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Your cell phone weighs approximately 1.4 pounds. Doesn’t really like seem like much, does it? We carry things like this all the time. Can you imagine serving a life sentence in prison for this? Neither could Ronald Harmelin after a Michigan judge handed down his sentence for possession of cocaine. And although Ronald had never committed any other felony-level crime, that possession charge carried with it a mandatory sentence. Being a law student and paralegal, I have read case after case and have seen otherwise innocent people serve borderline cruel and unusual punishments like this time and time again. So, today I am going to tell you where mandatory minimum sentences originated and how they led to the downright failure of America’s criminal justice system. I am also going to describe how prosecutors use mandatory minimum sentence schemes to their advantage when plea bargaining with criminal defendants, and I will emphasize our Constitutional right to a jury trial and how crucial this is to us as U.S. citizens.

Most mandatory minimum sentences were drafted into our legal system in the eighties after the drug overdose deaths of two high-profile athletes. These deaths caused an uproar amongst sports fans and spurred a rapid increase in media coverage about drugs. Kenneth J. Meier noted in his 1994 book: The Politics of Sin, that NBC News ran 400 reports on crack-cocaine in the months that followed deaths, which pressured the Reagan Administration to respond to this newly heightened public fear of drug use. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 was quickly pushed through Congress bereft any of the procedure of which a typical proposed bill undergoes, and this law imposed harsh sentences on narcotics dealers and skyrocketed the nation’s imprisonment rate. Because these pieces of legislation were so hastily passed into law and continued to receive support from George Bush, President Reagan’s successor, mandatory minimum sentences of confinement for certain low-level drug crimes became a requirement by which courts must abide. Moreover, those who challenged their mandatory minimum sentences gained no such support from the United States Supreme Court. In fact, since 1980, the Supreme Court has upheld as constitutional, a life sentence for stealing approximately $230.00 worth of items. It has also upheld a 40-year sentence for possessing marijuana and a sentence of fifty years to life for stealing videotapes that retailed at $150.00.

If charged with a crime, we all have a right to be tried by a jury, but because mandatory minimum sentences have become more of a threatening tool than effective law, very few felony convictions happen after a jury trial, and most end with a defendant’s guilty plea. In fact, the National Association for Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Foundation for Criminal Justice concluded that of the 79,704 criminal cases processed in federal courts in 2019, only 320 cases, or less than 1%, actually went to trial.

Plea bargaining between a district attorney and a defense attorney was generally criticized by the Supreme Court, but after the 1970 case of Brady v. U.S., the Court held that negotiated pleas may be permitted if “motivated by the defendant’s desire to accept the certainty or probability of a lesser penalty rather than face…a higher penalty authorized by law for the crime charged.” With the top court’s blessing, state lawmakers began to stack the deck against defendants with harsh, mandatory minimum sentences for the conviction of drug-related and many other crimes. Mandatory minimums have displaced the role of judges, who are supposed to ensure that a person’s sentence fits the crime. Prosecutors now know that dangling charges of these crimes carrying mandatory minimums over an accused’s head is an easy way to extract a guilty plea to just about anything carrying a lesser sentence.

And there’s more. Not only are prosecutors free to add or not add charges that carry mandatory minimums, there’s evidence that if an accused rejects a prosecutor’s plea offer, that prosecutor will add more serious charges by the time one gets to trial. This is being called a “trial penalty,” and this trial penalty is the price defendants pay for exercising their right to a fair trial.

Even without coercion, defendants have a strong incentive to plead guilty to a lesser charge, because at first glance, guilty pleas look like a win…and certainly, this appears to be correct. Post-trial sentences are much harsher than plea-bargained sentences. But we are quick to forget that not everyone who goes to trial is found guilty and convicted. In fact, the National Center for State Courts found that in 2017 1/3 of felony jury trials ended in acquittal or dismissal of charges, which means that if 100,000 Pennsylvanians would have gone to trial, more than 30,000 of them would have been found not guilty and gone free. Instead, by supporting mandatory minimum sentences and supporting the “tough on crime” campaigners, we are giving prosecutors the upper hand in the criminal process and are wiping all the power of both defendants and their attorneys.

The logic behind supporting mandatory minimum sentences is simple: locking someone up for an extended period of time will enhance public safety by reducing crime. The offender will be subsequently incapacitated, preventing him from re-offending. Unfortunately, the facts do not support this logic. According to Valerie Wright, a research analyst at The Sentencing Project, confinement is criminogenic, or crime-producing, which means that incarceration actually makes an individual more likely to commit crime in the future. A 1999 study that assessed the relationship between prison time and recidivism revealed that longer prison sentences were associated with a three percent increase in re-offending. In fact, offenders who spent an average of 30 months in prison had a recidivism rate of 29% compared to a 26% rate among those who only spent 12 months behind bars. While most judges’ intentions are to protect the public and deter criminal behavior in their communities, in utilizing mandatory minimum sentence schemes, they are actually enhancing the probability that more crime will occur.

And while some say courts’ use of mandatory minimums and plea bargaining cut down on biased criminal sentences, the facts say otherwise. The people bearing the brunt of mandatory sentencing are not the affluent or even the middle class. A recent survey revealed that the plea bargains offered to accused persons who hired a private attorney are much better than those offered to defendants who qualify and utilize public defenders. What this says is that we incarcerate large numbers of low-income people for much longer periods of time, and these people then jump on the hamster wheel of poverty and prison terms.

So, today I described to you how mandatory minimum sentences came to be. I also explained how prosecutors use these schemes to their advantage when plea bargaining, and I told you just how mandatory sentences come to play when dealing with our Constitutional right to a trial by a jury of our peers. John Ehrett of Yale Law School explains that “Voters want politicians who are seen as ‘tough on crime’, but simultaneously express opposition to mandatory minimum sentencing schemes.” He calls this an “apparent cognitive dissonance,”; in short, we’re asking our legislators to crack down on crime but take it easy on the criminal…which is both unreasonable and impractical, so we, as voters, must implore our lawmakers to repeal mandatory minimum sentencing laws and call on prosecutors to stop threatening people with decades in prison for exercising their right to trial. I also believe that courts should require mandatory plea-bargaining conferences that are supervised by third-party criminal law experts not involved in that particular case. Don’t get caught up in a tragedy like Ronald Harmelin; become one of the 77% of Americans who oppose mandatory minimum sentences.

Centre County District Attorney Bernie Cantorna began his second term in office Monday.

For court staff everywhere, the pandemic has presented unique challenges in court schedules.

Cantorna says they’re getting caught up as another drug crisis, the opioid epidemic, also rages on.

Moments after being sworn in for a second term of office Monday, Centre County’s District Attorney, sounding like many in discussing the pandemic and hopes for the new year.

“Getting back to normal, how we’re supposed to operate we’ve learned how to deal with the pandemic in the court system,” said Cantorna.

Cases, hearings and trials being delayed due to COVID is just one of the many court challenges.

One of Cantorna’s initiatives a veterans’ treatment court in Centre County to help vets charged with a non violent crime is moving forward.

The COVID pandemic has overshadowed the ongoing opioid crisis.

On the D.A.’s wish-list, is that some of the opioid settlement money from the drug manufacturers be earmarked for the court system.

“To get more in our drug court, that would be great, more money for the court and our treatment programs,” Cantorna said. “Because we see many here in the court system where its obvious something else is going on with them with a drug problem.”

In Pennsylvania alone last year, nearly 5,200 people died from drug overdoses.

Our firm filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Mount Nittany Medical Center alleging that the emergency room failed to diagnose his client’s spinal cord injury. Instead the suit alleged that the client was diagnosed with a sprained wrist and told to ice her injury. The client traveled to George Washington University 10 days later where her spinal cord injury was diagnosed and treated. The suit alleged that the delay in diagnosis and treatment cause the client further injury. On March 23, 2016 a Centre County Jury agreed and entered judgment against the hospital. “The jury’s verdict in this medical malpractice claim stands for the proposition that when a patient goes to an ER with a possible spinal cord injury, that patient needs to be seen by a spinal cord specialist, not a physician’s assistant”, said our State College lawyer. “Personal injury law suits and medical malpractice claims are important because jury verdicts help change behavior and provide justice to those who are injured due to other’s negligence. If this verdict causes the hospital to call a doctor before discharging a possible spinal cord injured patient, then both the client and Centre County residents win”, explained our attorney.

“I was very impressed with the work that the jury did, they were very attentive and thoughtful. The jurors sat through a 3 day trial and were fair to both sides”, said the client. “I am especially grateful to the attorney for his help and guidance with what was a very stressful process. He spent time to understand our story and told our truth to the jurors. Throughout the trial, my attorney stressed to me that I could trust the jury, tell the truth and justice would occur”, explained the client. “I am grateful to the jurors, the judge and our lawyer, and hope that no one else has to go through what I experienced”.

If you are injured at the hands of someone else, the State College lawyers at Centre County Law and Bryant & Carson are ready to help you.

“I had Mr. Bryant for my custody conference. He worked with the other parties attorney to get what was in the best interest of the children, even though the other party was not listening to his counsel. I would highly recommend Mr Bryant and I know he will be who I will call if I ever again need representation. Thank you, Mr Bryant!”

Could you imagine being locked in a room with someone who doesn’t share any of the same views as you? Now picture that person angry and reacting violently to the mere thought of your religious beliefs or culture. Additionally, all four of your limbs are chained to the four corners of a concrete bed; you have nowhere to go and no one to call for help. For inmates in the Special Management Unit (SMU) at Thomson Federal Penitentiary in Illinois, this is not a stretch of the imagination. I recently read an article about this prison by Christie Thompson and Joseph Shapiro and was sickened by what they reported. I have worked closely with inmates from the county level to federal prisons and know the realities of “life on the inside.” I have to wonder how, in 2023, we are still being treated with brutality and torture for disobeying the law and why our government leaders have buried their heads in the sand from the seven death cases and countless lawsuits against the newest but deadliest prison in the United States.

The Special Management Unit is known to house some of the most dangerous and hostile inmates in the country. In 2018, the Unit moved from “The Big House,” a century-old prison camp located in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, in order to “increase capacity,” but the conditions have only seemed to worsen. With almost 2,000 inmates in this unit and only 1,200 beds available, many of these men are confined to 58-square-foot cells in pairs. While the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) claims that “double-celling” mitigates suicide attempts, it seems to have opened the door to countless assaults and ruthless killings of other men in the unit.

In fact, there have been seven death cases at Thomson in just over two years. The crisis seemed to begin after Matthew Phillips, a Jewish inmate, was locked in a recreation cage with two members of a white supremacist gang. He was brutally beaten and sent to the hospital where his parents were limited to ten-minute visits, one at a time, while guards inside the room and in the hospital’s hallway mocked Phillips and made jokes at his expense. He died on March 5, 2020, three days after the beating. The next three deaths came in November and December of 2020. Edsel Aaron Badoni died of stab wounds after a fight with another inmate, and Boyd Weekley and Patrick Bacon allegedly died by suicide. Just two months later, in February of 2021, Shay Paniry was stabbed to death by another inmate. In December of 2021, a New Yorker by the name of Bobby Everson, had already written his family numerous times, advising them of the poor conditions and looming threats of violence against him by his cellmate. Shortly after, he was found dead in his cell of multiple blunt force trauma. Most recently was the suspicious death of James Everett who was also found dead in his cell of a suspected homicide. His body was returned to his family with scars on both wrists, better known to many inmates as the “Thompson tattoo,” or scarring of the wrists made by excessively tight hand-cuffing. Of those inmates who were fortunate enough to survive the SMU, they have seen 167 recorded assaults at Thomson between January 2019 and October 2021. The “rehabilitation” these men are to receive seems to be ineffective, as well. It was reported that at least seven people were involved in homicides after being released from Lewisburg’s Special Management Unit.

So, what is the problem with Thomson and the Special Management Unit? It appears as though understaffing and overpopulation are the two biggest factors in this outburst of extreme violence. According to Thompson and Shapiro, as of May of 2021, more than 30% of Thomson’s correctional officer jobs were unfilled, in part due to the hiring freeze under former President Donald Trump. As a result, many counselors, cooks, and other non-officer employees were recruited to work as guards, and while they were trained, they lacked the day-to-day experience that a typical officer obtains over time. Another factor seems to be the excessive force used by the corrections staff. Inmates are shackled so tightly with cuffs that they are left with permanent nerve damage and that infamous “Thomson tattoo.” Others allege that they are put in paper clothing, denied food and water for extensive periods of time, and forced to urinate on themselves when “four-pointed” or put in ambulatory restraints. It is claimed that guards fabricate reasons to justify this type of discipline, and between January 2019 and August 2020, they deployed emergency pepper spray at least 231 times, 72 more times than the second-highest-use facility. Moreover, we must remember that many inmates in this unit are arguably some of the most mentally ill men in the prison system, and these men are most often not getting the mental health treatment or psychiatric medication crucial for their recovery and overall well-being.

I had to wonder if our nation’s leaders were doing anything about this problem and learned that very few actually are. One man who has addressed this issue, however, is Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, who is chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and part of a new group that investigates federal prison operations and works to strengthen prison oversight. In January of last year, he called for the resignation of Bureau of Prisons Director Michael Carvajal, and Durbin is pushing for a “reform-minded” leader to take Carvajal’s place. The Bureau of Prisons notes that it dedicates a team of prison officials who consider things like gang affiliation, religion, geography, and past incident reports and complaints when assigning inmate housing; although the case of Matthew Phillips makes me question this so-called team’s competence or even existence.

Unfortunately, this is not the only prison nor the only problem plaguing our criminal justice system. From arrest to conviction, appeal to lockup, there are many circumstances that tip the scale in favor of the government, keeping our prisons overcrowded and tax dollars disappearing from our pockets. With the United States currently housing more than two million inmates, it leads the world in lockups and more than doubles the incarceration rate of the second-highest country in prison population. Although I agree that behind bars, we should not be afforded all the freedoms and rights of those who are among the general population, I think it is important to remember that we still should be provided certain rights under the United States Constitution, including the right against cruel and unusual punishment; the right to practice religion; the right against excessive bail; and the right to due process of the law. There are also those advantages that prosecutors have over criminal defendants during a trial that make our system unjust and unfair. To get a clearer picture, check out my blog post entitled “Defendants Doomed.” Over the next several weeks, I will break down the glitches in our criminal justice system but also highlight major improvements that some jurisdictions have undergone to ensure a fair process for both the government and criminal defendants alike.

Today, I presented one of the deadliest prisons in the United States and highlighted the problems with the Federal Special Management Unit as it is today. I introduced you to specific cases that led to the brutal deaths of seven men serving time in the Unit, and I spoke of what the Bureau of Prisons and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin are doing in response to this crisis. I urge you to check out the article or visit a credible criminal reform site, such as the ACLU or REFORM Alliance. We cannot always make the world a safer place, but we can take steps to ensure that our prisons are protected for both their employees and inmates alike. Let’s turn our country’s prisons back into centers of rehabilitation, not reincarceration.

Kane today appointed a “special prosecutor” to look into potential ethical violations and possible criminal conduct regarding emails sent between government officials. She purportedly is interested in “investigating a network of troubling relationships”, said the kettle to the pot.

Have you ever missed class before? Ever come home after curfew? Had a friend who maybe wasn’t the best influence on you? Now imagine going to jail for one of those. This concept is neither surprising nor rare to the one in 35 adults or 112,000 people in Pennsylvania who are on probation or parole. In fact, on any given day in the U.S., 95,000 people are incarcerated for a technical violation of their supervision such as those I just mentioned. While certainly negligent or irresponsible, these are everyday blunders that any one of us could make. And these incarcerations based on technical violations of parole or probation alone are costing us, as Pennsylvania taxpayers, about $100 million every year. Being someone who pays taxes here in the Commonwealth and someone who has also seen loved ones struggle through the civil shame of imprisonment, I felt as though I must educate others on what I have learned about the mass incarceration epidemic in the United States. So today I am going to show you how probation and parole in Pennsylvania have turned from systems of productivity to those that prepare people for prison. I am also going to peel back the layers of the criminal justice system and highlight its role in the overpopulation in U.S. prisons, and I will explain how we are literally paying the price for others’ criminal behavior. Last, I will knock down the argument that mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes are fair and effective, and I will refute the claim that reducing the prison population will increase crime.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, of Pennsylvania, 34% of those jailed in Dauphin County are being detained on a supervision-related violation. This does not mean that they were convicted of any crime yet, possibly not ever even being charged with a crime. These people likely violated a condition of their probation or parole by committing an act like I mentioned earlier. For those not familiar with recording artist Meek Mill, he is a Pennsylvania native who found himself in the same unfortunate situation in 2017 while serving a probation term in Philadelphia County. The unjust 2-4 year sentence he received for popping a wheelie during a trip to New York City spurred the international #FreeMeek movement. After his release on bail, he, along with other world-class philanthropists and activists, like 76ers co-owner Michael Rubin and Jay-Z, to name a few, came together to launch the REFORM Alliance to educate people about the downfalls of our probation and parole systems and their involvement in the overpopulation of prisons across the country.

So how did this mass prison overpopulation spiral out of control? Well, according to Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, the race to incarcerate began in the 1970s when harsh sentencing laws were enacted in response to increased violent crime. It was then fueled in the ‘80s with the War on Drugs, which specifically targeted poor, working-class neighborhoods. This politically-fueled “war” cracked down on low-level drug offenders—and turned criminal offenses, like possession of marijuana, into serious felonies that held serious time in the clink. Former U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, Jr., believes that mandatory minimum sentencing laws, especially those centered around drug possession and DUI, contribute heavily to mass incarceration. In fact, strict sentencing guidelines and these mandatory minimums account for most of the federal prison system’s incarceration rate: at 226,000 inmates, 40% above its capacity. Congress did pass the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010, which finally addressed this issue and reduced huge discrepancies in how judges sentence offenders for cocaine possession. If our lawmakers would continue to repeal mandatory minimums and other statutes that impose unreasonably long sentences, they would save U.S. citizens about half a billion dollars.

But what if we could potentially stop those who commit low-level crimes to being incarcerated in the first place? Angela Davis, author of Arbitrary Justice, doesn’t think this is a far cry. You see, district attorneys, those who decide whether or not to charge a person for a crime, have enormous authority to set the tone for their offices and to determine how the prosecutors working under them exercise their discretion in each case. So, by changing their behavior, district attorneys could potentially have a profound impact on lowering incarceration rates without even changing the laws. Many district attorneys have already begun to adopt policies that keep certain low-level offenders out of jail. William Stuntz of Harvard Law School refers to district attorneys as the “real lawmakers” of the criminal justice system, as they have vast leeway in deciding who they want to charge and potentially send to prison.

Just how much is America spending on imprisonment, though? Well, since corrections has been one of the fastest-growing items in most state budgets, only second to Medicaid, simply put, we are spending a lot. You see, here’s what happened: in the wake of the Great Recession in 2009, many states slashed their corrections staffs and cut back their spending on prisons overall, specifically correctional health care and even certain food services for inmates. Judicial budgets also got slashed, and as these contracted, judges became exceptionally aggressive about collecting fines and court fees from the prosecuted, paroled, and probationers. Unfortunately, many newly released individuals did not have the income nor the resources to pay these fines and were back behind bars within days. As a whole, all the people imprisoned in the U.S. cost us about $80 billion dollars annually. Now, lawmakers and Pennsylvania leaders have begun to efficiently use taxpayer resources with the establishment of the Justice Reinvestment Working Group, headed by Attorney General Josh Shapiro, but there is still a massive amount of work to be done to keep dollars in our pockets and the prison system in check.

Of course, there are many people who argue that decreasing the prison population will likely fuel a spike in the number of felony crimes committed. While it is true that felony crime has decreased over the past three decades, according to Travis, Bruce, and Redburn, these bear little relationship to one another. A recent study actually showed that as the nation’s incarceration rate decreased by 8%, both violent and property-related crimes also decreased by almost 15%, thus proving that we can continue to downsize our prisons without sparing our safety or increasing crime in the process. Many judges might also argue that mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug offenses are significant and needed, because they show consistency and “fairness” in sentencing. Unfortunately, the judges’ consistencies in sentencing have taken away their ability to tailor sentences to fit individual circumstances, which obviously differ, in every criminal case. This has also showed no curb of drug use itself, as we all have seen play out with the recent opioid epidemic this country faced just two years ago.

So today I discussed the most influential contributors to the mass incarceration crisis in the U.S., including the problems with our probation and parole systems, the harsh sentencing laws enacted during the War on Drugs, the impact of district attorneys’ decisions on prosecuting low-level crimes, and what effect this has had on taxpayers’ wallets. I also revealed to you that decreasing the prison population will likely show no increase in felony crime, and the continued support of mandatory minimum sentences only restrains judges and will not curb drug use. Prison needs to be preserved primarily for those who pose grave threats to our society, and we must reduce the number of people who are sent to prison in the first place. I urge you to join a cause like the REFORM Alliance and keep people just like you from going to prison for non-criminal behavior. Let’s join the fight to rehabilitate, not reincarcerate.