How Las Vegas public defenders handle high-profile murder cases

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From KVVU-TV:

Attorneys David Schiek and Dan Silverstein were appointed. Neither could comment for this story, but another member of county public defender’s office said the two are entitled to defense, even with taxpayers footing the bill. “It’s very important that ultimately, whatever happens, justice is served and the person receives a fair hearing, a fair trial, such as the case may be,” said Deputy Public Defender Norman Reed. “We do have to battle a lot of little things besides protecting our client’s life,” he added.

That includes media coverage of high-profile suspects. Often the public has already made up its mind as to guilt or innocence.

Reed said his office does receive complaints via email and letters condemning them for representing murder suspects. “Some of them are responded to, others aren’t, but the general answer for everybody’s concern is everybody has a constitutional right to fair representation. Everybody should have a good lawyer in their corner,” Reed replied.

Read the entire story.

Order in the Court as Broward Circuit Judge Matt Destry turns to Twitter

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Updating an earlier post, from Examiner.com:

People ask – why should Howard Finkelstein be worried about tweets from the bench while he himself is better known for the longstanding “Help Me Howard” series on WSVN 7 News in Miami.

Perception – nothing but perception.

Judges – whether appointed or elected – are unlike public officials in the other two branches of government. They are expected to be impartial and impervious to influence. Every status update on Facebook or tweet on Twitter could be scrutinized for hints of bias or corruption. Moreover, every “friend” or “follower” can be potentially compromising in a future appearance before the court.

That’s why judges approach the question of social media with trepidation.

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Americans constantly complain that the courts lack the transparency of the other branches. So why is an on-going Twitter feed from Judge Destry and the Broward County Courthouse being ridiculed and not applauded?

That is a question for “Help Me Howard.”

Read the entire piece here.

NACDL launches resource for Resisting and Challenging Excessive Sentences

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The NACDL issued a press release today that it has launched a new resource center:

NACDL is pleased to offer, as a resource for its members and as a service to the public, a collection of individual downloadable documents that summarize for each U.S. state the key doctrines and leading court rulings setting forth constitutional and statutory limits on lengthy imprisonment terms and other extreme (non-capital) sentences. The resource – Excessive Sentencing: NACDL’s Proportionality Litigation Project — is available at www.nacdl.org/excessivesentencing.

NACDL President Steven D. Benjamin said: “The United States now leads the world in incarceration, with more than 2.2 million people behind bars, as a result of overcriminalization and excessive sentencing. NACDL’s Excessive Sentencing Project being launched today is the type of resource for practitioners, judges, policy advocates, and the general public that embodies NACDL’s tireless work to fulfill its mission. The tools provided in this expansive online resource will be deployed to improve America’s criminal justice system and will result in more humane, rational and proportional sentencing of those convicted of a crime.”

It is done in conjunction with Professor Doug Berman of Sentencing Law and Policy.

Public defender questions judge’s tweets

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In a brief story that raises more questions than it answers, the Florida Sun-Sentinel reports:

Broward Circuit Judge Matthew Destry’s recent foray into the Twitter social networking site has ruffled the feathers of Public Defender Howard Finkelstein, who is questioning whether a judge should be tweeting from the bench.

What exactly constitutes “ruffled feathers” here remains unclear, but the phenomenon of judges tweeting and blogging certainly opens broad new possibilities for insight into what’s happening on the bench, as well as lots of opportunities for impropriety. Is Finkelstein just worried about those possibilities, or is there something more to this story?

Federal Appeals Court Panel Extends Crack Sentencing Retroactivity

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From Stop the Drug War:

In a Friday decision, a three-judge panel of the US 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati held that the provisions of the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act that reduced the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses should apply to people convicted even before the law was passed. If upheld, the ruling could reduce the sentences of thousands of inmates, mostly black, who were sentenced under the draconian old laws.
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“In this case, we hold that the federal judicial perpetuation of the racially discriminatory mandatory minimum crack sentences for those defendants sentenced under the old crack sentencing law, as the government advocates, would violate the Equal Protection Clause, as incorporated into the Fifth Amendment,” the court wrote, noting that the Fifth Amendment forbids federal racial discrimination in the same way as the Fourteenth Amendment forbids state racial discrimination.