There’s a recent article in The Atlantic describing the “Community Court” in Orange County, and summarizing some of the history and issues around collaborative courts. Amongst other things, the article describes some of the economies involved:

“According to the court’s 2015 annual report, it had a 28-percent recidivism rate for drug-court graduates who had been out of the program for at least three years, compared to 74 percent for drug offenders in the county. The recidivism rate for DUI-court graduates was 9.9 percent among those who completed the program five or more years ago, compared to 21 and 25 percent for second- and third-time DUI offenders. The rate for mental-health-court graduates was 25 percent, and 10.5 percent for veteran-treatment-court graduates.

This creates significant savings for the county and state. “In 2015, the stayed sentences of adult and juvenile program graduates resulted in 67,539 custody days saved … which translates to a savings of $11.2 million,” according to the court’s estimates. The California Judicial Council estimates that every dollar invested in Santa Ana results in a cost savings of $7.30.”

The Supreme Court’s recent decision to allow evidence from an illegal stop in Utah v. Strieff has gotten the most press for Justice Sotomayor’s scathing dissent. Here from scotusblog is a good analysis of the practical application of rules in the decision:

“The opinion applies the factors from 1975’s Brown v. Illinois and concludes that suppression is unwarranted. Some will complain about how the Court applied those factors – I will do that myself below – but it’s worth pausing to note that the majority opinion did not overturn or substantially revise Wong Sun v. United States. This case instead reconciles the pre-2000 case law on the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine (such as Wong Sun and Brown) with post-2000 case law (such as Hudson v. Michigan and Davis v. United States). According to today’s opinion, all of the cases are ultimately about cost-benefit weighing.”

That’s the headline on a recent LA Times story about one mentally ill California man who was sent to Atascadero State Hospital  instead of prison. The story points out:

“Over the last two years, Los Angeles County officials have announced a new focus on diverting people who are mentally ill from jail and prison. In July 2014, Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey told county supervisors that the jailing of mentally ill defendants was “a moral question.”

“The use of the jail as a mental health ward is inefficient, ineffective and in many cases it is inhumane,” she said.

But it is also growing.

Even as officials have announced plans to address the issue, the number of mentally ill inmates has grown in both county jails and state prisons, although overall inmate populations have shrunk. In L.A. County jails, the average population of mentally ill inmates in 2013 was 3,081. As of mid-May it was 4,139, a 34% increase.

In the state prison system, the mentally ill inmate population was 32,525 in April 2013, making up 24.5% of the overall population. As of February, according to a recently released monitoring report, the overall population had fallen by 5,230 while the mental health population had grown by 4,275, and made up 29% of the total population.”

The House has voted down a number of proposed gun safety amendments to the long-delayed Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, which has recently made some movement to get out of Committee. The US News article is here.

The 2016 CJJ “Youth Summit”  co-hosted by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), “Agents of Change: Rethinking, Reshaping, and Reforming the Juvenile Justice System” will be August 2-3 in Washington, DC. The event brings together emerging leaders (under the age of 25) interested in juvenile justice reform. Over two days, these next generation leaders gain a better understanding of the current juvenile justice system, examine trending reform topics, and participate in various skill-building, hands-on activities.

A version of HR  2646, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act bill, was approved 53-0 by the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday. The  legislation sets new federal rules for how the United States handles people believed to have serious mental illness. There are two versions under consideration in the Committee: one version, which was introduced by Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) in June, has attracted 140 Republican and 53 Democratic co-sponsors. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Energy committee, and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the highest-ranking Democrat on the committee, have proposed a second version of the bill. Both versions have  strategies to help families and communities be more active in managing the care of patients who are believed to be unable to make sound decisions about treatment for serious mental health conditions.

I strongly recommend this recent article in the New Yorker on Derrick Hamilton’s 30-year battle to right his own wrongful conviction, based on false testimony coerced by now-notorious NYPD Detective Scarcella.

Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy called for juvenile justice reform in a keynote address  at the “Children and the Law” conference in New York this week:

“If you’re not a Native American, or your people were not brought here in slavery, everyone came here for a second chance, or a third or fifth chance,” Malloy said in a keynote address at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York yesterday.

“That’s who we are fundamentally as a nation.”

But in today’s polarized political climate, he added, America has “turned its back” on the concept of providing second chances—particularly in our approach to criminal justice, where authorities are more inclined towards punishment than rehabilitation.

Nowhere is such an approach more counter-productive than in the way many jurisdictions fail to explore evidence-based alternatives to jail for young people who get into persistent trouble with authorities, he said.

“No one should go to jail, simply because we have lost patience,” said Malloy, who has spearheaded a transformation in his state’s juvenile justice system that has made Connecticut one of the nation’s acknowledged leaders in justice reform.”

The  Huffington Post has published moving papers from a high-profile Orange County case that provides new information on the controversial jailhouse informant program run by the DA:

“After almost three years of denials, the Orange County District Attorney’s office finally acknowledged Thursday that the county has a jailhouse informant program.

Of course, the existence of the informant program should come as no surprise. Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders has been arguing since 2013 that a tainted snitch network in county jails has existed in secret for decades. In a series of blockbuster motions, the defense attorney unearthed damning evidence that clearly pointed to the program’s existence, alleging that county prosecutors and police have violated multiple defendants’ rights by illegally obtaining and sometimes withholding evidence gleaned from jail informants.

Thursday’s formal admission came in court documents filed by the OCDA office detailing 1,157 pages of notes kept by sheriff’s deputies about inmates and informants in county jails. The notes, kept secret until recently, were recorded from September 2008 to January 2013.

The cache of notes “reveals that jail special handling deputies recruited and utilized numerous informers,” Assistant District Attorney Dan Wagner wrote in a motion Thursday. “The informers were often kept in a particular sector. In exchange for their information, informers were given favors by deputies such as phone calls and visits.”

What’s more, Wagner says, the log contradicts statements made by several witnesses, including police, and may also contradict some evidence previously presented in the Scott Dekraai case, the largest mass-murder case in county history.

Law enforcement authorities deploy informants to help bolster a case — a tactic that’s perfectly legal, even when the snitch receives something in exchange. But Sanders alleges that in some Orange County cases, informants held recorded and unrecorded conversations with inmates who were already represented by lawyers, which violates an inmate’s right to counsel. Prosecutors then took damning evidence gathered by the informants and presented it in court, while withholding evidence that could have been beneficial to the defense — which is a violation of a defendant’s right to due process.

The log mentions informant names throughout and frequent informant interaction with “numerous” and “high-profile” inmates, Wagner writes. In the log, the deputies refer to various activities with inmates and informants as “plans,” “capers” and “operations,” and came up with “self-styled” code names for these activities like “Operation Okie Doke,” the court documents read. The log also mentions outside law enforcement agencies interacting with the deputies who manage inmates and informants. Detectives who testified during the Dekraai case, according to the notes, also inquired about running “operations” within the jail.

The log sheds new light on interactions between Sheriff’s Deputy William Grover and Fernando Perez, a Mexican mafia leader who later became a prolific informant for the county and had separate contact with both Dekraai and another man accused of murder, Daniel Wozniak, while in jail. This contact, which county prosecutors previously portrayed as coincidental, appears to be intentional, according to log entries.

Just weeks after his arrest, Wozniak was placed in the same housing tank as Perez — who had been housed there just one day earlier. Then, just days before police interviewed Perez about conversations he’d had with Wozniak, a log entry from Grover indicates that he wanted the relationship between Wozniak and Perez to “marinate.”