Legal Weed Bill Returns. And a Battle is Brewing – With Letter to the Editor – kra
Here we go again. Delaware should legalize pot. Period. See so many articles about it on this website.
Opponents say things like “too little is known” and other nonsense to try to make sense of their “Reefer Madness mentality”! READ my Letter to the Editor, below!
Excerpts from the Article:
Delaware lawmakers have fired up the fight to legalize pot. It’s good news for pro-ganja Delawareans, many of whom hope that recreational use of the plant could turn into a tax cash cow.
There are signs that the bill could get more traction this year than last year. The General Assembly had a turnover of about one-third — with many younger than the people they replaced — and Democrats now have their largest majority in over a decade. Lawmakers have also tweaked the bill since last year in an attempt to make it more palatable.
Delaware’s latest attempt before this one failed by four votes in the House. Two of the leaders of last year’s effort, then-Rep. Helene Keeley, D-Wilmington, and then-Sen. Margaret Rose Henry, D-Wilmington, have since retired.
“If we had a referendum process in this state, it probably would have passed three or four years ago,” Paradee said. “People are becoming more accepting of it, and understand that, in a lot of ways, alcohol and cigarettes are far more dangerous.”
You’d be able to buy it in specialized stores — up to an ounce at a time — as long as you’re at least 21 years old. You still wouldn’t be able to grow marijuana at home, according to the bill. You also wouldn’t be able to consume it in public or in the car. Municipalities would be able to decide if they want the plant to be sold in their jurisdiction. Employers and some residential property owners could also decide not to allow recreational use.
Beyond buying and selling, the bill would also allow people to have prior marijuana offenses cleared from their record if they don’t have any convictions for violent felonies.
Delaware would tax the drug at 15 percent, under the current draft of the bill, which could raise millions in taxes. Supporters also hope that consumers will be enticed by what they argue is a safer product. It would be sold in opaque, child-resistant packaging with a warning label.
The sponsors said Thursday they don’t know yet how much revenue it would generate, or how much any added law enforcement would cost. Last year supporters said legalization would raise more than $20 million in taxes and the current estimate ranges from $9 million to $50 million.
California, for example, earned far less than anticipated in revenue, while legalization leader Colorado earned far more. Analysts attribute the difference in part to a persistent black market, where prices can be lower.
But some argue that Delaware would be at a competitive advantage if it becomes one of the first in the region to legalize and tax the drug. The state essentially would be in a race with New Jersey to do it first. Pennsylvania officials also have talked about legalizing pot.
Supporters of legalization say it could benefit agriculture workers across the state. Paradee thinks farmers would likely find opportunities in growing cannabis for concentrates — especially if they grow it outdoors.
“There’s simply not enough known,” said Delaware Healthcare Association President and CEO Wayne Smith. “It makes it a big medical uncertainty.”
Patrick Ogden, chairman of the Police Chiefs Council, worries about increases in impaired driving leading to more fatal car crashes. He’s also one of many who doesn’t expect the black market to go away. “The illegal market, their THC level is higher and people are going for the illegal amount versus the legal amount, because you can get higher,” Ogden said. “Once you take it out of its original packaging, we wouldn’t be able to tell if it was sold legally or on the black market.”
As of Thursday afternoon, the Delaware Fraternal Order of Police hadn’t taken a public stance on marijuana legalization, but the Delaware State Troopers Association is against legalization.
Proponents are hopeful that lawmakers will be swayed by public polling that indicates most residents favor recreational use. It’s the same kind of argument that pro-gun control advocates used before three of their favored bills failed to make it to a floor vote last week.
Among those who would have to be swayed is Gov. John Carney, who has the final say as to whether a bill becomes law. Carney opposed the measure last year and recently signed legislation that will raise the legal age to buy tobacco products from 18 to 21. Marijuana legalization could be inconsistent with that public health message, a spokesman said earlier this year.
Under another bill, doctors could get wider discretion to recommend marijuana to patients. Sen. Anthony Delcollo, R-Elsmere, also has legislation that would allow nurse practitioners and physician assistants to OK its use.
Letter to the Editor – Criminalize Being a Macaroon! – 5/18/19
What a bunch of macaroons! Yes, I am talking about state legislators who oppose the legalization of marijuana, a measure favored by most Delawareans and people with common sense.
Opponents say things like “too little is known” and other nonsense to try to make sense of their “Reefer Madness mentality”! It is true that we could use more research on the effects/hazards/benefits of Pot, but that will never come until the feds make it legal: labs at research hospitals and universities are afraid of violating federal law. Many studies already done show great benefits of marijuana. Most of what we read about the hazards (increased traffic deaths, for example) is pure bunk.
We DO know that the current state of affairs, with marijuana criminalized: a) does not reduce crime, b) does not prevent people from getting marijuana, c) keeps employed hundreds of people benefiting from it, like cops, prison guards, and many more, who lobby heavily to block needed changes, c) ruins lives needlessly, with scores of people being arrested annually on pot charges. Yes, despite what some lawmakers say, the truth is that many continue to get arrested and jailed. Anyone saying differently either does not know what they are talking about or is outright lying. I get calls and emails weekly from families of those affected!
Quit the crap, and do what is inevitable: legalize marijuana now.
Ken Abraham, former Deputy Attorney General, founder of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE, Dover, DE 302-423-4067
…………………………
I get lots of letters published, and ghost write for others.
THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO REACH THOUSANDS OF READERS!
The keys to getting your Letter published are:
1. Keep it to 250 words or fewer.
2. Do not make it about “poor little old me”. Describe the problem as one which not only affects the individual, but is a senseless or ineffective measure, policy, or law which also harms communities and society. For example, with reentry, the obstacles make it unnecessarily difficult for the individual, but also harm society by making it hard to become productive, spending money and paying taxes in the community, and they cause increased recidivism = increased crime.
3. Speak from your heart.
4. Google any facts you are not sure about.
5. Do not name-call.Do what works: Write that Letter!…………Letter to Editor – sign name, town, state, and your phone number (they often call to verify that you sent it), and “Member of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE” if you like – shows you are part of a large group.
Send the email to yourself, and put on the “bcc” bar the email addresses for Letters to the Editor for the top ten newspapers in your state and several national ones – The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, U S A Today (google the Letter to Editor email addresses).
Any questions, CALL me at 302-423-4067!GOOGLE THE EMAIL ADDRESSES FOR “LETTERS TO THE EDITOR” FOR THE TOP TEN NEWSPAPERS IN YOUR STATE AND SAVE THAT INFORMATION FOR REPEATED USE – Some papers will print a letter from you every 2 weeks, some every 30 days, some every 90 days.They have varying policies. But if you really want to make a difference shoot them a new letter once a month!
I send one out every 2 weeks.
Need a Letter on some criminal justice issue and not a great letter writer?
NO EXCUSE! Email me a rough draft and call me and I’ll polish it up! kenabraham3138@gmail.com .ANY QUESTIONS, CALL ME AT 302-423-4067.
NJ marijuana legalization: Would legal weed bill stop cops from searching based on smell? – GREAT idea! – kra
This is a great idea; fantastic, super-duper, and fabulous, all in one! The law to legalize Pot in N J is still pending, but this provision of it is terrific!
Keep in mind: despite the growing wave of legalization of Pot, thousands of people still are arrested for possession annually in every state, and even an arrest without conviction, can destroy one’s life.
99 percent of marijuana busts in New Jersey start with an officer reporting the smell of marijuana. The smell can lead to a search, often the precursor to the nearly 33,000 annual marijuana arrests in the state, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. This proposed legislation would, with some exceptions, remove the smell of Pot from being a reason to search your vehicle! What a great idea!
This should be proposed in all laws to make Pot legal. In the 10 states with legal marijuana, all but Michigan and Nevada have determined that the odor of marijuana isn’t enough to search a vehicle.
Excerpts from the Article:
A police officer approaches the window of a car during a motor vehicle stop and, as soon as the windows are rolled down, knows there’s marijuana in the car. Maybe it’s raw cannabis, an ounce of bud tucked somewhere in the vehicle. Maybe it’s the odor of burnt marijuana, from a joint that was just extinguished.
In any case, 99 percent of marijuana busts in New Jersey start with an officer reporting the smell of marijuana, Freehold criminal defense attorney Richard Lomurro said. The smell can lead to a search, often the precursor to the nearly 33,000 annual marijuana arrests in the state, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report.
“They have a golden ticket for a free search of your car,” Lomurro said. “The smell of marijuana has been used as a tool to support police investigation for a long time.”
The proposed marijuana legalization bill would prevent police from searching your vehicle if they smell marijuana.
In addition to legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana possession and use for recreational purposes, the bill would officially remove the smell of marijuana — or sight, in most cases — as probable cause for police to search a vehicle.
Instead, officers would be required to assume that the driver is using marijuana in a legal way unless they can provide evidence proving otherwise. Unless it’s on prison or school property, the odor of cannabis will no longer “constitute reasonable articulable suspicion of a crime.”
According to marijuana legalization advocates, the change is seen as key to addressing a social justice justification for legalizing weed — by narrowing the circumstances where law enforcement could legally invade the space of a motorist and their property. The change is seen as particularly benefiting African American users, who are three times as likely to get arrested on marijuana charges as their white counterparts, despite similar usage rates. Gov. Phil Murphy has said that legalizing weed would be a “monumental step” toward bridging racial disparities in those arrests.
Police officers could still conduct a search if they have clear evidence that the motorist has more than the legal limit — 1 ounce for recreational users or 3 ounces for a medical marijuana patient, based on pending measures — such as a garbage bag filled with marijuana.
And the bill states that marijuana would be subject to alcohol-like “open container” laws. Users would be subject to a $200 fine if an officer sees an unsealed container of marijuana in the vehicle. The New Jersey legal weed bill outlaws the consumption of marijuana in any form while driving.
The bill’s probable cause language states that police must presume that any cannabis observed in a vehicle is being used in a legal manner. That includes so-called exigent circumstances, such as if the marijuana is found in proximity to cash.
“The smell has been indicative of potential illegal activity. But we can’t jump to that conclusion” under the proposed New Jersey marijuana legalization law, Lomurro said. “They have to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re using it legally. And they can’t jump to the conclusion, which they’ve jumped to for years, that cash plus weed equals drug dealer.”
In the 10 states with legal marijuana, all but Michigan and Nevada have determined that the odor of marijuana isn’t enough to search a vehicle.
Nonetheless, legalizing weed has opened up a can of legal worms in the everyday interaction between users and police, and complex questions about probable cause is often one of them — leading to numerous lawsuits argued all the way to state Supreme Courts.
Language in the New Jersey bill would let warrantless searches continue under certain circumstances. The bill — which still hasn’t received a vote in the Legislature, as it doesn’t have enough votes to pass the Senate — states that marijuana odor is still enough probable cause to search a vehicle if the officer is investigating whether the motorist is driving while intoxicated by or under the influence of marijuana.
Marijuana possession makes up nearly 11 percent of all arrests in New Jersey.
“This bill changes everything,” Lomurro said. “They’ll have to ground their suspicion on more reliable information.”
Prison contractor falsified records to conceal inadequate addiction treatment, sources say – No Surprise to Me! – With Letter to Editor – kra
This kind of behavior is exactly what I saw and have been complaining about for years. The f#%@#$g contractors submit a program which looks good on paper, get the deal, worth tens of millions of dollars, and then do damn near nothing. I SAW it, day in and day out.
Like so many good articles, this one is lengthy. For many more examples, and a better understanding of the depth of the fraud, click on The Whole Story.
I am sending this article to several key officials, like the A G and the Lt Governor and the Governor, and the U S Attorney, asking: “Why are these crooks not prosecuted?!” But I have done that before and heads remain in the sand, reluctant to admit that the system is so out of control.
Excerpts from the Article:
Maranda Cekmecelioglu really could have benefited from some therapy. The 28-year-old was sent to prison on drug-related charges and had just lost her father and brother within 11 months in 2017. The court ordered counseling for her through Crest, a taxpayer-funded program designed to help drug offenders with addiction and behavioral health issues.
But Cekmecelioglu, who goes by “Cek,” said she didn’t get any help at Crest South, which is run by Connections Community Support Programs in Georgetown. Documents Cek shared with The News Journal indicate she received two treatment plans, and presumably counseling, on November 28 and December 28. But the records are a lie, Cek said. In over three months there, Cek said she didn’t get any one-on-one counseling. She said she received both treatment plans in January 2018 right before she was discharged. The plans, Cek said, were made up and backdated.
“I never had any actual formal counseling,” she said. “It was just like: How are you? This is your treatment plan. I need you to sign these papers.” Cek is not alone. A News Journal investigation found Connections has failed to provide adequate addiction treatment for female inmates at Crest South.
The investigation, based on interviews with 22 former employees and program participants as well as email conversations, also found that in dozens of cases, the program falsified patient records.
Four former Connections employees at Crest South told The News Journal they have direct knowledge that counselors fabricated notes of therapy sessions that never occurred, made up vague treatment plans to correspond with them and backdated records to appear as if Connections was providing monthly counseling.
Three former employees also said Connections counselors inflated the length of counseling sessions in patient records (10 minutes could become 45 on paper, one source said).
“I don’t think we need a Ph.D. in moral philosophy for this one,” said Dominic Sisti, assistant professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania. “This is obvious fraud if the allegations prove to be true.”
‘Last year, Delaware hit the highest death toll for drug overdoses it has seen since it began tracking them: 400 people. A report commissioned by the attorney general’s office estimated there are over 11,000 Delawareans who have a substance use disorder. And 46 percent of Delaware prisoners – roughly 6,300 people – struggle with substance use, according to a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Connections, which receives more than $15 million a year for its mental health and substance abuse services for Delaware inmates, disputes the claims of record falsification. The organization said it is not required to provide monthly counseling sessions but strived to do so anyway.
Shannon Lasek, a former substance abuse counselor at Crest South, said she knows firsthand that Connections falsified records because she did it herself. In November 2018, she said her bosses explicitly instructed her to “catch up” the empty files of inmates who were about to be released from the program and hadn’t received treatment. Over several interviews, Lasek described making up and backdating at least 30 fake counseling sessions and generic treatment plans for inmates, some of whom she’d never spoken to.
Lasek said she quit in mid-December because she couldn’t do it anymore. “I had to pretty much create a program that didn’t happen,” Lasek said.
But emails obtained by The News Journal between a former employee and the employee’s superiors show the program was struggling with a months-long backlog. In one email, the supervisor directs the subordinate to create a treatment plan for a patient over a month after it was supposed to be completed. The News Journal is not publishing the emails to protect the source who fears retaliation.
In separate interviews over several weeks, 12 former inmates who completed the program in the last four years said they did not receive any individual counseling whatsoever. Three others recalled having one session, and two others remembered having multiple sessions — but all of them said those sessions lasted about 10 minutes or less.
Of those 17 people, five said counselors gave them backdated, cookie cutter treatment plans and instructed the clients to sign them. Many referred to the program as “a joke.”
“I was told so many times: You’re not going to win,” she said. “Connections is big and powerful.” Lasek said it was difficult for her to speak out about what she experienced, including her personal actions, because Connections has a stake in so much of Delaware’s healthcare industry.
“Connections owns everything,” she said. “They’ve monopolized this entire state.”
She worries about how whistleblowing will affect her career, she said, but she felt it was the right thing to do.
“I’m talking because addicts are people who deserve the treatment they were sent to,” she said.
On Tuesday, Connections said Crest South staff is currently undergoing “retraining sessions” to ensure staff members know and understand policies.
Former Crest South participant O’Connor said people shouldn’t be left with the impression that the program didn’t have any success stories. There were some. “But it wasn’t because of the program. It was in spite of the program,” she said.
“The whole state of Delaware is lacking addiction treatment. It’s sad that this is what we’re offering people at their lowest and expecting them to change because of it. As a state and as a prison system, if you’re truly trying to rehabilitate people and make them productive members of society, the treatment needs to be actual treatment.”
Letter to the Editor – It’s called Fraud and Theft! – 5/13/19
I read with interest the recent article about employees of the prison contractor, Connections, falsifying records concerning patients’ treatment. This kind of behavior is exactly what I saw when I was incarcerated more than 10 years ago, in the same so-called program, “Crest”, and I have been complaining about it for years. The criminal contractors submit a program which looks good on paper, get the deal, worth tens of millions of dollars, and then do damn near nothing. They are brazen in their abuse of the system, because they think that because the victims are “just prisoners” nobody will care. Well, the victims are the public too; it is your money wasted, and you suffer the crimes committed when these “treatment programs” fail!
I SAW it, day in and day out.
The depth of the fraud related in the new article is outrageous. Supervisors and staff lie like crazy and falsify records. There are numerous crimes here,(conspiracy, fraud, theft, and more) and what I have asked before, and want to know again, is “why are the perpetrators not prosecuted?”. Where are the Attorney General and/or the U S Attorney for Delaware, in the face of such extensive evidence? Do they not want to acknowledge that the system is so out of control? Until they take the action required – vigorous prosecution – this conduct will continue, costing YOU, the taxpayer, millions of dollars, failing the people these programs are supposed to benefit, and increasing the public’s skepticism about and lack of faith in government officials.
Ken Abraham, former Deputy Attorney General, founder of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE, Dover, DE 302-423-4067
……………..
I get lots of letters published, and ghost write for others.
THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO REACH THOUSANDS OF READERS!
The keys to getting your Letter published are:
1. Keep it to 250 words or fewer.
2. Do not make it about “poor little old me”. Describe the problem as one which not only affects the individual, but is a senseless or ineffective measure, policy, or law which also harms communities and society. For example, with reentry, the obstacles make it unnecessarily difficult for the individual, but also harm society by making it hard to become productive, spending money and paying taxes in the community, and they cause increased recidivism = increased crime.
3. Speak from your heart.
4. Google any facts you are not sure about.
5. Do not name-call.
Do what works: Write that Letter!…………Letter to Editor – sign name, town, state, and your phone number (they often call to verify that you sent it), and “Member of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE” if you like – shows you are part of a large group.
Send the email to yourself, and put on the “bcc” bar the email addresses for Letters to the Editor for the top ten newspapers in your state and several national ones – The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, U S A Today (google the Letter to Editor email addresses).
Any questions, CALL me at 302-423-4067!
GOOGLE THE EMAIL ADDRESSES FOR “LETTERS TO THE EDITOR” FOR THE TOP TEN NEWSPAPERS IN YOUR STATE AND SAVE THAT INFORMATION FOR REPEATED USE – Some papers will print a letter from you every 2 weeks, some every 30 days, some every 90 days. They have varying policies. But if you really want to make a difference shoot them a new letter once a month!
I send one out every 2 weeks.
Need a Letter on some criminal justice issue and not a great letter writer?
NO EXCUSE! Email me a rough draft and call me and I’ll polish it up! kenabraham3138@gmail.com .
ANY QUESTIONS, CALL ME AT 302-423-4067.
Unlicensed Interns to Perform Psych Tests on Utah Prisoners – Absurd! – kra
As you know, I get calls daily from inmates, probationers, and their families about these “counselors. READ We Need to Know! – So called “counselors” are, in fact, too often mean spirited little bullies, just like prison guards – kra
This idea is a disaster and a mountain of lawsuits waiting to happen!
Excerpts from the Article:
According to October 2018 news reports, Utah’s Department of Corrections wants to pay unlicensed interns to “train” at the Draper prison by administering psychological and IQ tests to prisoners in mental health and sex offender programs. Victor Kersey, Director of Institutional Programming for the Utah DOC, said “[i]t’s a great training, recruiting, and hiring pipeline. It’s a unique setting, it’s a setting that’s extremely diversified.”
But mental health professionals see things differently. “I don’t think undergrads should be performing psychological tests,” remarked Keith McGoldrick, a licensed psychologist, adding, “they don’t have the knowledge to administer that.”
Kersey, who oversees the mental health and sex offender treatment programs where the interns will be employed, said there is a training process and licensed supervisors meet with interns to review their work. “If there is a mistake made on behalf of an intern whether it’s a clinical mistake or a mistake made through an assessment then that liability falls on their licensed supervisor,” he said.
However, McGoldrick noted that inaccurate data collection or an uncorrected mistake “could mean that someone could get improper treatment or may not receive treatment if something is missed.”
A request for proposal issued by the state indicated graduate students would be paid $19 per hour for working with prisoners while undergrads will receive $10 per hour. In Utah, licensed psychologists make $78,970 per year on average, or about $37.97 per hour.
Let’s address recidivism realistically – We are making a difference- kra With letter to Inmate – kra
As soon as I saw this, I knew this guy had read my Editorial piece. Sure enough, he thanks me and Steve Hampton, Esq. toward the end of his Commentary. My email going to Steve Hampton within 15 minutes:
Steve,
Check it out. I shall be writing to this inmate within 48 hours (I got his S B I # from our friend Lori with Link of Love) to thank him for his Commentary, and to encourage him to keep it up and to tell more inmates to speak out in similar fashion! 🙂
The more the merrier. The more, the more legislators and others may start to see the light concerning the insane way our probation system is now operating.
Excerpts from the Article:
Attorney General Kathy Jennings suggested that reforms in our justice system addressing current laws, stack charging and the sentencing guidelines would improve our recidivism rate. However, addressing our mass probation system would improve our recidivism more quickly and more dramatically than any other choice.
In our small state of Delaware there are about 17,000 people on probation, more than three times the prison population. An extravagant cost to our taxpayers and a tremendous burden on a probation system. The mass probation equals a high ratio of probationers to officers. This leaves little or no time for the probation officer to address and help their clients with individual needs. Instead of being counseled, clients are treated like this is a police state and they’re still in prison.
Most office visits that are conducted as follows; you check in and wait 45 minutes to an hour. You’re called and walk ahead of your P.O. to his or her office. You go through the routine questions, Any problems? Nope. Still working? Yes. Any drug use? Nope. Any police contact? Nope. Unless you’re scheduled for drug test, it’s; “bye, see you next week”.
The informality of this routine leads clients to believe that the system is nothing more than a watchdog waiting for you to trip up. So let’s be realistic, probation officers are trained to be police and have little if any training in counseling. Time and time again we read in the newspaper that probation officers are involved in major criminal activities without any relevance to probation.
The statistics bear this out as a high percentage of probationers end up back in prison within the year after their release. Often for behavior that would not be a crime if they were not on probation. Two-thirds of the prison’s recidivism rate is due to people being sent back for a violation of probation. The vast majority of them are technical violations, i.e., failing a drug test, late for curfew, not working, missed an appointment, etc. etc.
How can this happen? Why does this happen? In 1971, Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs and if you haven’t seen a movie called, “The House I Live In,” by Eugene Darecki, please sit down and watch with your children or friends. There’s still a war but the war is on freedom — freedom from the monetary oppression due to lack of employment and job skills.
If only our political powers that be looked outside the financial benefits and the benefits from warehousing people in prison and consider practical problems that would help reduce recidivism, i.e., job workshops on how to seek, fill out an application and interview for employment, free up the probation officer giving them more time in training counseling, implement a job programs through probation where employers can seek experienced in capable workers.
In all, we need to come up with better ways to improve the lives of people being returned to society other than placing them on excessive probation and policing them in a never-ending cycle.
I would like to thank Ken Abraham and Steven Hampton, Esq., “What a monster we have created in our justice system”, commentary from March 15. For I was like Johnny on probation, working steady and doing OK. I already completed the recommended so-called drug treatment programs in prison and outside of prison. But I too goofed and blew numbers for drinking in my own house and under the tolerance law I was violated. The judge, regardless of a recommendation that I be placed back on probation, gave me another 2 1/2 years in prison followed by two years and $13,000 in fines. I call this excessive sentencing. But as you stated, “it is simply job preservation for all involved”.
David Downer, of Dagsboro, is an inmate housed at the Sussex Correctional Institution.
Letter to Inmate:
Mr. David Downer … Dude! 5/7/19
Good job on your Commentary, published today, 5/7/19. I am putting it on my website and in my newsletter, and sending it to Kathy Jennings. I know her from way back.
I write to encourage you to keep it up, and encourage other inmates to speak out in similar fashion.
If you have anyone on the outside with a phone and an email address, have him/her contact me ASAP. 302-423-4067 . I really have NO time to open/read/write letters. kenabraham3138@gmail.com .
IF the jackass C Os retaliate against you in any serious way, notify me immediately! I know what goes on in there.
My email to Steve: Steve,
Check it out. I shall be writing to this inmate within 48 hours (I got his S B I # from our friend Lori with Link of Love) to thank him for his Commentary, and to encourage him to keep it up and to tell more inmates to speak out in similar fashion! 🙂
The more the merrier. The more, the more legislators and others may start to see the light concerning the insane way our probation system is now operating.
…
Keep your spirits UP!
Ken
Delaware’s drug laws are out of balance. Here’s how we can fix that. With Letter to the Editor – kra
Kathy Jennings, Delaware’s Attorney General, Sen. Elizabeth Lockman, D-West Wilmington, and Rep. Sean Lynn, D-Dover, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, wrote an excellent Editorial piece (We Must Bring Balance to the Criminal Justice System) in which they hit the nail on the head, addressing most of the major problems in the system today. NOW all they need to do is penetrate the skulls of some Bozo legislators, to enact needed changes!
Excerpts from the Article:
We have heard from countless people in Wilmington, in Dover, and across Delaware about our drug laws, all saying the same thing: the status quo isn’t working, and it’s time for us to change it. “Tough on crime” drug policies have long enjoyed bipartisan support, but today the benefit of hindsight makes it clear that well-intended policies have come with serious unintended consequences. While research does not suggest that our drug laws have effectively reduced violent crime, ample experience and data tell us that current policy comes at a significant cost to the corrections system, to taxpayers, and disproportionately to communities of color.
Federal prison populations have nearly quadrupled since 1986. A significant plurality of current federal inmates – nearly half – are serving sentences for drug charges and, troublingly, about 75 percent of them are black or Latino – despite research from the Brookings Institution that shows rates of drug use and drug dealing are roughly equal between white and black Americans.
Similar racial disparities also persist in Delaware’s criminal justice system. Recent data from Delaware’s Statistical Analysis Center shows that from 2016 to 2018, black defendants were nearly three times more likely than white defendants to be charged with a felony drug offense.
In all three counties, about two-thirds of all arrests for aggravated felony drug charges were black. Conversely, white defendants were significantly more likely than black defendants to face a misdemeanor as their highest charge. As of 2017, roughly 60% of Delaware’s prison population was African American. At the time of the 2010 census, African Americans were 21% of Delaware’s population.
Those numbers are even worse than they sound: the Sentencing Project ranks Delaware’s proportion of black inmates 8th in the nation.
It is not an indictment of any individual to recognize that these facts and patterns represent clear failures in the system. Delaware has to be committed to combatting the addiction epidemic and to fighting high-tier drug dealing.
At the same time, we need to balance that mission with a recognition of these disparities and seek out sensible reform, particularly when it comes to the lowest-level drug offenders. Part of that is an enforcement issue, and the Delaware Department of Justice announced in February that its prosecutors will use greater discretion on issues like low-level drug offenses, habitual offender designations, and technical violations of probation.
But it’s also clear that a significant part of the problem is the law itself. Delaware’s drug code includes several provisions that serve to widen racial disparities in drug arrests, charging, and sentencing. By way of example, current law enhances penalties for drug offenses within 300 feet of a park, a place of worship, or school. On paper, that policy may be well-intended; but in practice, it uniquely criminalizes drug use in cities, where any given resident is significantly more likely to live near a park, church, synagogue, or school than their counterparts in suburbs or rural areas.
We don’t have to choose between public safety and progress. We have to choose both.
That’s why we’re introducing and supporting legislation to correct, simplify, and modernize Delaware’s drug code.
This legislation eliminates geographic enhancements for parks and places of worship, and applies the geographic enhancements for school zones to drug dealing but not simple possession. It also eliminates enhancements for prior drug offenses, consolidates quantity tiers (the weight thresholds that trigger elevated offenses for higher-level dealers over lower-level users) from five tiers to three, and repeals outdated and redundant sections of code.
There is no silver bullet for multigenerational poverty, structural inequality, or the challenges of drug use and addiction; but this is an important step forward. We cannot responsibly accept a status quo where a single crime inherently carries a more severe punishment for someone living in Wilmington or Dover than it does for someone living in Middletown or Hockessin.
Delaware needs to rebalance the scales, modernize our laws, and bring our drug laws into better alignment with our shared values of equal justice and public safety. The General Assembly can take action to do that now, and we hope it will.
Editorial Commentary Submission – Leadership and Action are Needed – 5/6/19
Kathy Jennings, Delaware’s Attorney General, Sen. Elizabeth Lockman, D-West Wilmington, and Rep. Sean Lynn, D-Dover, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee wrote an excellent Editorial piece (We Must Bring Balance to the Criminal Justice System) in which they hit the nail on the head, addressing most of the major problems in the system today. NOW all they need to do is penetrate the skulls of some Bozo legislators, getting them to enact needed changes!
Ms. Jennings is in a position to make a huge difference – a drift toward fairness – by having her prosecutors use more sense when determining which charges to bring, or not bring … such as technical violations of probation, and she is introducing legislation to eliminate some of the racism and bias in the system. It does nobody any good to keep throwing people in prison because they have a drug or alcohol problem.
The big problem is that too many Bozo members of the General Assembly lack wisdom and leadership; they just keep feeding their constituents what they think they want to hear. “Bozos”?! Too rude or too strident? NO. People’s lives are being needlessly destroyed because of legislative inaction and lack of leadership. The legislators should educate the public as to the current injustice, the justice in what needs to be done, the huge economic savings … thus showing leadership in combining public safety with fiscal wisdom and fairness.
Ken Abraham, former Deputy Attorney General, founder of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE, Dover, DE 302-423-4067
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I get lots of letters published, and ghost write for others. THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO REACH THOUSANDS OF READERS!
The keys to getting your Letter published are:
1. Keep it to 250 words or fewer.
2. Do not make it about “poor little old me”. Describe the problem as one which not only affects the individual, but is a senseless or ineffective measure, policy, or law which also harms communities and society. For example, with reentry, the obstacles make it unnecessarily difficult for the individual, but also harm society by making it hard to become productive, spending money and paying taxes in the community, and they cause increased recidivism = increased crime.
3. Speak from your heart.
4. Google any facts you are not sure about.
5. Do not name-call.Do what works: Write that Letter!…………Letter to Editor – sign name, town, state, and your phone number (they often call to verify that you sent it), and “Member of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE” if you like – shows you are part of a large group.
Send the email to yourself, and put on the “bcc” bar the email addresses for Letters to the Editor for the top ten newspapers in your state and several national ones – The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, U S A Today (google the Letter to Editor email addresses).
Any questions, CALL me at 302-423-4067!
GOOGLE THE EMAIL ADDRESSES FOR “LETTERS TO THE EDITOR” FOR THE TOP TEN NEWSPAPERS IN YOUR STATE AND SAVE THAT INFORMATION FOR REPEATED USE – Some papers will print a letter from you every 2 weeks, some every 30 days, some every 90 days.They have varying policies. But if you really want to make a difference shoot them a new letter once a month!
I send one out every 2 weeks.Need a Letter on some criminal justice issue and not a great letter writer? NO EXCUSE! Email me a rough draft and call me and I’ll polish it up! kenabraham3138@gmail.com .
ANY QUESTIONS, CALL ME AT 302-423-4067.
Court rules in favor of woman seeking opioid meds in jail
Many articles on this website feature articles about inmates who DIED in prison because of withdrawal, when their addiction was not detected or was deliberately ignored (they told prison staff, who did nothing) when they arrived.
This article was sent to me by my friend, excellent attorney Stephen Hampton, Esq. He will sue prisons over such cases.
Stephen Hampton
sahampton@gradyhampton.com
Grady and Hampton LLC
6 North Bradford Street
Dover, DE 19904
302-678-1265
A federal appeals court has affirmed a judge’s order requiring a jail to provide medication to a woman to keep her opioid addiction in remission.
The Aroostook County Jail in northern Maine appealed to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after a Portland-based U.S. district judge granted the preliminary injunction, which requires the jail to provide prescribed medication to Brenda Smith. The appeals court released a brief, unsigned ruling Tuesday saying it found “no abuse of discretion by the district court” in ruling in Smith’s favor.
Smith was convicted of theft in 2017. She was scheduled to report for her 40-day sentence Wednesday, but lawyers said both sides were working to modify Smith’s sentence so it doesn’t involve jail time. The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine argued on Smith’s behalf when the Madawaska resident argued that the medicine allowed her to live a functional life. The medicine is commonly known by the brand name Suboxone. The Boston appeals court’s ruling sends “the strongest message yet” that jails need to provide inmates with medicine for opioid use disorder, said Emma Bond, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Maine.
“Other facilities should take note and do the right thing, and not wait for further legal action,” Bond said.
The fight over inmate access to opioid addiction drugs is being fought in several states. In Maine, the state ACLU filed a lawsuit last year making the case that it’s unconstitutional for Maine jails to keep addiction medicine away from inmates. eter Marchesi, an attorney for the Aroostook County Jail, said the facility is “disappointed by the ruling” because it “cannot safely dispense this medication in the jail environment, absent proper funding for policy development and training.”
Smith had not reported to jail as of Wednesday afternoon, Marchesi said, and the jail supports efforts to change her sentence so it doesn’t involve jail time. That is because the jail is “unable to safely dispense the opioid replacement medication in the jail environment,” Marchesi said.
The appeals court’s Tuesday filing noted that numerous medical associations supported Smith, including the American Medical Association, American Society for Addiction Medicine and Maine Medical Association.
Pharmaceutical executive guilty of bribing doctors to push opioid – Great! – kra
I have argued for years that THESE are people who should be prosecuted. More such executives should be prosecuted. How many of the 400,000+ did this man kill? How many lives did he destroy? Participating doctors too should go down. The wealthy should not get a free ride.
Excerpts from the Article:
A pharmaceutical company founder accused of paying doctors millions in bribes to prescribe a highly addictive fentanyl spray was convicted Thursday in a case that exposed such marketing tactics as using a stripper-turned-sales-rep to give a physician a lap dance.
John Kapoor, the 76-year-old former chairman of Insys Therapeutics, was found guilty of racketeering conspiracy after 15 days of jury deliberations. Four ex-employees of the Chandler, Arizona-based company, including the former exotic dancer, were also convicted. Some of the most sensational evidence in the months-long federal trial included a video of employees dancing and rapping around an executive dressed as a giant bottle of the powerful spray Subsys, and testimony about how the company made a habit of hiring attractive women as sales representatives.
Federal prosecutors portrayed the case as part of the government’s effort to go after those it views as responsible for fueling the nation’s deadly opioid crisis.
“This is a landmark prosecution that vindicated the public’s interest in stanching the flow of opioids into our homes and streets,” Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said in a statement. The convictions could embolden federal authorities to bring more cases against top executives of opioid manufactures, said Andrew Kolodny, co-director of opioid policy research at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management.
“Paying a fine or even civil litigation is inadequate if we want to deter corporations from killing people in their pursuit of profit,” Kolodny said.
Opioid overdoses claimed nearly 400,000 lives in the U.S. between 1999 and 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An estimated 2 million people are addicted to the drugs, which include both prescription painkillers such as OxyContin and illegal drugs such as heroin.
Kapoor and the others were accused of scheming to bribe doctors across the U.S. to boost sales of Subsys and misleading insurers to get payment approved for the drug, which is meant for cancer patients in severe pain and can cost as much as $19,000 a month, according to prosecutors. The bribes were paid in the form of fees for sham speaking engagements that were billed as educational opportunities for other doctors.
The charges carry up to 20 years in prison.
A former sales representative testified that regional sales manager Sunrise Lee once gave a lap dance at a Chicago nightclub to a doctor whom Insys was pushing to write more prescriptions. Lee’s lawyer said she will challenge the verdict.
Jurors also watched the rap video , which was shown at a national meeting in 2015 to motivate sales reps to push doctors to prescribe higher doses of the drug. At the end of the video, the person dressed up as the bottle takes off his costume and is revealed to be then-vice president of sales, Alec Burlakoff. Burlakoff pleaded guilty and testified against Kapoor. Burlakoff told the jury that he met Lee at the strip club where she worked and recruited her to join the company despite her lack of pharmaceutical industry experience because he believed she would be willing to help carry out the plan to pay off doctors.
A former CEO of the company, Michael Babich, also pleaded guilty and testified against his colleagues. He said Insys recruited sales reps who were “easy on the eyes” because doctors didn’t want an “unattractive person to walk in their door.”
Several doctors have been convicted in other cases of participating in a kickback scheme. A number of states have sued the Insys, which also agreed last year to pay $150 million to settle a federal investigation into inappropriate sales.
Florida Deputy Falsifies Drug Field-Test Results, Freeing 11 From Jail – Steven O’Leary MUST be prosecuted! – kra
More cases surely will be dropped, and this dirty cop MUST be prosecuted.
Excerpts from the Article:
Steven O’Leary was a preacher before switching his career to law enforcement. The career-changing, job-hopping cop held jobs at two different departments.
O’Leary might face criminal charges himself.
The number of people jailed in U.S. prisons is at a decade low. It’s still too high. Read my comments to understand WHY! – kra
Of course it is way too high. For every 1 person arrested 29 people benefit financially. Prison guard unions, police unions, prosecutor unions, hundreds of contractors who feed on the broken system, and private prison corporations spend BILLIONS OF DOLLARS ANNUALLY TO LEGALLY BRIBE LAWMAKERS [LOBBYING AND CAMPAIGN GIFTS] TO FIGHT THE MANY CHANGES NEEDED! This is the ugly truth, unmentioned in many articles like this one!
I have written on all the issues mentioned in this article: old and aging inmates, no need to imprison at all many nonviolent offenders, sentences too harsh to do any good, etc. … but much more needs to be done, and YOU need to realize that money is poisoning our justice system!
Excerpts from the Article:
GOOD NEWS, and bad news: The United States held 1.5 million people in prison in 2017, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported last week. This is the lowest number in a decade. It is still extremely high relative to numbers in other free nations.
Crime rates are far down since the 1980s and early 1990s, when politicians embraced get-tough-on-crime policies that ballooned the prison population. As policymakers eased up in recent years — and as courts ordered prisoner releases from overcrowded penitentiaries — the incarcerated population has declined.
The number of people in state or federal correctional facilities dropped 6.7 percent between 2007 and 2017. From the 2009 peak, the incarcerated population is down 7.8 percent. The number of sentenced prisoners as a proportion of the total U.S. population has declined steadily over the past decade. Though African-American men are still locked up at a far higher rate than white men, the black adult imprisonment rate declined 31 percent over the decade, cutting into the disparity.
States from Connecticut to Texas deserve credit for pushing reform, which includes diverting people from prison when more cost-effective and constructive responses to their crimes exist; improving conditions inside prisons; and discouraging recidivism.
Still, getting the United States to a place where it is neither over- nor under-punishing crime will take more work. Cutting the number of nonviolent offenders in prison, on which reformers have mostly focused so far, is the easy part. The Justice Department reports that 55 percent of inmates now serving more than a year in state prison are violent offenders. Further moves toward de-incarceration will have to grapple with the question of whether penalties were too harsh for some of them, too.
So far, this question has not featured much in the national debate, in part because many state and national policymakers are taking only tentative steps toward reform. The recently passed First Step Act, which aims to mimic some of the smart reforms that states have tried, was still only, well, a first step.
Moreover, states and the federal government can do only so much by applying smarter policies when people are tried and sentenced. There are huge numbers of people already locked away, including a large number serving life sentences — about a third of the world’s total, researchers estimate. Prisons are filled increasingly with old inmates.
Democratic presidential candidates have discussed using the president’s pardon power to release more prisoners. This would not be a new idea. During his second term, President Barack Obama established a careful review system to vet huge numbers of pardon candidates. It would be worth reestablishing a similar program on the federal level. On the state level, too: Governors should apply their pardon and commutation powers in an orderly but more ambitious way.
But executive action is no substitute for legislation. If the country no longer wants to be known as the world’s greatest jailer, reform must continue in statehouses and Congress toward a system that is geared less toward warehousing people and more toward ensuring public safety without wasting human potential.
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