to Florida inmates.
Under Florida law, an inmate not on death row has two years from the time that "new evidence" comes to light to file for a new trial based on that evidence. For death-row inmates, that window shortens to just one year. IPF wants the court to find that an inmate's clock for presenting a CBLA-based claim should "start running" when they receive their individual letter from the FBI, rather than choosing an earlier time when generic criticisms of CBLA began surfacing.
"What the Joint Task Force is doing is tremendously important. These letters are the product of their work and they mark the first time the FBI has acknowledged that they gave false testimony in individual cases," said Miller. "The ongoing unprecedented collaborative efforts between the FBI and other innocence organizations around the country to right these wrongs will only have value if the court provides the recipients of these letters the chance to prove that the FBI's false testimony tainted their trials."
Jimmy Ates, an IPF client and one of the 20 Florida men whose cases were tainted because of this false CBLA testimony given by the FBI, had his conviction overturned in December 2008 based on one of these letters from the FBI disavowing the testimony.
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Posted by Seth Miller at 3:48 PM
Sunday, April 5, 2009
DEFENDERS, PROSECUTORS LOOKING AT FURLOUGHS IF BUDGET SITUATION WORSENS
By KATHLEEN HAUGHNEY
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA
THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, March 31, 2009... The judiciary's worst nightmare: No public defenders to represent the accused. No state prosecutors to put criminals behind bars. An eerily quiet court house left at a standstill for more than a week because public defender and state attorney offices have furloughed workers.
It could become a reality.
Earlier this month, Gov. Charlie Crist announced that government entities would receive only 85 percent of their fourth quarter budget dollars because of the state's shaky fiscal outlook. There's no certainty that the state will have the money in the bank to pay out those funds, so Crist ordered that the money be held back for now, with no promise that the cash will be delivered in the end.
The precarious fiscal news left public defenders and state attorneys in a lurch. They're walking on pins and needles for the time being. They're still hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.
Howard Babb, president of the Public Defenders Association, said that public defenders' offices may be forced to give their employees unpaid time off if the state cannot deliver the remaining 15 percent of the money promised to offices across the state.
Babb, the public defender for the 5th Judicial Circuit in central Florida, said a 15 percent cut is equivalent to $200,000 for his office. His worst case scenario is furloughing his entire staff for nine and a half days.
The possibility is another wrinkle in the legal system's continuing fight for money. The courts, public defenders and state attorneys have been publicly fighting for more state dollars, saying they cannot provide constitutionally obligated services with shrinking state dollars. The lack of state funds have led to the layoffs of many support personnel who assist judges and lawyers in processing cases.
Without them, the process has slowed.
Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Peggy Quince released a court opinion in February asking the Legislature to create 68 new judgeships, writing that budget reductions and economic factors have created an unmanageable backlog within the court system.
And, recently retired Miami-Dade public defender Bennett Brummer filed a lawsuit prior to his retirement requesting that public defenders be able to reject cases.
And while the courts aren't facing the potential loss of 15 percent, there could be no lawyers on either side of some criminal cases, meaning cases could get pushed back even farther if furloughs occur.
"If the courts were open and trying to do business as usual and our office had to close down, it would close down the courts," said Nancy Daniels, public defender for the 2nd Judicial Circuit, which includes Tallahassee.
Daniels said she too is preparing contingency plans just in case the money doesn't show up by June.
The result: 120 employees facing a 12 day layoff.
Daniels' counterpart, state attorney Willie Meggs is looking at similar options as a worst case scenario. He said if it turns out that his office will not receive the remainder of its budget - $250,000 - 116 employees will be looking at 10 days off.
"A ton of our people don't make a lot of money in comparison and they live paycheck to paycheck," Meggs said, adding later that it would be "devastating" to his staff.
The Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association sent a letter to Crist last week telling him the cuts would "diminish our ability to protect the public..." A spokesman for the governor said the office was in receipt of the letter and officials were reviewing the situation.
Meanwhile, judicial system players are hoping for the best and pondering what to do if the worst occurs.
Babb said furloughs may leave some public defenders and prosecutors no choice but to continue working for free.
"The lawyers are probably going to have to work keep up with the case load which is already overwhelming, and they're not going to be paid for it," Babb said.
Daniels said if her office faces furloughs, she figures that she will handle all initial appearances by accused offenders herself just to keep the ball rolling. Meggs said he too may just keep working.
"I thought I might come down here to the office and turn on the switchboard and try to answer as many calls as possible," Meggs said.
--END--
03/31/09
Illuminating the Sunshine State
http://www.newsserviceflorida.com
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA
THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, March 31, 2009... The judiciary's worst nightmare: No public defenders to represent the accused. No state prosecutors to put criminals behind bars. An eerily quiet court house left at a standstill for more than a week because public defender and state attorney offices have furloughed workers.
It could become a reality.
Earlier this month, Gov. Charlie Crist announced that government entities would receive only 85 percent of their fourth quarter budget dollars because of the state's shaky fiscal outlook. There's no certainty that the state will have the money in the bank to pay out those funds, so Crist ordered that the money be held back for now, with no promise that the cash will be delivered in the end.
The precarious fiscal news left public defenders and state attorneys in a lurch. They're walking on pins and needles for the time being. They're still hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.
Howard Babb, president of the Public Defenders Association, said that public defenders' offices may be forced to give their employees unpaid time off if the state cannot deliver the remaining 15 percent of the money promised to offices across the state.
Babb, the public defender for the 5th Judicial Circuit in central Florida, said a 15 percent cut is equivalent to $200,000 for his office. His worst case scenario is furloughing his entire staff for nine and a half days.
The possibility is another wrinkle in the legal system's continuing fight for money. The courts, public defenders and state attorneys have been publicly fighting for more state dollars, saying they cannot provide constitutionally obligated services with shrinking state dollars. The lack of state funds have led to the layoffs of many support personnel who assist judges and lawyers in processing cases.
Without them, the process has slowed.
Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Peggy Quince released a court opinion in February asking the Legislature to create 68 new judgeships, writing that budget reductions and economic factors have created an unmanageable backlog within the court system.
And, recently retired Miami-Dade public defender Bennett Brummer filed a lawsuit prior to his retirement requesting that public defenders be able to reject cases.
And while the courts aren't facing the potential loss of 15 percent, there could be no lawyers on either side of some criminal cases, meaning cases could get pushed back even farther if furloughs occur.
"If the courts were open and trying to do business as usual and our office had to close down, it would close down the courts," said Nancy Daniels, public defender for the 2nd Judicial Circuit, which includes Tallahassee.
Daniels said she too is preparing contingency plans just in case the money doesn't show up by June.
The result: 120 employees facing a 12 day layoff.
Daniels' counterpart, state attorney Willie Meggs is looking at similar options as a worst case scenario. He said if it turns out that his office will not receive the remainder of its budget - $250,000 - 116 employees will be looking at 10 days off.
"A ton of our people don't make a lot of money in comparison and they live paycheck to paycheck," Meggs said, adding later that it would be "devastating" to his staff.
The Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association sent a letter to Crist last week telling him the cuts would "diminish our ability to protect the public..." A spokesman for the governor said the office was in receipt of the letter and officials were reviewing the situation.
Meanwhile, judicial system players are hoping for the best and pondering what to do if the worst occurs.
Babb said furloughs may leave some public defenders and prosecutors no choice but to continue working for free.
"The lawyers are probably going to have to work keep up with the case load which is already overwhelming, and they're not going to be paid for it," Babb said.
Daniels said if her office faces furloughs, she figures that she will handle all initial appearances by accused offenders herself just to keep the ball rolling. Meggs said he too may just keep working.
"I thought I might come down here to the office and turn on the switchboard and try to answer as many calls as possible," Meggs said.
--END--
03/31/09
Illuminating the Sunshine State
http://www.newsserviceflorida.com
At an alarming rate, youths landing in Lee County criminal system
At 17, Bill Simmons of Fort Myers should probably be dead.
He survived complications at birth, being struck by a semitrailer at age 7, pneumonia at 13 and an attack with knives and baseball bats by his father’s drug customers at 15.
If you saw his rap sheet before hearing his story, though, you wouldn’t call him a victim.
Since he was 9, he’s been charged with dozens of crimes, including burglary, arson, theft, battery and drug sales. He’s spent months at a time in halfway houses and juvenile detention facilities.
Now, he faces possible adult charges and prison time.
“I know I’m out of chances,” Simmons said. “But I’m still hoping for one more. I believe there’s a reason I’m still alive.”
Simmons’ case is extreme, but the number of juveniles entering the criminal justice system has increased almost 30 percent over the last four years, mirroring population growth. According to the Juvenile Assessment Center, the teen booking facility in Fort Myers, crimes are becoming more violent, and the number of teens arrested for gun offenses has shot up more than 50 percent from 2004 to 2008. Among girls, there was a 48 percent rise.
Local agencies have banded together to address the issues, but statewide budget cuts have meant services for kids have either shrunk or stayed stagnant.
Across Lee County and among the 55,689 youths ages 10 to 17 here now, the impact has been felt:
• In neighborhoods, where violent crimes committed by teens are up nearly 22 percent in the last four years;
• In schools, from which nearly 700 were arrested;
• In holding facilities, where the Department of Juvenile Justice’s Southwest Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Fort Myers is reported to be the second-most crowded in the state, behind Escambia County on the Panhandle;
• And in homes, where about 3,000 families are navigating the system at any given time.
Local high-profile juvenile crime cases in recent years have spotlighted the issue. They include the Cape Coral Cash Feenz murders in 2006, the 17 vandals in Estero who caused $200,000 damage to a home in 2008 and the February arrest of two North Fort Myers boys, 9 and 10, who plotted to blow up their school.
Betty Roberts, 62, is Simmons’ grandmother. A school bus driver who raised him and other grandchildren from infancy, she said she was “probably too lenient” with him.
“But he’s the kind of kid you just want to wrap your arms around and love him because he’s just been through so much,” Roberts said.
In the courtroom
The crack of the gavel from circuit Judge Bruce Kyle elicits a kind of study hall hush.
One girl drapes her arm across her boyfriend’s shoulder as she smacks her gum. A boy sits next to his mother, his head resting on a splayed hand, staring at an untied shoe.
On the fifth floor of the Lee County Justice Center in downtown Fort Myers, it’s standing room only, and many spill out into the hallway. It is arraignment day in juvenile court, and the charges against the children range from misdemeanor theft and trespassing to robbery with a firearm and selling crack cocaine.
JoAnna Garcia, 16, shuffles to the front of the courtroom to answer to a charge of petty theft, which she denies. Kyle’s gaze falls to her fluffy pink slippers.
“Next time, wear shoes,” he orders before giving her another court date.
“In the adult system, it’s much more about punishment,” Kyle said. “In the youth system, it’s more about rehabilitation. But you are going to have some kids who are self-starters, who can see the bigger picture, and have a bigger support group. Those are the ones who are going to do well.”
In 2008, the majority of juvenile crimes were thefts, burglaries and drug offenses. Most of those were misdemeanors, according to the assessment center. However, the number of felony charges filed rose 6 percent within the last year: from 1,993 in 2007 to 2,112 in 2008.
Kathy Smith, the circuit’s public defender, said over the last decade, as the number and seriousness of juvenile crimes have climbed, attitudes appear to have shifted.
“It has transformed into a more formalized system,” Smith said. “It is much more adversarial in nature, and the outcome of cases is much more similar to a punishment than to rehabilitation.”
Kyle hears an average of 100 cases each day, and relies on recommendations from the Department of Juvenile Justice, along with its partners, when deciding what action to take.
First-time offenders are most commonly placed on some form of probation or sent to a diversion program, such as teen court or a neighborhood accountability board, where community volunteers hand down a sentence, giving juveniles the chance to avoid a record.
As an alternative to arrest for first-time offenders of minor crimes, there’s also the option of a voluntary civil citation; 92 percent of teens in that program do not re-offend. Usually, those given civil citations are made to do community service. Bill Naylor, director of the assessment center that started the program, said the effort works because it’s combined with counseling and other services, and reaches offenders when they’re young.
In the courts, the process from arrest to sentencing is supposed to take three weeks, tops. With caseloads up, it often drags out several months. According to the Lee Clerk of Courts Juvenile Division, the number of delinquency cases filed increased 6 percent in the last four years, with 3,555 cases filed in 2008.
Parents such as Francesca Schroll of Fort Myers complain of the workdays they must miss to attend court dates. Her son, J.C. Schroll, 17, violated the 6 p.m. curfew of the probation he received after he was caught breaking into cars.
“It’s like kangaroo court,” she said. “They just keep bouncing you around from one court date to the next, and it’s like, how many more days can I take off? I’m not excusing what he did, and he needs to pay the consequences, but there’s got to be a better way to deal with this.”
The philosophies
On the first floor of the Justice Center, inside a drawer in circuit Judge Joseph Fuller’s office, is a newspaper clipping.
The headline blares “Juvenile Crime Worse” than it’s ever been, and quotes Judge Lynn Gerald as saying a lack of proper parental guidance is to blame.
The story was published Dec. 10, 1947, in The News-Press.
“Every generation is going to think, ‘This is as bad as it’s ever been,’” said Fuller, a former juvenile justice judge. “But the whole theory has to remain: Kids will make mistakes, and you’re there to get them straightened out.”
Fuller was the juvenile judge just before Kyle, who is the seventh to preside in the 20th Circuit in the last eight years.
Circuit Judge James Seals presided over juvenile delinquency cases on and off for four years before focusing on child welfare cases. He said part of the caseload increase can be attributed to a push among victims to prosecute first-time offenders — 83 percent of whom don’t commit crimes again.
“In my childhood, if I was playing ball and broke the neighbor’s window, my dad would grab me by the scruff of the neck, drag me over there, make me apologize and take money out of my allowance until the window was paid for,” Seals said. “Nowadays, the child breaks the neighbor’s window, the neighbor wants the child arrested and prosecuted for criminal mischief. In other words, they are forfeiting their rights to resolve these problems at the lowest levels.”
That has been the result of a breakdown in families and communities, he said.
“Just look at the way neighborhoods are constructed,” he said. “In older neighborhoods, you’ll notice the focus of the homes is on the front yard and the street. Today, homes have the focus on the backyard, and even those are fenced in. We live in these separated little enclaves, and there is less a sense of community, which has contributed to the fact that juvenile crime is handled by the courts and strangers rather than within their own communities.”
Seals and Fuller support the model of restorative justice, where the focus for nonviolent offenses is less on punishing the child and more on restoring the victim, whether through payment, service or a combination of both.
At least one local diversion program is practicing the model, and reports a 96 percent success rate. Nora Donato-Hitchcock, coordinator for the Neighborhood Accountability Board program, said the boards are composed of local volunteers, who meet with both juvenile and victim to discuss and carry out a plan of restoration.
For a teen who vandalized property, it could mean cleaning the yard of a foreclosed home. For a child caught stealing or breaking into houses, it could mean working to pay back the victim.
Juveniles are referred to the boards as a court diversion, and will be sent back to court if recommendations aren’t followed. If they complete the program, their record remains clean.
“It’s about having them acknowledge the fact that they did wrong,” Donato-Hitchcock said. “Some of the kids don’t realize how a crime can affect people.”
Donato-Hitchcock knows because she is still affected by an incident 17 years ago, when her car was broken into. The person never was caught.
“To this day, I always have to triple-check that all my doors are locked because I’ve lost that sense of security,” she said. “These kids need to understand that.”
Consequences
J.C. Schroll was 15 when he and friends burglarized a string of cars in a Fort Myers neighborhood about two years ago.
He was caught, placed on probation and given a 6 p.m. curfew, which he violated last month.
“It was all really stupid,” Schroll said. “I just wasn’t really thinking of the consequences. I did have plans to go to the Marine Corps, but now with my record, I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”
While juvenile records can be sealed or expunged, a checkered past can haunt a youth when trying to get a job, join the military or gain admission to college.
Staff Sgt. Robert Fisher, spokesman for the Marine Corps recruiting station in Fort Lauderdale, said applicants are expected to disclose their entire criminal history, including juvenile run-ins.
“We’ll look at how old they were at the time, what the offense was, how long ago it was and what has been their behavior since. One bad decision won’t automatically bar you, but we do expect you to explain yourself,” Fisher said.
A juvenile record also could potentially affect chances for scholarships or college admissions. Hege Ferguson, associate director of admissions at Florida State University in Tallahassee, said a juvenile record won’t necessarily keep a student from acceptance, but the university asks about criminal history. Prospective students are expected to answer honestly, and a board will review the application if there is a criminal past.
“We feel we have a responsibility to our current and incoming students to have all that information,” she said.
For 17-year-old Bill Simmons, college isn’t an option right now. As he waits on house arrest to hear whether he may be prosecuted for adult charges of burglary, he’s also contending with the possibility of being a father. His 16-year-old girlfriend believes she is pregnant.
His mother died several years ago, and his father is in and out of prison, having entered his life again only in the past two years, he said.
“I guess sometimes I get angry about all that,” Simmons said. “But my grandma is really like the best mom or dad you could have. I know she does the best she can.”
Looking back at his crimes, Simmons said some were out of necessity, such as when he broke into a house with his cousin and stole food. Others, like the battery charge against another cousin, were a result of his temper, which he said he’s working hard to control.
“All I can do is hope for the best,” Simmons said. “I know I can’t mess up again. I want to be a good father, if I am going to be, and I don’t want to make my grandma cry anymore.”
Additional Facts
COMING MONDAY
Crimes involving teens in Lee County are increasing in both number and level of violence. Since 2004, the number of Lee arrested teens increased 29 percent, and those arrested for gun offenses shot up more than 50 percent. Among girls, there was a 48 percent rise. While local agencies have banded together to address the issues, statewide budget cuts have meant services for kids have either shrunk or stayed stagnant. For the last five months, The News-Press staff writer Rachel Myers and photographer Andrew West have been been learning the process and speaking with individuals involved in the juvenile justice system, including officials, parents, judges and children. The News-Press is presenting a series of stories, photographs and videos that breakdown the biggest issues, and show how you can get involved. Also Monday, participate in a live chat on news-press.com with Southwest Regional Juvenile Detention Center superintendent Vincent Vurro from the Department of Juvenile Justice.
He survived complications at birth, being struck by a semitrailer at age 7, pneumonia at 13 and an attack with knives and baseball bats by his father’s drug customers at 15.
If you saw his rap sheet before hearing his story, though, you wouldn’t call him a victim.
Since he was 9, he’s been charged with dozens of crimes, including burglary, arson, theft, battery and drug sales. He’s spent months at a time in halfway houses and juvenile detention facilities.
Now, he faces possible adult charges and prison time.
“I know I’m out of chances,” Simmons said. “But I’m still hoping for one more. I believe there’s a reason I’m still alive.”
Simmons’ case is extreme, but the number of juveniles entering the criminal justice system has increased almost 30 percent over the last four years, mirroring population growth. According to the Juvenile Assessment Center, the teen booking facility in Fort Myers, crimes are becoming more violent, and the number of teens arrested for gun offenses has shot up more than 50 percent from 2004 to 2008. Among girls, there was a 48 percent rise.
Local agencies have banded together to address the issues, but statewide budget cuts have meant services for kids have either shrunk or stayed stagnant.
Across Lee County and among the 55,689 youths ages 10 to 17 here now, the impact has been felt:
• In neighborhoods, where violent crimes committed by teens are up nearly 22 percent in the last four years;
• In schools, from which nearly 700 were arrested;
• In holding facilities, where the Department of Juvenile Justice’s Southwest Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Fort Myers is reported to be the second-most crowded in the state, behind Escambia County on the Panhandle;
• And in homes, where about 3,000 families are navigating the system at any given time.
Local high-profile juvenile crime cases in recent years have spotlighted the issue. They include the Cape Coral Cash Feenz murders in 2006, the 17 vandals in Estero who caused $200,000 damage to a home in 2008 and the February arrest of two North Fort Myers boys, 9 and 10, who plotted to blow up their school.
Betty Roberts, 62, is Simmons’ grandmother. A school bus driver who raised him and other grandchildren from infancy, she said she was “probably too lenient” with him.
“But he’s the kind of kid you just want to wrap your arms around and love him because he’s just been through so much,” Roberts said.
In the courtroom
The crack of the gavel from circuit Judge Bruce Kyle elicits a kind of study hall hush.
One girl drapes her arm across her boyfriend’s shoulder as she smacks her gum. A boy sits next to his mother, his head resting on a splayed hand, staring at an untied shoe.
On the fifth floor of the Lee County Justice Center in downtown Fort Myers, it’s standing room only, and many spill out into the hallway. It is arraignment day in juvenile court, and the charges against the children range from misdemeanor theft and trespassing to robbery with a firearm and selling crack cocaine.
JoAnna Garcia, 16, shuffles to the front of the courtroom to answer to a charge of petty theft, which she denies. Kyle’s gaze falls to her fluffy pink slippers.
“Next time, wear shoes,” he orders before giving her another court date.
“In the adult system, it’s much more about punishment,” Kyle said. “In the youth system, it’s more about rehabilitation. But you are going to have some kids who are self-starters, who can see the bigger picture, and have a bigger support group. Those are the ones who are going to do well.”
In 2008, the majority of juvenile crimes were thefts, burglaries and drug offenses. Most of those were misdemeanors, according to the assessment center. However, the number of felony charges filed rose 6 percent within the last year: from 1,993 in 2007 to 2,112 in 2008.
Kathy Smith, the circuit’s public defender, said over the last decade, as the number and seriousness of juvenile crimes have climbed, attitudes appear to have shifted.
“It has transformed into a more formalized system,” Smith said. “It is much more adversarial in nature, and the outcome of cases is much more similar to a punishment than to rehabilitation.”
Kyle hears an average of 100 cases each day, and relies on recommendations from the Department of Juvenile Justice, along with its partners, when deciding what action to take.
First-time offenders are most commonly placed on some form of probation or sent to a diversion program, such as teen court or a neighborhood accountability board, where community volunteers hand down a sentence, giving juveniles the chance to avoid a record.
As an alternative to arrest for first-time offenders of minor crimes, there’s also the option of a voluntary civil citation; 92 percent of teens in that program do not re-offend. Usually, those given civil citations are made to do community service. Bill Naylor, director of the assessment center that started the program, said the effort works because it’s combined with counseling and other services, and reaches offenders when they’re young.
In the courts, the process from arrest to sentencing is supposed to take three weeks, tops. With caseloads up, it often drags out several months. According to the Lee Clerk of Courts Juvenile Division, the number of delinquency cases filed increased 6 percent in the last four years, with 3,555 cases filed in 2008.
Parents such as Francesca Schroll of Fort Myers complain of the workdays they must miss to attend court dates. Her son, J.C. Schroll, 17, violated the 6 p.m. curfew of the probation he received after he was caught breaking into cars.
“It’s like kangaroo court,” she said. “They just keep bouncing you around from one court date to the next, and it’s like, how many more days can I take off? I’m not excusing what he did, and he needs to pay the consequences, but there’s got to be a better way to deal with this.”
The philosophies
On the first floor of the Justice Center, inside a drawer in circuit Judge Joseph Fuller’s office, is a newspaper clipping.
The headline blares “Juvenile Crime Worse” than it’s ever been, and quotes Judge Lynn Gerald as saying a lack of proper parental guidance is to blame.
The story was published Dec. 10, 1947, in The News-Press.
“Every generation is going to think, ‘This is as bad as it’s ever been,’” said Fuller, a former juvenile justice judge. “But the whole theory has to remain: Kids will make mistakes, and you’re there to get them straightened out.”
Fuller was the juvenile judge just before Kyle, who is the seventh to preside in the 20th Circuit in the last eight years.
Circuit Judge James Seals presided over juvenile delinquency cases on and off for four years before focusing on child welfare cases. He said part of the caseload increase can be attributed to a push among victims to prosecute first-time offenders — 83 percent of whom don’t commit crimes again.
“In my childhood, if I was playing ball and broke the neighbor’s window, my dad would grab me by the scruff of the neck, drag me over there, make me apologize and take money out of my allowance until the window was paid for,” Seals said. “Nowadays, the child breaks the neighbor’s window, the neighbor wants the child arrested and prosecuted for criminal mischief. In other words, they are forfeiting their rights to resolve these problems at the lowest levels.”
That has been the result of a breakdown in families and communities, he said.
“Just look at the way neighborhoods are constructed,” he said. “In older neighborhoods, you’ll notice the focus of the homes is on the front yard and the street. Today, homes have the focus on the backyard, and even those are fenced in. We live in these separated little enclaves, and there is less a sense of community, which has contributed to the fact that juvenile crime is handled by the courts and strangers rather than within their own communities.”
Seals and Fuller support the model of restorative justice, where the focus for nonviolent offenses is less on punishing the child and more on restoring the victim, whether through payment, service or a combination of both.
At least one local diversion program is practicing the model, and reports a 96 percent success rate. Nora Donato-Hitchcock, coordinator for the Neighborhood Accountability Board program, said the boards are composed of local volunteers, who meet with both juvenile and victim to discuss and carry out a plan of restoration.
For a teen who vandalized property, it could mean cleaning the yard of a foreclosed home. For a child caught stealing or breaking into houses, it could mean working to pay back the victim.
Juveniles are referred to the boards as a court diversion, and will be sent back to court if recommendations aren’t followed. If they complete the program, their record remains clean.
“It’s about having them acknowledge the fact that they did wrong,” Donato-Hitchcock said. “Some of the kids don’t realize how a crime can affect people.”
Donato-Hitchcock knows because she is still affected by an incident 17 years ago, when her car was broken into. The person never was caught.
“To this day, I always have to triple-check that all my doors are locked because I’ve lost that sense of security,” she said. “These kids need to understand that.”
Consequences
J.C. Schroll was 15 when he and friends burglarized a string of cars in a Fort Myers neighborhood about two years ago.
He was caught, placed on probation and given a 6 p.m. curfew, which he violated last month.
“It was all really stupid,” Schroll said. “I just wasn’t really thinking of the consequences. I did have plans to go to the Marine Corps, but now with my record, I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”
While juvenile records can be sealed or expunged, a checkered past can haunt a youth when trying to get a job, join the military or gain admission to college.
Staff Sgt. Robert Fisher, spokesman for the Marine Corps recruiting station in Fort Lauderdale, said applicants are expected to disclose their entire criminal history, including juvenile run-ins.
“We’ll look at how old they were at the time, what the offense was, how long ago it was and what has been their behavior since. One bad decision won’t automatically bar you, but we do expect you to explain yourself,” Fisher said.
A juvenile record also could potentially affect chances for scholarships or college admissions. Hege Ferguson, associate director of admissions at Florida State University in Tallahassee, said a juvenile record won’t necessarily keep a student from acceptance, but the university asks about criminal history. Prospective students are expected to answer honestly, and a board will review the application if there is a criminal past.
“We feel we have a responsibility to our current and incoming students to have all that information,” she said.
For 17-year-old Bill Simmons, college isn’t an option right now. As he waits on house arrest to hear whether he may be prosecuted for adult charges of burglary, he’s also contending with the possibility of being a father. His 16-year-old girlfriend believes she is pregnant.
His mother died several years ago, and his father is in and out of prison, having entered his life again only in the past two years, he said.
“I guess sometimes I get angry about all that,” Simmons said. “But my grandma is really like the best mom or dad you could have. I know she does the best she can.”
Looking back at his crimes, Simmons said some were out of necessity, such as when he broke into a house with his cousin and stole food. Others, like the battery charge against another cousin, were a result of his temper, which he said he’s working hard to control.
“All I can do is hope for the best,” Simmons said. “I know I can’t mess up again. I want to be a good father, if I am going to be, and I don’t want to make my grandma cry anymore.”
Additional Facts
COMING MONDAY
Crimes involving teens in Lee County are increasing in both number and level of violence. Since 2004, the number of Lee arrested teens increased 29 percent, and those arrested for gun offenses shot up more than 50 percent. Among girls, there was a 48 percent rise. While local agencies have banded together to address the issues, statewide budget cuts have meant services for kids have either shrunk or stayed stagnant. For the last five months, The News-Press staff writer Rachel Myers and photographer Andrew West have been been learning the process and speaking with individuals involved in the juvenile justice system, including officials, parents, judges and children. The News-Press is presenting a series of stories, photographs and videos that breakdown the biggest issues, and show how you can get involved. Also Monday, participate in a live chat on news-press.com with Southwest Regional Juvenile Detention Center superintendent Vincent Vurro from the Department of Juvenile Justice.
Michael Goforth: Looking into genuine justice
By Michael Goforth
Saturday, April 4, 2009
I agree with U.S. Sen. Jim Webb: We are putting too many people in jail who probably should not be there at a massive cost to taxpayers.
In an editorial last week, we noted that steps are being proposed in Florida for pilot programs to keep some mentally ill persons out of jail and to put them in community-based mental health programs. By doing so, those with mental illness can receive better treatment and taxpayers save money.
Each year, about 125,000 of the state’s estimated 600,000 residents with mental illness are booked into jails and prisons. The pilot programs are a small start in addressing the issue.
In St. Lucie County alone, for example, about a third of new arrests involve persons with mental illness. The cost to house a person with mental illness charged with a felony averages more than $64,000 in the St. Lucie County jail. For a mentally ill person charged with a misdemeanor, the cost is more than $35,000. That’s per person per stay, not per year, and the money comes from taxpayers.
Last Sunday, in Parade Magazine, Webb, a Virginia Democrat, laid out his concerns about the nation’s criminal justice system and the urgent need for reforms.
On March 26, Webb introduced the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009.
In remarks on the Senate floor, Webb said:
“Our goal in this legislation is to create a national commission with an 18-month timeline, not to simply talk about the problems we have in our criminal justice system, but to actually look at all of the elements in this system, how they are interrelated in terms of the difficulties that we have in remedying issues of criminal justice in this country and to deliver us from a situation that has evolved over time where we are putting far too many of the wrong people in prison and we are still not feeling safer in our neighborhoods. We’re not putting in prison or bringing to justice those people who are perpetuating violence and criminality as a way of life.”
Webb noted that the United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s known prison population. He said, “There are only two possibilities here: Either we have the most evil people on Earth living in the United States, or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice.”
Webb proposes that the criminal justice commission especially examine the impacts of gangs and drugs on incarceration and law enforcement policies. Housing the mentally ill also is a major priority.
“We are, for a complex set of reasons, warehousing the mentally ill in our prisons,” Webb said. “With four times as many mentally ill in our prisons as opposed to institutions, the main point for all of us to consider is that these people who are in prison are not receiving the kind of treatment they would need in order to remedy the disabilities that have brought them to that situation.”
The senator proposes that the commission look much farther than the federal prison system, but down to the county jails, such as those on the Treasure Coast that have experienced major increases in the number and costs of housing the mentally ill.
Webb said, “I believe very strongly even though we are a federal body, that there is a compelling national interest for us to examine this issue and reshape and reform our criminal justice system at the federal, state and local levels. I believe the commission that I am going to present will provide us with that opportunity.”
Lawmakers are finally beginning to recognize the lunacy of spending billions of dollars for housing the mentally ill, who may have committed minor crimes while off their medications, in jails and prisons, when they can be cared for better and at lower cost to the taxpayers in legitimate treatment programs.
Action could begin soon at the state level, to a minor extent. Action at the federal level may begin soon, but is expected to take years for appropriate legislation to address the issues to be signed into law.
While the wheels turn slowly, more lives are being lost in the system, more families are being put in nowhere land, and the taxpayers keep forking over money for largely useless endeavors.
michael.goforth@scripps.com
Saturday, April 4, 2009
I agree with U.S. Sen. Jim Webb: We are putting too many people in jail who probably should not be there at a massive cost to taxpayers.
In an editorial last week, we noted that steps are being proposed in Florida for pilot programs to keep some mentally ill persons out of jail and to put them in community-based mental health programs. By doing so, those with mental illness can receive better treatment and taxpayers save money.
Each year, about 125,000 of the state’s estimated 600,000 residents with mental illness are booked into jails and prisons. The pilot programs are a small start in addressing the issue.
In St. Lucie County alone, for example, about a third of new arrests involve persons with mental illness. The cost to house a person with mental illness charged with a felony averages more than $64,000 in the St. Lucie County jail. For a mentally ill person charged with a misdemeanor, the cost is more than $35,000. That’s per person per stay, not per year, and the money comes from taxpayers.
Last Sunday, in Parade Magazine, Webb, a Virginia Democrat, laid out his concerns about the nation’s criminal justice system and the urgent need for reforms.
On March 26, Webb introduced the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009.
In remarks on the Senate floor, Webb said:
“Our goal in this legislation is to create a national commission with an 18-month timeline, not to simply talk about the problems we have in our criminal justice system, but to actually look at all of the elements in this system, how they are interrelated in terms of the difficulties that we have in remedying issues of criminal justice in this country and to deliver us from a situation that has evolved over time where we are putting far too many of the wrong people in prison and we are still not feeling safer in our neighborhoods. We’re not putting in prison or bringing to justice those people who are perpetuating violence and criminality as a way of life.”
Webb noted that the United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s known prison population. He said, “There are only two possibilities here: Either we have the most evil people on Earth living in the United States, or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice.”
Webb proposes that the criminal justice commission especially examine the impacts of gangs and drugs on incarceration and law enforcement policies. Housing the mentally ill also is a major priority.
“We are, for a complex set of reasons, warehousing the mentally ill in our prisons,” Webb said. “With four times as many mentally ill in our prisons as opposed to institutions, the main point for all of us to consider is that these people who are in prison are not receiving the kind of treatment they would need in order to remedy the disabilities that have brought them to that situation.”
The senator proposes that the commission look much farther than the federal prison system, but down to the county jails, such as those on the Treasure Coast that have experienced major increases in the number and costs of housing the mentally ill.
Webb said, “I believe very strongly even though we are a federal body, that there is a compelling national interest for us to examine this issue and reshape and reform our criminal justice system at the federal, state and local levels. I believe the commission that I am going to present will provide us with that opportunity.”
Lawmakers are finally beginning to recognize the lunacy of spending billions of dollars for housing the mentally ill, who may have committed minor crimes while off their medications, in jails and prisons, when they can be cared for better and at lower cost to the taxpayers in legitimate treatment programs.
Action could begin soon at the state level, to a minor extent. Action at the federal level may begin soon, but is expected to take years for appropriate legislation to address the issues to be signed into law.
While the wheels turn slowly, more lives are being lost in the system, more families are being put in nowhere land, and the taxpayers keep forking over money for largely useless endeavors.
michael.goforth@scripps.com
Charlie, Come on Down and Meet Our Mentally Unstable Inmates
By Kyle Munzenrieder in PoliticksWednesday, Feb. 11 2009 @ 11:51AM
When so many Americans have trouble seeing a doctor for the common cold, getting proper mental health care seems like a luxury. Unsurprisingly, many people who most need mental health help wind up in the corrections system.
The Miami-Dade delegation in the state legislature recently invited Gov. Charlie Crist and other top officials to tour the county's pre-trial detention system. From the press release:
"The Miami-Dade County Jail is the largest de facto psychiatric facility in Florida. On any given day, approximately 1,200 defendants in the Miami-Dade Jail receive psychotropic medication. This represents almost 20% of the total inmate population and costs local taxpayers over $50 million dollars annually. People with mental illnesses remain incarcerated 8 times longer than people without mental illnesses for the exact same charges, at a cost 7 times higher. Many of these individuals have recycled through jails, state forensic hospitals, and the prison system for the majority of their adult lives."
This is a serious problem, and we hope Governor Crist accepts the invitation. Someone tell him it will be exactly like that show Oz. That might pique his interest.
When so many Americans have trouble seeing a doctor for the common cold, getting proper mental health care seems like a luxury. Unsurprisingly, many people who most need mental health help wind up in the corrections system.
The Miami-Dade delegation in the state legislature recently invited Gov. Charlie Crist and other top officials to tour the county's pre-trial detention system. From the press release:
"The Miami-Dade County Jail is the largest de facto psychiatric facility in Florida. On any given day, approximately 1,200 defendants in the Miami-Dade Jail receive psychotropic medication. This represents almost 20% of the total inmate population and costs local taxpayers over $50 million dollars annually. People with mental illnesses remain incarcerated 8 times longer than people without mental illnesses for the exact same charges, at a cost 7 times higher. Many of these individuals have recycled through jails, state forensic hospitals, and the prison system for the majority of their adult lives."
This is a serious problem, and we hope Governor Crist accepts the invitation. Someone tell him it will be exactly like that show Oz. That might pique his interest.
Inmate health care at Marion jail improves under community group
Nonprofit partnership that replaced private contractor now seen as model for other facilities
By Naseem Sowti Miller
Staff writer
Published: Saturday, February 7, 2009 at 6:30 a.m.
OCALA — On a recent afternoon, Greg sat on a simple metal chair in a bare room at the Marion County Jail. The only colors were the red stripes of his jail outfit and the deep purple color that crawled up his legs.
He only wanted his first name used, so his family wouldn't be embarrassed by his incarceration.
When Greg was booked into the jail early in January, he was not just an inmate. He was a patient.
Greg said he's been suffering for five years from chronic cellulitis, an almost constant infection of the skin and the soft tissues underneath the skin, which in his case is caused by poor circulation.
He said that outside the jail, although uninsured, he sometimes had to take expensive antibiotics that he received for free from pharmaceutical companies. He regularly visited a wound care specialist.
But he wasn't sure what to expect after he was booked into the jail early in January.
"I'm in jail. It's a different kind of world. But I'm extremely thankful for the care I've gotten," he said. He said he had received antibiotics and daily wound care. "And they got me a small whirlpool bath," which helps with circulation in his legs.
Greg's experience stands in stark contrast with the interviews the Star-Banner conducted with inmates in 2007, before Sheriff Ed Dean ended the jail's contract with the national private medical provider, Prison Health Services, Inc.
Dean replaced PHS with a newly formed local nonprofit organization called Ocala Community Care.
"It's easy for people to say it won't work, because it's never been tried here," Dean said in an interview a few weeks before OCC took over the inmates' medical care in January 2008.
Now, a year later, he says, "I'm very excited and proud with quality and cost-effectiveness of OCC. I had great confidence in our medical care partners in the community and that we could do what we set out to do. I think the OCC model is now a bona fide model for others."
Complicated care
Correctional health care is costly and complicated. While health care is an inmate's legal right, most people in jails and prisons are poor, lack education, have high rates of mental illness and chronic illness and are frequently substance abusers or addicts.
Many are uninsured and have not seen a doctor or dentist for years.
Medical care in jails can be further complicated because inmates' lengths of stay are measured in days, instead of the years spent in prisons. The average length of stay in the Marion County Jail, with the average population of 1,800, is around 50 days.
"In correctional health care, you deal with everything," said Loretha Tolbert-Rich, who's the medical liaison for the Sheriff's Office and reports on OCC's quality of care.
Many jails resort to large private companies, like PHS, that not only promise to control costs, but also take control of all aspects of the inmates' medical care.
But critics of the privatized model say such companies cut corners when it comes to providing medical care to inmates to save money and keep their investors happy.
The private companies also rarely connect with health providers in the community for inmates' continuity of care once they're released.
So, when Dean decided to end his contract with PHS — he said that, due to county budget cuts, he was not able to renew that contract because he could only offer a 6 percent budget increase PHS had requested — he set out to create a new system, using local resources.
He brought several community leaders together to establish a nonprofit medical care system linked closely with major providers here. The OCC board is almost entirely made up of community leaders and health care providers.
OCC took over inmate medical care on Jan. 2, 2008, running on $5 million and faith in the community. OCC is running on nearly the same dollar amounts for its second year, a cost-saving measure, according to its leaders. And data shows that the quality of medical care for inmates has improved.
Community provided
The Marion County Jail is one of the few jails in Florida to implement a community-based inmate medical care.
Establishing such a system is complex and requires the participation of local institutions such as the hospitals and the county Health Department — factors that have turned off the interest of local governments in Florida and around the nation.
But that was not the case in Marion County. "This is an ‘us' scenario," said Phil Hoelscher, OCC's contract monitor and the president of Alliance Medical Management.
The Centers, the county's nonprofit mental health provider, sends in two psychiatrists and three mental health counselors, who sometimes have seen the patients before incarceration or will continue to see them after they're released.
A hospitalist from Munroe Regional Medical Center oversees the admission and care of inmates at the hospital, and is the jail's main point of contact for updates on inmates' conditions.
Three people at OCC are also authorized to electronically view the inmates' medical records while hospitalized.
And Tolbert-Rich, the medical liaison for the Sheriff's Office, listens to inmates complaints, and is the sheriff's "quality assurance person," as she put it.
With nearly three decades of experience in correctional health care, and with a nursing background, Tolbert-Rich has a deep understanding and knowledge of the system, which are some of the reasons Dean recruited her from the Department of Corrections.
Several studies have shown that community-based models can lead to cost savings, improved inmate and public health, reduced recidivism and improved public safety.
"When you build connectivity, [the inmates'] community-based provider is more likely to know them," said Steven Rosenberg, president of Community Oriented Correctional Health Services, a nonprofit organization that helps communities find ways to connect correctional health care with the health care in the community.
Dean consulted with the group while laying the groundwork for OCC and is now on the organization's advisory committee.
Rosenberg added that the community doctors see the inmates as a community member, not an offender.
"When you have a doctor who practices in the community, they practice at a different level and quality," he said.
A good example is Dr. Jaime Rubio, the medical director of OCC who was brought on board in April.
Since his arrival, he has developed protocols to ensure inmates receive their medications on time, are seen by a provider within hours or days, depending on their condition, and receive proper treatment.
"When I got here, there was not much of a system in place," he said. "So I spent more than 20 hours a week bringing everything up to date. There are no more past-due clinic visit dates."
He erased the "washout period" — where inmates who were thought to be substance abusers were taken completely off of their anti-psychotic medications. The treatments, he said, are now provided on a case by case basis.
Rubio, who has 10 years of experience in correctional health care, is also a physician at the Heart of Florida Health Center in Ocala, where everyone, regardless of insurance can receive treatment.
"I have a reputation to carry in my private practice," Rubio said, sitting in his small office in the jail. "And inmates should be seen as human beings, because you don't know if you'll end up in there one day."
Pleased with progress
Despite general public apathy toward those behind bars, the issue of inmate health is of concern to more than just the inmates themselves and their families.
More than 95 percent of inmates are eventually released back to their neighborhoods.
But many times, the biggest challenge in creating a community-based system for inmate medical care is changing people's frame of mind, Rosenberg of COCHS, said.
"Most of [the jail inmates] are pre-trial. These are community members who are temporarily displaced... or have minor misdemeanor charges," he said.
Officials at OCC, pleased with their progress, say that during the first year they focused on building the core of the program. Now they're building onto the core and completing the bridge into the community health care system.
They're adding a dialysis center on site, and are looking into applying for national accreditation for their medical system. And while the mental health court is being re-established, OCC officials hope their community based system will help reduce the rate of recidivism.
Dean's ultimate goal for OCC, from the very start, has been extending the program's services to other segments of the community, including employees of the Sheriff's Office.
"I think we've just scratched the surface of what we can do in America to make health care affordable and accessible in America," he said.
Contact Naseem Sowti Miller at 867-4140 or naseem.miller@starbanner.com.
By Naseem Sowti Miller
Staff writer
Published: Saturday, February 7, 2009 at 6:30 a.m.
OCALA — On a recent afternoon, Greg sat on a simple metal chair in a bare room at the Marion County Jail. The only colors were the red stripes of his jail outfit and the deep purple color that crawled up his legs.
He only wanted his first name used, so his family wouldn't be embarrassed by his incarceration.
When Greg was booked into the jail early in January, he was not just an inmate. He was a patient.
Greg said he's been suffering for five years from chronic cellulitis, an almost constant infection of the skin and the soft tissues underneath the skin, which in his case is caused by poor circulation.
He said that outside the jail, although uninsured, he sometimes had to take expensive antibiotics that he received for free from pharmaceutical companies. He regularly visited a wound care specialist.
But he wasn't sure what to expect after he was booked into the jail early in January.
"I'm in jail. It's a different kind of world. But I'm extremely thankful for the care I've gotten," he said. He said he had received antibiotics and daily wound care. "And they got me a small whirlpool bath," which helps with circulation in his legs.
Greg's experience stands in stark contrast with the interviews the Star-Banner conducted with inmates in 2007, before Sheriff Ed Dean ended the jail's contract with the national private medical provider, Prison Health Services, Inc.
Dean replaced PHS with a newly formed local nonprofit organization called Ocala Community Care.
"It's easy for people to say it won't work, because it's never been tried here," Dean said in an interview a few weeks before OCC took over the inmates' medical care in January 2008.
Now, a year later, he says, "I'm very excited and proud with quality and cost-effectiveness of OCC. I had great confidence in our medical care partners in the community and that we could do what we set out to do. I think the OCC model is now a bona fide model for others."
Complicated care
Correctional health care is costly and complicated. While health care is an inmate's legal right, most people in jails and prisons are poor, lack education, have high rates of mental illness and chronic illness and are frequently substance abusers or addicts.
Many are uninsured and have not seen a doctor or dentist for years.
Medical care in jails can be further complicated because inmates' lengths of stay are measured in days, instead of the years spent in prisons. The average length of stay in the Marion County Jail, with the average population of 1,800, is around 50 days.
"In correctional health care, you deal with everything," said Loretha Tolbert-Rich, who's the medical liaison for the Sheriff's Office and reports on OCC's quality of care.
Many jails resort to large private companies, like PHS, that not only promise to control costs, but also take control of all aspects of the inmates' medical care.
But critics of the privatized model say such companies cut corners when it comes to providing medical care to inmates to save money and keep their investors happy.
The private companies also rarely connect with health providers in the community for inmates' continuity of care once they're released.
So, when Dean decided to end his contract with PHS — he said that, due to county budget cuts, he was not able to renew that contract because he could only offer a 6 percent budget increase PHS had requested — he set out to create a new system, using local resources.
He brought several community leaders together to establish a nonprofit medical care system linked closely with major providers here. The OCC board is almost entirely made up of community leaders and health care providers.
OCC took over inmate medical care on Jan. 2, 2008, running on $5 million and faith in the community. OCC is running on nearly the same dollar amounts for its second year, a cost-saving measure, according to its leaders. And data shows that the quality of medical care for inmates has improved.
Community provided
The Marion County Jail is one of the few jails in Florida to implement a community-based inmate medical care.
Establishing such a system is complex and requires the participation of local institutions such as the hospitals and the county Health Department — factors that have turned off the interest of local governments in Florida and around the nation.
But that was not the case in Marion County. "This is an ‘us' scenario," said Phil Hoelscher, OCC's contract monitor and the president of Alliance Medical Management.
The Centers, the county's nonprofit mental health provider, sends in two psychiatrists and three mental health counselors, who sometimes have seen the patients before incarceration or will continue to see them after they're released.
A hospitalist from Munroe Regional Medical Center oversees the admission and care of inmates at the hospital, and is the jail's main point of contact for updates on inmates' conditions.
Three people at OCC are also authorized to electronically view the inmates' medical records while hospitalized.
And Tolbert-Rich, the medical liaison for the Sheriff's Office, listens to inmates complaints, and is the sheriff's "quality assurance person," as she put it.
With nearly three decades of experience in correctional health care, and with a nursing background, Tolbert-Rich has a deep understanding and knowledge of the system, which are some of the reasons Dean recruited her from the Department of Corrections.
Several studies have shown that community-based models can lead to cost savings, improved inmate and public health, reduced recidivism and improved public safety.
"When you build connectivity, [the inmates'] community-based provider is more likely to know them," said Steven Rosenberg, president of Community Oriented Correctional Health Services, a nonprofit organization that helps communities find ways to connect correctional health care with the health care in the community.
Dean consulted with the group while laying the groundwork for OCC and is now on the organization's advisory committee.
Rosenberg added that the community doctors see the inmates as a community member, not an offender.
"When you have a doctor who practices in the community, they practice at a different level and quality," he said.
A good example is Dr. Jaime Rubio, the medical director of OCC who was brought on board in April.
Since his arrival, he has developed protocols to ensure inmates receive their medications on time, are seen by a provider within hours or days, depending on their condition, and receive proper treatment.
"When I got here, there was not much of a system in place," he said. "So I spent more than 20 hours a week bringing everything up to date. There are no more past-due clinic visit dates."
He erased the "washout period" — where inmates who were thought to be substance abusers were taken completely off of their anti-psychotic medications. The treatments, he said, are now provided on a case by case basis.
Rubio, who has 10 years of experience in correctional health care, is also a physician at the Heart of Florida Health Center in Ocala, where everyone, regardless of insurance can receive treatment.
"I have a reputation to carry in my private practice," Rubio said, sitting in his small office in the jail. "And inmates should be seen as human beings, because you don't know if you'll end up in there one day."
Pleased with progress
Despite general public apathy toward those behind bars, the issue of inmate health is of concern to more than just the inmates themselves and their families.
More than 95 percent of inmates are eventually released back to their neighborhoods.
But many times, the biggest challenge in creating a community-based system for inmate medical care is changing people's frame of mind, Rosenberg of COCHS, said.
"Most of [the jail inmates] are pre-trial. These are community members who are temporarily displaced... or have minor misdemeanor charges," he said.
Officials at OCC, pleased with their progress, say that during the first year they focused on building the core of the program. Now they're building onto the core and completing the bridge into the community health care system.
They're adding a dialysis center on site, and are looking into applying for national accreditation for their medical system. And while the mental health court is being re-established, OCC officials hope their community based system will help reduce the rate of recidivism.
Dean's ultimate goal for OCC, from the very start, has been extending the program's services to other segments of the community, including employees of the Sheriff's Office.
"I think we've just scratched the surface of what we can do in America to make health care affordable and accessible in America," he said.
Contact Naseem Sowti Miller at 867-4140 or naseem.miller@starbanner.com.
Handicapped inmate leaves Broward jail, returns to Cuba
Enrique Reyes, the paralyzed inmate stuck at the Broward County jail even though he had served his sentence, flew back to his native Cuba Wednesday to live with his family.
Jail administrators, the Broward Sheriff's Office and Reyes' attorney, Jose Reyes, no relation, tried for about a year to find a way for Reyes to leave the jail, but ran into difficulties because no one wanted a poor, undocumented immigrant who uses a wheelchair.
On Aug. 5, 2006, Reyes went out for a night of drinking, drove and slammed into another vehicle in Deerfield Beach, killing a friend and leaving himself paralyzed. Reyes pleaded no contest to vehicular homicide, and Broward Circuit Judge Marc Gold sentenced him to five years of probation in 2008.
Gold granted the probation because Reyes had no significant criminal history, showed remorse, was paralyzed, and the victim's family did not oppose the sentence.
Gold ordered Reyes sent to Broward General Medical Center, but the hospital refused to keep him, so he landed back in jail. Ultimately the Cuban Interests Section in Washington gave the go-ahead for Reyes to return to Cuba.
-- AMY SHERMAN
Jail administrators, the Broward Sheriff's Office and Reyes' attorney, Jose Reyes, no relation, tried for about a year to find a way for Reyes to leave the jail, but ran into difficulties because no one wanted a poor, undocumented immigrant who uses a wheelchair.
On Aug. 5, 2006, Reyes went out for a night of drinking, drove and slammed into another vehicle in Deerfield Beach, killing a friend and leaving himself paralyzed. Reyes pleaded no contest to vehicular homicide, and Broward Circuit Judge Marc Gold sentenced him to five years of probation in 2008.
Gold granted the probation because Reyes had no significant criminal history, showed remorse, was paralyzed, and the victim's family did not oppose the sentence.
Gold ordered Reyes sent to Broward General Medical Center, but the hospital refused to keep him, so he landed back in jail. Ultimately the Cuban Interests Section in Washington gave the go-ahead for Reyes to return to Cuba.
-- AMY SHERMAN
Sister Helen Prejean Demands Death to Capital Punishment
Editor's Note: Sister Helen Prejean, known for her crusade against the death penalty and her book "Dead Man Walking," warns that the "culture of death" is still celebrated despite waning support for the death penalty in states around the country.
Sister Helen Prejean says it took her 40 years to “wake up” to the social injustices around her in New Orleans, but maybe it would have happened faster “if I had grown up in California.”
With the mesmerizing cadence of a preacher and the down-home humor of her Louisiana upbringing, Prejean spoke at the Diablo Valley Peace and Justice Center in Walnut Creek on March 30. A nun of the order St. Joseph of Medaille, the 60-year-old described awakening to her calling: a crusade against capital punishment. “Enlightenment is a gift,” she said to a packed auditorium. “It’s always a surprise. You never know when it comes and you can’t make it happen.”
Prejean is one of the most visible public figures in the movement to ban the death penalty, owed in great measure to her first book, “Dead Man Walking,” and its 1995 Hollywood film adaptation starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. Sarandon won an Oscar for her portrayal of the nun. Prejean won wider celebrity. She uses it in her ceaseless campaign to raise consciousness about capital punishment.
Her own consciousness about the criminal justice system began in the early 1980s as nuns brought back stories of liberation theology from their work with the poor in Latin America. Prejean began to work with the poor in her own backyard, in St. Thomas public housing projects, which abutted the convent property. “That’s where all the violence happens,” she explained.
When someone asked her to be a pen pal to a Louisiana State Penitentiary inmate, Prejean said, “Sure. I was an English major. I can write pretty letters.” The inmate was Patrick Sonnier, a confessed murderer, and Prejean began a two-year journey into the heart of darkness of death row where she formed a friendship with Sonnier and became a fervid opponent of capital punishment.
“The first time I visited him, I’m scared, I’m so out of my element. I thought, ‘He murdered somebody!’ I could hear his leg irons dragging across the floor. That was the first sound I hear from him. Then I heard a Cajun accent,” she recalled. “I thought his face would mirror that he had murdered someone. But he was smiling and said, ‘Thank you for visiting me.’”
Prejean visited Sonnier in the role of spiritual advisor until his execution by electrocution in 1984. Since then, she has accompanied five others to their deaths, an act motivated by her belief that all humans are deserving of compassion. “In the web of life, if we can say about some human beings that they are disposable and cut them out of the web of life,” she said, “we have to turn a switch inside ourselves to say, ‘You are not human like us.’”
Official support for the death penalty has been waning in states around the country, Prejean noted, with New Mexico the latest to ban it. But she wagged her finger at California. “You have 600 people on death row. You have got to figure this out. How does this happen?” she said. “Is it connected to any system you have? Why 600? It’s all about changing consciousness.”
Prosecutors and their frequent bias in favor of seeking the death penalty are part of the system that needs changing, Prejean asserted. “After prosecutors say they’re going after murder one, they put on the blinders and say, ‘We’re going after the death penalty.’” In Louisiana, that attitude is part of a “culture of death,” she said, that prosecutors seem to celebrate. “Louisiana is so bad,” Prejean said. “They give each other this little award—the Louisiana Prick award. It shows a pelican flying with a hypodermic needle in its beak.”
To overturn the “culture of death” fostered by capital punishment, Prejean calls for simple, vocal activism by ordinary people. “People are not so enthusiastic about the death penalty as they used to be,” she said, noting that among Catholics, support has dropped significantly to 49 percent. “The more voices raised and the more dialogue, legislators will start to listen. Especially the voices of young people. They love to be loved by young people.”
Sister Helen Prejean says it took her 40 years to “wake up” to the social injustices around her in New Orleans, but maybe it would have happened faster “if I had grown up in California.”
With the mesmerizing cadence of a preacher and the down-home humor of her Louisiana upbringing, Prejean spoke at the Diablo Valley Peace and Justice Center in Walnut Creek on March 30. A nun of the order St. Joseph of Medaille, the 60-year-old described awakening to her calling: a crusade against capital punishment. “Enlightenment is a gift,” she said to a packed auditorium. “It’s always a surprise. You never know when it comes and you can’t make it happen.”
Prejean is one of the most visible public figures in the movement to ban the death penalty, owed in great measure to her first book, “Dead Man Walking,” and its 1995 Hollywood film adaptation starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. Sarandon won an Oscar for her portrayal of the nun. Prejean won wider celebrity. She uses it in her ceaseless campaign to raise consciousness about capital punishment.
Her own consciousness about the criminal justice system began in the early 1980s as nuns brought back stories of liberation theology from their work with the poor in Latin America. Prejean began to work with the poor in her own backyard, in St. Thomas public housing projects, which abutted the convent property. “That’s where all the violence happens,” she explained.
When someone asked her to be a pen pal to a Louisiana State Penitentiary inmate, Prejean said, “Sure. I was an English major. I can write pretty letters.” The inmate was Patrick Sonnier, a confessed murderer, and Prejean began a two-year journey into the heart of darkness of death row where she formed a friendship with Sonnier and became a fervid opponent of capital punishment.
“The first time I visited him, I’m scared, I’m so out of my element. I thought, ‘He murdered somebody!’ I could hear his leg irons dragging across the floor. That was the first sound I hear from him. Then I heard a Cajun accent,” she recalled. “I thought his face would mirror that he had murdered someone. But he was smiling and said, ‘Thank you for visiting me.’”
Prejean visited Sonnier in the role of spiritual advisor until his execution by electrocution in 1984. Since then, she has accompanied five others to their deaths, an act motivated by her belief that all humans are deserving of compassion. “In the web of life, if we can say about some human beings that they are disposable and cut them out of the web of life,” she said, “we have to turn a switch inside ourselves to say, ‘You are not human like us.’”
Official support for the death penalty has been waning in states around the country, Prejean noted, with New Mexico the latest to ban it. But she wagged her finger at California. “You have 600 people on death row. You have got to figure this out. How does this happen?” she said. “Is it connected to any system you have? Why 600? It’s all about changing consciousness.”
Prosecutors and their frequent bias in favor of seeking the death penalty are part of the system that needs changing, Prejean asserted. “After prosecutors say they’re going after murder one, they put on the blinders and say, ‘We’re going after the death penalty.’” In Louisiana, that attitude is part of a “culture of death,” she said, that prosecutors seem to celebrate. “Louisiana is so bad,” Prejean said. “They give each other this little award—the Louisiana Prick award. It shows a pelican flying with a hypodermic needle in its beak.”
To overturn the “culture of death” fostered by capital punishment, Prejean calls for simple, vocal activism by ordinary people. “People are not so enthusiastic about the death penalty as they used to be,” she said, noting that among Catholics, support has dropped significantly to 49 percent. “The more voices raised and the more dialogue, legislators will start to listen. Especially the voices of young people. They love to be loved by young people.”
Chief justice blocks release of sex offenders
By MARK SHERMAN – 1 day ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts has granted the Obama administration's request to the Supreme Court to block the release of certain sex offenders who have completed their federal prison terms.
The federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., had earlier invalidated a law allowing the indefinite commitment of "sexually dangerous" prison inmates.
Roberts, in an order Friday, says as many as 77 inmates can continue to be held at a prison in North Carolina at least until the high court decides whether to hear the administration's appeal of a ruling by the federal appeals court.
The Justice Department said the sex offenders could have been released as early as next week without the court's intervention.
"That would pose a significant risk to the public and constitute a significant harm to the interests of the United States," Solicitor General Elena Kagan wrote in court papers filed Friday.
It is possible, however, that state laws allowing civil commitments of sex offenders could be used to re-imprison the men.
The administration is appealing a ruling of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Congress overstepped its authority when it enacted a law allowing for indefinite commitment of sex offenders.
The challenge to the law was brought by four men who served prison terms ranging from three to eight years for possession of child pornography or sexual abuse of a minor. Their confinement was supposed to end more than two years ago, but the government determined that they would be at risk of sexually violent conduct or child molestation if released.
A fifth man who also was part of the legal challenge was charged with child sex abuse, but declared incompetent to stand trial.
Civil commitment was authorized by the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which President George W. Bush signed in July 2006.
The act, named after the son of "America's Most Wanted" television host John Walsh, also establishes a national sex offender registry, increases punishments for some federal crimes against children and strengthens child pornography protections. Those provisions were not affected by the ruling.
The administration is arguing that the law does not violate the Constitution and was well within Congress' power.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts has granted the Obama administration's request to the Supreme Court to block the release of certain sex offenders who have completed their federal prison terms.
The federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., had earlier invalidated a law allowing the indefinite commitment of "sexually dangerous" prison inmates.
Roberts, in an order Friday, says as many as 77 inmates can continue to be held at a prison in North Carolina at least until the high court decides whether to hear the administration's appeal of a ruling by the federal appeals court.
The Justice Department said the sex offenders could have been released as early as next week without the court's intervention.
"That would pose a significant risk to the public and constitute a significant harm to the interests of the United States," Solicitor General Elena Kagan wrote in court papers filed Friday.
It is possible, however, that state laws allowing civil commitments of sex offenders could be used to re-imprison the men.
The administration is appealing a ruling of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Congress overstepped its authority when it enacted a law allowing for indefinite commitment of sex offenders.
The challenge to the law was brought by four men who served prison terms ranging from three to eight years for possession of child pornography or sexual abuse of a minor. Their confinement was supposed to end more than two years ago, but the government determined that they would be at risk of sexually violent conduct or child molestation if released.
A fifth man who also was part of the legal challenge was charged with child sex abuse, but declared incompetent to stand trial.
Civil commitment was authorized by the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which President George W. Bush signed in July 2006.
The act, named after the son of "America's Most Wanted" television host John Walsh, also establishes a national sex offender registry, increases punishments for some federal crimes against children and strengthens child pornography protections. Those provisions were not affected by the ruling.
The administration is arguing that the law does not violate the Constitution and was well within Congress' power.
Program may help reduce jail population
By Lise Fisher & Karen Voyles
Staff Writers
Published: Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 6:01 a.m.
Alachua County's crowded jail is getting national attention.
The Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., selected the jail as one of three sites that will participate in its Jail Population Reduction Initiative.
The institute is an economic and social police research firm and will be responsible for coordinating jail population reduction efforts with federal, state and local officials. Plans to reduce overcrowding will be developed simultaneously at jails in Travis County, Texas, and Allegheny County, Pa.
In a news release about the project, Nancy LaVigne, who is heading up the project for the institute, said Alachua County was selected from among about two dozen applicants because it demonstrated "a strong commitment to working collaboratively and creatively to reduce (the) jail population while ensuring public safety."
The goal of the initiative is "to develop, implement and evaluate a data-driven plan" that will result in meaningful jail population reductions while use the savings for more proactive public safety measures.
James Bonds was among the 26 law enforcement officers who will soon begin patrolling the woods and waters in this area.
During his time at the academy in Tallahassee, Bonds and his classmates were tested on how well they handled firearms, alligators, boats, and ATVs as well as how knowledgeable they were in the federal, state and wildlife laws.
During his career, Bonds will be expected to be familiar with the 755 species of wildlife and more than 700 species of fish that the agency manages and protects on 34 million acres of public and private land, 8,200 miles of tidal shoreline, 3 million acres of lakes and 12,000 miles of rivers and streams.
DON'T TASE ME, CO-WORKER: It's tough being the new guy, no matter where you work.
Alachua County sheriff's deputy Marty Schenck found that out hours after he started his new job as an investigator earlier this month.
Schenck was working with two other investigators to find a fugitive. The man snuck out a window and was in the process of jumping a metal fence when one of the investigators Tased him.
At the same time, Schenck was jumping the fence to head off the man in case he rolled out of the Taser probes.
Schenck's reward for his efforts included contact with a slightly electrified fence because the Taser wires had become entangled. And Schenck tore his brand-new pants in the process.
Claims by other deputies that there was no teasing when Schenck returned to his office have been less than credible.
Staff Writers
Published: Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 6:01 a.m.
Alachua County's crowded jail is getting national attention.
The Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., selected the jail as one of three sites that will participate in its Jail Population Reduction Initiative.
The institute is an economic and social police research firm and will be responsible for coordinating jail population reduction efforts with federal, state and local officials. Plans to reduce overcrowding will be developed simultaneously at jails in Travis County, Texas, and Allegheny County, Pa.
In a news release about the project, Nancy LaVigne, who is heading up the project for the institute, said Alachua County was selected from among about two dozen applicants because it demonstrated "a strong commitment to working collaboratively and creatively to reduce (the) jail population while ensuring public safety."
The goal of the initiative is "to develop, implement and evaluate a data-driven plan" that will result in meaningful jail population reductions while use the savings for more proactive public safety measures.
James Bonds was among the 26 law enforcement officers who will soon begin patrolling the woods and waters in this area.
During his time at the academy in Tallahassee, Bonds and his classmates were tested on how well they handled firearms, alligators, boats, and ATVs as well as how knowledgeable they were in the federal, state and wildlife laws.
During his career, Bonds will be expected to be familiar with the 755 species of wildlife and more than 700 species of fish that the agency manages and protects on 34 million acres of public and private land, 8,200 miles of tidal shoreline, 3 million acres of lakes and 12,000 miles of rivers and streams.
DON'T TASE ME, CO-WORKER: It's tough being the new guy, no matter where you work.
Alachua County sheriff's deputy Marty Schenck found that out hours after he started his new job as an investigator earlier this month.
Schenck was working with two other investigators to find a fugitive. The man snuck out a window and was in the process of jumping a metal fence when one of the investigators Tased him.
At the same time, Schenck was jumping the fence to head off the man in case he rolled out of the Taser probes.
Schenck's reward for his efforts included contact with a slightly electrified fence because the Taser wires had become entangled. And Schenck tore his brand-new pants in the process.
Claims by other deputies that there was no teasing when Schenck returned to his office have been less than credible.
Lehigh Acres child murder trial moves slowly
Alberto Hernandez's case still needs jury
BY PAT GILLESPIE
pgillespie@news-press.com
View photos from the Hernandez trial
Jury selection moved at a snail's pace Tuesday in the murder trial of Alberto Hernandez and attorneys will spend at least most of today trying to find an impartial jury.
Attorneys spent eight hours questioning 35 prospective jurors - about 14 minutes spent on each - seeking their views on the death penalty and if they have been exposed to media coverage surrounding Hernandez's case.
Hernandez, 41, faces the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder, sexual battery and aggravated child abuse. He is charged with raping and killing his 13-year-old stepdaughter, Michelle Fontanez, in February 2006. He allegedly attacked her in their Lehigh Acres home after the Florida Department of Children and Families removed him from the house.
Of the 35 jurors questioned individually in a closed-door jury room, 14 were dismissed because of their views on the death penalty or because of related issues. Hernandez doesn't speak fluent English and needs interpreters to translate all that is said, which has slowed the process. The trial is expected to run into next week.
Most of those who were dismissed told attorneys they either believed so strongly in the death penalty or in a life sentence they couldn't consider the opposite penalty if Hernandez is convicted. Several others don't speak English - and wouldn't be able to serve because they wouldn't understand testimony, evidence and deliberations - and others had family issues that prevented them from sitting on the jury.
Starting at 8:30 a.m. today, attorneys will continue the task of finding 12 jurors and two alternate jurors to try Hernandez. They will question 25 more prospective jurors about the two issues. Those who make it through will join the 21 left from Monday and they will be questioned about other issues to make sure they qualify to serve on the jury.
Attorneys need a high number of jurors because each set of attorneys is able to strike 10 prospective jurors and 14 are needed for the jury. That means at least 34 potential jurors are needed. Some jurors could be dismissed because they can't stay out of work for more than a week to serve, have family members in law enforcement or, perhaps, because they have been exposed to child or sexual abuse.
Fifteen people were crammed into the jury room -Hernandez, an interpreter, Lee Circuit Judge Edward Volz Jr., a court reporter, two deputies, five attorneys, a paralegal and three reporters -watching the proceedings.
Hernandez sat at one end of a board-room style table that is typically the setting for jury deliberations. Wearing a tie, a gray suit and white shirt, Hernandez looked on nervously while listening to an English-to-Spanish interpreter, who was seated behind his left shoulder. His knees quaked continuously underneath the table. At one point, Hernandez crossed his hands and tapped his thumbs repeatedly.
Additional Facts
news-press.com/ gallery
BY PAT GILLESPIE
pgillespie@news-press.com
View photos from the Hernandez trial
Jury selection moved at a snail's pace Tuesday in the murder trial of Alberto Hernandez and attorneys will spend at least most of today trying to find an impartial jury.
Attorneys spent eight hours questioning 35 prospective jurors - about 14 minutes spent on each - seeking their views on the death penalty and if they have been exposed to media coverage surrounding Hernandez's case.
Hernandez, 41, faces the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder, sexual battery and aggravated child abuse. He is charged with raping and killing his 13-year-old stepdaughter, Michelle Fontanez, in February 2006. He allegedly attacked her in their Lehigh Acres home after the Florida Department of Children and Families removed him from the house.
Of the 35 jurors questioned individually in a closed-door jury room, 14 were dismissed because of their views on the death penalty or because of related issues. Hernandez doesn't speak fluent English and needs interpreters to translate all that is said, which has slowed the process. The trial is expected to run into next week.
Most of those who were dismissed told attorneys they either believed so strongly in the death penalty or in a life sentence they couldn't consider the opposite penalty if Hernandez is convicted. Several others don't speak English - and wouldn't be able to serve because they wouldn't understand testimony, evidence and deliberations - and others had family issues that prevented them from sitting on the jury.
Starting at 8:30 a.m. today, attorneys will continue the task of finding 12 jurors and two alternate jurors to try Hernandez. They will question 25 more prospective jurors about the two issues. Those who make it through will join the 21 left from Monday and they will be questioned about other issues to make sure they qualify to serve on the jury.
Attorneys need a high number of jurors because each set of attorneys is able to strike 10 prospective jurors and 14 are needed for the jury. That means at least 34 potential jurors are needed. Some jurors could be dismissed because they can't stay out of work for more than a week to serve, have family members in law enforcement or, perhaps, because they have been exposed to child or sexual abuse.
Fifteen people were crammed into the jury room -Hernandez, an interpreter, Lee Circuit Judge Edward Volz Jr., a court reporter, two deputies, five attorneys, a paralegal and three reporters -watching the proceedings.
Hernandez sat at one end of a board-room style table that is typically the setting for jury deliberations. Wearing a tie, a gray suit and white shirt, Hernandez looked on nervously while listening to an English-to-Spanish interpreter, who was seated behind his left shoulder. His knees quaked continuously underneath the table. At one point, Hernandez crossed his hands and tapped his thumbs repeatedly.
Additional Facts
news-press.com/ gallery
Miami sex offenders still living under bridge
29-Mar 14:21
A sandy shoreline runs outside American Patrick Wiese's front door. A white crane toes through gentle blue-green waters as the sun beams overhead. The view of downtown Miami is spectacular, the fishing good and the rent free.
Yet he'd give it all up for a bed in a warehouse.
Wiese is among 52 sex offenders living under a busy bridge over Biscayne Bay that connects Miami to Miami Beach. The state insisted two years ago it would urge them to leave, but the community has only grown.
It has become a makeshift town of parolees and others who struggle to find affordable housing that doesn't violate strict local ordinances against sex offenders living too close to schools, parks and other places children congregate.
In the angled area where the bridge meets a concrete slope, residents have put up domed tents, a shack housing a makeshift kitchen, a camper, even a weight bench. They've spray painted the slope and the pillars supporting the bridge: "We 'R' Not Monsters." "They Treat Animals Better!!!" "Why?"
"They throw us under here and just hope that we can do something ourselves," said 47-year-old Wiese, standing in the doorway to a small shack made of collected wood scraps. "If I was a murderer, they would help me, they would find me a home, they would find me a job."
The community started in 2007 with a few men camping out beneath the Julia Tuttle Causeway, the result of rules strengthened in Miami-Dade County two years earlier and a bevy of overlapping local ordinances. A year later, there were 19, and the state vowed it would help them find housing. That never happened, and more kept arriving.
Jo Ellyn Rackleff, a spokeswoman for the Florida Corrections Department, acknowledges the problems with the arrangement.
"We have talked to them, they demonstrate that they're looking, but they just haven't been able to find anything. There's so many restrictions in that area of Florida," she said. "It's just a situation that's unsolvable at this point."
Once entered in the sex offender registry, a person typically stays for life. In Miami-Dade County, such people must live at least 760 metres from places children gather, making only a handful of areas - generally out of an offender's price range - possible homes. The county's rules governing its 1,030 registered sex offenders are considered among the state's most restrictive.
Many offenders have family or friends who would house them but can't because they live too close to a school or playground or bus stop.
The state says offenders found the bridge because it was among the few covered places in compliance with the local ordinances. Officials say probation officers haven't suggested it outright, though some residents dispute that. Either way, it has become one of the only solutions.
"Sometimes when a probation officer is helping somebody to look for a place to live and they're not having any luck and the probation officer is required to know where a person is every night, they may suggest that there is a place where they can check on them," Rackleff said.
Politicians are often reluctant to touch such an issue, as there is little public compassion for those who molest children or rape women, though many sex offenders at the Tuttle and elsewhere have committed lesser offenses.
The Miami chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is studying the issue before deciding how to push for a change to the rules in Miami-Dade County and its municipalities.
"They have been given absolutely no hope or no recourse to change the situation," said chapter president Carlene Sawyer, who can see the causeway from her office and can't help thinking of the people living underneath it when a storm rolls in.
"This is un-American," she said.
Many of the residents work. On a recent afternoon, some were fishing. At night, they watch TVs powered by a generator and play dominoes and cards. Leaders have emerged in the community, and while parole officers visit, offenders mostly police themselves.
The air is tinged with sea salt, and the cars never stop passing overhead, yet perfect Atlantic waters make it strangely serene. Residents have even seen dolphins and manatees near the shore.
Wiese sleeps in a tiny shack with two TVs, a CD player, microwave and a night stand made of a black plastic milk crate that holds an ashtray and a can of Miller High Life. He was found guilty of lewd or lascivious molestation of a minor, a crime he claims he didn't commit.
He says the state offers him and his neighbours no help and that more people keep coming here, unable to find anyplace else. He wonders why the state can't arrange for them to live in a warehouse - anything better than this. Asked if there's anything good about his situation, he thinks for a moment before replying.
"I got a good view," he said. "That's about it."
AP
A sandy shoreline runs outside American Patrick Wiese's front door. A white crane toes through gentle blue-green waters as the sun beams overhead. The view of downtown Miami is spectacular, the fishing good and the rent free.
Yet he'd give it all up for a bed in a warehouse.
Wiese is among 52 sex offenders living under a busy bridge over Biscayne Bay that connects Miami to Miami Beach. The state insisted two years ago it would urge them to leave, but the community has only grown.
It has become a makeshift town of parolees and others who struggle to find affordable housing that doesn't violate strict local ordinances against sex offenders living too close to schools, parks and other places children congregate.
In the angled area where the bridge meets a concrete slope, residents have put up domed tents, a shack housing a makeshift kitchen, a camper, even a weight bench. They've spray painted the slope and the pillars supporting the bridge: "We 'R' Not Monsters." "They Treat Animals Better!!!" "Why?"
"They throw us under here and just hope that we can do something ourselves," said 47-year-old Wiese, standing in the doorway to a small shack made of collected wood scraps. "If I was a murderer, they would help me, they would find me a home, they would find me a job."
The community started in 2007 with a few men camping out beneath the Julia Tuttle Causeway, the result of rules strengthened in Miami-Dade County two years earlier and a bevy of overlapping local ordinances. A year later, there were 19, and the state vowed it would help them find housing. That never happened, and more kept arriving.
Jo Ellyn Rackleff, a spokeswoman for the Florida Corrections Department, acknowledges the problems with the arrangement.
"We have talked to them, they demonstrate that they're looking, but they just haven't been able to find anything. There's so many restrictions in that area of Florida," she said. "It's just a situation that's unsolvable at this point."
Once entered in the sex offender registry, a person typically stays for life. In Miami-Dade County, such people must live at least 760 metres from places children gather, making only a handful of areas - generally out of an offender's price range - possible homes. The county's rules governing its 1,030 registered sex offenders are considered among the state's most restrictive.
Many offenders have family or friends who would house them but can't because they live too close to a school or playground or bus stop.
The state says offenders found the bridge because it was among the few covered places in compliance with the local ordinances. Officials say probation officers haven't suggested it outright, though some residents dispute that. Either way, it has become one of the only solutions.
"Sometimes when a probation officer is helping somebody to look for a place to live and they're not having any luck and the probation officer is required to know where a person is every night, they may suggest that there is a place where they can check on them," Rackleff said.
Politicians are often reluctant to touch such an issue, as there is little public compassion for those who molest children or rape women, though many sex offenders at the Tuttle and elsewhere have committed lesser offenses.
The Miami chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is studying the issue before deciding how to push for a change to the rules in Miami-Dade County and its municipalities.
"They have been given absolutely no hope or no recourse to change the situation," said chapter president Carlene Sawyer, who can see the causeway from her office and can't help thinking of the people living underneath it when a storm rolls in.
"This is un-American," she said.
Many of the residents work. On a recent afternoon, some were fishing. At night, they watch TVs powered by a generator and play dominoes and cards. Leaders have emerged in the community, and while parole officers visit, offenders mostly police themselves.
The air is tinged with sea salt, and the cars never stop passing overhead, yet perfect Atlantic waters make it strangely serene. Residents have even seen dolphins and manatees near the shore.
Wiese sleeps in a tiny shack with two TVs, a CD player, microwave and a night stand made of a black plastic milk crate that holds an ashtray and a can of Miller High Life. He was found guilty of lewd or lascivious molestation of a minor, a crime he claims he didn't commit.
He says the state offers him and his neighbours no help and that more people keep coming here, unable to find anyplace else. He wonders why the state can't arrange for them to live in a warehouse - anything better than this. Asked if there's anything good about his situation, he thinks for a moment before replying.
"I got a good view," he said. "That's about it."
AP
Thursday, April 2, 2009
David Brener: Death penalty costly in hard economic times
David Brener: Death penalty costly in hard economic times
David Brener - Guest Opinion • April 2, 2009
Recently, the Florida Bar News reported that a sitting circuit court judge in Seminole County recommended the abolition of the death penalty in Florida.
The reason for the jurist’s anti-death penalty stance was not grounded on moral repugnance of state-sponsored homicide. His opinion was not based on the fact that the death penalty is not a deterrent.
The judge’s views were not founded upon his observations of the often arbitrary way that some are selected for capital punishment, while the majority of others alleged to have committed equally heinous crimes are not charged with capital murder.
Despite numerous recent DNA exonerations, including 10 in Florida, the judge’s recommendation to abolish the death penalty was based on a much less lofty consideration — it’s expensive. That’s right — money.
As noted by Judge Clayton Simmons, in these tough budget times the Legislature could conceivably save millions of dollars by eliminating the death penalty. Contrary to popular belief, it costs considerably more to execute someone than to keep them in prison for life.
While an exact amount cannot by determined, credible reporters, such as the eminent judicial college death penalty teacher Judge O.H. Eaton, have cited studies that suggest that it costs six times more, or $3.2 million to execute someone.
While an exact amount cannot by determined, credible reporters, such as the eminent judicial college death penalty teacher Judge O.H. Eaton, have cited studies that suggest that it costs six times more, or $3.2 million to execute someone.
The Death Penalty Information Center maintains that Florida spends $51 million a year more to execute people convicted of first degree murder than to keep them in prison for life without parole.
A capital case involving a serial killer can cost several million dollars, up to the $12 million it reportedly cost to execute Ted Bundy in 1989. Given the relatively small number of actual executions, keeping the death penalty on the books cost Florida taxpayers $20 million to $24 million per execution. That’s big money!
As the recent cases involving double murderers Fred Cooper and David Patton demonstrate, the death penalty is not only arbitrarily imposed by juries, but may be arbitrarily sought or not sought by the prosecutor’s office.
Double murderer Cooper was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole after a Clearwater jury recommended against the death penalty, while Patton was offered a plea to life for brutally beating two elderly women to death with an oxygen tank.
Yet, other arguably less egregious cases in Lee County remain where the state is still seeking to execute the defendant. It is this lack of uniformity which creates tremendous unfairness in death penalty jurisprudence.
If considerations such as morality, fairness in implementation, holy mercy, or the absolute irrevocability of the death penalty will not succeed in moving the legislature to abolish state sanctioned homicide, maybe the bottom line will.
Those of us striving to put an end to capital punishment in Florida would no doubt much prefer if that occurs as a result of a new enlightenment and the vindication of our anti-death penalty views.
However, when it comes to the matter of life over death, we’ll take life over death for any darned reason whatsoever, even those devoid of substantive considerations.
I suspect those on death row too. And that is the bottom line.
— David A. Brener Esq. is a Fort Myers criminal defense lawyer who concentrates on homicide cases
He is the current Chairperson of the Criminal Law Practice Section of the Lee County Bar.
Innocence Project of Florida Files Amicus Brief with Supreme Court of Florida
Innocence Project of Florida, Inc.
1100 East Park Avenue
Tallahassee, FL 32301
Telephone 850.561.6767
Fax 850.561.5077
For Immediate Release
April 2, 2009
Contacts:Seth Miller, Esq.: 202.341.2127
Bobbi Madonna, Esq.: 513.594.3657
Innocence Project of Florida Files Amicus Brief with Supreme Court of Florida
IPF Urges Court to Allow Defendants to File for New Trial Based on FBI Junk Science
Yesterday the Innocence Project of Florida (IPF), along with The Innocence Network, filed an amicus curiae brief with the Florida Supreme Court in the case of Wyatt v. State of Florida.
IPF is urging the court to allow inmates, including Mr. Wyatt, the opportunity to present to the trial court recently received letters from the Federal Bureau of Investigation indicating that its agents gave false and misleading trial testimony regarding Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis (CBLA).
For over forty years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) performed CBLA, which purported to be able to "match" bullets found at a crime scene to bullets linked in some way to criminal defendants (i.e., bullets found at a defendant's home). In its most egregious form, CBLA was used to show that the two sets of bullets were manufactured at the same time or even came from one particular box of bullets. In other cases, the FBI told juries that two bullets came from the same batch of lead at the same factory, without also telling them that as many as 35 million bullets may have also been made from that same batch of lead.
"When an FBI expert told a jury that they could link a bullet from a crime scene to a single box of bullets owned by a defendant, the jury surely believed it," said Bobbi Madonna, Staff Attorney for IPF. "What they weren't telling juries is that this conclusion was not at all based in science and should have never been allowed inside a courtroom."
The FBI in 2005 discontinued the use of this procedure. A 2007 exposé conducted by 60 Minutes and the Washington Post showed that FBI agents often grossly exaggerated the probative value of their CBLA conclusions at trial, which almost certainly misled juries and tainted verdicts.
"There had been some criticism and some skepticism developing about CBLA," noted Seth Miller, Executive Director of IPF. "But despite these criticisms, the FBI stood by their technique and their baseless conclusions until very recently.
"In 2008, the FBI partnered with a Joint CBLA Task Force with the purpose of investigating every case in which they provided CBLA testimony. They have so far identified roughly 1,500 cases nationwide where CBLA testimony was presented at trial and have analyzed 156. Of those 156, the FBI has admitted to providing misleading testimony to the jury in 96 of them. The FBI began issuing case-specific letters in mid-2008, admitting that its agents provided improper testimony that likely prejudiced the trial. A disproportionate number of those letters--20 of the 96 total letters sent thus far--were issued to Florida inmates.
Under Florida law, an inmate not on death row has two years from the time that "new evidence" comes to light to file for a new trial based on that evidence. For death-row inmates, that window shortens to just one year. IPF wants the court to find that an inmate's clock for presenting a CBLA-based claim should "start running" when they receive their individual letter from the FBI, rather than choosing an earlier time when generic criticisms of CBLA began surfacing.
"What the Joint Task Force is doing is tremendously important. These letters are the product of their work and they mark the first time the FBI has acknowledged that they gave false testimony in individual cases," said Miller. "The ongoing unprecedented collaborative efforts between the FBI and other innocence organizations around the country to right these wrongs will only have value if the court provides the recipients of these letters the chance to prove that the FBI's false testimony tainted their trials.
"The Innocence Project of Florida (IPF) is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to finding and freeing innocent people in Florida prisons.
The Innocence Network is an affiliation of organizations dedicated to providing pro bono legal and investigative services to individuals seeking to prove innocence of crimes for which they have been convicted and working to redress the causes of wrongful convictions.
The Innocence Network consists of 49 member organizations throughout the United States, Washington D.C., and abroad.
The Joint Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis Task Force consists of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Innocence Network, The Innocence Project, the law firm of Winston and Strawn, law professors, and investigative journalists.
The Joint CBLA Task Force operates in cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice and seeks to assure that cases in which FBI-conducted bullet lead analysis played a significant role in a conviction are reviewed properly since the FBI's disavowal of this technique.
IPF was appointed by the national Joint CBLA Task Force to oversee the review and litigation of CBLA cases in Florida.
Altersberger Penalty Trial: Day 4
BARTOW - Closing arguments were presented in the penalty trial of Joshua Lee Altersberger, and the case is now in the hands of the jury.
Altersberger pleaded guilty on March 13 to shooting and killing Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Nicholas Sottile during a Jan. 12, 2007 traffic stop in Highlands County. A Polk County jury was chosen last week to hear testimony and make a recommendation to Judge J. Michael Hunter of a punishment of either life in prison or the death penalty.
"If Nicholas Sottile were not a law enforcement officer, engaged in the performance of his official duties, he would still be here today," said Assistant State Attorney Paul Wallace, co-prosecutor along with fellow Assistant State Attorney Steve Houchin.
Wallace told jurors that this circumstance deserved a tremendous amount of value and weight.
The jury was also asked to look at whether the crime was committed in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner.
Previous testimony from an eyewitness revealed that Altersberger put his hands up in the air as Sottile approached the defendant's car. The trooper kept his hand near his weapon until he felt safe. Once Sottile relaxed his hand, Altersberger dropped his and brought them back up with a gun in hand and shot the victim.
Wallace also devoted some of his closing recounting the testimony of Rosalie Altersberger, Joshua's mother, who told of a family history filled with bad parenting decisions and bad role models for the defendant and his two sisters.
"The question becomes, 'How does that relate to the decision that he made to slay the police officer?'" Wallace asked.
In her closing, defense attorney Debra Goins asked jurors to make a "reasoned decision in the face of emotion" and look to the "better angels of your nature."
"Choosing life for Joshua Altersberger does not diminish the life of trooper Sottile," Goins said. "Josh has never been on an even playing field. What he did he has admitted to, and it's a horrible thing, and he will live with that for the rest of his life."
Goins said Joshua's dysfunctional home life had a negative impact on his psychological development and are the reasons why he is who he is today.
"It's not surprising how he got there and it's so sad that the kind of intervention that was needed could not have been put in place," Goins said.
(source : www2.highlandstoday.com)
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Florida Turnpike killers sentenced to death
WEST PALM BEACH, FL -- Daniel Troya and Ricardo “Rick” Sanchez, convicted in the Oct. 13, 2006, execution-style killings of Jose Luis Escobedo and his family, will be put to death for the crimes, a jury decided Tuesday.
Troya and Sanchez are the first federal defendants sentenced to death in Florida since Congress reinstated the Federal Death Penalty Act in 1988.
Troya appeared calm upon hearing he would die for killing Escobedo’s 4- and 3-year old sons, Luis Julian and Luis Damian. But as soon as jurors exited court, he launched into an outburst that culminated in heaving a full water bottle at Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Carlton, which grazed his shoulder.
As jurors filed out of court, Troya refused to rise, then cursed his attorney when asked to stand.
Seated at the defense table, Troya began to mumble and move his body back and forth as Senior U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley discussed scheduling a future hearing to sentence him on several additional drug and weapons convictions.
Fidgeting in his seat, Troya rambled on before declaring “you all are already for the killing . . . let’s just get on with it.”
With those words, he stood, grabbed the bottle before him and threw it toward prosecutors.
U.S. marshals, who were on high alert and already moving toward him, had Troya pinned to the ground by the time the bottle hit the floor.
As the marshals subdued him, Troya’s family — his father, mother, sister and grandmother – began shouting from their seats, both for Troya to stop and telling marshals “don’t hurt him.”
With nearly a dozen marshals filling the courtroom, Hurley called for calm as Troya’s family cried and spectators gasped in awe.
Sanchez, meanwhile, surrounded by marshals, remained motionless as Troya was hauled out of court.
Later, Troya’s attorney, Jim Eisenberg, acknowledged his behavior was “inappropriate.”
“Mr. Troya was upset, he’d been sitting there for three months and he was just naturally upset,” he said. “And he didn’t appreciate the way some of the prosecutors had spoken about him and acted themselves, and he reacted in a manner that was not appropriate.”
At trial, prosecutors said Troya and Sanchez carried out the brutal predawn killings on the orders of their co-defendant and convicted drug kingpin Danny Varela, 28, for whom the two worked as drug couriers.
Varela, who faces up to life in prison for drug and weapons offenses, was not charged with the murders.
After a six-week trial, a two-week penalty phase and four days of deliberations, the jury – seven men and five women – voted unanimously to impose the death penalty for the killings of the Escobedo boys.
The panel further agreed that Troya and Sanchez should be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release for also gunning down Jose Escobedo, 28, and his wife Yessica, 25.
Eisenberg insisted they’d appeal the two death sentences.
“The problem was the jury said life imprisonment on three out of the five counts: they said life imprisonment on the carjacking, life imprisonment on the death of the father and life imprisonment even on the death of the mother,” he noted. “But it was the two children that they came up with the death penalty on.
“We knew that was the problem going into the case,” he added, “and everybody knew that and that ended up being the problem in the case.”
Troya’s family, Eisenberg said, were “obviously disappointed, and obviously upset.
“They were hoping for life in prison,” he said.
Sanchez’s attorney, Michael Cohen said they’ll also file appeals.
“This is just a unfortunate, unfortunate situation,” he said, “and we intend to take it to appeal.”
After court, St. Lucie County sheriff’s detective Fred Wilson said he was pleased with the verdict, and glad the case is over.
“I think it was a just verdict and the jury did their job,” he said.
He said he wasn’t surprised the jury voted for a penalty of death in the murders of the two boys.
“The adults had a choice, but the children didn’t,” he said.
“The end result was we caught the bad guys, justice was served in all the defendants in this case, and now we can move on and the (Escobedo) family can close their doors and move on.”
Later, Jose Escobedo’s mother, Rosario Escobedo, who sat in court every day with Sara Guerrero, Yessica Escobedo’s mother, both of Brownsville, Texas, said the verdict was a relief.
“It feels good, it does,” she said. “I feel like a great weight has been lifted off me.”
She called it a “no-win situation.
“I think everybody loses here: Their parents, how they feel – our loss, it’s something I’ll never get back,” she said. “There is a big void in me — I lost my son, my two grandsons and my daughter-in-law.
“But they had to be held accountable,” she added. “I am relieved and I was ready to accept whatever the jury did. Now we can go home.”
What’s next for Daniel Troya and Ricardo Sanchez?
The two death penalty sentences will automatically be appealed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal in Atlanta, Ga.
Senior U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley will soon schedule another sentencing date for both men, who still face punishments for six additional drug and firearms convictions.
Co-defendant Danny Varela, 28, convicted of nine conspiracy, drug and weapons possession counts, faces up to life in prison at his sentencing, which could be in May.
Co-defendant Liana Lee Lopez, 20, convicted of four conspiracy, drug and firearm charges, faces a maximum penalty of life behind bars, is expected to be sentenced in May.
(Source : www.abcactionnews.com )
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