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Trick or Treat – Update for October 28, 2022

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

Today, a little early Halloween…

TREAT: SENATE BILL AIMED AT HELPING PREGNANT PRISONERS

treat221028Not that introduction of a bill this late in the Congressional season is much more than symbolism, but legislation introduced a few weeks ago by Sens Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Susan Collins R-ME) aims to improve care in federal prisons for pregnant and postpartum women and their babies.

The Protecting the Health and Wellness of Babies and Pregnant Women in Custody Act (S.5027) would establish care standards for federal facilities across the country, requiring access to medical and mental health services, as well as education about parental rights and lactation.

The act would restrict when pregnant women can be placed in restrictive housing, ban the Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Marshal Service from placing pregnant women in solitary confinement during the third trimester, and require the BOP to evaluate pregnant women to determine if their pregnancy is high-risk.

Companion legislation in the House was introduced by Reps Karen Bass (D-CA) and Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA).

Sadly, the likelihood that this bill will be considered before the 117th Congress expires on January 2, 2023, is remote.

Gov’t Executive, Senate Bill Aims to Improve Care for Pregnant Women and Babies in Federal Prisons (October 18, 2022)

S. 5027, Protecting the Health and Wellness of Babies and Pregnant Women in Custody Act

TRICK: IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED…

trick221028After Dan Kordash got caught at the airport by Customs and Border Protection officers after declaring he was carrying $12,000 in currency that turned out to be more like $33,000 (money which he forfeited), he was detained and questioned by CBP on at least two subsequent occasions. What’s worse, CBP officers told Dan that because of the money incident, he could count on always getting the third degree when he passed through the airport.

Dan filed Bivens claims against the CBP officers who detained him. The district court found that the officers had qualified immunity and dismissed the complaint. Not to be deterred, Dan then filed a Federal Tort Claims Act complaint for false imprisonment, battery, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence. The district court dismissed the new complaint as well for failure to state a claim, and Kordash appealed.

Last week, the 11th Circuit upheld the FTCA dismissal, holding that the doctrine of collateral estoppel meant that the Bivens suit determination that the officers acted lawfully in furtherance of federal policy should apply to the FTCA suit as well.

The 11th held that the issue in the FTCA case – whether the officers’ acts had a “nexus” with furthering federal policy and complied with federal law – was identical to the issue in the Bivens action. “In the Bivens action,” the Circuit said, “the district court determined for each incident when Kordash or Nilsen were stopped whether the officers acted within their discretionary authority and whether the detentions complied with federal law. Here, the same legal inquiries govern the application of the Supremacy Clause as a bar to liability for claims arising out of these incidents under the Federal Tort Claims Act.”

Because the issue met the test for issue preclusion, “Kordash is barred from relitigating these issues under the doctrine of collateral estoppel.”

Kordash v. United States, Case No. 21-12151, 2022 U.S.App. LEXIS 29420 (11th Cir., Oct. 21, 2022)

TREAT: MINNESOTA DRUG SALE STATUTES OVERBROAD

treatB221028The 8th Circuit ruled last week that because Minnesota’s definitions of “narcotic drug” and cocaine“ include drugs that the federal controlled-substance schedules do not, convictions under those statutes are not predicate “serious drug offense” under the Armed Career Criminal Act.

While the defendant was still convicted of a felon-in-possession count under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), his sentence exposure fell from 15 years to life all the way down to zero to 10 years.

United States v. Owen, Case No. 21-3870, 2022 U.S.App. LEXIS 28979 (8th Cir., Oct. 19, 2022)

– Thomas L. Root

Carvajel’s Subcommittee Swan Song – Update for February 7, 2022

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

BOP DIRECTOR’S FINAL HOUSE OVERSIGHT HEARING LARGELY A MARSHMALLOW FIGHT

Marshmallow220207Bureau of Prisons Director Michael Carvajal dumped numbers on a largely uncritical House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security last Thursday, in what is likely the retiring Director’s final oversight hearing.

Committee chair Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) suggested fireworks to come when she opened the session wondering how the BOP could justify turning down inmates for compassionate release who later died of COVID. But the fireworks were largely a dud, as hard questions about criminal misconduct by BOP staff, lax security, and decrepit facilities – the reasons Associated Press gave for Carvajal’s resignation in the wake of Congressional pressure for his replacement – went unasked.

The Director’s play with numbers went unchallenged as well. His written statement reported that the Bureau has transferred more than 37,000 inmates to community custody, noting parenthetically that only about a quarter of those were transferred pursuant to the authority granted by the CARES Act. In his oral testimony, the Director truncated that to the BOP having “released over or transferred over 37,000 under the CARES Act to home confinement and community placement.”

The BOP has been bandying the 37,000 number about for a long time, used to lull legislators into thinking the agency had vigorously used its CARES Act authority. What it comes down to is that the BOP kept releasing people to halfway house/home confinement as usual but could only find under 7% of BOP inmates in custody who “qualified” for CARES Act placement over a 22-month period. The “qualifications” were those laid down by the Attorney General, with additional gloss (such as the inmate must have served 50% of his or her sentence). That means that 28,000 of that 37,000 number would have gone to halfway house or home confinement under normal end-of-sentence placement, even without the CARES Act.

Maybe the number misdirection doesn’t seem like such a big deal, but it’s emblematic of BOP culture. If the BOP’s professional judgment is that the CARES Act should be no more than the 7% solution, why not tell Congress “we released 9,000 people under the CARES Act, and if you wanted us to release more, you should have written the law differently.” Instead, the BOP leads with the 37,000 number, hoping that Congress doesn’t listen that carefully, and will think the BOP has done much more than it has. It is a tacit admission by the BOP that it knows it has been unreasonably chary in applying the CARES Act, and it hopes Congress doesn’t tumble to it.

pigfly220207Perhaps the next BOP director will be candid enough to own what his agency has done or not done with its authority. (See flying pig).

Carvajal also assured the Subcommittee that the BOP “continue[s] to screen inmates for appropriate placement on CARES Act” and that while the 50%-of-sentence standard is one of the “four hard criteria,” the BOP has “discretion – there usually is a higher-level review if the staff of the institution feels that it is appropriate outside of the CARES Act, we have procedures in place to review cases such as that…”  Call this the Manafort exception. Unfortunately, but for Paul Manafort’s CARES Act release in May 2020 (and former congressman Chaka Fattah in July 2020), the BOP has been steadfast in refusing to waive the 50% rule. It should be called the “who-you-know” exception.

who201229Responding to questions from Rep. Karen Bass (D-California), Carvajal said that 80% of the BOP staff was vaccinated, but only 95,000 out of 135,100 in-custody inmates had gotten the jab. His numbers are way off the BOP’s own website, which reports that 119,500 inmates are vaccinated – 78% – but only 70.4% of the BOP’s 36,739 employees have gotten the shot.

[Note to Mike: it’s easier to fudge the numbers when you’re not simultaneously making the real data available to anyone with a smartphone.]

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said the BOP had told his staff that 4,738 BOP employees (12.9% of the workforce) had gotten exemptions – mostly religious – from taking the vaccine, and groused that “it’s kind of it’s interesting that the inmates have more rights [to refuse vaccines] than the officers themselves.” No one knows what the Congressman might think if he knew the numbers Director Carvajal had given him were wrong. For what it’s worth, Congressman, if the BOP is getting rid of staff who refuse the vaccine, inmates would happily accept the same fate. 

One of the only tense moments in the hearing came when Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) braced Carvajal on conditions brought to her attention by the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. Bush said:

In these emails, women in federal custody detail horrifying accounts of not being allowed to get out of their beds all day because of COVID lockdowns, being forced to eat expired food, having little to no access to medical services to treat cancers and other underlying conditions, having to pay $2.00 to file a sick complaint. This is all happening under your watch. These are complaints coming from not one or not two facilities but five different facilities, which makes clear that these issues are not isolated… These women cannot hold you accountable, Mr. Carvajal, they cannot, but we can, and I would like to use this opportunity to ask you questions that they cannot directly ask you out of fear of retaliation.

schultz220207The Director responded, “I’m not aware of those particular complaints, but I’m certainly interested in hearing from you and your staff so that we can look into them, because I find that – if that happened – I find it unacceptable.” He assured Bush that “we take all allegations seriously…” Not that I disagree – I would never dispute what the BOP director says – but I have hundreds of emails from inmates who beg to differ.

Carvajal explained to the legislators, “I’d like to stress something – we’re not here for punishment, the taking of their time by the courts and the criminal justice system, that’s the punishment, we’re here to house people that are remanded to our custody and more importantly to prepare them to reenter society, keep them safe while they’re here. We’re not here as punishment, that’s not how we look at this agency.”

The hearing had a few other bumps. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) complained that the BOP “has unfortunately failed to protect the health of those within their custody and their staff from COVID-19 or address chronic understaffing [and] the BOP has also lacked transparency and vigor and implementing important criminal justice reforms such as the First Step Act.”

Jackson-Lee raised the reports filed by epidemiologist Homer Venters, M.D., on MDC Brooklyn and FCC Lompoc. She noted that “his investigation revealed [a] disturbing lack of access to care when a new medical problem is encountered…” Venters noted that at MDC Brooklyn, “it quickly became apparent that not only were many people reporting that their sick call requests, including COVID-19 symptoms, were being ignored, but that the facility was actually destroying their original request which violates basic correctional standards. [T]his is an accountability hearing… these are human beings deserving of respect and dignity, men and women…”

Carvajal said he was “aware of the report, we looked into it, we followed up, I won’t discuss that specific incident, but I will reassure you that each of our institutions has an outpatient health clinic that’s overseen by a board-certified physician and a medical director. We have outside oversight… If there’s a mistake made or something of that nature, we’re going to look into it and do something about it correct the issue.”

potemkin220207He did not mention and the Subcommittee did not note that the BOP’s “follow-up” consisted of vigorously contesting every aspect of Venters’ report in litigation over MDC Brooklyn.

It may not be much of a plan to testify before a subcommittee hoping that the legislators haven’t done their homework. But Director Carvajal seems to have capped his career doing just that, and with some success.

Statement of Michael Carvajal, House Committee on Judiciary (Feb 3, 2022)

Hearing, Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (Feb 3, 2022)

Fernandez-Rodriguez v. Licon-Vitale, 470 F.Supp.3d 323 (S.D.N.Y. 2020)

– Thomas L. Root

Good, Bad… But Not Indifferent – Update for May 27, 2021

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

EITHER GOOD OR BAD

Maybe you’ve noticed our good-and-bad theme this week. Here are some shorts:

thumbsup210526Good: The DC Circuit last week joined seven other circuits in holding that Guideline 1B1.13 does not limit compassionate release motions when those motions are brought by prisoners instead of the BOP.

The Circuit just joins seven other circuits since last September to so hold.  Only the 11th Circuit disagrees.

United States v. Long, Case No 20-3064, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 14682 (DC Cir., May 18, 2021)

thumbsdown210526Bad: The two Federal Bureau of Prisons Correctional Officerss who were supposed to be watching Jeffrey Epstein, later charged for lying to investigators and phonying up records to hide the fact they were cruising the Web instead, last week entered guilty pleas in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York under deferred prosecution deals that will cost them 100 hours of community service but no prison time.

Forbes, Federal Prison Guards Admit To Filing False Records During Jeffrey Epstein’s Suicide (May 21, 2021)

thumbsup210526Good: Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota and John Cornyn (R-Texas), and House Reps. Karen Bass (D-California) and Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pennsylvania) introduced the One Stop Shop Community Reentry Program Act last week, a bill that would set up reentry centers to help coordinate access to job training, medical and mental health services, and financial counseling. The centers would also help individuals land jobs, gain job-skill training, obtain driver’s licenses, fill out college and student loan applications and receive financial counseling.

The bill passed the House in the last session of Congress, but never came to a vote in the Senate.

NPR, Congress Wants To Set Up One-Stop Shops To Help Ex-Inmates Stay Out Of Prison (May 20, 2021)

thumbsdown210526Bad:  Dr. Homer Venters, an epidemiologist tasked by a federal court with inspecting FCC Lompoc reported last week that the facility has “an alarmingly low vaccination acceptance rate among the inmate population,” due to prison staff neglecting to address inmates’ “very valid and predictable concerns” about the effects the vaccine might have on their underlying health conditions.

Rather than address inmate fears, Venters said, prison staff dismissively told the inmates to either “take the vaccine or sign a refusal form.” He reported to the Court that “many of the people who reported refusing the vaccine told me they were willing to take it but simply had questions about their own health status.”

“The approach of BOP Lompoc not only fails to engage with patients; it has a paradoxical effect of creating a pool of extremely high-risk unvaccinated patients,” he wrote. “In other detention settings I have worked in, a COVID-19 refusal by a high-risk patient would result in a prompt session with a physician or mid-level provider because the consequences of infection are so grave.”

Santa Barbara Independent, Doctor ‘Extremely Concerned’ About Low Vaccination Rate Among Lompoc Prisoners (May 20)

– Thomas L. Root

Higher and Higher… – Update for December 8, 2020

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

BOP COVID CASES BREAKS 5,000 AS LEGISLATORS GRILL CARVAJAL

rocket-312767BOP inmate COVID-19 cases passed a grim milestone last Friday, rocketing past the 5,000 mark. That number jumped another 10% over the weekend. As of last night, the BOP had ended with

•     5,634 ill inmates (up 15% from the week before);

•    1,613 sick staff (up 12% from last week);

•    COVID in 128 BOP facilities; and

•    163 dead inmates.

The BOP has tested 57% of all inmates at least once, with the positivity rate climbing from 25% – where it has hovered for months – to over 32%.

To put this in perspective, one out of every five federal inmates who has ever had the virus has it right now.

BOPCOVID201208jpg

Two BOP facilities have more than 300 sick inmates, Loretto and Texarkana, three more with over 200 ill, andand another 16 with over 100 COVID cases. USP Tucson has 75 sick staffers, with Pollock in second place with 60 and Oklahoma FTC with 50.

Last Wednesday, BOP Director Michael Carvajal testified before the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. It wasn’t pretty. After he delivered his prepared statement – a BOP puff piece about how in response to COVID-19, the BOP had “implemented a decisive and comprehensive action plan to protect the health of the inmates in our custody, the staff, and the public, to the greatest extent possible, consistent with sound medical and corrections principles” and how the BOP’s “procedures have proven effective as this is evidenced by the steep decline in our inmate hospitalizations, inmates on ventilators and deaths” – the knives came out.

fired161227Subcommittee Chair Karen Bass (D-California) quoted a Dept of Justice Inspector General report that found up to six days elapsed before FCI Oakdale inmates who had been exposed or tested positive for COVID-19 were isolated, and wondered how that squared with the BOP’s representations. Carvajal insisted that the situation in Oakdale was not representative of BOP policies, and blamed the then-warden. “In a nutshell, we had some leadership issues there,” he said. “Our regional director had some concerns about the procedures not being enforced or followed. In essence, without getting into details, I removed the leadership.”

Carvajal pushed back at Subcommittee demands the BOP institute a blanket staff testing plan (arguably a good idea considering that 43% of all staff who have had COVID since March are sick right now). He argued that the BOP could not compel employee COVID tests. But a written statement filed with the Subcommittee by Shane Fausey, national president of the BOP employees’ unions, disputed that, complaining that despite unions’ urging, the BOP “has repeatedly refused” to offer voluntary coronavirus testing to staff members at the prison facility where they work. Instead, Fausey said, “employees who believe they were exposed or might be infected with the coronavirus must get tested on their own time and in their own communities.” For good measure, Fausey also blasted BOP and Marshals Service for transferring inmates without adequate quarantining, which he said has put “the health and safety of tens of thousands of federal correctional workers, their families, and their communities at risk.”

covidtest200420In a separate exchange with Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), the director said he could not force his employees to get tested for Covid-19, although the BOP waives insurance copays for those tests.

“I understand civil liberties, civil rights the Constitution, but you’re talking about individuals coming into contact with incarcerated persons who can’t walk away, who can’t get out,” Jackson Lee said. “And that means they are endangering themselves, their families at home.”

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) braced Carvajal about underutilization of compassionate releases. Before filing for a compassionate release, an inmate must first ask the BOP to bring the motion for him or her, a vestige of the procedure before the First Step Act broadened the law to let inmates bring their own motions. Jeffries noted that while about 2,000 such motions had been granted by courts, the BOP had approved only 11 requests when inmates first asked to the agency to do so. Jeffries asked Carvajal, “10,929 requests out of 10,940 requests were rejected, does that sound right?”

Carvajal said the BOP has been intentionally careful. Given public safety considerations, Carvajal said, the BOP’s approval rate of 0.1% makes sense: it is “not a process that should be rushed.” This suggests that the courts, with compassionate release approval rates that are 182 times higher than the agency, are profligate.

The day before the hearing, Government Executive magazine published a sobering piece in which BOP employees said that staffing shortages and COVID-19 are creating a crisis. “If not for COVID, we would still have augmentation but it wouldn’t be as crazy,” Joe Rojas, a union official. “It’s already a dangerous workplace with COVID and it’s made worse by understaffing.”

quit201208Several employees said they expect that attrition to accelerate in the coming months. Rojas said he and many others have stuck around in part due to a retention bonus the BOP offered to veteran workers in recent years. That incentive is disappearing next year, he said. A BOP spokesman said the Bureau is providing incentives “where appropriate” and taking other steps to boost recruiting. He noted the agency has hired 3,400 employees in 2020, a sharp uptick over recent years.

Already some of the prisons in the Southeast, Rojas said, are operating at 70% or less of their expected workforce level. “You can’t run a prison like that. The seams are going to burst,” he said. “I’m afraid.”

DOJ, Statement of Michael D. Carvajal, Director Federal Bureau Of Prisons (December 2, 2020)

Courthouse News Service, Officials Spar Over Covid Spread Through Prison System (December 2, 2020)

Statement of Shane Fausey, National President, Council of Prison Locals (December 2, 2020)

Government Executive, Federal Prison Employees Fear Staff Shortages and Mass Reassignments as COVID-19 Cases Spike (Dec 1)

– Thomas L. Root

DOJ Works to Undermine Fair Sentencing Act in Name of ‘Fairness’ – Update for November 12, 2019

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

THIS COMES AS NO SURPRISE

strict191112The Department of Justice is interpreting the First Step Act in a way that keeps more inmates serving crack sentences behind bars longer, even as President Trump touts his administration’s role in passage of First Step, the law that made crack-cocaine sentence relief available to pre-Fair Sentencing Act defendants.

The Washington Post report last week confirmed what most people already know (and what Reuters reported several months ago), that DOJ is arguing that a defendant’s sentence length, when resentenced under the Fair Sentencing Act, should be based on the amount of crack cocaine that his or her Presentence Report found the defendant actually possessed or trafficked, rather than the amount stated in the indictment and which the jury found or the defendant pled. The Post reported that federal prosecutors have made the argument in hundreds of cases.

The distinction is crucial. The amount of crack specified in the indictment must be proven by the government to a jury. The presentence report, on the other hand, is a loosey-goosey collection of the prosecution’s version of the offense and all of the collected but unsubstantiated law enforcement gossip about the defendant that makes him or her look even worse than reality does. The standard of proof is low, the procedures amorphous, and the judge all too willing to not decide evidentiary disputes because they simply do not matter to the court in the sentencing process.

looseygoosey191112As a result, while a defendant may have been found guilty of the offense in the indictment, for instance, distribution of more than 50 grams of crack, the presentence report may cite “reliable sources” who say the defendant possessed maybe a gram a week for two years. The presentence report does some simple addition, and a total of 730 grams results.

The Post said DOJ was even seeking to reincarcerate some people already released under the retroactive FSA. One targeted former inmate was Gregory Allen, who appeared at a White House event in April to celebrate passage of the law. President Trump even called Greg to the microphone.

Before the White House event, prosecutors had lost their bid to keep Allen behind bars. Even as the President asked Greg to speak, the government was appealing its loss. DOJ dropped its appeal about two weeks after Greg’s appearance.

A DOJ spokesman defended the department’s First Step interpretation in an interview with the Post. He said DOJ’s position was justified because prosecutors in years past didn’t need to prove large amounts of drugs to obtain long prison sentences. Under today’s sentencing regime, prosecutors would likely charge the offenders with having larger drug quantities, DOJ hypothesizes. “The government’s position is that the text of the statute requires courts to look at the quantity of crack that was part of the actual crime,” the spokesman argued. “This is a fairness issue.”

Judges have rejected the DOJ interpretation in a majority of cases reviewed by the Post. But at least five federal judges have agreed with the DOJ interpretation, and others have withheld judgment until appeals courts decide the issue.

In the weeks after the bill became law, many AUSAs allowed inmate petitions for early release to go unchallenged. Then, at the direction of the DOJ, prosecutors began to reverse course, court records show. In March, AUSA Jennifer Bockhorst of ND WVa asked federal judges to place a hold on more than two dozen applications for relief, some of which she had not previously opposed. She wrote that she expected to oppose at least some of those applications based on new guidance from the Justice Department.

Some of the people who helped write the legislation also disagree, including Brett Tolman, a former US attorney in Utah. He notes that the First Step text does not explicitly instruct courts to consider the actual amount of crack an offender allegedly had. “This is not a faithful implementation of this part of the First Step Act,” Tolman told the Post. “At some point, they figured out a way to come back and argue that it wouldn’t apply to as many people.”

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-New York), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, accused DOJ at a congressional hearing last month of “trying to sabotage” the law by interpreting it in this way.

Attorney General Barr has reportedly worried that early releases of inmates under the law will increase crime. Anonymous officials told the Post that Barr is concerned the administration will be blamed if crime increases.

A great example of the kind of blame the AG hoped to duck is illustrated by the person of Rhode Island defendant Joel Francisco, released earlier under First Step this year after 14 years into a life sentence for selling crack. We previously reported he was on the run after being charged with a murder. He has since been arrested, and last week, CNN made his crime a national story.

Also last week, a routine resentencing in Connecticut made national headlines, when Joel Soto’s 17-year sentence was cut to time served, under the lurid headine, “‘Joe Crack’ asks for reduced sentence in drug case.”

“More than 4,700 inmates have been released from prison under the law since its signing late last year,” CNN reported, “and federal officials believe Francisco is the first among them to be accused of murder. While an outlier, his case is raising questions and resurfacing concerns from detractors of the legislation.”

“cotton190502This case is upsetting but it’s not a surprise,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), one of First Step’s biggest critics on Capitol Hill. “Letting violent felons out of prison early as the First Step Act did leads to more crime and more victims.”

Other lawmakers who supported the bill called the incident a tragedy, but hoped that it wouldn’t stand in the way of more progress. “If you’re looking at reforming the criminal justice system you cannot pick an individual criminal act to then raise the question as to whether or not you do reforms to the system,” said Rep. Karen Bass (D-California), a member of the House Judiciary Committee and the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

None of this should surprise anyone. Despite the First Step Act rhetoric, The New York Times reported last week that despite bipartisan calls to treat drug addiction as a public health issue rather than as a crime — and despite the legalization of marijuana in more states — arrests for drugs increased again last year. Such arrests have increased 15% since Trump took office.

Washington Post, Crack cocaine quantities at issue as DOJ opposes some early releases under First Step Act (Nov. 7)

ABA Journal, Crack cocaine quantities at issue as DOJ opposes some early releases under First Step Act (Nov. 8)

CNN, He was one of the first prisoners released under Trump’s criminal justice reform law. Now he’s accused of murder (Nov. 9)

Newport News, Virginia, Daily Press, ‘Joe Crack’ asks for reduced sentence in drug case (Nov. 2)

The New York Times, Is the ‘War on Drugs’ Over? Arrest Statistics Say No (Nov. 5)

– Thomas L. Root