Murder charge dropped against man who killed armed home intruder

Belated good news: The murder charge has been dropped against the Ontario man who last February shot at armed intruders in his home, killing one. 

Murder charge dropped against Milton, Ont. man who shot home intruder | CBC News:

July 31, 2023 - "A Milton, Ont. man formerly accused of killing a home intruder earlier this year no longer faces a charge of second-degree murder. On Monday, the Crown withdrew the charge against Ali Mian, 21, in a Milton courtroom, Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General confirmed to CBC Toronto.

"Mian was originally charged in connection with a shooting in the early morning hours of Feb. 19 at his home in the area of Ontario Street South and Louis St. Laurent Avenue. Halton Regional Police previously said a man was found dead at the scene. Another man, a 20-year-old from Oshawa, was arrested at the home and charged with breaking and entering and unauthorized possession of a firearm. Three other suspects fled the scene. 

"Jag Virk, Mian's criminal defence lawyer, said on Monday that Mian is relieved at the charge being dropped and that he is now a free man.... 'He's very happy, of course. Finally, he has his life back, freedom back. A heavy burden was lifted off of his shoulders as he was facing murder charges, knowing that if he's found guilty, he would be going to jail for a very long time,' Virk said. Mian was in custody for about nine days before his bail hearing, he added....

"Virk said the Crown agreed Mian's actions were in self-defence. 'The Crown agreed with me that there was no reasonable prospect of conviction, given the defence of self-defence,' he said. He added that the case weighed heavily on his client, both financially and emotionally, and that Mian is currently overwhelmed.... 

"Virk had said previously that the shooting was not targeted and that his client was a registered firearm owner, who 'used his gun legally against an armed intruder'.... On Monday, Virk said Mian no longer lives at the home and is still a registered firearm owner."

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ali-mian-milton-charges-dropped-murder-1.6923046

Ontario man who shot and killed armed intruder in his home won't face murder charges, crown says | Global News | July 31, 2023:

Calgary court rounds up shoppers for jury duty

During jury selection, a Calgary, Alberta court ran low on potential jurors -- so court officials went to a nearby mall and rounded up 50 shoppers to add to the jury pool. (Yes, that's legal in Canada.) 

50 Calgarians summoned from mall for immediate jury selection | CBC News - Jade Markus:

June 18, 2022 - "Dozens of Calgarians were summoned for jury selection — immediately — during lunch hour at a downtown Calgary mall this week, invoking a rare procedure imported from England. Alberta officers issued 50 summonses to people who were at the Core Shopping Centre on Thursday, documents which required the recipient to at once go to the Calgary Courts Centre, a few blocks away. 

"The unusual course of action was enacted after the court realized the jury pool wasn't big enough for an upcoming trial, as too many jurors were exempted due to several factors, said Donna Spaner, a prosecutor in jury selection who was at the court on Thursday. Among those factors were summer vacation and the subject matter of the trial, according to Spaner. That resulted in a Queen's Bench justice issuing the summons in order to fill that gap, she said. 

"'The court clerks and the sheriff went over to the mall, and just started handing members of the downtown lunch crowd these summons that required them to attend the courthouse,' Spaner said. 'I can tell you with certainty a number of people whose Thursday afternoon was inconvenienced were not particularly thrilled'.... 

Barbaric Genie, Core Shopping Centre, Calgary, Alberta, 2014. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

"Balfour Der, criminal law defence attorney and criminal law textbook author, said the procedure that was invoked on Thursday is called Talesman, and it was imported to Canada from England.... 'They are just picked off the streets and brought in to be part of the potential pool of prospective jurors who could be picked for a particular jury.' 

"But those searching for a soft pretzel or a new pair of shoes shouldn't be afraid of going to the mall — Der says it's rare that a potential jury supply is completely depleted for an upcoming trial. 'It is very rarely used. It's very rare that you ever exhaust a panel of prospective jurors, but it can happen'.... A spokesperson for Alberta Justice Minister Tyler Shandro said the last time the procedure was enacted was 1996 in Calgary and December 2020 in Edmonton....

"In this case, 80 potential jurors came to court for jury duty and there weren't enough people to select two juries. The first jury was selected but the second was short six jurors, so additional people were needed.... The spokesperson said if the people who were brought in on Thursday are selected to serve as a juror they would be required to return to court for the trial.

"'Trial by jury is a cornerstone of our criminal justice system. Implicit in the right to a jury trial is that the jury will be chosen randomly, and will be impartial and representative of the larger community. Jury management works hard to avoid the need to rely on the Talesman procedure,' the spokesperson said. 'Unfortunately, and as mentioned above, the number of potential jurors exempted in the days leading up to and on the day of jury selection ultimately resulted in its use.'"

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/summons-immediate-calgary-jury-selection-1.6493797

Criminal charges laid against Toronto BBQ owner

Etobicoke restaurant owner facing new charges for again defying COVID-19 lockdown rules | CP24 - Joshua Freeman & Kerissa Wilson: 

November 26, 2020 -"Two men are now facing criminal charges and the city has completely seized a building following a raucous three day-long dispute between police and city officials and a restauranteur who brazenly declared that he would open up to serve customers despite lockdown orders.... Adam Skelly, the owner of the Adamson Barbecue restaurant in Etobicoke, was arrested by Toronto police officers Thursday afternoon after a crowd of supporters allegedly broke through a cordoned-off section of the building by smashing down drywall in an effort to reopen the shuttered restaurant.

"Speaking with reporters Thursday afternoon, Supt. Domenic Sinopoli said police allowed Skelly into a section of the building “in good faith” because they didn’t believe that it fell under a closure order from Toronto Public Health. However a crowd of supporters then tried to smash through the walls to reopen the facility.... 

"Sinopoli said Skelly, 33, now faces one count of attempting to obstruct police, one count of mischief under, one count of failing to comply with a continued order under the Reopening Ontario Act, and one count of failing to leave when directed under the Trespass to Property Act.... He said 27-year-old Michael Belito Arana of Markham is now facing a slew of charges, including one count of obstructing police, six counts of assaulting a police officer, two counts of uttering a death threat, and one count of failing to comply with a continued order under the Reopening Ontario Act. 

"Both men are expected to appear in court via video link tomorrow morning for a bail hearing. Toronto Public Health has now taken occupancy of the entire premises and police will be posting trespassing signs prohibiting people from entering the building or the adjacent parking lot, Sinopoli said.... City spokesperson Brad Ross told reporters that workers will be boarding up the building and changing the locks tonight to prevent re-entry....

"At around 6 a.m. Thursday, police returned to the restaurant for a third day in a row to change the locks under an overnight order made by Toronto Public Health. Skelly was seen first arriving at the premises shortly before 8 a.m. He asked the media to stay off the property and was seen talking with police officers. Shortly after, he entered a portion of the building where there is no access to the restaurant, through a back door to obtain personal belongings. Adamson Barbecue posted an Instagram story on their account Thursday morning saying 'need locksmith & other hands at Etobicoke asap.'

"A crowd of people surrounded the establishment in support of Skelly, who vowed to continue reopening his business despite provincial COVID-19 lockdown rules in Toronto and Peel Region that prohibit indoor dining to curb the spread of the virus.

"Crowds formed around the premises throughout the morning and many people were seen without masks or face coverings. At around 12:30 p.m., Skelly and another man were taken away from the premises in handcuffs by police officers."

Read more: https://www.cp24.com/news/etobicoke-restaurant-owner-facing-new-charges-for-again-defying-covid-19-lockdown-rules-1.5205287

Adamson BBQ Legal Defence Fund: https://ca.gofundme.com/f/adamson-bbq-legal-defence-fund

Congress must limit POTUS's emergency powers, says Rand Paul

Sen. Rand Paul says it's time for Congress to rein in the President's power | News | WDRB.com:

June 14, 2019 - "Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said President Trump is acting too much like a king, and it is time for Congress to do its job of checking presidential power. Paul, a Republican who generally supports the president, pointed to Trump’s declaring a national emergency to fund a border wall.

“'You may remember me sometimes saying President Obama was abusing the separation of powers and acting too much like a king. Well, now there's a Republican doing some of the similar things,' Paul told WDRB News ... in Louisville. 'I'm for spending for some border security. I think we do have to have secure borders, but I think Congress has to appropriate the money. I don't think the president should be allowed to.'

"Paul said the separation of powers also applies to tariffs. 'I'm not a big fan of tariffs,' he said. 'I think they're hurting Kentucky. But I really am not a big fan of one person being able to decide there are tariffs.'

"Paul has co-sponsored a bill with Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon to limit the president's emergency powers. Paul said he is 'absolutely' concerned that a president’s power should be checked regardless of which party controls the White House....

"Paul was in Louisville to talk to a meeting of the Kentucky Bar Association about criminal justice reform. He was a big supporter of the First Step Act, which reduced mandatory life sentences for some non-violent drug offenses to 25 years and funded programs to help ex-felons return to society. He believes the federal and state governments should do even more. 'In Kentucky, believe it or not, you can kill somebody and be eligible for parole in 12 years,' he said. 'But you can sell drugs, and be in jail for life. I think we have to reassess.'

"But Paul said he does not want to be misunderstood as supporting drug use. 'I think drugs are a bad thing,' he said. 'I don’t want our kids on drugs. I don’t want our adults on drugs. But the thing is I also don’t want to put people in jail for it either.'

"Justice reform is an issue he pushed during his 2016 presidential campaign, and Paul is not exactly ruling out a second run in 2024. 'It’s just hard to imagine in the future, but I did it once, and it was an exciting time,' he said. 'Unless something would dramatically change, I don't see it happening again. But we'll see.'”

Read more: https://www.wdrb.com/news/sen-rand-paul-says-it-s-time-for-congress-to/article_70cb2d20-8ecf-11e9-86d6-8382b2c25328.html

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How Canada fumbled the cannabis file

Opinion: These are the 5 biggest mistakes of cannabis legalization in Canada | Grow by Daily Hive - Sarah Leaman:

June 24, 2019 - "It’s been nearly nine months since the legalization of cannabis, but things are far from perfect in the great green north. Here are the five biggest fails of Canadian cannabis legalization so far:

Packaging
"Cannabis packaging requirements shocked the public when they were unveiled back in October and it quickly became apparent that way too much plastic was involved. Following legalization, a single gram of cannabis comes with approximately 70 grams of plastic, foil, and packaging. The amount of packaging goes up if cannabis is sent through the mail. And to add insult to irony, just a few weeks ago, the Prime Minister announced a comprehensive, intended ban on single-use plastics in an effort to help combat climate change, leaving the government’s approach to cannabis completely disconnected from reality....

Impaired driving laws
"When cannabis was legalized, several new impaired driving laws were also introduced. The first of these laws involved the launch of roadside oral fluid screening devices..... We presently have two federally approved devices for police use on our roadways: the Draeger DrugTest 5000 and the Abbott SoToxa. The problem? Neither of these devices are able to detect driver impairment. And, on top of that major malfunction, both devices are prone to failure, meaning that they can generate both false positive and false negative readings....

"And to make a bad situation worse, the Criminal Code has been amended to include per se limits for THC in a driver’s bloodstream.  This mirrors provisions in relation to alcohol. But ... THC is fat-soluble; not water-soluble like alcohol..... This means that THC can remain in a persons’ body for an extended period of time and long after the effects of impairment have worn off, which will inevitably lead to sober people being charged with serious offences.

"While these changes were done in the interests of public safety, there has been absolutely no indication that they were necessary. Rates of impaired driving have not increased ... since October 17, 2018.

Continued criminalization
"While cannabis is technically legal in Canada, the flower is still far from being free.... [T]he Cannabis Act concurrently created over forty new cannabis-related offences in this country.... Many offences could land a person with a criminal record, or even behind bars.... And ... the government has been dragging its heels on the issue of cannabis amnesty. Failure to include amnesty provisions from the very outset of cannabis legalization was a critical misstep, which opened the door to criticism about the governments’ commitment to true cannabis decriminalization.....

Stigmatizing employment policies
"When cannabis was legalized on October 17, 2018, many employers acted as though it had just been invented that very day.... The kneejerk reaction to legal cannabis caused employers to create strict new policies around cannabis [as] in the airline industry, which has effectively banned cannabis use for all employees, no matter if they are on duty or not. The 28-day pre-flight cannabis ban sits in stark contrast to Transport Canada policies around alcohol, which simply prohibit consumption 12-hours prior to reporting for duty.

Distribution and shortages
"Last but certainly not least, are issues around effective cannabis distribution and shortages that have plagued our country since legalization.... Canadians wishing to access a legal supply were forced to wait in long lines and subject themselves to unreasonable wait times. With few brick and mortar stores up and running, many Canadians were left to rely on the internet to order online....  This dissatisfaction only worsened when the government reported that systematic cannabis shortages could be expected for years to come. Current projections predict that cannabis shortages will last well into 2022."

Read more: https://dailyhive.com/grow/cannabis-legalization-fails-canada
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Koch machine stresses coalition-building in 2019

The Daily 202: The Koch network donor retreat turns touchy-feely - The Washington Post - James Hohmann with Joanie Greve:

January 28, 2019 - "Liberal activist Van Jones protested the Koch brothers outside their donor meeting in 2011. Groups funded by the billionaire-backed network had successfully clamored for his ouster as President Barack Obama’s green jobs czar two years earlier, labeling him a dangerous radical.

"At the 2019 Koch seminar, however, there is a giant banner with Jones’s smiling face.... He’s literally become the poster child for how the network of conservative and libertarian donors hopes to seek out unlikely allies to advance its agenda. Jones, now a CNN talking head, recorded a video with Koch Industries general counsel Mark Holden about their partnership to pass the First Step Act, a sweeping overhaul of the criminal justice system that President Trump signed into law last month.

"That’s been the vibe here in the Coachella Valley all weekend as the network aggressively seeks to rebrand itself as kinder, gentler and less political.

"Wearing purple, the color of bipartisanship, industrialist Charles Koch — who remains a boogeyman on the left — declared that his top goal is 'uniting with people across the whole spectrum, including those who have been adversaries in the past,' to pursue shared priorities. 'This attitude of holding things against others who have different beliefs is tearing our country apart,' the 83-year-old said during a cocktail reception on Saturday night. 'What we need to do, and what we’re doing, is bringing people together'....

"Charles has concluded that reaching across the aisle to build coalitions is the best way to maximize his network’s impact with a president in the White House he personally doesn’t like but whom many members of his network do. The network plans to stay out of the presidential race again in 2020, as it did in 2016....

"Even though the president has attacked Koch personally, network officials were still able to work constructively with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner on criminal justice.... Indeed, the president’s son-in-law appeared in the same video as Jones. 'One of the things that really surprised people, including myself, was how broad the coalition we were able to build was,' Kushner said....

"In past years, network leaders announced how much money they planned to spend on politics and policy in the upcoming election cycle. This year, they’re not providing a target. Brian Hooks, the chairman of the Seminar Network, which includes the constellation of Koch groups, said they still plan to devote 'significant resources' but that the opportunities will dictate the amount. 'We see this as the next big step forward in the evolution of this network,' Hooks said."

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2019/01/28/daily-202-the-koch-network-donor-retreat-turns-touchy-feely/5c4e843a1b326b29c3778ce2/
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U.S. Congress passes First Step Act

First Step Act: House passes criminal justice reform, following Senate - Vox - German Lopez:

December 20, 2018 - "The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a criminal justice reform bill, sending the most significant changes to the federal criminal justice system in decades to President Donald Trump’s desk. The Senate previously overwhelmingly approved the legislation in an 87-12 vote.

"The bill, called the First Step Act, makes modest changes to the federal system. It very slightly pulls back punitive mandatory minimum sentences by, for example, letting judges give lower sentences in some circumstances and relaxing a 'three strikes' law to give 25 years instead of life in prison. It makes 2010 crack sentencing reforms, which eased crack sentences to bring them more in line with powder cocaine penalties, retroactive. It expands 'good time credits' that well-behaved inmates can use to get out of prison a little earlier. It creates 'earned time credits' that encourage inmates to take part in rehabilitative programs for an earlier release.

"It doesn’t end the war on drugs or mass incarceration. It won’t stop police from locking up nonviolent drug offenders. It doesn’t legalize marijuana. It doesn’t even end mandatory minimums or reduce prison sentences across the board, and it in fact only tweaks both. As the First Step Act’s name suggests, its supporters consider it a first step.

"The bill also only affects the federal system — which, with about 181,000 imprisoned people, holds a small but significant fraction of the US jail and prison population of 2.1 million.... In total, the First Step Act will let a few thousand inmates — likely around 6,000 to 7,000 — out of prison early once it’s enacted, and slightly shorten prison sentences in the future....

"Even though Trump ran on a 'tough on crime' platform in which he promised to support harsh prison sentences, the president has come to support the legislation — in large part thanks to the backing of key advisers, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner. He’s expected to sign the bill in the coming days."

Read more: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/20/18148482/first-step-act-criminal-justice-reform-house-congress
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Cash bail requirements cost U.S. $15 billion/year

Report: Imprisoning People Who Can’t Pay Bail Costs America $15 Billion a Year - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Scott Shackford:

December 19, 2018 - "America's dependence on cash bail does more than just deprive people of their liberty merely for being accused of a crime; it also costs the rest of us a fortune....

"A new report by The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution attempts to measure the full financial impact of pretrial detention in the United States. Analysts Patrick Liu, Ryan Nunn, and Jay Shambaugh calculated that pretrial detentions that are the result solely of people being unable to pay bail cost the country $15 billion a year.

"They arrived at this figure by looking at the average number of people who are sitting in jails every day who have been offered bail but haven't paid it, typically because they cannot afford it. That's about 412,000 people, nearly a quarter of our incarcerated population. They calculated how much it costs to jail somebody each day. This varies wildly from state to state, but averages out to $77.67 a day, or about $28,000 a year per person....

"Liu et al. also did their best to calculate out how much money the economy loses due the amount of time somebody spends in jail and is therefore unable to work. That worked out to an average of about $8,590 annually per prisoner. All together, that comes out to $15.26 billion a year....

"The report also looks at trends of pretrial detention and finds a dramatic increase over a decade of both the number of people being held in jail prior to trial and the amount of time they have to spend waiting for their day in court.

"Since the 1990s, the number of people who have been ordered to pay bail (or some other financial obligation) in order to be freed has risen from 53 percent to 72 percent. What's more, pretrial detentions have increased even as total arrests have gone down....

"During this timeframe, the amount of time it took between arrest and adjudication for people charged with crimes increased in pretty much every category.... So people who cannot afford the increasing amounts of money being asked for their freedom are being punished with even longer waits behind bars....

"About 50 percent of those who are released before trial need a commercial bond (as in a bail bondsman) to cover the court's imposed bail. That means they have to pay typically 10 percent to the bondsman to be freed, which is money they never get back. Essentially, they're being ordered to pay a fine to a third party (sometimes in the thousands of dollars) to be released. If they don't, they sit in a jail cell. Either way, they're punished prior to conviction."

Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/12/19/report-imprisoning-people-who-cant-pay-b
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Trump backs criminal justice reform bill

Bipartisan criminal-justice reform could happen soon — if the 1990s wing of the GOP gets out of the way - Los Angeles Times:

November 19, 2018 - "A federal criminal-justice reform bill designed to make sentencing more rational and inmates’ return to society more successful has bipartisan support and last week won the backing of President Trump.... The bill, known as the First Step Act, would move federal sentencing laws and reentry programs ever so slightly in the direction of reforms already adopted in many deep blue states such as California and many bright red ones such as Georgia.

"Congress has already reduced sentences for crack convictions to bring them more in line with similar offenses involving powder cocaine, but the changes apply only to convictions handed down in 2010 or later. This bill would finally make those changes retroactive and would thus affect thousands of imprisoned, mostly African American men sentenced under the unfair drug laws adopted in the crime panic of the 1990s. It also would eliminate mandatory life-without-parole for repeat drug offenders and would reduce mandatory sentences for other drug offenses by a few years. It would reduce mandatory minimums for gun crimes ([but] does not eliminate the availability of much longer sentences). And it would enforce laws and regulations that are already on the books but are not always followed — for example, applying good-conduct credits ... and providing rehabilitative services and education.

"These changes are overdue. Long sentences keep thousands of Americans locked up well after the punitive or rehabilitative value of the incarceration has been exhausted. The bill returns some discretion to judges to make the sentence fit the crime....

"The bill is modest in the extreme.... For all its modesty, though, it’s a good bill, and if they are smart, Democrats and Republicans, the House and the Senate, will join and adopt it during the lame-duck session....

"Many conservatives have come to question tough sentencing laws, seeing them as contrary to bedrock values of small government, fiscal discipline, personal responsibility and family preservation. The 'Right on Crime' movement has worked to recapture from liberals the moral leadership on criminal-justice reform. At the same time, tough-on-crime Republicans like [Sen. Tom] Cotton (and recently departed Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions) remain influential....

"Trump ... campaigned as a traditional tough-on-crime conservative and backed Sessions.... Earlier this year, he called for the death penalty for drug dealers.... But the bill has been strongly pushed by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the president has now signed on. Most of the signals are good. Congress would be wise to act quickly, before the notoriously mercurial president changes his mind."

Read more: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-step-act-20181119-story.html
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State must reimburse wrongfully convicted, SCOTUS rules

Wrongfully Convicted Entitled to Refunds, Rules Supreme Court - David G. Savage, Governing.com:

April 20, 2017 - "People who are freed from prison when their convictions are reversed deserve a refund of what they paid in fees, court costs and restitution, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday....

"The 7-1 decision orders the state of Colorado to refund several thousand dollars to two defendants, a woman and a man, who were convicted of sex crimes but had their convictions reversed. Shannon Nelson, who was charged with abusing her children, was acquitted in a retrial, and the prostitution-related charges against Louis Madden were dropped.

"In both instances, the state insisted on keeping the restitution they had paid.

"UCLA law professor Stuart Banner and the UCLA Supreme Court Clinic appealed the case of Nelson v. Colorado to the high court last year, noting that Colorado was the only state that regularly refused to refund money taken from criminal defendants who were later exonerated.

"Arguing the case in January, Banner said that as a matter of common sense and long legal tradition, people who were exonerated had a right to get back the money that was taken from them.

"The state's lawyer had raised eyebrows among the justices by arguing that the money in question was 'the state's money' because it was 'obtained pursuant to a conviction.'

"Colorado had adopted an Exoneration Act that allowed 'an innocent person who was wrongly convicted' to file a civil suit to seek refunds, but only if they could prove they were innocent of the crime. Most states allowed exonerated people to file a motion with a trial judge seeking a refund.

"Ginsburg said Colorado's scheme violates the 14th Amendment's protection for due process of law because it presumes the exonerated defendants are still guilty.

"'After a conviction has been reversed, unless and until the defendant should be retried, he must be presumed innocent of that charge,' she said, quoting earlier rulings. 'Colorado may not presume a person, adjudged guilty of no crime, nonetheless guilty enough for monetary extractions.'"

http://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/tns-scotus-wrongful-conviction.html
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Where Charles Koch & Bernie Sanders agree

Charles Koch: This is the one issue where Bernie Sanders is right - The Washington Post:

February 18, 2016 - "Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) often sounds like he’s running as much against me as he is the other candidates.... I see benefits in searching for common ground and greater civility during this overly negative campaign season. That’s why, in spite of the fact that he often misrepresents where I stand on issues, the senator should know that we do agree on at least one....

"The senator is upset with a political and economic system that is often rigged to help the privileged few at the expense of everyone else, particularly the least advantaged. He believes that we have a two-tiered society that increasingly dooms millions of our fellow citizens to lives of poverty and hopelessness. He thinks many corporations seek and benefit from corporate welfare while ordinary citizens are denied opportunities and a level playing field.

"I agree with him.

"Democrats and Republicans have too often favored policies and regulations that pick winners and losers. This helps perpetuate a cycle of control, dependency, cronyism and poverty in the United States.... Large portions of the business community have actively pushed for these policies.

"Consider the regulations, handouts, mandates, subsidies and other forms of largesse our elected officials dole out to the wealthy and well-connected. The tax code alone contains $1.5 trillion in exemptions and special-interest carve-outs. Anti-competitive regulations cost businesses an additional $1.9 trillion every year. Perversely, this regulatory burden falls hardest on small companies, innovators and the poor, while benefitting many large companies like ours. This unfairly benefits established firms and penalizes new entrants, contributing to a two-tiered society.

"Whenever we allow government to pick winners and losers, we impede progress and move further away from a society of mutual benefit. This pits individuals and groups against each other and corrupts the business community, which inevitably becomes less focused on creating value for customers. That’s why Koch Industries opposes all forms of corporate welfare — even those that benefit us. (The government’s ethanol mandate is a good example. We oppose that mandate, even though we are the fifth-largest ethanol producer in the United States)....

"I applaud the senator for giving a voice to many Americans struggling to get ahead in a system too often stacked in favor of the haves, but I disagree with his desire to expand the federal government’s control over people’s lives. This is what built so many barriers to opportunity in the first place.

"Consider America’s War on Poverty. Since its launch under President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, we have spent roughly $22 trillion, yet our poverty rate remains at 14.8 percent. Instead of preventing, curing and relieving the causes and symptoms of poverty (the goals of the program when it began), too many communities have been torn apart and remain in peril while even more tax dollars pour into this broken system.

"It is results, not intentions, that matter. History has proven that a bigger, more controlling, more complex and costlier federal government leaves the disadvantaged less likely to improve their lives....

"When it comes to electing our next president, we should reward those candidates, Democrat or Republican, most committed to the principles of a free society. Those principles start with the right to live your life as you see fit as long as you don’t infringe on the ability of others to do the same. They include equality before the law, free speech and free markets and treating people with dignity, respect and tolerance. In a society governed by such principles, people succeed by helping others improve their lives."

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-koch-this-is-the-one-issue-where-bernie-sanders-is-right/2016/02/18/cdd2c228-d5c1-11e5-be55-2cc3c1e4b76b_story.html
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Police used as tax collectors, justice reform conference told

America's most conservative figures make case for criminal justice reform: Jarvis DeBerry | NOLA.com:

November 6, 2015 - "You want to know why some Ferguson, Mo., residents hated their police? Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform and perhaps the most rigidly conservative man in the country, gave his opinion Friday morning (Nov. 6). Norquist, as everybody knows, hates taxes. And at a criminal justice reform conference hosted by the Charles Koch Institute, Norquist argued that humankind's antipathy for the tax collector explains the anger in that St. Louis suburb.

"As a March report from the Department of Justice revealed, city officials in Ferguson relied on tickets and fees to fund their government. Every year, officials were raising projections, that is, the amount they expected to extract from the people. And who were they expecting to bring them that money? The police.

"'We've turned these guys into tax collectors then we wonder why we hate them," Norquist said. 'Because we haven't read history. Take them out of the tax-collection business!'....<

"Stephanie Cutter, who served as a deputy campaign manager for President Barack Obama in 2012 ... agreed with Norquist that it's problematic to send police out primarily to collect fees, but insisted that it's more complex than that. Cutter also stood with Norquist in opposition to civil asset forfeiture. That's when, for example, the police raid a house looking for drugs and take an occupant's property or cash. Even if the person is acquitted of a crime, he or she will likely have to sue to get their property back. Suing often costs more than the value of the seized property. 'There's nothing fair about it,' Cutter said....

"[O]ther conference panelists complained about the increasing militarization of our police forces. There was also lots of talk about 'overcriminalization.' Some of the panelists seem to equate increasing government regulations on businesses with overcriminalization, but Stephen Smith, a law professor at Notre Dame, said what's happening to individuals is far worse than anything happening to corporations.

"Many of our criminal statutes are vaguely written and judges interpret them in a way that's most favorable to prosecutors, Smith said, and in so many places, indigent defense is a joke....

"Citing the work of attorney Harvey Silverglate who says the average American unwittingly commits three felonies a day, Smith said that in the feds' eyes, 'Everything's a crime. You can try to fight it. Even if you have the money to fight it, you're still going to be convicted.'"

Read more: http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2015/11/grover_norquist_reform.html
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Mens rea bills introduced in U.S. House & Senate

In reforming federal criminal law, intent is key | TheHill - James R. Copland & Rafael Mangual:

November 27, 2015 - "On November 17, the House Judiciary Committee unveiled four bills to address what we and other reformers have called 'over-criminalization.' The first of these, The Criminal Code Improvement Act, was principally sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and bipartisan cosponsors including Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the House’s longest-serving member. The bill sought to clarify federal criminal standards regarding criminal intent. The next day, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) introduced his own, similar criminal justice reform bill.

"On November 18, Sensenbrenner’s bill sailed through committee markup unanimously, but left-wing groups such as ThinkProgress and Public Citizen came out in opposition, falsely characterizing it as a sop to business. The White House followed suit — placing in jeopardy the Obama administration’s stated desire for criminal-justice reform, including changes to federal sentencing laws.

"That’s unfortunate. Over-criminalization, which refers to the vast expansion of what is deemed criminal under law, is a very real concern. The federal criminal code now contains nearly 5,000 crimes and more than 300,000 criminally enforceable regulations. Thus, it is impossible even for trained attorneys, let alone the everyday citizen, to know what may be considered criminal. According to civil-libertarian lawyer Harvey Silvergate, the average American unknowingly commits three felonies a day....

"Traditionally, individuals could be held civilly liable for accidentally transgressing legal norms, but to be criminally convicted, an individual had to have mens rea, Latin for a 'guilty mind.' The federal legal and regulatory codes, however, are now rife with offenses that lack such protections: According to a 2010 study by the Heritage Foundation and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, 57 percent of the 446 new nonviolent crimes proposed in the 109th Congress lacked the traditional intent standard, as did 64 percent of those crimes ultimately enacted into law....

"Sensenbrenner’s and Hatch’s bills squarely address this problem by making 'knowing' or 'willful' violations the default rule for criminal violations in federal law: Though Congress may make certain actions criminal without a showing of intent, courts would no longer be permitted to assume that Congress meant to do so unless a statute says so explicitly.....

"Indeed, fourteen states already have statutes that explicitly create a default criminal-intent standard. Ohio most recently enacted such legislation, in December 2014. Like Sensenbrenner’s bill in committee, Ohio’s default criminal-intent act passed both houses of its legislature unanimously, and there is no good reason why there shouldn’t be similarly broad, bipartisan support for the idea at the federal level.

"Reasonable minds can differ about the merits of various federal laws and regulations, but it’s indisputably impossible to navigate 300,000 rules without risk of error.... The White House’s stated opposition aside, let’s hope Congress takes up the new bills — and starts taking criminal intent seriously."

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/judicial/261355-in-reforming-federal-criminal-law-intent-is-key
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Few jailed drug offenders are real criminals

Most people in federal prison for drug offenses have no serious criminal history - Vox - German Lopez:

November 13, 2015 - "In October, the [U.S] federal government conducted the largest ever release of federal prisoners, letting 6,000 drug offenders out into the world. As bipartisan support pushes criminal justice reform forward at the state and federal levels, Americans should expect these types of releases to continue. But many people, such as Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, are worried this will lead to more crime and chaos.

"But there's a good reason not to worry: There's little indication most federal drug offenders are violent or dangerous, even if they were involved in drug trafficking.

"A new report from the Urban Institute ... found that a majority of drug offenders in federal prison have no serious, violent criminal history. A little more than one in five have a minor history, such as simple assault and other crimes that don't typically lead to serious injury. Fewer than one in four drug offenders in federal prison has a serious history....

"Only 14 percent were sentenced for being a manager, supervisor, leader, or organizer in an offense. Fewer than 14 percent were sentenced for using violence, making a credible threat to use violence, or directing the use of violence during the offense. And more than 75 percent didn't have or weren't in the presence of a weapon during the offense.

"The result: There are a lot of people serving long prison sentences — on average, more than nine years, according to Urban Institute — for what amounts to small-time drug dealing. The general consensus among criminal justice reformers is that there's little reason to think this population is a serious risk to society and should be in prison at all or for very long, so maybe releasing them a little early isn't a bad idea."

Read more: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2015/11/13/9730702/drug-offenders-facts-statistics
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Kochs win praise for criminal justice reform efforts

Democrats Fight — With Each Other — Over The Kochs - BuzzFeed News - Evan McMorris-Santoro:

July 17, 2015 - "Democrats are defending the efforts of the Koch brothers. And they’re defending the Kochs from attacks by other Democrats, who say the brothers’ criminal justice work is just a 'scam'....

"It’s a weird turn of events, but the unsurprising conclusion to the drug war collision course: progressives and libertarians, led by the Kochs, agree that the tough-on-crime policies of the 1980s and ’90s need to change, from mandatory-minimum sentencing to the use of criminal records in hiring. President Obama even praised the Kochs this week, a week in which he commuted the life sentences of 46 drug offenders and advocates say big changes could really be coming....

 "Beyond the politics, many progressive-leaning advocates inside the criminal justice movement actually don’t think the Koch brothers ... are trying to pull a fast one with their support for the cause. Mark Holden, Koch Industries’ general counsel, can talk for hours about the minutiae of the criminal justice system and the ways it should be changed to be fairer to the poor and minorities. Liberal advocates often single him out as a powerful ally.

"Outside of the legislative fight, the Kochs have won praise from the left for instituting changes within Koch-owned companies [that] advocates on the left have long said would mitigate the impact a conviction could have on felons long after they leave prison. In April, Koch Industries stopped asking prospective employees about their criminal history on applications.... Holden said the banning the box was an effort to make hiring at Koch Industries a model. 'We removed the box from our application because we are focused on finding the best candidates for employment based on who they are now and their entire person,' he told BuzzFeed News....

"The recent success of the criminal justice advocates can be traced back almost entirely to Koch-backed efforts in red states like Texas and Georgia to reduce nonviolent drug sentences and release prisoners into less expensive community outreach programs and supervised probation. That effort linked libertarians, evangelicals and social justice progressives....

"In Washington, progressive lawmakers who had pushed for changes to the criminal justice system as it relates to the drug war for years found themselves with Republican allies as the libertarian wing of the Tea Party movement took power. Those Republicans quickly became the most vocal supporters of criminal justice legislation on Capitol Hill, joining with progressive Democrats to support bills aimed at eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and other priorities....

"The two sides formally combined their national efforts after Republicans won the Senate in 2014. Criminal justice was on the short list of agenda items the White House said could be possible in the new political reality, and it wasn’t long before the Kochs and CAP linked up to to create the high-profile Coalition For Public Safety, which promised to pour millions into a push to pass new criminal justice laws.

"Koch-funded advocates and their allies are a regular part of the coalition to make bipartisan criminal justice legislation happen before the end of the year. That group has the support of the White House, which has regularly hosted meetings between criminal justice advocates, including Koch-backed advocates, and administration officials".

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/democrats-fight-with-each-other-over-the-kochs
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Do average Americans commit 3 felonies a day?

L. Gordon Crovitz: You Commit Three Felonies a Day - WSJ - Wall Street Journal:

September 27, 2009 - "Technology moves so quickly we can barely keep up, and our legal system moves so slowly it can't keep up with itself. By design, the law is built up over time by court decisions, statutes and regulations. Sometimes even criminal laws are left vague, to be defined case by case. Technology exacerbates the problem of laws so open and vague that they are hard to abide by, to the point that we have all become potential criminals.

"Boston civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate calls his new book Three Felonies a Day, referring to the number of crimes he estimates the average American now unwittingly commits because of vague laws. New technology adds its own complexity, making innocent activity potentially criminal.

Mr. Silverglate describes several cases in which prosecutors didn't understand or didn't want to understand technology. This problem is compounded by a trend that has accelerated since the 1980s for prosecutors to abandon the principle that there can't be a crime without criminal intent."

"In 2001, a man named Bradford Councilman was charged in Massachusetts with violating the wiretap laws. He worked at a company that offered an online book-listing service and also acted as an Internet service provider to book dealers. As an ISP, the company routinely intercepted and copied emails as part of the process of shuttling them through the Web to recipients.

"The federal wiretap laws, Mr. Silverglate writes, were 'written before the dawn of the Internet, often amended, not always clear, and frequently lagging behind the whipcrack speed of technological change.' Prosecutors chose to interpret the ISP role of momentarily copying messages as they made their way through the system as akin to impermissibly listening in on communications. The case went through several rounds of litigation, with no judge making the obvious point that this is how ISPs operate. After six years, a jury found Mr. Councilman not guilty.

"Other misunderstandings of the Web criminalize the exercise of First Amendment rights. A Saudi student in Idaho was charged in 2003 with offering 'material support' to terrorists. He had operated Web sites for a Muslim charity that focused on normal religious training, but was prosecuted on the theory that if a user followed enough links off his site, he would find violent, anti-American comments on other sites. The Internet is a series of links, so if there's liability for anything in an online chain, it would be hard to avoid prosecution."

Read more: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704471504574438900830760842
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Three Felonies a Day website: http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx

The growing problem of 'regulatory crimes'

You are probably breaking the law right now - Glenn Harlan Reynolds, USA Today:

March 29, 2015 - "Ignorance of the law, we are often told, is no excuse. 'Every man is presumed to know the law,' says a long-established legal aphorism.... But not everybody favors this state of affairs. While a century or two ago nearly all crime was traditional common-law crime — rape, murder, theft and other things that pretty much everyone should know are bad — nowadays we face all sorts of 'regulatory crimes' in which intuitions of right and wrong play no role, but for which the penalties are high.

"If you walk down the sidewalk, pick up a pretty feather, and take it home, you could be a felon — if it happens to be a bald eagle feather. Bald eagles are plentiful now, and were taken off the endangered species list years ago, but the federal law making possession of them a crime for most people is still on the books, and federal agents are even infiltrating some Native-American powwows in order to find and arrest people.... Other examples abound, from getting lost in a storm and snowmobiling on the wrong bit of federal land, to diverting storm sewer water around a building....

"Michael Cottone, in a just-published Tennessee Law Review article, suggests that maybe the old presumption that individuals know the law is outdated, unfair and maybe even unconstitutional. 'Tellingly,' he writes, 'no exact count of the number of federal statutes that impose criminal sanctions has ever been given, but estimates from the last 15 years range from 3,600 to approximately 4,500.' Meanwhile, according to recent congressional testimony, the number of federal regulations (enacted by administrative agencies under loose authority from Congress) carrying criminal penalties may be as many as 300,000....

"To solve this problem we need for judges to abandon the presumption that people know the law, at least where regulatory crimes are concerned, and require some proof that the accused knew or should reasonably have known that his conduct was illegal. Alternatively, Congress should adopt legislation requiring such proof. (And I would favor allowing defendants in any action brought by the federal government — civil or criminal — to have the option of arguing to the jury that the government's action against them is unfair or biased, with the charges dropped and legal fees being charged to the government if the jury agrees.)"

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/03/29/crime-law-criminal-unfair-column/70630978/
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Indefinite detention laws should concern minorities, says Rand Paul

Rand Paul: Jews, Blacks Should Worry About Indefinite Detention - US News - Steven Nelson:

March 13, 2015 -"Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Friday at the historically black Bowie State University in Maryland that minority groups should be concerned about possibly languishing in the Guantánamo Bay detention camp without trial.

"Paul, a likely 2016 presidential candidate, was speaking about criminal justice reform, giving a wide-ranging address focused on his efforts to roll back civil asset forfeitures and mandatory minimum sentences, and to restore voting rights and employment opportunities for ex-felons.

"Paul has helped bring such issues into the mainstream, but sounded more like his father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, during one point in the speech with a dire warning about the erosion of constitutional rights.

"'We have something now in America called indefinite detention,' Paul said. “This means an American citizen could be indefinitely placed in prison and sent to Guantánamo Bay forever without trial.

"'Who should be afraid of this? Anybody think that you might want to be afraid if you’re Jewish?' he said.

"'Have people ever seen any kind of animus towards the Jewish people? Anybody ever think there was any animus towards African-Americans in our country? Anybody [who thinks] there’s been an animus towards any kind of minority in our country ought to be concerned about incarceration without a trial.'

Paul said there’s no reason to suspect racial and religious minorities will be rounded up and indefinitely jailed anytime soon, but pointed to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II as an example of why such fears aren’t baseless.

"Paul has supported amending the annual National Defense Authorization Act to bar the possibility of indefinitely detaining suspects who are U.S. citizens, and made similar arguments in 2012 when such an amendment passed the Senate but was then dumped by a bicameral conference committee."

Read more: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/03/13/rand-paul-jews-blacks-should-worry-about-indefinite-detention
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Republicans to push criminal justice reform in 2015

The Growing Republican Divide on Criminal Justice Reform | TIME - Alex Altman:

December 29, 2014 - "Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist and Republican Party donor, says he will make criminal justice reform a major cause in 2015. 'Over the next year, we are going to be pushing the issues key to this, which need a lot of work in this country,' Koch said in an interview with the Wichita Eagle.

"Koch is a big spender — and something of a bogeyman among many liberals — so this made news. The 'conservative mega-donor,' a Politico story blared, 'is opening his wallet on an unexpected issue.'

"Except it shouldn’t be unexpected. Koch is a libertarian, and libertarians have a history of opposing policies, such as mandatory minimum sentencing, that have made the U.S. incarceration rate the highest in the world. What’s perhaps more surprising is how Republican politicians from other parts of the spectrum are beginning to embrace criminal justice reform as well.

"Virtually all of the likely 2016 Republican field supports some element of criminal-justice reform. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is the most visible and least surprising proponent; as a libertarian-leaning conservative, he has staked his candidacy on the idea that the GOP must adjust its policies as the composition of the electorate changes. But Paul is hardly the only 2016 hopeful to plant a flag on the issue. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a former federal prosecutor, has called for an end to the 'failed war on drugs' and signed legislation that sent some offenders to rehab instead of prison.

"Rick Perry, the conservative governor of Texas, has been among the nation’s top prison reformers, even winning a national award for his support of drug courts as an alternative to incarceration. Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, another Republican governor eyeing a 2016 bid, pushed legislation that would boost the state’s drug rehab program and make some nonviolent offenders eligible for early release.

"Conservatives in Congress also have an appetite for reform. Paul Ryan produced a white paper on poverty that includes proposals like giving judges sentencing flexibility for nonviolent offenders and letting some inmates earn time off their prison stays for successful participation in programs. Mike Lee, a Republican senator from Utah and a Tea Party favorite, was one of the original sponsors, with liberal senators Dick Durbin and Pat Leahy, of a bill called the Smarter Sentencing Act, which attempts to curtail the draconian sentencing that has left some 2.2 million Americans behind bars. Among the Republicans who have since signed on: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, another presidential hopeful."

Read more: http://time.com/3648638/republicans-police-reform/
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