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May 29, 2011

The anthrax killings: A troubled mind

Bruce Ivins, who became a respected Army scientist and an authority on the laboratory use of anthrax, had a penchant for vendettas, especially against women.

He roamed the University of Cincinnati campus with a loaded gun. When his rage overflowed, the brainy microbiology major would open fire inside empty buildings, visualizing a wall clock or other object as a person who had done him wrong.

By the mid-1970s, Bruce Ivins had earned his doctorate and was a promising researcher at the University of North Carolina. By outward appearances, he was a charming eccentric, odd but disarming. Inside, he still smoldered with resentment, and he saw a new outlet for it.

Several years earlier, a Cincinnati student had turned him down for a date. He had projected his anger onto the young woman's sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma. There was a Kappa house in Chapel Hill, N.C., and Ivins cased the building. One night when it was empty, he slipped in through a bathroom window and roamed the darkened floors with a penlight.

Upstairs, he found something that fascinated him: a glass-enclosed sheaf of documents, called a cipher, necessary for decoding the sorority's secrets. The cipher would help him wage a personal war against Kappa Kappa Gamma into the sixth decade of his life.

This was the side of himself that Ivins kept carefully hidden. He devised sneaky ways to strike anonymously at people or institutions he imagined had offended him. He harbored murderous fantasies about women who did not reciprocate his overtures. He bought bomb-making ingredients and kept firearms, ammunition and body armor in his basement.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-anthrax-ivins-20110529,0,7504596,print.story

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Don't fear the prison decision

California won't have to free dangerous criminals to meet the Supreme Court's mandate.

In his dissent from the majority in the recent Supreme Court decision requiring California to reduce its prison population by 33,000 inmates, Justice Antonin Scalia warned that "terrible things are sure to happen as a consequence of this outrageous order."

But Californians shouldn't panic. The state won't have to throw open the prison doors to meet the court's order if it embraces very modest sentencing reforms.

Prudent ideas for reducing the prison population have been advocated by various task forces, including ones led by former Gov. George Deukmejian, by former Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp and by a national panel of corrections experts convened by the Legislature. The California Department of Corrections has already submitted a plan to the federal courts detailing how it expects to make the necessary prison population reductions.

Even without the Supreme Court decision, about 250,000 inmates who have served their time will be released from California prisons over the next two years. In addition, since the late 1990s, jails in 22 counties have been releasing nearly 100,000 inmates a year to meet court-ordered caps on the number of people their facilities can accommodate.

Despite all those releases, crime rates are at the lowest levels since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president. Serious crime and arrests have been dropping in California and across the nation for years. While criminologists do not have an easy explanation for the huge crime decline, the evidence points to more effective policing, improved prevention programs for at-risk families and an influx of immigrants, who traditionally have very low crime rates.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-woodford-krisberg-prisons-20110529,0,927777,print.story

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Lockheed Martin hit by an unspecified cyber incident: US government

2011 now deadliest year for tornadoes since 1953

JOPLIN, Mo. -- The death toll from the monster tornado last week in Missouri has risen to at least 139. Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr said Saturday during a news conference that the death toll rose to at least 142, but later revised that figure down without elaboration.

That makes this the deadliest year for tornadoes since 1953, based on an assessment of figures from the National Weather Service.

If the death toll does stand at 139, it would place this year's tornado death toll at 520. Until now, the highest recorded death toll in a single year was 519 in 1953.

Missouri says the number of people still unaccounted for since the Joplin tornado May 22 is now 100. State Department of Public Safety Deputy Director Andrea Spillars said Saturday that within that number, nine people have been reported dead by their families, but state officials are working to confirm. She said the temporary morgue has 142 human remains, but that includes partial remains.

"Some of those remains may be the same person," she said, adding that officials are trying to use scientific means rather than relying on relatives' visual identifications.

http://www.freep.com/print/article/20110529/NEWS07/105290518/2011-now-deadliest-year-tornadoes-since-1953

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Practical prison policy trumps raw emotion

For the past two decades a state by state debate has taken place about crime and punishment.

From one side has come the emotional response to "lock 'em up," leading to "three strikes" laws and other harsh sentencing mandates requiring long-term incarceration and providing judges little or no leeway to evaluate individual cases. With every sensational, violent crime came new calls for tougher penalties.

Countering that argument have been those who contend that when substance abuse, mental illness or both are at the root of criminal behavior, alternatives to imprisonment should be available. Opponents of the life imprisonment after three strikes approach contend that the justice system needs the leeway to consider the unique circumstances of every offense.

For the most part, Connecticut and its elected leaders have fallen on the side of reason, rather than emotion. A majority of lawmakers have resisted the politically attractive, tough-on-crime mantle that the three-strike approach provides, instead opting for good public policy.

The evidence continues to mount that Connecticut made the right choice.

http://www.theday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110529/OP01/305299959/1069/rss06&template=printart

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May 28, 2011

Editorial

Circumcision decisions

Attempts to ban the procedure intrude on parents' ability to decide what's best for children.

Despite the overwrought claims made by its opponents, male circumcision is not remotely tantamount to mutilation. Complications are rare and generally minor and short term. And circumcision has been linked to various health benefits.

Nevertheless, a measure to ban male circumcision in children has obtained the required 12,000 signatures to qualify for the November ballot in San Francisco — and an anti-circumcision group is now targeting Santa Monica for a similar ballot proposal. These are attempts to intrude on parents' ability to make private medical decisions for their children. And by that, we don't just mean for Jewish and many Muslim parents for whom circumcision is part of religious tradition, but for any family.

Religion is not the main reason to reject this movement. Female genital mutilation is part of the cultural or faith traditions of some groups, yet it is rightly illegal because it is a form of child abuse. According to the World Health Organization, it bestows no health benefits and carries terrible long-term consequences, among them higher rates of maternal and newborn mortality, repeated pelvic and urinary tract infections, fistulas and difficulty urinating. Our society accords religious traditions strong legal protection, but it rarely allows the personal beliefs of parents to take precedence over serious health and safety concerns.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-circumcision-20110527,0,7295445,print.story

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Immigration reform: Secure Communities and California's push to limit its impact

California has moved a step closer to passing a bill that would roll back the state's participation in Secure Communities, a controversial program aimed at deporting dangerous immigrants. Under the program, all arrestees' fingerprints are shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

On Thursday, the Assembly passed the TRUST Act by a 43-22 vote. The measure would require that only the fingerprints of convicted felons be run through federal databases. The bill, sponsored by Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), would essentially reset the rules for how California counties participate in Secure Communities.

Secure Communities was touted as a way to help identify and deport illegal immigrants convicted of serious crimes. But over the past year, the program has come under fire from those who say it has failed to track down or deport dangerous immigrants. Department of Homeland Securities' statistics indicate that many of those deported under the program had never been convicted of a crime or were guilty of only minor crimes.

Critics also accuse federal officials of misleading state and county officials who questioned whether participation in the program was option. Homeland Security officials appear to have initially told some local officials they could opt out but have since said no such provision exists.

California is among a growing number of states saying they want to modify or opt out of Secure Communities. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn recently ended his state's agreement, though it's unclear if Homeland Security will honor that decision.

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2011/05/immigration-reform-secure-communities-and-californias-push-to-limit-its-impact.html

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Illegal Workers: Court Upholds Faulting Hirers

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld an Arizona law that imposes harsh penalties on businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

The 5-to-3 decision appeared to endorse vigorous state efforts to punish employers who intentionally hire illegal workers. The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts on behalf of the court's five more conservative members, said that Colorado, Mississippi, Missouri, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia had recently enacted laws similar to the one at issue in the case.

The decision did not directly address a more recent Arizona law that gives the police greater authority to check the immigration status of people they stop. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit blocked enforcement of that law in April, and the case may reach the Supreme Court soon.

The challenge to the Arizona law that was the subject of Thursday's decision was brought by a coalition of business and civil liberties groups, with support from the Obama administration. They said the law in question, the Legal Arizona Workers Act, conflicted with federal immigration policy.

The act was signed into law in 2007 by Janet Napolitano, a Democrat who was then the state's governor. Ms. Napolitano is now secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/us/27scotus.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

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The History of Memorial Day

Traditionally, Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer and a weekend full of parades, hamburgers and long road trips. Most importantly, it's a day to remember those who have died in defense of this country, although the holiday had a rocky start in this regard.

Despite its status as a national holiday, the origins of what was once known as “Decoration Day” are shrouded in incomplete historical records and the division between the North and the South caused by the Civil War.

According to USMemorialDay.org, the original name for the holiday was inspired when women adorned Confederate soldiers' gravestones after the Civil War ended. But tensions between the two regions caused the holiday to be stuck in limbo as a national celebration for more than 50 years.

Memorial Day was first proclaimed in 1868 when the graves of soldiers buried at Arlington Cemetery in Washington D.C. were decorated. By 1890, all the northern states adopted the holiday, but the South refused and celebrated the dead in their own ways. That changed in the early 20 th century, when the holiday was changed to also honor the people who died in World War I.

In 1971, the U.S. Congress officially made Memorial Day a federal holiday.

http://weston-ct.patch.com/articles/the-history-of-memorial-day-4

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May 27, 2011

Supreme Court upholds Arizona immigration law targeting employers

The high court ruling allows the state, and others, to penalize businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

The Supreme Court gave a big boost to proponents of stricter state laws against illegal immigration by upholding Arizona's "business death penalty" for employers who repeatedly hire undocumented workers.

The 5-3 ruling gives more states a green light to target those who employ illegal immigrants. And because it rejected the contention that the state was interfering with the federal government's authority over immigration, the decision also encouraged supporters of Arizona's even more controversial immigration law. That law, which requires police to check the immigration status of people they lawfully stop and who they suspect are in the country illegally, will soon come before the court.

The ruling said Arizona could deny employers a business license after a second violation of its Legal Arizona Workers Act of 2007. Also upheld was Arizona's requirement that employers check with the federal E-Verify program before hiring workers.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said Arizona's licensing law "falls well within the confines of the authority Congress chose to leave to the states," rebuffing challenges from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Obama administration and civil rights groups.

The ruling on the employment question sets the stage for a high court showdown as early as next year in the even bigger battle over Arizona's mandate for police detention of people they suspect are in the U.S. illegally, known as SB 1070.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-immigration-ruling-20110526,0,6071787,print.story

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Immigration: You can't rely on E-Verify

The Supreme Court has upheld a measure that imposes sanctions on employers who knowingly hire illegal workers. But it relies on E-Verify, which is inaccurate and has provisions that must be fixed.

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Arizona law that permits local officials to revoke the licenses of businesses that knowingly hire illegal workers. The decision makes sense in principle but not in practice.

Under the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act, business owners are required to use the federal E-Verify program to confirm if a person is authorized to work in this country. Employers must electronically check workers' names against databases kept by the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security. Workers found to be ineligible have up to eight working days to straighten out the problem before employers would be required to fire them. If a company is found to have knowingly hired an undocumented worker once, it can have its licenses suspended; twice, the company may be shut down.

The problem with the Arizona statute is not that it penalizes employers who break the law. Businesses that hire undocumented immigrants should face fines or sanctions, as called for under current federal law (although many would disagree with the court's conclusion that states may impose such penalties). The problem is that the law relies on E-Verify, which isn't ready for prime time.

Until now, E-Verify has generally been used on a voluntary basis by employers because of concerns about its accuracy. Conservative estimates put the program's error rate at just under 1% — meaning that one out of every 100 legal job applicants could be found ineligible to work. Nearly half of those will not be able to fix the problem even though they are citizens or legal workers, according to the National Immigration Law Center. The reality is that the error rate may be much higher. Consider that in 2008, Intel Corp. reported that just over 12% of its workers were wrongly tagged as ineligible, according to the Migration Policy Center in Washington. Or that a survey by Los Angeles County of employees found an error rate of 2.7 in 2008 and 2.0 in 2009, according to a report submitted to the Board of Supervisors. The error rate is especially high in cities with large immigrant communities.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-arizona-20110527,0,6142201,print.story

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More than 200 in Joplin unaccounted for since tornado, officials say

Missouri officials have yet to list the names of the dead, pending positive identifications. Families of those missing since the tornado are frustrated because without any confirmation of death, they have to keep searching.

Missouri officials announced Thursday that more than 200 residents of Joplin remain unaccounted for in the wake of the massive tornado that swept through the city. Mark Lindquist, however, is not among them.

For agonizing hours in the wake of Sunday's storm, Lindquist's sister, Linda Lindquist-Baldwin, and other family members combed the area around the group home for the disabled where the 51-year-old Joplin resident had been working when the twister struck. Most of the people in the building had been found dead. Could Lindquist have lived?

His family members scoured the debris and called every hospital within 100 miles. They approached officials at the morgue where bodies of the 126 confirmed dead have been gathered. No one knew. Then, they heard that an unidentified man was in the intensive care unit at Freeman Hospital West.

But the man was unconscious, his face so swollen he was unrecognizable.

"The one thing about him is he has hazel eyes, and in one eye, there's a little brown fleck. They looked, and the little brown fleck was there," Lindquist-Baldwin said Thursday, not long after leaving her brother's room in the intensive care unit. The now-identified Lindquist remains there in guarded condition with substantial injuries to his lungs.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-tornado-frustration-20110527,0,6259397,print.story

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FBI investigating 91-year-old woman's mail-order suicide kits

The FBI carried out search warrants this week at the home of a 91-year-old San Diego County woman who allegedly sells do-it-yourself suicide kits in the mail.

Witnesses told KTLA News that agents removed computers and other records from the home of Sharlotte Hydorn on Wednesday.

The Associated Press reported that an Oregon man used one of the suicide kits to take his life earlier this year. According to AP's Tami Abdollah:

The death of 29-year-old Nick Klonoski has prompted Oregon lawmakers to consider outlawing the sale of suicide kits as they respond to a disturbing twist on the assisted suicide debate in the state. Law enforcement officials are also looking into the 91-year-old woman who sold the "helium hood" that killed Klonoski, with agents raiding her California home on Wednesday. The Oregon legislation, prompted by a March story in The Register-Guard of Eugene about Klonoski's death, would make it a felony to sell or transfer "any substance or objects to another person knowing" that person plans to use it to kill themselves.

Hydorn could not be reached for comment.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/05/fbi-investigating-91-year-old-womans-mail-order-suicide-kits.html

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Cutting California's prison rolls

The mistaken release of violent felons shows it won't be easy. But it doesn't have to lead to more crime.

As some commentators — and some rightward-leaning justices on the U.S. Supreme Court — would have it, it's time for Californians to lock their doors and bar their windows, because the court's majority this week upheld a federal court order for the Golden State to shed more than 30,000 inmates from its prison population within two years. But are "terrible things sure to happen" as a result of the ruling, as Justice Antonin Scalia stated in his dissenting opinion? A report released Wednesday by the state's inspector general makes Scalia's words look prophetic, yet crime statistics suggest such fears may be groundless.

Amid the media attention focused on the Supreme Court ruling Monday, little notice was paid to the fact that California has already taken important steps to reduce its prison population, and they didn't result in pandemonium in the streets. From an average of about 158,000 inmates in 2009, the system now holds about 143,000, largely because of reforms approved by the Legislature a year and a half ago.

Now, rather than automatically placing every released convict on parole, the state assesses inmates' risk of reoffending and places nonviolent criminals deemed at low risk on "non-revocable parole." This means they aren't supervised and can only be sent back to prison for a new felony, not simply for violating the terms of their parole. It was a smart reform that reduced the prison rolls while also freeing up parole officers to focus on genuinely dangerous ex-cons.

But according to the inspector general, it has a glitch: The computer tool used to assess inmate risk is flawed. State inspectors sampled a list of inmates placed on non-revocable parole in July 2010 and found that 15% of them shouldn't have been eligible. As a result, they estimated that in the first seven months of the program, 450 violent offenders were improperly released. Corrections officials say many of the problems identified last July have been fixed, but the inspector general estimates the error rate is still 8%. That's too high for comfort.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-crime-20110527,0,3708052.story

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When Children's Scribbles Hide a Prison Drug

WINDHAM, Me. — Mike Barrett, a corrections officer, ripped open an envelope in the mail room at the Maine Correctional Center here and eyed something suspicious: a Father's Day card, sent a month early. He carefully felt the card and slit it open, looking for a substance that has made mail call here a different experience of late.

Mr. Barrett and other prison officials nationwide are searching their facilities, mail and visitors for Suboxone, a drug used as a treatment for opiate addiction that has become coveted as contraband. Innovative smugglers have turned crushed Suboxone pills into a paste and spread it under stamps or over children's artwork, including pages from a princess coloring book found in a New Jersey jail.

The drug also comes in thin strips, which dissolve under the tongue, that smugglers have tucked behind envelope seams and stamps.

“It's become a crisis in here, to be honest with you,” said Maj. Francine Breton, administrator of the Cumberland County Jail in Portland, Me. “It's the drug of choice right now.”

Law enforcement officials say that Suboxone, which is prescribed to treat addiction to heroin and powerful painkillers like oxycodone, has become a drug of abuse in its own right, resulting in prison smuggling efforts from New Mexico to Maine. Addicts buy it on the street when they cannot find or afford their drug of choice, to stave off the sickness that comes with withdrawal. But some people are also taking it for the high they say it provides.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/us/27smuggle.html

Imam from Trinidad Convicted of Conspiracy to Launch Terrorist Attack at JFK Airport

Defendant Plotted to Explode Fuel Tanks and Pipeline at Airport

BROOKLYN, NY—Following a four-week jury trial, Kareem Ibrahim was convicted today in the Eastern District of New York of conspiring to attack John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York, by exploding fuel tanks and the fuel pipeline under the airport. The defendant believed the attack would cause extensive damage to the airport and to the United States economy, as well as the loss of innocent lives. The defendant faces a sentence of up to life in prison. Sentencing has been scheduled for October 21, 2011.

The convictions were announced by Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and Janice K. Fedarcyk, Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York.

The evidence at trial established that Kareem Ibrahim, an Imam and leader of the Shiite Muslim community in Trinidad and Tobago, provided religious instruction and operational support to a group plotting to commit a terrorist attack at JFK Airport. The plot originated with Russell Defreitas, a naturalized United States citizen from Guyana, who drew on his prior experience working at JFK Airport as a cargo handler to plan the attack on its fuel tanks and fuel pipeline. Beginning in 2006, Defreitas recruited others to join the plot, including the defendant Kareem Ibrahim, Abdel Nur and Abdul Kadir, a former member of parliament in Guyana.

http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2011/imam-from-trinidad-convicted-of-conspiracy-to-launch-terrorist-attack-at-jfk-airport

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May 26, 2011

Computer errors let violent California prisoners go free

A computer system that lacked key information about inmates factored in the release of an estimated 450 prisoners with a "high risk of violence," according to the California inspector general.

Reporting from Sacramento -- Computer errors prompted California prison officials to mistakenly release an estimated 450 inmates with "a high risk for violence" as unsupervised parolees in a program meant to ease overcrowding, according to the state's inspector general.

More than 1,000 additional prisoners presenting a high risk of committing drug crimes, property crimes and other offenses were also let out, officials said.

No attempt was made to return any of the offenders to state lockups or place them on supervised parole, said inspector general spokeswoman Renee Hansen.

All of the prisoners were placed on "non-revocable parole," whose participants are not required to report to parole officers and can be sent back to prison only if caught committing a crime. The program was started in January 2010 for inmates judged to be at very low risk of reoffending, leaving parole agents free to focus on supervising higher-risk parolees.

The revelations come two days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California's prisons are dangerously overcrowded and upheld an earlier order that state officials find a way to reduce the 143,335-inmate population by roughly 33,000. The state has two years to comply.

State Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), a former prosecutor who requested an investigation of the unsupervised-parole program, said the inspector general's report "confirms my worst fears" about it.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prisons-20110526,0,4457690,print.story

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Jared Loughner mentally unfit for trial, judge rules

The suspect in Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' shooting in Tucson is sent back to a federal prison hospital for treatment and further evaluation. He could spend the rest of his life in federal mental health facilities.

A federal judge ruled Jared Lee Loughner mentally incompetent to stand trial in the Jan. 8 shooting spree that gravely wounded an Arizona congresswoman after two medical experts agreed he suffered from schizophrenia and for several years has been troubled by delusions and hallucinations.

Judge Larry A. Burns sent Loughner back to the federal medical center for prisoners in Springfield, Mo., for treatment and further evaluation, stopping for now any attempt to take him to trial for the shooting that killed six people and injured 13 at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' neighborhood meeting.

Without any change in his condition, Loughner could spend the rest of his life in federal mental health facilities. But if he shows some signs of improvement, his case could go forward.

Two psychiatric examiners made it clear in their reports that any improvement may be far away, if possible at all. They provided the court with 18 hours of videotape in which they attempted to interview him, much of it with Loughner lying in bed, the covers up near his head, answering them with nonsensical statements and often rambling obsessively about treason.

The ruling came after U.S. marshals removed Loughner from the courtroom Wednesday when he suddenly started screaming. His father, Randy Loughner, sat in the second row next to Loughner's mother and cried almost the entire time.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-loughner-sanity-20110526,0,3455159,print.story

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L.A. City Council issues $75,000 reward in toddler's death

The Los Angeles City Council has issued a $75,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or people responsible for a shooting that killed a toddler and left his uncle in critical condition.

Shortly after nightfall Monday, gunfire broke out in the South Los Angeles neighborhood where 22-month-old Joshua Montes lived with his family. Minutes before, Joshua's uncle, Josefat Canchola, had carried the boy out the back door to play.

Both were struck in the head by the spray of bullets that investigators believe may have been intended for someone else. They were taken to a hospital, where Joshua died soon afterward. Canchola remains in critical condition, his family said.

Councilwoman Jan Perry said she hoped the reward would help police find whoever is responsible for this "unimaginable crime." "These people obviously have no regard for human life, and we need to do everything in our power to find them before they hurt someone else," she said.

Anyone with information related to the shooting is asked to contact Newton Area detectives at (323) 846-6556 .

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/05/toddler-killed-reward.html

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Sheriff Joe Arpaio Says 3 Officers Arrested for Drugs, Human Trafficking

Sheriff Joe Arpaio has said that three of his Maricopa County employees have been busted for drugs and human trafficking.

The workers, a deputy and two female detention officers, were among 12 people arrested in a Phoenix-based international drug smuggling ring, authorities.

Arpaio, the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in the country, said law enforcement is tough enough without having to worry his own team.

"We have enough violence without having moles in my own organization that put my deputies in danger," Arpaio said.

One of the detention officers, Marcella Hernández, told authorities that she is eight-months pregnant with the child of Francisco Arce-Torres, the alleged drug ring's leader who court documents say is also a member of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/05/25/sheriff-joe-arpaio-says-3-employees-arrested-drugs-human-trafficking/

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Congress has midnight deadline on Patriot Act bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is rushing to extend the life of three anti-terror tools, including the use of roving wiretaps, before they expire at midnight Thursday.

The Senate was set to start voting on the legislation, including possible amendments, Thursday morning. Final passage during the day would send it to the House for quick approval and then onward to President Barack Obama in Europe for his signature.

The rapid-fire action on key elements of the post-9/11 USA Patriot Act comes after several days of impasse in the Senate and results in part from the prodding of senior intelligence officials, who warned of the consequences of disrupting surveillance operations.

"Should the authority to use these critical tools expire, our nation's intelligence and law enforcement professionals will have less capability than they have today to detect terrorist plots," James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, wrote congressional leaders.

The legislation would extend for four years provisions that allow law enforcement officials to set roving wiretaps to monitor multiple communications devices; obtain court-approved access to business records and other documents, including library check-outs, that might be relevant to a terrorist threat; and conduct surveillance of "lone wolf" suspects not known to be tied to specific terrorist groups.

http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2011/05/26/news/doc4dde1f5d0326e853576295.txt

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May 25, 2011

Retired general who led campaign against drug gangs killed in Mexico

A recently retired Mexican army general who oversaw a controversial military operation against drug-trafficking was shot dead in a Mexico City suburb over the weekend, the military said in a statement (link in Spanish).

A tough-talking career soldier, retired Gen. Jorge Juarez Loera was in civilian clothes and in a compact civilian vehicle Saturday when he pulled over after being struck from behind in the Ciudad Satelite area of northwest Mexico City, witnesses told reporters. After exiting his vehicle and confronting the other driver, Juarez Loera was shot and killed, reports said.

Federal investigators have taken over the case from local authorities, reports said Tuesday. One possibility being investigated is "premeditated execution," said El Universal (link in Spanish). The general was considered an expert in drug-trafficking issues and had access to sensitive intelligence, raising the possibility he was targeted in the shooting, sources told the daily Reforma.

Juarez Loera rose to third in command in the Mexican military, and left his most recent post upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65 earlier this month.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2011/05/general-drug-war-mexico-killed-chihuahua-military.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LaPlaza+%28La+Plaza%29

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California homicides decline to lowest rate in 45 years

California's homicide rate continued to fall in 2010, reaching the lowest level since 1966, Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris announced Tuesday. Preliminary figures gathered by the California Department of Justice from the state's largest jurisdictions show the number of homicides reported in 2010 declined by 9.6% from 2009.

That is the fifth year of declines in killings. There were 1,335 homicides in 89 of the state's largest jurisdictions in 2010, according to the report, down from 1,476 in 2009. The continuing drop reflects a trend seen in Los Angeles, where there were 293 homicides in 2010, down from 312 the year before, according to the state report

Overall, the number of violent crimes declined 6.4% in 2010 statewide, according to statistics gathered from 89 larger agencies that report about 65% of all crimes committed annually in the state.

Forcible rape declined 6%; robbery dropped 8.9%; and aggravated assault fell 4.6%. "The decline in homicides and other violent crimes reflects the tireless efforts of our peace officers," Harris said.

Property crimes declined 2.2% in 2010; burglary dropped 0.9%; motor vehicle theft declined 7.2%; arson dropped 15%; and larceny under $400 dropped 4.9%. Only larceny of more than $400 rose, by 0.7%.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/05/california-homicides-decline-to-lowest-rate-in-45-years.html

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Tim Rutten: A prison system we deserve

America generally — and California in particular — simply sends too many people to prison for too long relative to their offenses.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California's prisons are so overcrowded they violate constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment by systematically depriving inmates of minimal mental health and medical care.

Writing for the court's 5-4 majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy — a Californian — pointed to the use of "telephone-booth-sized cages without toilets" to house suicidal prisoners. A lower court earlier said that "an inmate in one of California's prisons needlessly dies every six or seven days due to constitutional deficiencies."

None of this comes as a surprise. The suits to which this ruling responds were filed more than two decades ago, and California has allowed these conditions to persist despite more than 70 lower court orders. California's 33-prison network was designed to confine 80,000 convicts, but at times over recent years it has held more than 160,000. On Monday, there were 143,435 inmates, which still is 180% of capacity, as Terry Thornton of the Department of Corrections told the Wall Street Journal. The court has given Sacramento two more years to cut the prison population by 33,630, which would bring the total to 109,805 inmates, or 137.5% of intended capacity — hardly a draconian requirement.

Monday's ruling is as much an indictment of this state's politics as it is of our correctional system, and it ought to prod us into considering a couple of unpleasant truths: One, America generally — and California in particular — simply sends too many people to prison for too long relative to their offenses. Two, this state's prisons are perhaps the prime example of our relatively recent popular impulse to insist on having things for which we don't want to pay — in this case, mass incarceration of nonviolent offenders. The situation has been exacerbated by the intrusion of another recent trend: the infusions of single-issue politics into our criminal justice system.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0525-rutten-20110525,0,4019642,print.column

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Elizabeth Smart kidnapper could face life in prison

Ed Smart has told Reuters his daughter, now 23, considers it important to confront Brian David Mitchell in open court before he is sent to prison for her June 5, 2002 kidnapping and nine-month ordeal, a sensational crime that gripped much of America.

Mitchell, 57, was found guilty by a federal court jury in December of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines to engage in sexual activity.

He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

"We are hoping that he does receive a life sentence because the last thing we want to do is hear about another girl that he has hurt like he did Elizabeth," Ed Smart said.

Mitchell's estranged wife, Wanda Barzee, was sentenced in May 2010 to a 15-year prison term after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/25/us-smart-kidnapping-idUSTRE74O39120110525

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Day 3 – Hurricane Preparedness Week: Wind Danger

Day 2 – Hurricane Preparedness Week: Storm Surge

Day 1 - Hurricane Preparedness Week: What We're Doing to Prepare

http://blog.fema.gov/search/label/Hurricane

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May 24, 2011

U.S. Supreme Court orders massive inmate release to relieve California's crowded prisons

Justice Kennedy cites inhumane conditions, while dissenters fear a crime rampage. Gov. Jerry Brown seeks tax hike to fund transfers to county jails as prison officials hope to avoid freeing anyone.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California must remove tens of thousands of inmates from its prison rolls in the next two years, and state officials vowed to comply, saying they hoped to do so without setting any criminals free.

Administration officials expressed confidence that their plan to shift low-level offenders to county jails and other facilities, already approved by lawmakers, would ease the persistent crowding that the high court said Monday had caused "needless suffering and death" and amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

Gov. Jerry Brown's transfer plan "would solve quite a bit" of the overcrowding problem, though not as quickly as the court wants, said Matthew Cate, secretary of California's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. "Our goal is to not release inmates at all.''

But the governor's plan would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, to be paid for with tax hikes that could prove politically impossible to implement. And at present, Brown's plan is the only one on the table.

The governor issued a muted statement calling for enactment of his program and promising, "I will take all steps necessary to protect public safety."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-court-prisons-20110524,0,5745553,print.story

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Time for California to tackle prison overcrowding

With the U.S. Supreme Court upholding an order to reduce the state's inmate population, the Legislature should take a first step by creating a panel to revise sentencing guidelines.

Gov. Jerry Brown is a reluctant prison reformer; in his former job as attorney general, he fought hard to stave off a federal court order requiring the state to reduce its inmate population. But with Monday's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding that order, Brown can't put off the big decisions anymore — and neither can the Legislature, which has been ignoring the prison problem for decades.

Perhaps because he understood the weakness of his own case, Brown seems to have been prepared for Monday's ruling in Brown vs. Plata, in which a 5-4 Supreme Court majority agreed that California's prison conditions were so bad that they violated the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Earlier this year he released a proposal for transferring thousands of inmates from state prisons to county jails, and last month he signed a bill, AB 109, to accomplish that. But that may not suffice.

At last count there were 142,000 inmates in California prisons, which are so overcrowded that some prisoners must be housed collectively in gymnasiums or alone in phone-booth-sized cages. Under the order upheld by the Supreme Court, the state must reduce its inmate population to 137.5% of the system's capacity — meaning about 110,000 — within two years.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-prisons-20110524,0,3153932,print.story

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In Joplin, there was no time to prepare

Sunday's tornado ripped into a hospital, a nursing home and thousands of other buildings, killing at least 116 in what's being called the worst twister ever to hit Missouri.

When the tornado hit, Staci Perry, a scrub technician at St. John's Regional Medical Center, had just left the operating room to grab a piece of equipment for a surgery in progress. An urgent announcement came over the loudspeaker: "Execute condition gray." That was the hospital's code for an impending disaster, though in drills, the command was always preceded by "Prepare for condition gray."

There was no time to prepare. As she heard the massive glass walls crack, Perry, 33, dashed back to surgery. "The pressure in everyone's ears was just tremendous," she said. A physician's assistant threw himself against the door so it wouldn't blow in and destroy the operating room. The lights went out. The wind howled.

"Literally, the hospital imploded," said Dr. Jim Riscoe, an emergency room physician at the 230-bed facility. There is an emergency plan for disasters, he said, "but they don't anticipate the emergency being the hospital."

When it was over, just after 5:30 p.m. Sunday, the storm had gouged a six-mile swath roughly half a mile wide in this city of 50,000 people. At least 116 people died, five of them hospital patients.

The apocalyptic after-images were depressingly familiar, reminiscent of those from the deadly April tornadoes in the South: rubble as far as the eye could see, cars buried under pieces of houses, trees wrenched from the ground with massive roots reaching toward the sky, columns of smoke rising from gas fires, emergency vehicles with lights flashing. And everywhere, knots of people stunned by nature's violence mourned their losses, counted their blessings and told their harrowing stories.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-missouri-tornado-20110524,0,7312584,print.story

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Obama promises full federal response to Midwest storms, will visit Missouri on Sunday

President Obama this morning expressed his sorrow about the tornado damage in Missouri, Minnesota and around the Midwest, calling the devastation "incomparable" and promising a full federal response to help in the recovery.

Obama has already dispatched federal officials to the region to survey the damage and talk with local officials, and he said he will visit Missouri personally Sunday.

"We are here for you," Obama said, addressing the survivors. "We're going to stay by you." He pledged to sustain the recovery efforts "after the news cameras leave."

Sunday's storm gouged a six-mile swath roughly half a mile wide through Joplin, Mo. At least 116 people died, five of them hospital patients.

The impromptu statement was the first event of a day devoted to a state visit to Britain, where he will visit Queen Elizabeth II and join her for lunch at Buckingham Palace.

He is slated to sit down with Prime Minister David Cameron and to lay a wreath at Westminster Abbey. Although the president has traveled to Britain more than once during his term in office, this is the first official state visit, complete with a formal state dinner in the evening.

While the president's two-day visit is devoted to emphasizing the relationship between the United States and Britain -- "special relationship" is the officially preferred term -- an aide said the president is also asking for frequent briefings from home.

He spoke with FEMA director Craig Fugate this morning before addressing a small pool of reporters in a garden outside Winfield House, the ambassadorial residence where he is staying.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-missouri-storms-20110524,0,4500396,print.story

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Gun control that won't

If California bans 'open carry,' it could lead to more permits to carry concealed weapons.

What if we passed a gun control law but it led to more people carrying guns on our streets? That may be exactly what happens if a bill passed last week by the California Assembly becomes law.

AB 144 would prohibit the carrying of visible firearms in California cities. It was inspired by the spectacle of gun-rights advocates showing up last year at Starbucks shops with their handguns prominently displayed. That's legal, as long as those guns are unloaded.

If, however, California bans what is called "open carry," the state will probably have to loosen the standards for people to have permits to carry concealed weapons. In California, gun owners can only legally carry a concealed firearm, loaded or unloaded, if they have a permit. And in cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, "concealed carry" permits are very difficult to obtain — arguably too difficult, if AB 144 becomes law.

How, exactly, could banning open carry become a wedge that opens the door to more liberal concealed carry laws? It starts with a landmark Supreme Court decision two years ago, District of Columbia vs. Heller, in which the justices clearly held — for the first time in United States history — that individuals have a constitutional right to possess firearms.

Although the court's decision involved only guns kept in the home, most 2nd Amendment experts predict the court will eventually hold that the Constitution also guarantees the right to have a gun for self-defense in public. As the court explained, the 2nd Amendment recognizes not just a right "to keep" arms but also a right to "bear," or carry, arms.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-winkler-guns-20110524,0,4949931,print.story

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Casey Anthony trial to start in Orlando, Fla.

ORLANDO, Fla. — A Florida mother charged with her toddler's death will have her day in court almost three years after her 2-year-old daughter disappeared.

No witnesses saw what happened to 2-year-old Caylee Anthony, and only her killer knows exactly how she died. So the jury's decision will likely come down to forensic evidence.

If convicted, 25-year-old Casey Anthony could be sentenced to death. She has pleaded not guilty and says a babysitter kidnapped Caylee.

The trial is expected to last from six to eight weeks. Jurors were picked from Pinellas County on the Gulf Coast and transported to Orlando where they are being sequestered during the trial.

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/casey-anthony-trial-to-955808.html

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13 charged as federal officials round up alleged East Coast mafia

Federal authorities broadened their nationwide crackdown on organized crime Monday, arresting the reputed leaders of Philadelphia's La Cosa Nostra family on extortion, loan-sharking and other charges.

The indictment of 13 members and associates of the Philadelphia family is the latest in a series of high-profile roundups of alleged East Coast mafia members this year. Federal officials say the scope and severity of the charges show that the mafia remains a resilient foe, even after a decades-long FBI campaign against it.

In the newest case, authorities unsealed an indictment charging alleged Philadelphia boss Joseph Ligambi and 12 other mafia members and associates with criminal conduct that included racketeering conspiracy and illegal gambling. Federal officials said the defendants infused their activities with violence, using phrases such as “chop him up” and “put a bullet in your head” when threatening victims.

“This department has shown that our commitment to fighting organized crime is backed by actions,'' Lanny A. Breuer , assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Criminal Division, said at a news conference in Philadelphia. “Arrests, charges, convictions, prison sentences — the drumbeat of enforcement is growing louder, and organized crime figures throughout the country should hear it and take notice.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/13-arrested-as-federal-officials-continue-roundup-of-alleged-east-coast-mafia/2011/05/23/AFlTTw9G_print.html

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May 23, 2011

Owner of Pasadena's Las Encinas Hospital accused of applying lax standards at its Chicago facility

University of Illinois review finds inadequate staffing, sexual assaults among patients, mishandling of medication and poor patient oversight and blames 'corporate-level quality of care issues.'

The parent company of a troubled Pasadena psychiatric hospital where multiple patient deaths and the rape of a teenage girl have come under scrutiny is being criticized for a corporate culture said to breed safety problems.

An independent review by the University of Illinois at Chicago for that state's Department of Children and Family Services found that Corona-based Signature Healthcare Services has "corporate-level quality of care issues."

Those include inadequate staffing, sexual assaults among patients, mishandling of medication doses and poor oversight of patients. "The root causes of these deficiencies," the report concluded, "can likely be attributed in large part to a dysfunctional corporate context."

The company operates two hospitals in Arizona, one in Chicago and four in California; those are in Pasadena, Covina, San Diego and Ventura. The facility in Chicago was the subject of inquiries by the Chicago Tribune in 2010. The newspaper found that there have been at least four reports of youths sexually assaulted or abused at that facility since July 2008.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mental-hospital-20110523,0,6443282.story?track=rss

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Secure Communities program: A flawed deportation tool

The program, once billed as a voluntary partnership between the Department of Homeland Security and localities, is now mired in controversy.

When federal officials first announced the Secure Communities program in 2008, they billed it as a powerful tool in the battle to identify and deport illegal immigrants who had been convicted of violent crimes. Dozens of states, including California, signed on, agreeing that police would submit the fingerprints of all arrestees to be checked against federal databases for criminal convictions and deportation orders.

But the program, once billed as a voluntary partnership between the Department of Homeland Security and localities, is now mired in controversy. The government is investigating whether it has failed to nab dangerous criminals and has instead been used to target low-level nonviolent offenders. Since its launch, more than half of those deported under Secure Communities had minor or no criminal convictions, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics. In Los Angeles County, for example, nearly half of the 11,774 deported under the program from August 2009 to January 2011 had no convictions or had committed misdemeanors. They were targeted for deportation because the program doesn't distinguish between criminals and those who illegally entered the U.S. or overstayed a visa — a civil violation.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-secure-20110523,0,787775,print.story

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Creating a 4th Amendment loophole

The Supreme Court failed to keep a lid on police excesses with its ruling this week in a Kentucky drug case.

One of the most important functions of the Supreme Court is to put legal limits on police excesses. But the court failed to fulfill that responsibility last week when it widened a loophole in the requirement that police obtain a warrant before searching a home.

The 8-1 decision came in the case of a search of an apartment in Kentucky by police who suspected illegal drugs were being destroyed. The police, who said they smelled marijuana near the apartment, had knocked loudly on the door and shouted, "This is the police." Then, after hearing noises they thought indicated the destruction of evidence, they broke down the door.

Police don't need a warrant to enter a residence when there are "exigent circumstances," such as imminent danger, the possibility that a suspect will escape or concern about the immediate destruction of evidence. But in this case, the police actually created the exigent circumstances that they then capitalized on to conduct the warrantless search.

According to Kentucky's Supreme Court, the exigent-circumstances exception didn't apply because the police should have foreseen that their conduct would lead the occupants of the apartment to destroy evidence. Overturning that finding, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the court that as long as the police officers' behavior was lawful, the fact that it produced an exigent circumstance didn't violate the Constitution. That would be the case, Alito suggested, even if a police officer acted in bad faith in an attempt to evade the warrant requirement.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-exigent-20110523,0,3062005,print.story

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Police Seek New Ways to Defuse Tension

LOS ANGELES — When the police arrived, she was barricaded inside her apartment with her former girlfriend, threatening suicide, a gun in her hand.

“Let your hostage go!” one of the officers shouted.

It was the beginning of a seven-hour standoff that brought out the SWAT team and the Fire Department, cost the City of Los Angeles tens of thousands of dollars and could well have ended in lost lives.

But three years later, when two Los Angeles police officers interviewed the woman, Shawn Baxendale, in prison, she told them the police could have handled the situation better. The use of the word “hostage” by the first officers at the scene, she told them, stunned her — her ex-girlfriend had insisted on staying and could have left at any time, she said — and it made her feel that she had no options left.

“At this point I'm thinking, there's no going back,” Ms. Baxendale said.

The interview, recorded on videotape, is part of an unusual project started by the two officers, Detective Teresa Irvin and Officer Michael Baker, to gain insight into the mind-set of people involved in potentially violent encounters with the police.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/us/23swat.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Editorial

Chilling Echoes From Sept. 11

As the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania draws near, one of the main recommendations of the 9/11 Commission remains unfulfilled: the creation of a common communications system that lets emergency responders talk to one another across jurisdictions.

The problem was laid bare in the tragic cacophony at the World Trade Center, where scores of firefighters perished as police and fire officials couldn't communicate on antiquated radio systems before the second tower fell.

Four years later during Hurricane Katrina, emergency workers from across the nation faced the same dangerous problem. They had to resort to running handwritten notes to warn of shifting conditions.

Congress should be haunted by the threat of new disasters finding rescue workers still incommunicado. Responsible lawmakers can mark the 10th anniversary by passing legislation to finally create a national public safety communications network.

The overall challenge is more complex than it sounds, touching on questions of financing, broadcast spectrum fights, technology innovation and turf battles among local public safety agencies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/opinion/23mon1.html?pagewanted=print

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