Let's Tone Down the Hysteria, It's Not Helping

I read this article today about local Minnesota communities passing restrictive city/town ordinances to prohibit Level 3 sex offenders from living within so many feet of various locations like schools, parks, etc. It's typically a knee-jerk reaction to a notification that a Level 3 offender will be moving into the community. And it's a problem.

First let's talk about the status of the law in Minnesota. Unlike many other states, Minnesota does not have a state law that restricts where someone convicted of a sex offense can live. There is a requirement to register the address(es) that the person lives at, the car they drive, the school they attend, etc. And if they are admitted to a hospital or something like that, they are required to notify the staff of their status as a registered offender. But they can live anywhere. There's nothing in state law that prohibits them from living next to a school or a park or whatever.

That's a good thing, despite what the general public thinks. We'll touch more on that in a minute, after we review more info about sex offense laws in Minnesota.

There are different levels given to certain people convicted of a sex offense, but those levels only are given to people who are sent to prison on the offense. So if a person is convicted of a sex crime & is given probation, they don't get assigned a level. There are 3 levels that the Department of Corrections gives to people before they are released. I don't know how the determination is made regarding what level someone is, but it is meant to label them based on how likely it is that they will reoffend in the future. Level 1 is least likely, Level 3 is most likely. I don't know how accurate those labels are, but it is the system the DOC uses.

When a Level 3 offender is going to be released back to the community, the community gets a notification about that person. They are given the name, age, and general location of where they'll be living & a general description of the crime they were convicted of. It's also possible to search for Level 3 offenders in a particular neighborhood on the BCA website.

Generally, Level 3 offenders have committed violent or multiple sex offenses or offenses against children. Not always, but in general. So when a Level 3 offender is released into a community after serving their sentence, the community usually flips out. They aren't exactly welcoming the person with open arms. Sometimes the person is targeted & attacked, other times they are vilified & harassed, sometimes people avoid them, etc.

But, communities, towns, & cities have started to create local ordinances that do what state law has refused to do--restricting where these people can live. The laws are meant to essentially prevent those offenders from moving into the locality. They are prohibiting a person from living within X feet of a park, school, daycare, etc. In the article, it also notes that the ordinance in Dayton also prevents them from living near an apple orchard or pumpkin patch or a bowling alley, among other places.

More and more ordinances like this are cropping up in Minnesota & it's a bad idea. In an effort to protect the public by passing these ordinances, the community makes it less safe.

First of all, Minnesota has a crazy amount of parks. Even the most podunk town is likely to have at least one within a stone's throw from it. So if the state law had geographical restrictions, these people would end up with no place to go.

Adding in other locations like daycares, school, pumpkin patches, etc. means that there are even fewer places available for these folks to live. Oftentimes, the ordinance effectively bans the person from living anywhere within the community.

Do these restrictions help? Well, according to this:

"The Minnesota Department of Corrections examined the 'sexual reoffense patterns of 224 recidivists released between 1990 and 2002 who were reincarcerated for a sex crime prior to 2006' and concluded that not one of the new offenses would have been prevented if residency restrictions had been in place."

Moreover, it goes on to say that:

"Study findings suggest that those with histories of any kind of criminal offense reintegrate more successfully when they are offered social support and opportunities to reintegrate into society through housing and employment."

And according to this article:

"Without exception, the longer offenders remain offence-free in the community the less likely they are to sexually recidivate."

And in this one:

"Empirical findings indicate that stable employment diminishes the risk for reoffending in sex offenders. A study conducted by Kruttschnitt, Uggen, and Shelton (2000) indicated that sex
offenders who were steadily employed were 37% less likely to reoffend."

"The best evidence linking housing stability and recidivism is found in a study of 81 child molesters(Willis & Grace, 2008): the authors identified housing as a significant predictor of sexual recidivism, even after controlling for other factors."

"With regards to social support, studies having evaluated the effectiveness of Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA) indicate that social support is associated with decreased recidivism in sexual offenders."

So, empirical research shows that people convicted of sex offenses are less likely to reoffend if they have housing, employment, & the social supports provided by a community. But instead of taking the research & implementing it, locales have barred these folks from finding the very things they need to lower their risk.

They can't get a stable place to live bc of housing restrictions, causing some to have live under bridges. They can't employment bc they don't have a residence or a phone for employers to call them for an interview or the employer won't hire someone convicted of a sex crime. The ordinances prevent them from attending church or going to a bowling alley or otherwise join community groups since they can't be in or around those areas. Essentially the ordinances strip away every possible risk-lowering factor available, under the guise of making the public safer.

The Level 3 offenders that are released to the community are under strict supervision. Oftentimes it includes GPS monitoring, curfew restrictions, movement & travel restrictions, etc. They are heavily monitored during the time immediately following their release into a community. The studies show that the highest chance of recidivism is the first few years after release from prison & the longer the person is out in the community without new offenses, the more the likelihood of a new offense goes down. So, getting these folks steady & stable after their release, getting them employment, a residence, and involved in their community all works to make the community safer & the risk lower.

So the ordinances are poor solutions to prevent future offenses from those convicted of sex crimes. They create an environment where these folks are at an increased risk of returning to criminal behavior.

The Minnesota legislature was intelligent enough to not create these types of restrictions in state law. Local ordinances should not be allowed to counteract that decision.

Brock Turner & why judicial discretion matters

Recently I was talking about the Brock Turner case on Twitter & a friend asked me to discuss it more in depth in a blog post. So, as requested, that's what I'm discussing today. I take requests now!

So first up, some background details since my friend has actually missed all the hype about this case. Brock Turner was recently convicted of sexually assaulting a woman. Both he & the woman were (are?) in college. It was a pretty bad assault. Two other guys happened to come up on Turner digitally penetrating the victim while she was passed out behind a dumpster & in pretty rough shape. Turner tried to run away when the other guys came up, but if I remember correctly, one of them was able to catch him.

He went to trial & was convicted. After trial (and after most guilty pleas) the defendant usually goes through a pre-sentence investigation of some kind, where a probation agent meets with the defendant & gets info about them & makes recommendations to the court as to what an appropriate sentence should be. The court can follow those or not. In Turner's case, the recommendations were that he be given probation. The state was asking for prison time. The judge went with the recommendation for probation & sentenced Turner to 6 months in jail (he ultimately served 3) followed by probation. The judge noted that Turner was an athlete & that it would be detrimental to his future if he went to prison & that he felt like the probation recommendations for probation were more appropriate.

The entire online world subsequently lost its collective mind over this sentence. There are efforts to have the judge removed from office bc of his ruling in the case. California, where the case took place, passed a law just recently as a result of the case mandating a specific amount of incarceration for a conviction like this in the future, so as to prevent a judge from doing something similar in the future.

So, that's the background info that led to my Twitter conversation about the case. Now onto the discussion portion.

I'm very much in the minority on this, but I don't support the backlash against the judge in this case, or the effort to remove him, or the new law requiring incarceration. I firmly believe judges should have discretion to craft what they determine are appropriate sentences for people. I loathe mandatory minimums. Mandatory minimums are a lazy way of handling the criminal justice system.

Mandatory minimums (referring to laws that require a mandatory minimum amount of time that has to be served if convicted of a specific offense) treat defendants like widgets on a factory line. Everyone gets treated exactly the same no matter what. In theory, that sounds great. No concerns about racism bc everyone gets the same sentence. No concerns about economic disparities bc everyone gets the same sentence. Etc.

The problem is that every case is different, every victim is different, every defendant is different, every set of circumstances is different. Yet mandatory minimums want to treat it as if every case is exactly the same. And the legislature makes mandatory minimums as a way of preventing a judge from making a thoughtful decision about a sentence. It's just, "well, you get this sentence bc it's a mandatory minimum." It's much more streamlined than actually parsing through information & making a decision. That's why it's lazy.

Let's do an example here of why mandatory minimums that treat everyone the same are problematic.

Scenario 1: A 29 year old man breaks into a home & violently assaults the people inside with a gun & gets convicted of a felony level offense for burglary & assault. Goes to prison, gets out. He has a long criminal history of violent offenses. Shortly after getting out of prison, he purchases from a friend a stolen gun that's been modified into a sawed off shotgun, which is illegal. He plans to go break in & assault another family. Because of his felony convictions, he's unable to use or possess a firearm.

Charge: Felon in Possession of a Firearm
Mandatory minimum: 5 yrs in prison

Scenario 2: An 38 year old has a prior juvenile adjudication for a burglary from when he was 14. No other prior criminal history other than his juvenile adjudication. Family man, working full time, went to college, etc. He has struggled with depression for most of his life & one day it gets into his head that he should end things. He tells his friend he can't take it anymore & is going to kill himself. He takes his friend's gun & leaves. Friend calls the police to prevent him from killing himself. Police manage to find him before he hurts himself. Unbeknownst to him, his prior juvenile adjudication makes him a "felon" for purposes of the Felon in Possession of a Firearm law. Therefore, he is unable to use or possess a firearm.

Charge: Felon in Possession of a Firearm
Mandatory minimum: 5 years in prison

Now, those are two very, very different defendants with very, very different facts in their cases. But the mandatory minimum law doesn't care. It requires that both of those men go to prison for 5 years. It makes no difference that one man had a violent criminal history & the other had one juvenile adjudication. It makes no difference that one man was going to hurt others & the other was suicidal. Mandatory minimums do not care.

And in many places, the judges cannot do anything other than give the mandatory minimum, regardless of the circumstances of a case. In Minnesota, judges can depart from the mandatory minimums, but it is the defendant's burden to show why the judge should & it's extremely hard to get the court to do it. In all my time as an attorney, I have only gotten one once unless it was a part of a plea agreement. The requirements are that the court give the mandatory minimum in almost all cases.

The problem is that people & cases are widely different. Not everyone should get the same sentence, even if it's the same charge. In an effort to treat everyone the same, the law has become extremely draconian & unfair.

Judges are in a position to evaluate the person as a whole & the case as a whole. They have the opportunity to hear from multiple people in the case, including the probation officer, the prosecutor, any victims, the defense attorney & the defendant. They get to see confidential info on the defendant, like medical records, mental health records, treatment records, etc. They get to decide what an appropriate sentence is for a particular defendant in a particular case after reviewing multiple pieces of information. A judge may decide that one person should receive a more lenient sentence than another person or a more harsh sentence. That's the role of judges, to decide the sentence. That's judicial discretion.

Mandatory minimums strip judges of their discretion. It doesn't matter what the facts are or what the information is. Everyone is given the same sentence, regardless of whether it's appropriate or not in a given case. It's a cookie-cutter solution to criminal justice.

I'm sure people will say that without mandatory minimums, people will "get off" or not have consequences. But mandatory minimums are a sledgehammer solution. In an effort to make sure no one who should get a harsh sentence avoids punishment, the laws end up hammering people who don't deserve that severe of a punishment.

Judges are supposed to use discretion. They are supposed to craft sentences they feel are appropriate for a particular case & particular defendant. If we continue to chip away at judges' discretion & force them to give everyone the same sentence regardless of the situation, we may as well just get rid of judges altogether, since we'll just be an assembly line justice system, fully automated, no need to review each case individually. And that is a scary way of doling out "justice."