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From the Los Angeles Times

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Jared Loughner charged with murder in Arizona shootings

Jared Loughner is charged with killing Judge John Roll and an aide to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, counts that could lead to the death penalty.

by Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau

March 5, 2011

Reporting from Washington

Prosecutors moved closer to seeking the death penalty for Jared Lee Loughner, charging him for the first time with the murder of a federal judge and a congressional aide in the shooting rampage earlier this year that also critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

Loughner, 22, was indicted by a federal grand jury on the new murder allegations, and federal prosecutors in Phoenix said the case now involved "potential death-penalty charges." Six people were killed and 13 others wounded by gunfire Jan. 8 at Giffords' Congress on Your Corner event in Tucson.

"This was an attack on Congresswoman Giffords, her constituents and her staff," said U.S. Atty. Dennis Burke in Phoenix, announcing the 49-count indictment that his office obtained Thursday and made public Friday. "Lives were extinguished while exercising one of the most precious rights of American citizens: the right to meet freely and openly with their member of Congress."

Burke said that Department of Justice rules required the government "to pursue a deliberate and thorough process" before announcing whether it will seek Loughner's death. He said that process includes consulting with those who were wounded and the families of the dead, and "consideration of all evidence relevant to guilt and punishment."

Loughner earlier was indicted on a series of assault charges, and pleaded not guilty. U.S. District Judge Larry Burns of San Diego, who will be trying the case, has set a hearing for Wednesday on the new indictment.

The new charges state that Loughner, firing a Glock 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, killed U.S. District Judge John M. Roll while he "was engaged in and on account of the performance of his official duties."

Roll, the chief federal judge in Tucson, had gone to Giffords' event at a local strip mall apparently to thank her for her help in a request to ease the heavy caseload among federal judges in Arizona. If prosecutors can prove that Roll was killed while performing his official duties, the charge of "murder of a federal employee" could be enough to win a federal murder conviction and possible death sentence. The other federal employee killed that morning was Gabriel Zimmerman, an aide to the congresswoman who the indictment said was slain "while he was assisting" Giffords. That too could bring a federal death sentence.

Others who died were local residents attending the congressional meet-and-greet: Dorothy Morris, Phyllis Schneck, Dorwan Stoddard and 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, who was born on Sept. 11, 2001 — the day of the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks in this country.

Those victims also were included in the federal charges under the theory that Giffords was convening a constituent meeting, and that even though it was held outside a Safeway grocery store, it occurred on extended "federal property." Therefore, they asserted, the shooting was the same as if it had happened inside the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

All of those killed and wounded, Burke said, "were peaceably assembled to speak to their member of Congress."

The additional charges also were made under a federal civil rights law normally used in hate crimes, when victims are attacked while "participating in or enjoying any benefit, service, privilege, program, facility or activity provided or administered by the United States." In the Tucson rampage, the gunfire erupted just at the start of Giffords' event that morning in what the indictment defined as a "federally provided activity."

Giffords is being treated in a hospital in Houston for a gunshot wound to the brain.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-jared-loughner-20110305,0,6764128,print.story

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Allegations against Sheen illustrate challenges police face in domestic abuse cases

Allegations that Charlie Sheen threatened to harm his wife point up the difficulties officials sometimes confront in dealing with domestic violence cases, some experts said.

Sheen's wife, Brooke Mueller, said this week that the TV star threatened to stab her in the eye. She also said he vowed to decapitate her and send her severed head to her mother.

Her statements were enough for an L.A. judge to issue a temporary restraining order against Sheen, who has already been convicted twice for domestic violence. But the statements were not enough for the Los Angeles Police Department to open a criminal investigation. LAPD officials said they've discussed the issue and determined that they can only launch a probe if Mueller files a complaint, which as of Friday she has not.

“It is incumbent on her to come forward and make a police report,” said Sgt. Mitzi Grasso. “Our hands are tied.”

Those who help domestic violence victims said Sheen's case is in many ways similar to others they see -- women who get restraining orders but are too frightened or otherwise unwilling to report incidents to police.

They say getting domestic abuse victims to file police reports is a continuing struggle. Victims sometimes fear that reporting an abuser to police will lead to the abuser's arrest and make life more difficult -– financially or emotionally -– for the children.

TuLynn Smylie, executive director of the Women's Shelter of Long Beach, said she thinks police should investigate “if a judge believes there is enough evidence for a restraining order that says she has a credible story.”

Smylie and others said the Sheen situation focused attention on the quandary for police.

“If a police report isn't made, it makes it very hard for law enforcement,” said Olivia Rodriguez, executive director of the Los Angeles County Domestic Violence Council. “When we get involved, one of the first things we emphasize to survivors is to make a police report.”

The restraining order issued by L.A. County Superior Court Judge Hank Goldberg on Tuesday came after Mueller, in the declaration, accused the actor of being “insane.”

Mueller alleged that Sheen repeatedly threatened to kill her, including Sunday night when he told her, “I will cut your head off, put it in a box and send it to your mom!” In a text, he talked about killing his manager, Mueller said.

Her attorney did not return calls seeking comment Friday. Sheen's attorney declined to comment, but the actor has said he does not hit women.

Related: Read the Sheen restraining order

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/03/charlie-sheen-allegations-points-up-difficulities-facing-police-in-domestic-violence-cases.html#more

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Twenty years after the beating of Rodney King, the LAPD is a changed operation

In the wake of the videotaped police attack on motorist Rodney King, the department has learned to embrace video scrutiny.

by Joel Rubin, Andrew Blankstein and Scott Gold, Los Angeles Times

March 3, 2011

It was shortly after midnight, 20 years ago Thursday, when George Holliday awoke to the sounds of police sirens outside his Lake View Terrace apartment. Grabbing his clunky Sony Handycam, he stepped out on his balcony and changed the Los Angeles Police Department forever.

The nine minutes of grainy video footage he captured of Los Angeles police beating Rodney King helped to spur dramatic reforms in a department that many felt operated with impunity. The video played a central role in the criminal trial of four officers, whose not-guilty verdicts in 1992 triggered days of rioting in Los Angeles in which more than 50 people died.

The simple existence of the video was something unusual in itself. Relatively few people then had video cameras, Holliday did — and had the wherewithal to turn it on.

"It was just coincidence," Holliday reflected in an interview a decade ago. "Or luck."

Today, things are far different and the tape that so tainted the LAPD has a clear legacy in how officers think about their jobs. Police now work in a YouTube world in which cellphones double as cameras, news helicopters transmit close-up footage of unfolding police pursuits, and surveillance cameras capture arrests or shootings. Police officials are increasingly recording their officers. Compared to the cops who beat King, officers these days hit the streets with a new reality ingrained in their minds: Someone is always watching.

"Early on in their training, I always tell them, 'I don't care if you're in a bathroom taking care of your personal business…. Whatever you do, assume it will be caught on video,' " said Sgt. Heather Fungaroli, who supervises recruits at the LAPD's academy. "We tell them if they're doing the right thing then they have no reason to worry."

The ubiquitous use of cameras by the public has helped serve as a deterrent to police abuse, said Geoff Alpert, a leading expert on police misconduct.

"At the time of King it was just fortuitous that someone had a camera," Alpert said. "Things are a whole lot more transparent now and if you're going to do something stupid, then you're going to pay for your stupidity."

Although some officers remain uncomfortable about people filming them, the culture shift has been particularly profound among younger officers who grew up in a world of mobile video and picture-sharing.

"We grew up with reality TV and smart phones. Everybody's life was on camera," said Joseph Stevens, a 26-year-old officer in the LAPD's West Bureau. "It's a given that everything I do could end up on television or YouTube. With the older era, they're still surprised at some of the technology…. They have questions about it but are starting to adapt."

Several recent cases show the power of questionable officer behavior going viral on the Web.

The use of cameras by the LAPD has evolved considerably over the years. Putting cameras in patrol cars was a key reform proposed by the Christopher Commission, which studied the LAPD after the King beating. After years of delays, the department recently installed cameras in a quarter of its cars and plans to outfit the rest of its fleet in coming years. In addition to deterring misconduct, police officials believe that cameras can help exonerate officers from false accusations.

The LAPD also sends its own photographers and videographers out to record large street protests or other incidents that could get out of hand. During training scenarios, drill instructors at the academy present recruits with various situations in which they must respond to the presence of cameras.

Some officers still bristle at the notion of a bystander recording them. In June, an LAPD officer confronted and then detained a man, who refused his orders to stop taping a traffic stop. Others accept the reality of ever-present cameras but worry that bystander videos can show a distorted version of an incident, particularly in the eyes of an uninformed viewer.

To "someone who doesn't understand police tactics or why we use force," an arrest of a violent suspect or similar situation can appear unnecessarily brutal, said LAPD Sgt. Alex Vargas, a veteran anti-gang supervisor in South Los Angeles. Routinely, he said, on-lookers begin filming only when officers are compelled to use force, "but you don't see [the suspect] attacking the officers. That's common."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-king-video-20110301,0,2855868.story

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From the New York Times

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Gunman in Germany Wanted ‘Revenge' for Afghanistan

FRANKFURT — Arid Uka, the 21-year-old man suspected of killing two American airmen this week, has told investigators that he was seeking revenge for the deployment of Americans in Afghanistan after watching radical Islamist videos on the Internet, German authorities said Friday.

Prosecutors say that Mr. Uka, who is also accused of wounding two others in the attack on an American military bus at Frankfurt airport on Wednesday, had tried to kill more servicemen but failed to do so only because his gun jammed.

“The bus was waiting at the terminal, and one serviceman after the other got on it,” said a German security official, who was not authorized to speak publicly . Mr. Uka asked the last one for a cigarette, “then he asked the soldier if they were heading to Afghanistan.”

When the serviceman answered yes, the official said, Mr. Uka shot him with a handgun in the back of the head.

“He then entered the bus, shouted ‘God is the greatest' and opened fire and killed the driver with a shot in the head and injured two other soldiers,” the official said.

When Mr. Uka held his gun to the head of a fifth man and pressed the trigger twice, it jammed because a cartridge had snagged inside. The serviceman then chased and caught Mr. Uka outside the bus. German police soon arrested him.

According to investigators familiar with the case, Mr. Uka appeared to have acted alone and said he was motivated to carry out the attack after seeing a video the day before that he claimed showed American soldiers raping a girl in Afghanistan.

“This video does indeed exist,” the security official said, “but we don't know yet if this really took place or was just a propaganda video.”

Peter Brustmann, the senior Frankfurt police detective on the case, said Friday that Mr. Uka acknowledged wanting to “perform this act when a chance came along. He wanted to kill American servicemen being deployed to Afghanistan. That was why he carried his weaponry with him.”

On his Facebook page, Mr. Uka had a link on February 15 to a 4:42 minute-long Youtube video, with pictures of detainees in Guantanamo, chanting in Arabic with German subtitles: “I can not stand this life of humiliation.” The video also features pictures of fighters and the clattering of machinegun fire.

Mr. Uka was born in Kosovo and grew up in Frankfurt. He had applied for German citizenship and was in the process of getting it. He lived with his parents and two brothers in a two-bedroom apartment.

In an interview, Murat Uka, the suspect's father, said, “I heard what the prosecutor said on television, but I can still not believe it. It is like a bad dream and we are waiting to wake up.”

The family had been at the airport on Wednesday to pick up another family member, who had arrived from Kosovo.

“We had no idea about anything, until the police came,” said Mr. Uka's father, a 56-year-old roofer, adding that the police searched the apartment and took several items, like computers, cell phones and books.

“Arid had never in his life anything to do with the police, so it really came as a bigger shock because he was always a good boy,” the father said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/world/europe/05germany.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Concerns Raised Over Young Police Chief

MEXICO CITY — Marisol Valles García, the young mother who took the job of police chief in her violence-ravaged town when nobody else would, has not been to work in three days. On Friday, it appeared she might not be planning to come back soon.

A human rights official in Chihuahua State said that Ms. Valles might have been threatened and crossed into Texas. But her bosses said she asked for a few days of leave to attend to her baby son, who had been ill.

Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson, who is in charge of the Ciudad Juárez office of the state human rights commission, said he had spoken to someone who had accompanied Ms. Valles to the border and watched her cross the bridge. He did not know if she had crossed alone or with family.

“We are trying to reach her to help her,” said Mr. de la Rosa, who said that he had not spoken to her and that he was trying to confirm reports that she had been threatened.

But officials in Praxedis G. Guerrero, where Ms. Valles was appointed police chief last October, when she was 20, said they had no reason to be suspicious.

“She is still our colleague,” said Andrés Morales Arreola, the town hall secretary in Praxedis. “In her talks with the mayor, she had not shown any sign of receiving threats,” he said.

Mr. Morales said he had tried to call Ms. Valles on Friday, but had not been able to reach her.

What is clear is that the situation in Praxedis, about 60 miles southeast of Ciudad Juárez, was not auspicious for Ms. Valles's job security when she became police chief. The town is one of a group of farming towns in the Valley of Juárez hugging the Texas border that has been swept by drug violence as gunmen from the Sinaloa and Juárez cartels battle over smuggling routes.

One of her predecessors as police chief had been beheaded. The week Ms. Valles took the job, a local politician and his son in a neighboring small town were ambushed and killed.

With her unlined features and chunky glasses, Ms. Valles, who is studying for a criminology degree, looks every inch the student, not a police chief in one of the most violent places in Mexico. Reporters from around the world trekked to meet her.

In a January interview, Ms. Valles said that her task was not to take on drug traffickers — that is the job of the better equipped federal police and the army — but instead to focus on preventive measures and petty crimes like public drunkenness, bicycle theft and domestic violence.

She did not carry a gun, or even wear a uniform, preferring jeans and a powder-blue sweatshirt for the interview. Still, she was attuned to the danger around her. The sole remaining police officer, also a young woman, in the neighboring town of Guadalupe Distrito Bravos, had recently been kidnapped and was still missing.

“Yes, it's worrisome,” Ms. Valles said. “But at the same time I always see hope in what we're doing.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/world/americas/05policechief.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Mexico: Soldiers Held in Trafficking

The Mexican Army has ordered three junior officers and 10 soldiers to stand trial on drug trafficking and organized crime charges after they were reportedly caught with more than a ton of methamphetamine and 66 pounds of cocaine.

The military announced earlier that several soldiers were arrested last week with drugs at a military checkpoint south of Tijuana, across the border from San Diego. It was not clear whether it was the same group named in the charges announced Thursday.

The Defense Department said in a statement it would “in no way tolerate” such acts. The troops were charged within the military justice system.

Corruption is widespread among the Mexican police, and some experts worry it could spread to the tens of thousands of soldiers assigned to fight drug traffickers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/world/americas/05briefs-Mexico.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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EDITORIAL

The Anti-Arizonans

Washington's inaction on immigration reform has left the states feeling abandoned and wondering what to do. When the frustration boils over, as it has most scarily in Arizona, Republicans have been pushing what amounts to vigilantism — states taking on federal enforcement, shouldering aside civil rights and the Constitution and spending whatever it takes to get rid of illegal immigrants. It's a seductively simple vision, and lawmakers across the country are grasping at it, pushing Arizona-style copycat laws.

Thank goodness for the pushback. In dozens of states considering such crackdowns — including Nebraska, Indiana, Oklahoma, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas — elected officials, law enforcers, business owners, religious leaders and regular citizens are providing the calm voices and cool judgment that are lacking in the shimmering heat of Phoenix.

They are reminding their representatives that replacing federal immigration policy with a crazy quilt of state-led enforcement schemes is only a recipe for more lawlessness and social disruption, for expensive lawsuits and busted budgets, lost jobs and boycotts. And all without fixing the problem.

This isn't just an immigrants' cause. Business owners in places like Kansas and Texas, the attorney general in Indiana, Catholic and Protestant bishops in Mississippi — these and hundreds of other community leaders have been sending a contrary message.

The businesses say bills to force employers to check workers' legal status are redundant, costly and anticompetitive. The clergy members have denounced bills to criminalize acts of charity, like driving an undocumented immigrant to church or the doctor. Lawyers have said new layers of enforcement paperwork would heavily burden legitimate business and overwhelm state bureaucracies.

Police chiefs and sheriffs are leading the skeptical resistance to the bills, which frequently involve having local police checking the immigration status of people they stop. A report released on Thursday by a national police research group looked at cities where police officials had been drawn into heated immigration debates. Its conclusions: federal enforcement is no job for local officers, who should be forbidden to arrest or detain people solely because of their immigration status.

The reasons: it costs too much, prompts false-arrest lawsuits and frightens law-abiding immigrants. “I have a responsibility to provide service to the entire community — no matter how they got here,” said Chief Charlie Deane of the Prince William County Police Department in Virginia. “It is in the best interest of our community to trust the police.”

The chiefs of Nebraska's two largest police departments — in Lincoln and Omaha — recently told the State Legislature basically the same thing.

A peculiar mix of nativism and immigration panic has pushed the immigration debate far out into the desert of extremism. It's going to take a serious effort by saner voices to ensure that what happens in Arizona stays there.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/opinion/05sat1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From Google News

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Fla. police identify children found in canal

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The boy and girl whose bodies were found stuffed into luggage and thrown into a south Florida canal are believed to be the children of a woman found dead in a landfill last summer, police said Friday.

Investigators said they have positively identified the children's bodies found Wednesday as siblings Jermaine McNeil, 10, and Ju'tyra Allen, 6. They believe their mother, Felicia Brown, is the woman whose body was found in a West Palm Beach landfill last August.

Sgt. Nicole Guerriero, a spokeswoman for the Delray Beach Police, said the three lived with Clem Beauchamp, who investigators say is their only suspect in the deaths. He has not been charged with their slayings but is being held on an unrelated weapons charge.

Police said they didn't expect any charges in the case for several days, at the earliest. Meantime, the release of the victims' identities Friday horrified friends and relatives, including Brown's sister, 22-year-old Margaret Gissone.

"There were a lot of things I wanted to tell her that I hadn't told her yet," she said.

Friends and neighbors said they had been asking Beauchamp about Brown's whereabouts for months, but he had an explanation.

"He said she was in jail," said Kenneth Marshall, 43, an acquaintance of the family.

Three other children who lived in Beauchamp's home were taken from his girlfriend and put into the custody of the Department of Children and Families, Guerriero said Friday. The girlfriend was questioned in the killings but is not considered a suspect, police said.

After Beauchamp was questioned in the children's deaths by Delray Beach police Thursday night, federal agents arrested him on the weapons charge, which will keep him behind bars as the investigation continues.

Court records show the weapons charge dates to 2009, when officers found a homemade silencer inside a bag with a knit hat and a Halloween mask. On Friday, investigators sifted through his small home and towed away cars.

The silencer was found in the trunk of Brown's repossessed car, documents show.

Beauchamp denied any involvement with the silencer, according to court documents. It's not yet known if he has an attorney.

His neighbors have described a complicated family situation in which multiple children who had different mothers lived with him. In 2008, Beauchamp fought an ex-girlfriend for — and won — the right to have two children live with him; they were among the three taken away this week.

"I'm there to make sure they do their homework, to give them the proper guidance that they would need to succeed in life," he told a judge at a custody hearing. "Being a father means more than just making the kid. You actually got to be there for them. And I'm prepared to do all that."

A person familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter told The Associated Press on Friday that Beauchamp used Brown's name to get food stamps and other government benefits after her death.

That person said Brown put one of her children up for adoption several years ago. When the adoption fell through, the source said, Brown readopted the child and began collecting adoption subsidies. It's unclear whether it was her son or daughter.

Beauchamp has a lengthy criminal record and has spent time in jail. Gissone said she had seen him hit her sister on two occasions.

"He got a mean streak to him," she said.

In recent days, those who know Beauchamp said they noticed some changes: He cut off his dreadlocks and could be found, late at night, sunk to his knees in prayer at a neighborhood church.

"He said he was trying to change his life," said Marshall.

The two children's bodies were found in the water Wednesday, about a half-mile and six hours apart. The girl's body was stuffed into a duffel bag, and the boy's was in a suitcase.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jmSiHRkMJe4cxncVejn2domh28Iw?docId=0ef64d8236294988af8ce723cbe3d4a4

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Tata case puts focus on arrest process

Real life seldom works that way, although legal experts say it is common to make an arrest before obtaining a warrant.

The Houston Fire Department and Harris County District Attorney's Office spent much of the past week trying to explain how the woman who ran a west Houston home day care was able to vanish before investigators could get a warrant for her arrest.

Jessica Rene Tata, 22, disappeared Feb. 26, one day before charges were filed in connection with a fire that killed four children and injured three others. A U.S. citizen, Tata is thought to be in Nigeria, where she has family.

On Friday, the U.S. Marshals Service added Tata to its 15 Most Wanted fugitive list and offered a reward of up to $25,000 for information that leads to her arrest.

The day before, a grand jury indicted Tata on four counts of manslaughter. And federal prosecutors now have charged her with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. She earlier had been charged with six counts of reckless injury to a child and three counts of child abandonment.

Tata's disappearance left many wondering what, if anything, could have been done to prevent her leaving the country.

District Attorney Pat Lykos insisted her office did nothing wrong. Fire Chief Terry Garrison said that in retrospect, he might have done things differently.

Investigators don't need a warrant, but they do need probable cause to make an arrest. Still, they could have kept watch on Tata while searching for probable cause, said Sandra Guerra Thompson, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center.

"They are legally allowed to keep surveillance, and if they have some information the person is going to flee the country, they could try to accelerate things," she said.

Prefer to have warrant

Investigators said they waited to make an arrest until prosecutors agreed they had enough evidence for a warrant, but Thompson and other criminal law specialists said a warrant isn't necessary.

In fact, George E. Dix, a professor at the University of Texas law school, said he was surprised they didn't move more quickly.

"I read about the case, and I wondered about the failure to make a warrantless arrest," he said.

Texas law does require a warrant for arrest, he said.

"But the courts don't take that very seriously," he said. "There are a number of exceptions. They tend to apply those exceptions very liberally."

One sticking point in the Tata case appears to have been finding evidence that she left the children alone before the fire started. Store video and witness testimony indicate she was shopping when the fire broke out, but investigators wanted to be sure another adult wasn't present.

Thompson acknowledged that building a case can take time.

"There are cases that require a lot of judgment about whether someone should be held accountable," she said.

Law enforcement can detain a suspect during an investigation.

"There is a downside, though," said Phillip Lyons, professor of criminal justice at Sam Houston State University and executive director of its Texas Regional Center for Policing Innovation.

The suspect has to be taken before a magistrate relatively quickly and evidence pointing to the person's guilt must be presented, Lyons said.

Not a rare occurrence

Police often wait for a grand jury indictment before making an arrest in similar cases, he said.

"I don't think it's at all clear that anyone did anything wrong here," he said. "We live in a country where there is an expressed preference for arrests and searches to be done with warrants. In a high-profile case like this, if that means taking the time to secure a warrant, I think it's the right thing to do."

The District Attorney's Office was unable last week to say how often a suspect or defendant becomes a fugitive. But it's not unusual.

Jeff Wang, 42, a Chinese citizen on trial for aggravated sexual assault of a child, failed to show up in court Wednesday as a jury entered its third day of deliberations; the jury later deadlocked.

And last summer, Sajan Timal­shina, 26, of Spring, apparently fled to his home country of Nepal while Houston police investigated an accident in which Timalshina allegedly ran a red light and struck another car, killing three teenage girls.

Crime victim advocate Andy Kahan said he has worked with at least five families in cases where the suspect fled the country.

"It's gut-wrenching and extremely frustrating for parents when they find out this person … is not even in the country," he said. "Even when we know where the suspect is located, that doesn't mean they're going to come back."

The United States does not have extradition treaties with China or Nepal, and Lyons said Mexico won't extradite suspects who face the death penalty here.

There is a treaty with Nigeria, although experts say even if Tata is caught, returning her to Houston could be a lengthy process.

Surrendering passport

As a U.S. citizen, Tata would have been considered less likely to flee than someone who is not a citizen, Lyons said.

Dealing with people at risk of disappearing is handled on a case-by-case basis.

Dix said he was unaware of any reason authorities can't ask a suspect to give up his passport before arrest, although the only thing they can do if the suspect refuses is to make the arrest.

Instead, when it happens, it's generally a condition of release on bond.

"But it certainly happens a lot on television," Lyons said.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7457799.html

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Burlington case puts spotlight on legal challenges of trying children as adults

Teen killers are not unusual in Colorado, but a preteen, like the boy in Burlington now accused of killing his parents, poses unique challenges for the criminal justice system.

As long as the boy is in the juvenile system, prosecutors and judges must carefully balance the best interests of the boy against those of the public, and even his family, who are relatives of both the victims and the defendant.

"Nobody wants to forever throw away the life of a 12-year-old child," said Peggy Jessel, chief prosecutor in the Boulder County district attorney's juvenile division. "They will try everything they can to rehabilitate him if it can be done."

On Friday, 13th Judicial District Attorney Robert Watson filed a petition

• View a slideshow of the investigation into the killings of two parents in Burlington, Colorado .

The boy, who has both a guardian ad litem and public defender representing his interests, was advised Wednesday that the petition could include two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder and two counts of first-degree assault for attacks on his younger siblings. The details are all sealed in juvenile court.

The bodies of Charles Long, 50, and Marilyn Long, 51, were found Tuesday night at 783 Lowell Ave. in Burlington. Two of their children, Sara, 5, and Ethan, 9, were flown to Denver to be treated for injuries suffered in the incident.

Don Quick, the 17th Judicial District attorney, said in juvenile cases he has handled, he has to consider the child, the victim's family and the community when making a decision on punishment.

"I am responsible for the safety of my community, for the victim's family," he said. "It's very complicated, I think."

Watson is deciding whether to seek a transfer hearing for the boy to persuade a judge to allow the filing of adult charges.

Factors to consider

During a transfer hearing, the judge would consider 14 factors about the child from his mental status to his family background and the facts of the crime. Whether weapons or deadly force were used also is a factor considered by the court.

The judge then determines whether the child should be punished in the adult or juvenile system.

Both systems have a variety of options in sentencing and rehabilitation programs.

The longest a child treated strictly as a juvenile can be held in the juvenile system is five years. That would mean the boy could be out by the time he is 18 or 19 years old.

If the boy were tried as an adult and convicted of first-degree murder, he would serve his time in juvenile detention until he turns 14 and then would be transferred to a youth corrections facility or an adult prison to serve out the rest of his sentence. He would be eligible for parole after 40 years under a 2006 law designed to give juvenile killers a second chance late in life.

Or, there is a middle ground in which the boy is transferred to adult court with a plea agreement in place that would allow him to be sentenced for a lesser crime than first-degree murder. That would give the prosecutor, defense attorney and judge flexibility to craft a sentence that gets the boy years of counseling as a youthful offender, followed by some time in adult prison as punishment before release.

"It's very much in people's hands how creative they want to get within the law," Boulder County prosecutor Jessel said.

Lafayette teenager Tess Damm, for example, received such a deal for the killing of her mother in 2007 when she was 15. She was allowed to plead guilty to second-degree murder, then sentenced to 23 years, with five of them spent in a youth corrections center before transfer to adult prison. Authorities, however, said she did not abide by the terms, plotting at one point to escape from her youth facility.

Juveniles tried as adults who go into a youth offender prison participate in a four-phase program that includes counseling, education and integration back into the community.

It costs about $70,000 a year to put a child through the youth offender system and only $35,000 in an adult prison, but because the recidivism rate is lower for those who go with the first option, it's worth the expense, Quick said.

Sibling's statement

Right now, the boy accused of killing his parents in Burlington is in a Greeley juvenile detention cell while he waits for a disposition in his case.

His older brother Caleb released a statement to 9News on Friday thanking people for their concern.

"I really appreciate the concern and prayers. We should be fine now. We've had a lot of help from relatives, friends, and all the people I work with. I will tell you that my little sister is doing great, and my brother is starting to do better."

He made no mention of the 12-year-old, who, Jessel surmised, will now be carefully scrutinized before a decision is made on how to proceed.

"What we find in juvenile is an offender who appears on the surface to be a certain way and when you look at the crime, you find it does not necessarily predict risk," she said. "If you peel back the layers of what's gone on in a kid's life, it's unbelievable what you find out."

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_17544268

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From the DEA

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Chemicals Used in "Spice" and "K2" Type Products Now Under Federal Control and Regulation

DEA Will Study Whether To Permanently Control Five Substances

MAR 01 - WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) today exercised its emergency scheduling authority to control five chemicals (JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-200, CP-47,497, and cannabicyclohexanol) used to make so-called “fake pot” products. Except as authorized by law, this action makes possessing and selling these chemicals or the products that contain them illegal in the United States. This emergency action was necessary to prevent an imminent threat to public health and safety. The temporary scheduling action will remain in effect for at least one year while the DEA and the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) further study whether these chemicals should be permanently controlled.

The Final Order was published today in the Federal Register to alert the public to this action. These chemicals will be controlled for at least 12 months, with the possibility of a six month extension. They are designated as Schedule I substances, the most restrictive category under the Controlled Substances Act. Schedule I substances are reserved for those substances with a high potential for abuse, no accepted medical use for treatment in the United States and a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug under medical supervision.

Over the past couple of years, smokeable herbal products marketed as being “legal” and as providing a marijuana-like high, have become increasingly popular, particularly among teens and young adults. These products consist of plant material that has been coated with research chemicals that claim to mimic THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, and are sold at a variety of retail outlets, in head shops, and over the Internet. These chemicals, however, have not been approved by the FDA for human consumption, and there is no oversight of the manufacturing process. Brands such as “Spice,” “K2,” “Blaze,” and “Red X Dawn” are labeled as herbal incense to mask their intended purpose.

Since 2009, DEA has received an increasing number of reports from poison control centers, hospitals and law enforcement regarding these products. At least 16 states have already taken action to control one or more of these chemicals. The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 amends the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to allow the DEA Administrator to place a substance temporarily in schedule I when it is necessary to avoid an imminent threat to the public safety. Emergency room physicians report that individuals that use these types of products experience serious side effects which include: convulsions, anxiety attacks, dangerously elevated heart rates, increased blood pressure, vomiting, and disorientation.

“Young people are being harmed when they smoke these dangerous ‘fake pot' products and wrongly equate the products' ‘legal' retail availability with being ‘safe',” said DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart. “Parents and community leaders look to us to help them protect their kids, and we have not let them down. Today's action, while temporary, will reduce the number of young people being seen in hospital emergency rooms after ingesting these synthetic chemicals to get high.”

http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/pressrel/pr030111.html

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