We have ourselves here some of the weirdest crime trials out there. Some of the pleas and excuses used in these court cases would make any rational persons head spin and jaw drop.
For our first crime:
In July of 2002, Tonda Lynn Ansley of Hamilton, Ohio shot her landlady in the head. This is generally fatal.
The Defense:
Ansley told police, “They commit a lot of crimes in The Matrix.” Following her lead, Ansley’s attorney reasoned that the “our world is just an illusion generated by our machine overlords” argument was bulletproof and used it as the cornerstone of an insanity defense. They claimed that Ansley thought her landlady was part of a scheme to “brainwash and murder” her while in reality everyone was presumably living in pods of red goo.
How’d it Work?
All too well. Ansley’s defense was able to prove that she believed she was inside a computer simulation, and as such felt she was entitled to waste anyone around her that could possibly prove a threat. A jury of her peers found her not guilty by reason of mental defect.
On the surface this case seems to echo John Hinckley’s famous “Taxi Driver Defense,” but there are a few subtle differences we would like to point out: Hinckley claimed he tried to kill President Reagan to impress Jodie Foster by emulating the character of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. Tonda Lynn Ansley, on the other hand, shot her landlady in the face because she saw Keanu Reeves jump over buildings and stop bullets with his mind in The Matrix. We feel Ansley went the extra mile.
Note that this defense was so successful that it was used a year later by Vadim Mieseges of San Francisco for, you guessed it, murdering his landlady. Legislation to rename “The Matrix Defense” to the “Kill Your Landlady, Everyone’s Doing It, Defense” is still pending.
Our second crime:
On May 23, 1987, Kenneth Parks drove 14 miles to his in-laws’ house and brutally attacked them, fatally stabbing his mother-in-law. He then hopped back in the car and took himself to the police station to surrender, telling them “I think I may have killed some people,” which is just the sort of thing you want to be uncertain about when surrounded by cops.
The Defense:
Parks claimed he had no recollection of any of the events of the night in question, and could only remember waking up in police custody. His defense counsel proposed that he had committed the murder while sleepwalking and therefore could not be held responsible for his actions (Parks had evidently been dreaming about his mother-in-law blowing a huge lead on Family Feud).
The sleepwalking defense is normally used to escape blame for things like public urination, so prosecutors found it a little far fetched, a phrase which here means “That’s seriously the best he could come up with?”
How’d it Work?
Not to take Parks at his word, doctors and detectives ran an Electroencephalography (EEG) scan to check his story. For those of you unfamiliar with an EEG scan, it consists of attaching multiple electrodes to the head and measuring neuron firing activity in the brain.
The results of the EEG showed that in fact Parks had abnormal brain activity indicative of extreme parasomnia, a dissociative sleep disorder that can lead to anything from night terrors to night stabbings.
Given these results, Parks’s unwavering testimony and no discernible motive for the crime, Parks was acquitted of murder and never invited to spend the night at anyone’s house ever again.
Not to be a harsh critic, I would think that anyone willing to make such absurd claims with or without proof of their mental illness perhaps may very well be playing with a few cards short of a full deck.
When applying for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or supplemental Security Income (SSI) , most people naturally think about the reasons why they should be granted benefits. You may find it useful, however, to turn the perspective around and understand the reasons why you might be denied SSDI or SSI benefits. In some cases, the reasons are beyond your control. In other instances, though, you may be able to avoid doing something that results in a denial.
1. You Earn Too Much Income
For SSDI, the benefit program for workers who have paid into the Social Security system over multiple years, one of the most basic reasons you could be denied benefits is that, when you apply, your income is above the limit where it is considered substantial gainful activity (SGA). This means you earn too much money to be considered disabled. The SGA limit for nonblind people is $1,000 per month in 2011, and the figure is adjusted annually. To find out the current SGA income limit, go to the SSA’s substantial gainful activity page. Income from investments does not count toward the SGA — only work income count, as it shows your ability to work.
For SSI, which is the benefit program for low-income disabled people, the upper income limit is $1,433 per month. Here’s how it works. If you have a small amount of monthly income, your SSI payment will be reduced, by a somewhat complicated formula. Basically, if your income is between $85 and $1432 per month (in 2011), the standard monthly benefit of $674 (in 2011) will be reduced. If you make $1433 or more (in 2011), your payment would be reduced to zero.
2. Your Disability Won’t Last Long Enough
To qualify for SSDI or SSI benefits, the Social Security Administration (SSA) must believe that your impairment is severe enough to last at least 12 months or result in your death. The only exception to this duration requirement is for blind SSI applicants.
Many claims — like those based on bone fractures resulting from acute trauma, such as automobile or motorcycle accidents — are denied because they are not likely to cause disability for 12 months. Almost all bone fractures heal in less than a year. However, if you have severe bone fractures that aren’t healed after six months, the SSA is likely to think your impairment will last a year. Each case is evaluated on an individual basis.
3. The SSA Cannot Find You
The SSA and the Disability Determination Service (DDS) — the agency that determines your medical eligibility for benefits — must be able to communicate with you regarding your application. If these agencies cannot reach you to schedule examinations or communicate with you about critical matters, your benefits may be denied. If you name a representative (such as an attorney) to handle your paperwork, you may not need to get in touch with the SSA, but be sure to stay in touch with your representative or attorney. If you move while your application is being considered, make sure the SSA knows how to contact you. Claimants (those who are applying for Social Security disability) get denied every day because the SSA cannot find them.
4. You Refuse to Cooperate
Your medical records are vital to granting your disability. If you refuse to release those records to the SSA, your claim could be denied. Similarly, the SSA may need additional information about your impairments, either because your treating doctor’s medical records are incomplete or because you have no treating doctor. In these instances, the SSA will request that you be examined by an SSA doctor in something called a consultative examination (CE), at government expense. In some cases, the SSA will require you to attend more than one CE. If you refuse to attend or request that the SSA make a determination based on the medical records already in your file, you may be denied disability because of inadequate medical information or failure to attend the CE.
If you can’t make it to a scheduled CE because of the time or location, talk to your claim examiner so the DDS can schedule a CE at a time or place that is convenient for you. If you repeatedly fail to show up for a CE, your claim will most likely be denied.
5. You Fail to Follow Prescribed Therapy
If you are being treated by a doctor, but fail to follow the doctor’s prescribed therapy when you have the ability to do so, you can be denied disability benefits. However, the SSA recognizes certain legitimate excuses for failing to follow prescribed therapy.
Acceptable medical excuses. Failure to follow prescribed therapy can be excused for reasons beyond your control. Some examples follow.
•You have a mental illness so severe that you cannot comply with prescribed therapy.
•You have cataracts from diabetes that prevent you from being able to accurately measure your insulin dose.
•You have below-normal intelligence that makes you unable to complete required therapy.
•You physically cannot follow prescribed therapy without assistance — for example, because of paralysis of the arms.
•You have a fear of surgery so intense that surgery would not be appropriate. Your treating doctor must confirm the severity of your fear to the DDS consulting doctor.
Acceptable nonmedical excuses. It is possible that you cannot follow a prescribed therapy for a reason that has nothing to do with your medical condition. Acceptable nonmedical excuses for failing to follow prescribed therapy follow.
•You don’t have the money to pay for treatment.
•Your religious beliefs prohibit you from receiving medical therapy.
•Your doctor prescribes incorrect treatment.
•You don’t have a treating doctor.
For the SSA to deny your claim for failing to follow therapy, the therapy that you fail to follow must be one that is clearly expected to restore your ability to do substantial gainful activity. If your treating doctor tells the SSA that the prescribed therapy is not likely to result in your ability to work, the SSA won’t fault you if you don’t follow such therapy. If your treating doctor’s statement is clearly contrary to the general medical opinion, however, the SSA is not bound by it. Note that for a child applying for disability benefits, the issue is whether the prescribed therapy will restore the child’s ability to function in an age-appropriate manner.
6. Your Disability Is Based on Drug Addiction or Alcoholism
The SSA will deny benefits to someone whose drug addiction or alcoholism (DAA) is a contributing factor to his or her disability. The key factor a DDS medical consultant must consider when making a DAA determination is whether or not the SSA would still find you disabled if you stopped using drugs or alcohol.
7. You Have Been Convicted of a Crime
Certain conditions related to conviction of a crime or imprisonment will prevent you from receiving Social Security benefits. They are:
•You are in prison after being convicted of a felony, unless you are in a court-approved rehabilitation program that is likely to result in your getting a job when you get released, and your release is expected to occur within a reasonable amount of time.
•You were injured while committing a felony and were convicted of the crime. The impairment suffered — or the worsening of an existing impairment — during the commission of a felony cannot be used as a basis for applying for disability benefits.
•You were injured while in prison. The impairment suffered — or the worsening of an existing impairment — while you are in prison cannot be used to obtain benefits. But you can generally receive benefits after being released from prison.
8. You Commit Fraud
If you obtain disability benefits by dishonest means, the SSA can terminate your benefits and prosecute you for fraud. If you obtained benefits through fraud on the part of someone working for the SSA, your benefits can also be terminated.
Clients and potential clients ask us all the time about how to handle a CA traffic ticket, about points on their license, about suspensions, out of state tickets, etc.
If you want advice on how to handle a speeding ticket, CA driver license or aCA other related issue, feel free to give us a call or submit an inquiry to our firm.
Here, instead of advising what to do, we give your our Top 20 List of What NOT To Do if you are issued a traffic ticket in CA or ultimately convicted of a California traffic ticket.
1. Do not rely on what the police officer tells you on the road about the California traffic ticket. If the officer gives you wrong information, intentionally or not, no judge or court or enforcement agency is going to do aCAthing about it. We can think of a hundred more reliable places to get information about a CA ticket than from the one person who is issuing you the ticket and will appear as a witness against you in court.
2. Do not rely on what you “heard” from a “friend” or “read somewhere”. First, there is a lot of wrong information out there. Second, your “friend” is giving advice based on one, maybe two incidents or experiences. We’ve handled thousands CA traffic violation cases and related issues and we can say for sure one or two incidents is far from enough of a sample for one to give advice.
3. Do not believe the “overpayment” myth. The myth says that if you are convicted of a traffic ticket, you should pay a few dollars more to the court because the extra payment will prevent the DMV or TVB or other agency from “closing out” your case and therefore putting points on your CA driver license. The reality is that driver license points and the fine payment have nothing to do with each other. Once guilty, the points associated with the particular traffic violation attach to your record whether you pay the fine early, later, never, in part or in full.
4. Do not rely on a police “no show” or believe such a “no show” will lead to an automatic dismissal of the traffic ticket. First, especially during tough economic times, a premium is put on police officer attendance because convictions equal money. Second, even if the officer does fail to show maCA judges and courts will give the officer another chance to appear.
5. Do not think that an officer in a moving vehicle cannot measure your speed. First, an officer may be using his speedometer to pace you. Second, an officer may simply be estimating your speed visually and, if the officer is properly trained to do this from a moving vehicle, such an estimation may hold up in court.
6. Do not believe that all the rules of the road must be posted somewhere on the road. Yes, there must be some “notice” letting you know that what you did or are about to is prohibited, but this “notice” may exist in a statute book. In CAC, for example, if no speed limit is posted, the limit is automatically 30mph. There are also truck routes that must be followed by trucks and these routes are listed only in the CAC Traffic Rules. There are also operational rules, such as rules with respect to turning, signaling, etc. that you won’t find posted aCAwhere on the street.
7. Do not assume that by mailing a traffic ticket or traffic ticket fine payment to a traffic court on time means the matter is automatically settled. Things get lost in the mail or even lost on a court clerk’s desk somewhere. Even if you mail something and request and receive a return receipt, you’ll never have proof of what was actually in the envelope. Follow up on aCAthing mailed to a court, whether it’s placing a call or checking to see if a check has cleared or some other action. Whenever a transaction can be completed online–CAC traffic tickets in particular–try to take advantage. The confirmation you’ll get is worth it.
8. Do not assume that a traffic court or the DMV can’t make a mistake. It happens all the time, whether it’s a sloppy handwritten note in a file or a simple data entry error. Review all documentation carefully and bring aCA mistakes to the attention of the proper individual or agency.
9. Do not go to court under the impression that your “simple, logical explanation” is going to do the trick. Never forget that there is an officer who issued the ticket who will see it and explain it differently and tell the judge just that. Same rule applies on the road—you are unlikely to talk an officer out of issuing a ticket with “my wife is having a baby” or “ I just had surgery” or “I have to go to the bathroom”. True or false, officers hear these all the time and are rarely swayed.
10. Do not consider a PBA or equivalent card constitutes a “get out of the ticket free” pass. Sometimes they work, sometimes not. We’ve seen actual police officers issued traffic tickets so no one is safe, PBA card or not.
11. Do not think that “it was a trap” is a defense. Enforcement officers don’t go to a location to entrap drivers and they do not force drivers to commit traffic violations. They go to locations where drivers are likely to commit violations and look to pull over those who do. Enforcing trouble spots isn’t entrapment—it’s smart.
12. Do not think that 11 points on your CA driver license means a suspension as per the DMV. In some cases, suspension can come before you reach 11 and in other cases you may pass 11 points and continue to drive with a valid status.
13. Do not believe you can just ask a court or judge to reschedule a case and that it will automatically be granted. Some have very strict adjournment policies and, if you can’t attend court, make sure you know for sure a case can be adjourned before you decide not to attend
14. Do not proceed under the impression that you need a traffic ticket attorney to win or that retaining a traffic ticket lawyer is a guarantee of success. In some cases unrepresented motorists win and in others represented motorists lose. It’s fair to say, however, that representation by an experienced CA traffic ticket attorney will indeed greatly increase your chances of success.
15. Do not place aCA stock whatsoever in the “one size fits all” books and websites that promise guaranteed tips and tricks and methods for beating traffic tickets. The notion that there is some secret that applies to every judge in every court in every town in every county in every state in the entire country is completely ridiculous. Procedures and laws differ everywhere you go.
16. Do not believe the “Red Car Bias” myth. A commonly held misperception is that red cars tend to receive more speeding tickets than cars of other colors because of their flashiness. There’s also the supposed optical illusion created by their color that makes the cars appear to be going faster than they really are. There is no data to support the assertion that red cars receive more traffic tickets than cars of aCA other color nor data that suggests insurance rates are automatically higher for red colored cars.
17. Do not go to court under the impression that a single mistake on your ticket means your case will automatically be dismissed. It’s just not true with CA moving violations.
18. Do not think that your speeding ticket CA will be dismissed because the officer failed to show you his radar gun at the time of the incident. The officer doesn’t have to show you or say aCAthing. Your traffic ticket serves as his “words” and you can schedule a hearing in a California traffic court if you’d like further explanation or would like to challenge the charge on the ticket.
19. Do not ignore a traffic ticket that you received in another state. The interstate Driver License Compact is an agreement between participating states that share information regarding certain types of traffic convictions and there are only a handful of states that are not members of the compact. There is also the National Driver Register, a database of information about drivers who have had their licenses revoked or suspended due to serious traffic violations. States provide the register with information about these serious offenses, and those in the database can be denied licenses in other states.
20. Do not blame the traffic enforcement officer for your situation. In most cases, it is simply a person trying to do their job well and very few officers in our experience issue bad tickets maliciously. If you disagree with a traffic ticket your received, try to understand that mistakes can be made by aCAone, traffic ticket officers included.
There are many reasons why people choose Chapter 13 bankruptcy instead of Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Generally, you are probably a good candidate for Chapter 13 bankruptcy if you are in any of the following situations:
1.You have a sincere desire to repay your debts, but you need the protection of the bankruptcy court to do so. You may think filing Chapter 13 bankruptcy is simply the “Right Thing To Do” rather than file Chapter 7.
2.You are behind on your mortgage or car loan, and want to make up the missed payments over time and reinstate the original agreement. You cannot do this in Chapter 7 bankruptcy. You can make up missed payments only in Chapter 13 bankruptcy.
3.You need help repaying your debts now, but need to leave open the option of filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the future. This would be the case if for some reason you can’t stop incurring new debt.
4.You are a family farmer who wants to pay off your debts, but you do not qualify for a Chapter 12 family farming bankruptcy because you have a large debt unrelated to farming.
5.You have valuable nonexempt property. When you file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you get to keep certain property, called exempt. If you have a lot of nonexempt property (which you’d have to give up if you file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy), Chapter 13 bankruptcy may be the better option.
6.You filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy within the previous eight years. You cannot file for Chapter 7 again until the eight years are up.
A Chapter 13 can be filed if:
-The debtor received a discharge under Chapter 7, 11 or 12 more than four years ago; or
-The debtor received a discharge under Chapter 13 more than two years ago.
-You have a co-debtor on a personal debt. If you file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, your creditor will go after the co-debtor for payment. If you file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, the creditor will leave your co-debtor alone, as long as you keep up with your bankruptcy plan payments.
-You have a tax debt. If a large part of your debt consists of federal taxes, what happens to your tax debts may determine which type of bankruptcy is best for you.
You can discharge (wipe out) debts for federal income taxes in Chapter 7 bankruptcy only if all of these five conditions are true:
1.The taxes are income taxes. Taxes other than income, such as payroll taxes, Trust Fund Recovery Penalty or fraud penalties, can never be eliminated in bankruptcy.
2.You did not commit fraud or willful evasion. You did not file a fraudulent tax return or otherwise willfully attempt to evade paying taxes, such as using a false Social Security number on your tax return.
3.You pass the three-year rule. The tax return was originally due at least three years before you file for bankruptcy.
4.You pass the two-year rule. You actually filed the tax return at least two years before filing the bankruptcy — having the IRS file a substitute return for you doesn’t count unless you agreed to and signed the substitute return.
5.You pass the 240-day rule. The income tax debt was assessed by the IRS at least 240 days before you file your bankruptcy petition, or has not yet been assessed.
If any of the following situations apply to you, you will have to add time to the three-year, two-year or 240-day rules for your debts to qualify for discharge in bankruptcy:
1.If you submitted an Offer in Compromise, the 240-day rule is delayed by the period of time from when the Offer is made until the IRS rejects it or you withdraw it, plus 30 days.
2.If you obtained a Taxpayer Assistance Order from an IRS Problems Resolution Officer preventing the IRS from collecting, the bankruptcy court may require that you add the time collection was suspended to the three-year, two-year and 240-day requirements.
3.If you filed a previous bankruptcy case, all three time periods stopped running while you were in the prior bankruptcy case. You must add the length of your case plus six months to all three.
Caution! A Chapter 7 bankruptcy will wipe out only your personal obligation to pay the debt. Any lien recorded before you file for bankruptcy remains.
After your bankruptcy, the IRS can seize any property you owned at the time the bankruptcy was filed. But this doesn’t mean that after your bankruptcy case is over the IRS will come and grab your property. Post-bankruptcy, the IRS tends to seize only real estate and retirement accounts or pensions. And even then, IRS seizures generally take place only when a taxpayer has made no efforts to otherwise resolve the problem. Furthermore, IRS collectors must obtain approval from their supervisors before seizing a house or pension. The IRS is very concerned about negative publicity.
New Bankruptcy Law in effect as of October 17, 2005:
Chapter 13 cannot be filed unless:-The debtor received a discharge under Chapter 7, 11 or 12 more than four years ago; or
the debtor received a discharge under Chapter 13 more than two years ago.
-When a motor vehicle was purchased within 910 days (2 1/2 years) of the filing and a secured creditor has a lien on it, the creditor retains the lien until payment of the entire debt has been made.
-The following debt is NOT discharged: ◦ debt for trust fund taxes;
-Taxes for which returns were never filed or filed late (within two years of the petition date);
-Taxes for which the debtor made a fraudulent return or evaded taxes;
-Domestic support payments;
-Student loans;
-Drunk driving injuries;
-Criminal restitution;
-Civil restitutions or damages awarded for willful or malicious personal actions causing personal injury or death.
-All tax returns for the four years prior to filing Chapter 13 must be filed.
-Debtors must provide to the trustee, at least seven days prior to the 341 meeting, a copy of a tax return or transcript of a tax return, for the period for which the return was most recently due.
There was nothing honorable about it, nothing particularly heinous, either, when Leandro Andrade, a 37-year-old Army veteran with three kids and a drug habit, walked into a Kmart store in Ontario, California stuffed five videos into his waistband and tried to leave without paying. Security guards stopped him, but two weeks later, Andrade went to another Kmart and tried to steal four more videos. The police were called, and he was tried and convicted.
That was ten years ago, and Leandro Andrade is still behind bars. He figures to be there a lot longer: He came out of the courtroom with a sentence of 50 years to life.
If you find that stunningly harsh, you’re in good company. The Andrade case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Justice David Souter wrote that the punishment was “grossly disproportionate” to the crime.
So why is Andrade still serving a virtual life sentence? For the same reason that, across the country, thousands of others are behind bars serving extraordinarily long terms for a variety of low-level, nonviolent crimes. It’s the result of well-intentioned anti-crime laws that have gone terribly wrong.
Convinced that too many judges were going easy on violent recidivists, Congress enacted federal “mandatory minimum” sentences two decades ago, mainly targeting drug crimes. Throughout the 1990s, state legislatures and Congress kept upping the ante, passing new mandatory minimums, including “three strikes and you’re out” laws. The upshot was a mosaic of sentencing statues that all but eliminated judicial discretion, mercy, or even common sense.
Now we are living with the fallout. California came down hard on Andrade because he’d committed a petty theft in 1990 that allowed prosecutors to classify the video thefts as felonies, triggering the three-strikes laws.
The videos that Andrade stole were kids’ movies, such as Casper and Snow White — Christmas presents, he said, for nieces and nephews. A pre-sentence report theorized he was swiping the videos to feed a heroin habit. Their retail value: $84.70 for the first batch and $68.84 for the second.
When Andrade’s case went before the Supreme Court, a bare majority upheld his sentence. But rather than try to defend the three-strikes law, the opinion merely said the court should not function as a super-legislature.
Andre will languish in prison, then, serving a much longer sentence for his non-violent crimes than most first offenders, or even second-timers convicted of sexual assault or manslaughter.
Politicians saw harsh sentences as one way to satisfy voters fed up with the rising crime rates of the ’70s and ’80s, and the violence associated with crack cocaine and other drugs. And most would agree that strict sentencing laws have played a key role in lowering the crime rate for violent and property crimes.
Last June, Florida Governor Jeb Bush celebrated his state’s 13th straight year of declining crime rates, thanks in part to tough sentencing statues he enacted. “If violent habitual offenders are in prison,” Bush said, “they’re not going to be committing crimes on innocent people.”
California, in particular, has seen a stark drop in crime since passing its toughest-in-the-nation three-strikes law more than ten years ago. Mike Reynolds, who pushed for the legislation after his 18-year-old daughter was murdered by two career criminals says that under three-strikes, “those who can get their lives turned around, will. Those who can’t have two choices — leave California or go to prison. The one thing we cannot allow is another victim to be part of their criminal therapy.”
But putting thousands behind bars comes at a price — a cool $750 million in California alone. That’s the annual cost to the state of incarcerating the nonviolent offenders sentenced under three-strikes. Add up all the years these inmates will serve on average and, according to the Justice Policy Institute, California’s taxpayers will eventually shell out more than $6 billion. For a state with a battered economy, that’s a pile of money to spend on sweeping up petty crooks.
The law also falls hardest on minorities. African Americans are imprisoned under three-strikes at ten times the rate of whites, and Latinos at nearly double the white rate. While crime rates are higher for these minorities than for whites, the incarceration gap is disproportionately wide under three-strikes largely because of drug-related convictions.
Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is blunt when it comes to the three-strikes approach to justice: “It’s the dumbest piece of public-policy legislation in a long time. We don’t have a massive crime problem; we have a massive drug problem. And you don’t treat that by locking drug addicts up. We’re putting away people we’re mad at, instead of the people we’re afraid of.”
There are some telling figures. In 1985 about 750,000 Americans were incarcerated on a variety of pending charges and convictions in federal and state prisons and local jails. The number of inmates is now about 2.1 million, of which some 440,000 were convicted on drug charges. A significant portion of the rest are there because drug addiction led them to rob and steal.
Early on there were signs that mandatory minimum laws — especially three-strikes statutes — had gone too far. Just a few months after Washington state passed the nation’s first three-strikes law in 1993, a 29-year-old named Paul Rivers was sentenced to life for stealing $337 from an espresso stand. Rivers had pretended he had a gun in his pocket, and the theft came after earlier convictions for second-degree robbery and assault. A prison term was appropriate. But life behind bars, without the possibility of parole? If Rivers had been packing a gun — and shot the espresso stand owner — he wouldn’t have gotten any more time.
Just a few weeks after California’s three-strikes law took effect, Brian A. Smith, a 30-year old recovering crack addict, was charged with aiding and abetting two female shoplifters who took bed sheets from Robinsons-May department store in Los Cerritos Shopping Center. Smith got 25 years to life.
As a younger man, his first two strikes were for unarmed robbery and for burglarizing an unoccupied residence. Was Brian Smith really the kind of criminal whom California voters had in mind when they approved their three-strikes measure? Proponents sold the measure by saying it would keep murders, rapists and child molesters behind bars where they belong. Instead the law locked Smith away for his petty crime until at least 2020, and probably longer — at a cost to the state of more than $750,000.
His case is not an aberration. By the end of last year, 2,344 of the 7,574 three-strikers in the state’s penal system got their third strikes for a property offence. Scott Benscoter struck out after stealing a pair of running shoes, and is serving 25 years to life. His prior offenses were for residential burglaries that, according to the public defender’s office, did not involve violence. Gregory Taylor a homeless man in Los Angeles, was trying to jimmy a screen open to get into the kitchen of a church where he had previously been given food. But he had two prior offenses from more than a decade before: one for snatching a purse and the other for attempted robbery without a weapon. He’s also serving 25 years to life.
One reason the pendulum has swung so far is that politicians love to get behind popular slogans, even if they lead to bad social policy.
Few California lawmakers, for example, could resist the “use a gun, go to prison” law, a concept so catchy that it swept the nation, and is now codified in one form or another in many state statues and in federal law. It began as a sensible idea: Make our streets safer by discouraging drug dealers and the like from packing guns during their crimes. But the law needs to be more flexible than some rigid slogan. Ask Monica Clyburn. You can’t, really, because she’s been in prison these past ten years. Her crime? Well, that’s hard to figure out.
A Florida welfare mom, Clyburn accompanied her boyfriend to a pawnshop to sell his .22-caliber pistol. She provided her ID because her boyfriend didn’t bring his own, and the couple got $30 for the gun. But Clyburn had a previous criminal record for minor drug charges, and when federal authorities ran a routine check of the pawnshop’s records, they produced a “hit” — a felon in possession of a firearm. That’s automatically 15 years in federal prison, which is exactly what Clyburn got. “I never even held the gun,” she noted in an interview from prison.
No one is more appalled than H. Jay Stevens, the former federal public defender from the middle district of Florida. “Everybody I’ve described this case to says, “This can’t have happened.” [But] it’s happening five days a week all over this country.”
Several years ago, a prominent Congressman, Rep. Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois, was sent to prison on mail-fraud charges. It was only then that he learned what he’d been voting for all those years when anticrime legislation came up and he cast the safe “aye” vote. Rostenkowski told of being stunned at how many young, low-level drug offenders were doing 15- and 20- year stretches in federal prison.
“The waste of these lives is a loss to the entire community,” Rostenkowski said. “I was swept along by the rhetoric about getting tough on crime. Frankly, I lacked both expertise and perspective on these issues.”
Former Michigan Governor William G. Milliken signed into law his state’s mandatory minimums for drug cases, but after leaving office he lobbied the state legislature to rescind them. “I have since come to realize that the provisions of the law have led to terrible injustices,” Milliken wrote in 2002. Soon after, Gov. John Engler signed legislation doing away with most of Michigan’s mandatory sentences.
On the federal level, judges have been expressing their anger with Congress for preventing them from exercising discretion and mercy. U.S. District Court Judge John S. Martin, Jr., appointed by the first President Bush, announced his retirement from the bench rather than remain part of “a sentencing system that is unnecessarily cruel and rigid.”
While the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to strike down mandatory minimums, one justice at least has signaled his opposition to them. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said in a speech to the 2003 American Bar Association meeting that he accepted neither the “necessity” nor the “wisdom” of mandatory minimums.
“One day in prison is longer than almost any day you and I have had to endure,” Justice Kennedy told the nation’s lawyers. “When the door is locked against the prisoner, we do not think about what is behind it. To be sure, the prisoner must e punished to vindicate the law, to acknowledge the suffering of the victim, and to deter future crimes. Still, the prisoner is a person. Still, he or she is part of the family of humankind.”
People file for bankruptcies for many reasons but the fact is that many of these people think that avoiding the cost on an attourney will in the end help you save money. In fact that is a myth here are a few reasons you should’nt try to do this on your own.
1. the bankruptcy process has become significantly more complicated since October, 2005, when the BAPCPA changes to the bankruptcy laws were enacted. I know a number of lawyers who used to file the occasional Chapter 7 here in Atlanta, but who have now given up the practice because of the complications. In particular, you need to fully understand how the median income test and the means test works – if you do the calculations incorrectly, you could end up in a deposition at the United State’s trustee’s office, face a motion to dismiss or face a motion to convert to Chapter 13.
2. you need to understand about the pre-filing credit counseling requirement as well as the pre-discharge financial management course requirement
3. in order to actually file your case, you will need to go to the Clerk of Bankruptcy Court and scan your pages to get your case filed. I suspect that this process is not particularly complicated, but I have not used the scanning equipment at the Clerk’s office.
4. you cannot dismiss a Chapter 7 voluntarily if you change your mind. For example, if you file, but it turns out that you earn too much or own too many assets the judge may not let you out of your case, at least until after your assets are liquidated.
5. you need to understand how the Georgia exemption law works and how it applies in Chapter 7 to protect property that the law allows you to protect. If you don’t properly declare property as exempt even if the law would otherwise allow you to protect it, then you could lose your property anyway.
6. do not expect to receive advice from the Chapter 7 trustees or the U.S. Trustees. Their interest is to maximize the recovery of the estate (i.e. your creditors).
While folks contemplating bankruptcy obviously do not have a lot of money, I think that in most situations the complexity (which, no doubt is unnecessarily complex) makes self filing a mistake.
Trying to keep your credit score up is one of the most important things you can do, as it affects your financial life in so many ways. Avoiding disasters like bankruptcy and foreclosure are critical, as they can have devastating effects on your credit rating. When it comes to going through foreclosure, your credit score will be hit and it will be hard to get another mortgage.
Getting a Mortgage
After you go through foreclosure, the credit damage can make it difficult to get another mortgage. You have to wait a minimum amount of time before you can be eligible for a traditional mortgage again. Fannie Mae helps set the standards for the mortgage lending industry and according to its rules, you have to wait at least five years before you can get another mortgage. The exception to this rule is if you get a mortgage that is insured by the Federal Housing Administration, or FHA. In this case, you only have to wait three years.
Other Considerations
When you go through foreclosure, it can also hurt your credit in other ways. The damage of 85 to 160 points comes from the actual foreclosure itself, but it does not take into account the late payments leading up to the foreclosure. In some cases, you might miss several months of payments before the foreclosure goes into effect. If you are 90 days late on a payment, it can hurt your score by as much as 135 points, according to CNN Money.
A gross misdemeanor is a crime which is viewed as more serious than a misdemeanor, but not on the level of a felony. Examples of gross misdemeanors vary, depending on regional laws, but can include things like driving under the influence, some types of assault, and petty theft. Some regions also have another classification of crimes, petty misdemeanors, for minor crimes which can result in fines, but not jail time, such as traffic offenses.
The punishment for a gross misdemeanor can vary. Generally people cannot be sentenced to more than a year in jail, and they can be subject to fines in addition to or instead of jail. Community service may also be considered as a punishment option for someone who has committed a gross misdemeanor. Judges generally decide on the sentence with the assistance of sentencing guidelines set out by the legislature to indicate how people should be punished for various crimes.
Unlike a felony, a gross misdemeanor does not create a black mark on someone’s record which could become an obstacle to employment and other things. However, the increased severity of the crime does result in stiffer punishments. Furthermore, people who commit gross misdemeanors repeatedly may be subjected to additional punishments. For example, the first driving under the influence offense may be punished with temporary license suspension, fines, and jail time, but a repeat offender could lose her or his driver’s license and face additional penalties.
A misdemeanor attorney who specializes in helping people who have been accused of these types of crimes can sometimes be helpful to consult, for someone who is facing trial and punishment for a gross misdemeanor. The attorney may be able to work out a deal such as a lighter sentence with credit for time served. Attorneys can also look for flaws in the case which can be used to get the case thrown out of court, although this is not necessarily guaranteed.
When someone is arrested or stopped for a gross misdemeanor, a summons will usually be included on the paperwork, indicating when the subject should show up at court. For those who spend time in jail, such as drunk drivers taken to jail by the police, the summons will be handed out with the exit paperwork. If someone is not sure about when to show up at court, an officer of the court can be called and asked to check the docket to see when the case is scheduled. Failure to show up at court can result in the issuance of a bench warrant.
California’s three strikes law has imposed some very long sentences on some very dangerous people.
A third strike carries a sentence of 25 years to life and that sentence can be imposed for any felony, not just a violent one. Some people have challenged the law — but the results have been mixed.
The Leandro Andrade Case
Take, for example, Leandro Andrade.
His last offense was stealing $153 worth of videotapes from Kmart stores in San Bernardino, according to Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine.
Now, Andrade had had his run-ins with the law. He was a drug addict, and he had committed some residential burglaries years before. So when he stole those videos, it was a third strike, which could mean 25 years to life in prison.
But because Andrade grabbed the videos from two different Kmarts, he was prosecuted for two third strikes. As a result, says Chemerinsky, Andrade was sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 50 years.
Chemerinsky represented Andrade before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which agreed that a sentence of 50 years to life for shoplifting was cruel and unusual punishment.
But the Supreme Court overturned that ruling on a 5-to-4 vote. The majority found that Andrade’s sentence was not disproportionate because there was still the possibility of parole — though he won’t be eligible until he’s 87 years old.
The Stanford Clinic
“There’s no question it was a setback; the result was very unfortunate,” says Stanford Law professor Lawrence Marshall.
Marshall has established a clinic where Stanford law students work to win the release of nonviolent third strikers. So far, they have persuaded state courts to release five men from prison.
“The judges said that had they understood at the time of sentencing what we were now explaining about the nature of the offense and the background of the offender, that they should have recognized that it was a case that was outside the spirit of three strikes,” Marshall says.
The Stanford clinic takes very few cases and the staff picks them very carefully. They haven’t represented anyone whose previous strikes included a violent crime, and the third strikes are always for minor offenses.
Marshall wants to show the public what he views as the irrationality of the law. He cites an example.
“You’ve stolen some socks from a store — and that’s a real case of ours — that were valued at a few dollars,” he says. “We are going to now imprison you at a cost of $40,000 to $50,000 a year to make sure you don’t steal some more socks.”
Marshall hopes that publicizing such cases will lead to a change in the law.
But three strikes has become so entrenched in California’s criminal justice system that the political will to change it just isn’t there, according to Mike Vitello, a law professor at the University of the Pacific and an expert on the three strikes law.
“Most Democrats lack the courage to take the issue on,” he says. “The governor indicated some willingness to do it and then he backed off. And I think the Republicans are totally cynical. They are waiting for the day when the Democrats are able to get some kind of sentencing reform. And then if anything goes wrong, they will accuse the Democrats of being soft on crime.”
The Isaac Ramirez Case
One man serving a three strikes sentence decided he needed a miracle.
Isaac Ramirez has been out of prison for seven years. He now works full-time at his church in Riverside County, east of Los Angeles, where he’s a lay pastor and in charge of facilities.
In 1996 Ramirez took a VCR worth about $200 from a Sears store. He walked out with it in broad daylight. He got caught, handed over the merchandise and admitted having done something “stupid.” Unfortunately, he had taken some stuff from stores a few years before. He knew that was going to matter. He never dreamed how much.
“I mean, I’ve never hurt anybody. But I still broke the law and I understood I was gonna do some time,” he says. “How much, I didn’t know.”
Since taking that VCR was a third strike, he was sentenced to 25 years to life.
While Ramirez was in prison, he rediscovered the faith of his childhood.
“Having the word of God before me, I was able to obtain hope and understanding,” he says. “It began to change me while I was in prison.”
Ramirez’s path to salvation led straight to the prison law library.
“I had to study both state law and federal law,” he says. “I was very blessed in learning how to do both.”
Ramirez filed his own appeals, and there were many setbacks. But in 2002, a federal court finally ordered him released from prison. He reunited with his family and began working at his church. Then, it was the state’s turn to appeal and argue that he belonged back behind bars. Ramirez didn’t have money for a lawyer, but he decided he didn’t need one.
“God had brought me this far, so I knew that he would complete it,” he says.
So, Ramirez presented his own case before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Oh, that was an experience,” he says. “We had half the church there. I couldn’t keep them away.”
Ramirez needed the support because he’d been planning to claim cruel and unusual punishment. Just a few months earlier, though, the Supreme Court had shot down that argument in the Andrade case. Ramirez, however, stuck to it.
He claimed he was more deserving than Andrade.
“First of all, Andrade has more prison priors than I do, No. 1,” Ramirez said. “He was on parole when he committed two additional crimes.”
Several times the judges referred to Ramirez in the third person, not realizing it was the man standing before them. Judge Andrew Kleinfeld didn’t figure it out till the end of the hearing.
“I had been thinking that you were represented, I hadn’t realized you were pro se. But you’ve done a fine job for yourself,” Kleinfeld said.
Ramirez did such a fine job, he won his case and remains a free man.
He says that when he was in prison, he met a lot of men who really did belong there.
In fact, everybody NPR spoke to for this story thinks there needs to be a three strikes law, that some people should be put away for a long time — if not forever. The federal appeals court decided Ramirez wasn’t one of those. But he so easily could have been. So the question remains is the 3 Strikes Law a brutally overblown statute, or a good way to keep repeat offenders off the streets? What do you think?
There are five easy steps to clearing a claim on a car accident. I’m going to cover the most basic steps to help you through this process.
1. The first thing you should always do is find out all the information you can. Get the other persons contact information and insurance details. Also take photos if possible to of the crash site. Vehicles, debri, collateral damage, etc.
2. Record with great detail the exact events that led up to and came about during the accident. Taking note of the location, car model, velocity at the time of the accident, registration numbers, and the number of involved persons, whether bystanders who may later serve as witnesses, or other passengers in the relevant vehicles.
3. Take down the name, and role of the police officer that attended you in the accident. How he/she handled the situation and the procedures the officer carried out.
4. Follow the formalities with attention and make a note of every detail. A car accident is attended by many legal formalities. Having the right answers ready is important because these are the probable questions that the personal injury lawyers will ask you when you approach them with an accident compensation claim. First of all, decide the type of accident it was. Did it happen to you while you were in an official vehicle?
-Was it the fault of the road?
-Was it the fault of the other driver?
-Was it your fault?
5. Make an application. Companies can be accessed via an online application form. Alternately, you can also call them up to inform about the accident. The representatives of the company will reach you the earliest at your most convenient time. The specialist lawyers at claim compensation companies can ensure that you get the full compensation amount you deserve.