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June 26, 2011

A deeply grounded image of what nuns are all about

The Catholic sisters don't fly, but they do have a history of rising to great heights. An exhibit at Mount St. Mary's College depicts the often-unseen realities of nuns' service and sacrifice.

The Catholic sisters have had it with "The Flying Nun."

For 300 years, they've had their feet firmly on the ground and in the trenches as teachers, social workers and caretakers, and yet an airborne sitcom character from the 1960s still stands as the pop culture image of a nun.

You'll get a different image, though, if you catch the traveling exhibit "Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America" that runs through Aug. 14 at Mount St. Mary's College in Brentwood.

It's time to park that wind-blown gliding nun in a hangar, one sister suggested at a preview gathering of nearly 400 nuns recently, and share the untold stories of the unsung heroes who have ministered to the sick and poor.

Another reason it's time to sing their own Hosannas is that nuns don't even get the respect they deserve from their bosses at the Vatican. For reasons that remain a mystery to many, church leaders two years ago launched investigations into the activities of nuns across the U.S.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0626-lopez-noflyingnun-20110626,0,4887755,print.column

Bulger offers new details to authorities

Trips to Mexico for medicine; had niece with a unit nearby

SANTA MONICA, Calif.— A chatty James “Whitey'' Bulger provided FBI agents with intriguing details about his life on the run after his arrest last week, boasting that he routinely slipped into Mexico to buy medicine for a heart condition, according to a law enforcement official.

Law enforcement officials have also found another connection between the South Boston mobster and the Santa Monica neighborhood he called home: A niece, the daughter of former Senate President William Bulger, lived 2 miles from Bulger's address back in 1992.

Though Bulger was a fugitive wanted for 19 murders, he was by no means reclusive. Bulger said he and his girlfriend, 60-year-old Catherine Greig, frequently drove to the border, parked on the US side and walked into Tijuana, using a false identification to get through security, the official said. In Tijuana, he was able to purchase Atenolol, a drug taken for chest pain and high blood pressure, without a prescription.

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June 25, 2011

Human rights groups urge Congress to investigate Border Patrol's use of deadly force

Lawmakers are asked to look into a policy that allows agents to shoot at rock throwers along the U.S.-Mexico border. The ACLU and others argue that the practice is inhumane.

A coalition of immigrant and human rights groups Friday urged Congress to investigate the Border Patrol's use of deadly force against rock throwers along the U.S.-Mexico border, saying the frequency of such confrontations is disturbing and inhumane.

The request came three days after an agent in San Diego fatally shot a 40-year-old Tijuana man suspected of injuring an agent by throwing rocks and a nail-studded wooden board.

Such incidents typically lead to demands for congressional scrutiny, but Congress in recent years has not taken up the issue. The letter, addressed to congressional committees, was signed by 65 national and regional groups, including the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties and Amnesty International.

Although confrontations between agents and smugglers have declined substantially in recent years, rock throwing is not uncommon in many urban areas where trafficking groups use aggressive tactics to prevent agents from arresting illegal immigrants.

Last year, agents in El Paso killed a teenage boy who was reportedly throwing rocks at them. Other alleged rock throwers were killed in the Arizona towns of Nogales and Douglas within the last year, according to the ACLU.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-border-protest-20110625,0,1765112,print.story

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Driver hits 88-year-old woman while texting, police say

A 24-year-old North Hollywood motorist is facing felony reckless driving charges after he allegedly struck an 88-year-old Burbank woman while he was texting.

Jerome Deveas was driving westbound on North Glenoaks Boulevard and made a left turn onto North Buena Vista Street at 3:40 p.m. on May 10 when he allegedly hit the woman as she was using a marked crosswalk. This week, he asked for more time to find an attorney.

After a weeks-long investigation, Burbank police detectives determined that the victim was following the law when crossing the street and Deveas' texting “significantly contributed to the collision.”

According to Los Angeles County Superior Court documents, the woman suffered serious injuries, including a bone fracture, from the accident. She continues to recover at a rehab center, Det. Paul Orlowski told 818 Now.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/06/driving-texting.html

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Tim Rutten: Whitey Bulger and the lure of those on the lam

There's something about the fugitive experience that makes us momentarily regret the criminal's capture.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who entertained a momentary twinge of regret Wednesday night when I heard that James (Whitey) Bulger, the legendary South Boston gangster, had been apprehended after 16 years on the run. There's something about the fugitive experience that holds our lawless imaginations in thrall, and with a capture of this sort, a dim candle gutters out somewhere in our private romantic firmaments.

It's a momentary experience for the sensible and the moderately mature, because there's absolutely nothing about Whitey Bulger even vaguely romantic or slightly sympathetic. Murder for hire, loan sharking and extortion were the pillars of his career. There's nothing clever or amusing about those lines of work; they're up-close-and-personal sorts of crimes that attract sadists and sociopaths, and there's more than ample evidence that Bulger is both.

Knowing that, why the vague stirring of remorse over his capture — let alone the calls reportedly coming into some Boston talk shows in which listeners wonder whether Whitey could have been all that bad or repeat hand-me-down stories of his purported kindnesses to those he didn't victimize?

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0625-rutten-20110625,0,6116796,print.column

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In Boston mob story, a tale of 2 brothers, the alleged gangster and the ex-Senate president

BOSTON — It has all the hallmarks of a Greek tragedy: two brothers whose lives diverge radically — one into an underworld of crime, the other into the upper echelons of state politics — yet whose fates remain inextricably linked.

Generations of Boston residents have watched that story play out in the real-life drama of former Democratic Senate President William “Billy” Bulger and his older brother, alleged gangster James “Whitey” Bulger.

At the heart of the story, at least for the younger Bulger, was a fierce loyalty to family and the shared experience of growing up in the working class Irish-American enclave of South Boston, where the line between brawling and bare-knuckled politics was easily blurred.

The two brothers also shared one more thing: a willingness to use whatever power was available to them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-boston-mob-story-a-tale-of-2-brothers-the-alleged-gangster-and-the-ex-senate-president

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Judge blocks parts of Indiana immigration law

The preliminary injunction granted by U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker comes as a blow to lawmakers in the Republican-dominated state legislature who this year have taken a get-tough approach to immigration.

Barker's decision was in response to a lawsuit filed with backing from the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana and the National Immigration Law Center.

The judge's decision temporarily blocks a provision of the state law signed in May and scheduled to take effect July 1 that allows state and local police to arrest anyone ordered deported by an immigration court.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/25/us-indiana-immigration-idUSTRE75O09R20110625

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CBP Joins CPSC in Promoting Fireworks Safety

Dan Baldwin, CBP's executive director of cargo and conveyance security, was one of the officials who spoke at the event. Import safety is a priority trade issue for CBP. The agency works with the CPSC as well as nearly 50 other government agencies to enforce their import regulations and to stop unsafe and illicit goods such as illegal fireworks from entering the country.

The event began with remarks from CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum, who welcomed those attending and announced that last year there were approximately 6,300 reported injuries involving fireworks during the 30 days surrounding the Independence Day holiday, which translates to approximately 200 injuries a day. About 40 percent of the injuries were related to firecrackers, bottle rockets, and sparklers.

http://cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/highlights/firework_safety.xml

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June 24, 2011

Pair accused of plotting Seattle attack

Two men, one from Los Angeles, are arrested. They are accused of planning an assault on a military recruiting center with grenades and machine guns.

A bankrupt janitor from Seattle who admired Osama bin Laden and a Los Angeles man who said he was going on jihad were accused of plotting to attack a military recruiting center as vengeance for violence committed against Afghan civilians, according to a federal complaint Thursday.

"Imagine how fearful America will be, and they'll know they can't push the Muslims around," Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, 33, told an FBI informant, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

Abdul-Latif, of Tukwila, Wash., also goes by Joseph Anthony Davis. He is accused of plotting with Walli Mujahidh, 32, of Los Angeles, also known as Frederick Domingue Jr., to drive up to the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Station in south Seattle in a truck with a battering ram "that looks like the Titanic," open fire with machine guns and grenades, and "take out anybody wearing green or a badge."

"This is what I'm gonna do: I'm gonna post guard. I'm gonna come in, pop-pop the security guard. Run into the cafeteria, lay everybody down in there. Pop-pop-pop-pop," Mujahidh purportedly said in a conversation monitored by the FBI.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-seattle-terror-20110624,0,6203074,print.story

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After Whitey Bulger arrest, who's left on FBI's Ten Most Wanted List?

According to the FBI's website, among the remaining eight most wanted fugitives are:

• Semion Mogilevich, a Ukraine-born businessman known as the "Billion Dollar Don," accused of participating in a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud thousands of investors.
  
  
• Robert William Fisher, 50, who is accused of killing his wife and two young children then blowing up their Scottsdale, Ariz., home in 2001.
  
  
• Glen Stewart Godwin, a convicted murderer who escaped from Folsom Prison, was captured in Mexico, then escaped again from a prison in Puente Grande, Mexico.

Check out the full FBI list.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/06/whitey-bulger-fbi-ten-most-wanted-list.html

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Protecting undocumented workers

Legislation would expand the protection of 'U visas' to those who come forward to report workplace violations.

Nearly every day for three years, Josue Melquisedec Diaz reported to work by going to a New Orleans street corner where contractors, subcontractors and people fixing up their places went to hire day laborers. It was there, one day in 2008, that a contractor picked him up and took him to Beaumont, Texas, just across the Louisiana line, to work on the cleanup, demolition and reconstruction projects that Beaumont was undertaking in the wake of Hurricane Gustav.

Diaz was put to work in a residential neighborhood that had been flooded. The American workers who were involved in the cleanup, he noted, had been given masks, gloves, boots and sometimes special suits to avoid infection. No such precautions were afforded Diaz and his crew of undocumented immigrant workers. "We were made to work with bare hands, picking up dead animals," he says. "We were working in contaminated water," tearing down and repairing washed-out homes.

Diaz told his story last week to a gathering of legislators and others in a meeting room at the U.S. Capitol, just a few doors down from the Senate chamber. He said that he and his crew asked their boss for the same safety equipment given their American counterparts. Instead, Diaz said, the boss responded by cutting the undocumented workers' pay in half — at which point, Diaz and 11 others went on strike. Soon after, both the local police and immigration officers showed up to haul off the workers. The strikers were first taken to a local jail, then transferred to a federal immigration jail.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-meyerson-undocumented-abuses-20110624,0,152757,print.story

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US says man targeted military sites

LEESBURG, Va. — A Marine Corps reservist arrested in a security scare near the Pentagon last week was charged yesterday in a series of predawn shootings at the Pentagon and other military buildings in the Washington area last year.

Yonathan Melaku, 22, of Alexandria, has been in custody since early last Friday, when he was caught after fleeing from police while trespassing inside Arlington National Cemetery. His behavior and possessions prompted suspicion from authorities, who closed the highways leading to the Pentagon during the Friday rush hour and launched an intensive investigation.

Federal prosecutors said in court documents yesterday that they found bomb-making materials in Melaku's backpack and later, inside his home, found a typewritten list of potential bomb components. Investigators also found a video he took of himself firing shots outside the National Museum of the Marine Corps last fall and repeatedly saying the Arabic words “Allahu Akbar,'' which means “God is Great.''

“That's what they get. That's my target. That's the military building. It's going to be attacked,'' he said in the video, which shows him firing shots out the passenger side window at the museum, according to court papers.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/06/24/virginia__man_charged_in_2010_dc_area_military_shootings/

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June 23, 2011

Fugitive Boston mobster arrested on Westside

FBI arrests James 'Whitey' Bulger, sought in 19 slayings, and his girlfriend, in Santa Monica.

Legendary Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger, who has been on the run for more than 15 years, was arrested Wednesday in Santa Monica, multiple law enforcement sources told The Times.

Bulger, 81, fled Boston in late 1994 as federal agents were about to arrest him in connection with at least 19 killings, racketeering and other crimes that spanned the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. He headed an organized crime group that allegedly controlled extortion, drug deals and other illegal activities in the Boston area.

His companion, Catherine Elizabeth Greig, 60, was also arrested.

The FBI initially declined to confirm Bulger's arrest when contacted by The Times but later issued a statement saying he and Greig were in custody and scheduled to appear Thursday in federal court in downtown Los Angeles. Bulger had been on the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitive list, and the agency had offered a $2-million reward for his arrest.

FBI agents took the two into custody without incident at a home after authorities received a tip, according to the sources, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak on the matter. Other details surrounding his arrest were unclear Wednesday night.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0623-whitey-bulger-20110623,0,3111204.story

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Dozens of Islamist militants tunnel out of Yemeni prison

SANAA, Yemen — More than 60 Islamist militants tunneled out of a prison in Yemen on Wednesday in a well-executed escape that highlighted the security risks in a nation that is increasingly unstable and home to al-Qaeda's most potent regional affiliate.

The prison break, which occurred in the eastern port city of Mukalla, was coordinated with militants attacking from the outside to divert the guards — a tactic that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, also known as AQAP, used last summer to free prisoners in the southern city of Aden.

Among the escapees Wednesday were members of an al-Qaeda cell that has killed foreign tourists and tried to attack the U.S. Embassy in Yemen and other Western targets, according to Yemeni officials. AQAP was behind the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound commercial flight on Christmas Day 2009 and the mailing of bombs on cargo planes destined for the United States.

The prison break could reinject committed fighters into the group's ranks. Yemeni officials have not released a list of escapees, but one official told The Washington Post that 57 of the 62 men, many of whom fled into nearby mountains, had been convicted on terrorism charges and that some had been sentenced to death.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/dozens-of-islamist-militants-tunnel-out-of-yemeni-prison/2011/06/22/AGV18RgH_print.html

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Confession of an illegal Prize-winning journalist reveals his true identity

TSA head: Airport screeners must avoid pat-downs of children

CNN - - The Transportation Security Administration is changing its policy on how screeners can search children, the agency's head has said.

TSA Administrator John Pistole announced the change at a Wednesday meeting of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

The change was prompted by outrage over a video-recorded pat-down of a 6-year-old airline passenger at the New Orleans airport on April 5. The video, which was posted on YouTube, shows the girl protesting at first to the search, although she complies quietly while it is under way.

Pistole explained to committee members that a female security screener performed a pat-down search on the 6-year-old girl because the child had moved while passing through an airport body imaging machine. That prevented the device from getting a clear reading that the child was not carrying any banned objects through airport security.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/06/23/tsa.patdown.change/

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ICE arrests over 2,400 convicted criminal aliens, fugitives in enforcement operation throughout all 50 states

"The results of this operation underscore ICE's ongoing focus on arresting those convicted criminal aliens who prey upon our communities, and tracking down fugitives who game our nation's immigration system," said ICE Director John Morton. "This targeted enforcement operation is a direct result of excellent teamwork among law enforcement agencies who share a commitment to protect public safety."

In May, ICE officers from all 24 ICE Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) field offices throughout the nation located and arrested more than 2,400 aliens with prior criminal convictions in all 50 states. All of the criminal aliens taken into custody had prior convictions for crimes such as armed robbery, drug trafficking, child abuse, sexual crimes against minors, aggravated assault, theft, forgery and DUI. In total, 22% of the individuals ICE officers took into custody were immigration fugitives-convicted criminal aliens with outstanding orders of deportation who had failed to leave the country.

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1106/110621washingtondc.htm

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June 22, 2011

Leading Mexico drug gang suspect arrested

The capture of Jose de Jesus 'El Chango' Mendez, a top leader of La Familia, is considered a significant blow to the cartel, analysts say. But other factions are likely to fill any void.

A top leader of the notorious La Familia drug-trafficking gang, locked in an especially deadly internal fight in recent months, has been captured by Mexican federal police, authorities announced Tuesday.

Jose de Jesus Mendez, alias "El Chango," one of Mexico's most-wanted drug lords, was taken into custody in the central Mexican state of Aguascalientes, apparently without a struggle, authorities said.

Mendez led a faction of La Familia, the ruthless and sometimes cult-like network that authorities say specializes in producing and shipping methamphetamine to the United States. La Familia is based in Michoacan, the home state of President Felipe Calderon and a region strategically important for drug trafficking because of its rough terrain and large seaport.

"With this capture, what was left of the command structure of this criminal organization is destroyed," Alejandro Poire, the government's security affairs spokesman, said in a statement to reporters.

Poire described Mendez as La Familia's most important operations chief and blamed him for a long list of crimes, including murder, kidnapping, extortion and grenade attacks on civilians — attacks that the government had previously attributed to another organization, the Zetas. The government had offered a reward of more than $2 million for Mendez's capture.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-familia-20110622,0,3665530,print.story

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Santa Barbara police dig near 101 Freeway in search of Ramona Price remains

With the help of search dogs and heavy equipment, police excavate a 101 Freeway embankment in the hopes of solving what is believed to be a 50-year-old murder.

Seeking the remains of a little girl thought to have been murdered 50 years ago, Santa Barbara police on Tuesday started excavating an embankment beside a freeway bridge.

Layer by layer, heavy equipment dug into a hillside 15 to 18 feet high. By afternoon, nothing had been found and the mystery of Ramona Price's disappearance remained unsolved.

Ramona was 7 years old when she took a walk on Sept. 2, 1961, near her parents' home in Santa Barbara and disappeared. At about the same time, Mack Ray Edwards, who later confessed to killing six California children, was a heavy-equipment operator helping to build the bridge that spans U.S. 101.

Lt. Donald Paul McCaffrey, a Santa Barbara police spokesman, said Tuesday that searchers had unearthed more than 3 1/2 feet of soil and were removing only a few inches at a time to allow for closer scrutiny. He said it was unclear how long the operation would continue.

Last week, four dogs trained to detect years-old human remains alerted authorities to the area now being dug out. The reaction of the dogs, which are owned and handled by members of a Santa Clara County search-and-rescue unit, was seen as "very strong evidence," McCaffrey said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0622-ramona-price-20110622,0,3557361,print.story

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Costa Mesa hopes to keep police officers on school campuses

Despite fears that the city would make cuts to police stationed on school campuses, or try and replace them with non-sworn officers, Mensinger said the city wants to supplement the Student Resource Officer program with sworn reserve officers to fill in the current officers' four-day a week schedule.

The officers work with students and staff to help prevent crime and gang violence on campus, and handle any criminal activity that happens.

Currently, there are two full-time sworn officers — one at the combined Costa Mesa middle and high school campus, the other at Estancia and TeWinkle — who work four 10-hour shifts a week.

The city is looking into using sworn reserve officers to fill in on the fifth day, or possibly even more, Mensinger said. "The schools are open five days a week," Mensinger said. "Why wouldn't you want coverage five days a week?"

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/06/costa-mesa-hopes-to-keep-police-officers-on-school-campuses.html

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U.S. immigration round up 2,400 illegal migrants in 7-day crackdown

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested over 2,400 illegal immigrants within seven days as part of the agency's Cross Check operation.

The intensified crackdown is a response of ICE to criticism by community activists and state officials of the agency's Secure Communities program that previous arrests were mostly non-criminals. It caused fear even among legal migrants to not to report a crime to the police or they may face arrest or deportation.

Since the ICE implemented Cross Check in December 2009 in 37 states, the agency had arrested more than 2,000 convicted criminals, fugitives and undocumented aliens who have reentered the U.S. illegally.

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/90052208?U.S.%20immigration%20round%20up%202%2C400%20illegal%20migrants%20in%207-day%20crackdown

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Trial opens for La. cops charged in shootings

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Jury selection is scheduled to begin Wednesday in a trial of five current or former New Orleans police officers charged in deadly shootings of unarmed residents on a bridge in Hurricane Katrina's chaotic aftermath.

Five former officers already have pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up to make it appear that police were justified in fatally shooting two people and wounding four others on the Danziger Bridge less than a week after the 2005 storm's landfall.

Four other officers were indicted last year on charges stemming from the shootings, while two police investigators were charged in the alleged cover-up.

One of those investigators will be tried separately. The trial for the other five indicted officers is expected to last up to eight weeks.

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June 21, 2011

ATF director to resign, agency sources say

Kenneth E. Melson's exit would be the biggest response yet to the uproar over an operation that allowed the sale of weapons to suspected agents of Mexican drug cartels.

The acting director of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is expected to step down because of a controversial gun-running investigation that allowed weapons to be sold to suspected agents of Mexican drug cartels, according to two sources inside the agency.

Kenneth E. Melson's resignation, which could happen as early as this week, is the most significant repercussion yet from a growing public outcry over the code-named Fast and Furious operation, under which ATF agents watched while straw purchasers acquired more than 1,700 AK-47s and other high-powered rifles from Arizona gun dealers and delivered them to others.

Hundreds of the weapons turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S., including in southern Arizona last December where a Border Patrol agent was shot to death.

At a House hearing last week, internal government documents showed that Melson was closely involved in overseeing the operation and received weekly briefings. Documents released by Congress showed that he asked for and received log-in information and a link to an Internet feed so that he could watch some of the illegal straw purchases taking place in an Arizona gun store.



http://blog.dhs.gov/2011/06/if-you-see-something-say-something.html

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Assistant Attorney General Laurie Robinson of the Office of Justice Programs Speaks at the National Center for Victims of Crime Annual Conference

Thank you, Mai, and I'm delighted to be here, and good morning to all of you. I want to thank Attorney General Biden for his great commitment to these issues. I know he's been stalwart, throughout his career, in his work on behalf of crime victims. And, by the way, he's another Justice Department alum. We're so grateful for his leadership in the great state of Delaware.

And let me thank Mai and her staff for their partnership with OJP. They've been terrific allies in our mutual efforts to strengthen victims' rights and improve victim services. I'm grateful – and I know I speak for Mary Lou and Joye, as well – that we've been able to rely heavily on their guidance and direction. The National Center truly is a voice for all victims.

Today, more than ever, victims need advocates like the National Center – and like all of you. In spite of the good news about declining crime rates, victim services – like other criminal justice and public safety programs – are struggling to fulfill their missions in a tough economy. I doubt that's a surprise to any of you in this room. Victim assistance programs have always operated on marginal budgets, and the current fiscal climate is making it even harder for you to do your jobs.

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June 20, 2011

Help for young immigrants

By some estimates, nearly a million young people in this country are living in a kind of immigration limbo. The United States is the only home many of them have known, but because they were brought here illegally as children by their parents, they live in fear of deportation.

By some estimates, nearly a million young people in this country are living in a kind of immigration limbo. The United States is the only home many of them have known, but because they were brought here illegally as children by their parents, they live in fear of deportation.

Last week, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) introduced a bill that would provide a temporary respite for some of these young immigrants. In addition to creating more visas for newcomers who open businesses and hire at least 10 American workers and allowing foreign students who earn postgraduate degrees in math or science from a research institution to apply for green cards, the bill would provide temporary visas for undocumented immigrants while they attend college. Any student who was brought to the U.S. before the age of 15 and who has lived here since then could apply for one. Lofgren's bill does not offer a green card, or any kind of path to legal status — something anti-immigrant groups denounce as amnesty.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-visa-20110620,0,5208549,print.story

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Miranda rights for minors

The Supreme Court decided correctly in extending the warning to children questioned by police in school.

It's obvious — except to a minority of the Supreme Court — that a juvenile being questioned by the police will feel less able to get up and leave than an adult in the same situation. Adapting that reality to the requirements of the Miranda rule, a five-member majority held this week that courts must consider a suspect's age in deciding whether he should have been read his rights. Any other decision would have been unconscionable.

The 5-4 ruling arises from the interrogation of a 13-year-old North Carolina boy suspected of committing two home break-ins. A police investigator questioned the boy in a school conference room, but he wasn't read his rights. By adult standards, the boy wasn't in custody, the trigger for a Miranda warning. He wasn't under arrest, the door was unlocked and at one point the police investigator told him he could leave. But common sense suggests that a 13-year-old taken to an office and faced with not only the police but also school officials won't feel free to leave or to refuse to answer their questions. In the end, the boy confessed to the burglaries.

Writing for the court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor cited previous rulings that support the proposition that minors are not "miniature adults." Therefore, a child's age is relevant to determining custody so long as it "was known to the officer at the time of the interview, or would have been objectively apparent to any reasonable officer." As for courts, Sotomayor wrote, they must recognize that "a reasonable child subjected to police questioning will sometimes feel pressured to submit when a reasonable adult would feel free to go."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-miranda-20110620,0,2748102,print.story

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Promoting rehabilitation for criminals

The notion that rehabilitation should play no role in sentencing or the length of incarceration needs to be revisited.

You don't have to be soft on crime to believe in the rehabilitation of criminals. But a federal judge who tried to ensure that a convicted defendant would participate in a drug rehabilitation program had his wrist slapped last week by the Supreme Court. The ruling was a faithful application of federal law, but it should motivate Congress to rethink its approach to incarceration.

After a federal jury convicted Alejandra Tapia of smuggling illegal immigrants across the U.S-Mexico border, U.S. District Judge Barry T. Moskowitz sentenced her to more years in prison than called for under federal sentencing guidelines. The rationale, Moskowitz said, was to enable Tapia to enter an inmate drug rehabilitation program with a long waiting list. The judge's heart was in the right place, but the Supreme Court found that lengthening Tapia's sentence for that purpose was illegal.

Writing for a unanimous court, Justice Elena Kagan held that "a court may not impose or lengthen a prison sentence to enable an offender to complete a treatment program or otherwise to promote rehabilitation." The reason was simple: Federal law says that "imprisonment is not an appropriate means of promoting correction and rehabilitation."

The decision makes sense. But the larger principle behind it is troubling: the notion that rehabilitation should play no role in sentencing or the length of incarceration.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-rehab-20110620,0,2393946,print.story

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