Penalty Killer

Portland police Sgt. Tony Passadore got  “ticked off” when he’d run into youths causing trouble on the street, then learn they were on probation and violating their conditions. Calls to their probation officers wouldn’t result in immediate action. Police supervisors and prosecutors began to meet with juvenile justice officials to find a better way to hold these kids accountable and keep them from getting into further trouble, The Oregonian reports. They came up with Project Safe Streets. It started in February as a pilot program to target high-risk youth, and now police, prosecutors and juvenile justice leaders have agreed to extend it for one year, through June 2010.

The pilot gave a limited number of police supervisors  the power to bring a youth to the Donald E. Long Juvenile Detention Center, if an officer had probable cause to believe the youth was violating probation. Kathy Brennan, who is in charge of juvenile custodies for the county and has worked in juvenile detention for more than 20 years, had her doubts. “As a social worker type, I was very worried handing carte blanche access to custodies to police,” she said. She also was concerned the police might unfairly target minorities. Now, she is one of the program’s biggest supporters. “This program works,” she said.

The death penalty in California is enormously expensive compared to the sentence of life without parole.  One death penalty case has already taken 28 years and may cost $5 million dollars.  Chief Assistant Attorney General Dane Gillette, head of the criminal division, said Michael Ray Burgener’s case has been delayed because of legally required reviews. "When you have a new judge, you have to have that judge take a look at the record and base their decision on the review of the record."  Burgener's case, which begain with his death sentence for murder in 1981, has been overturned numerous times, including decisions by conservative judges.  Santa Clara University Law Professor Gerald F. Uelmen, who served as executive director of a state commission that examined criminal justice, called Burgener’s case "a great example" of the cost of imposing death instead of life without parole. Uelmen estimated that by the time Burgener's appeals are exhausted, the cost to the state could total $5 million more than the expense of a life term without parole. He also pointed out that an inmate on death row costs $92,000 a year more than an inmate in regular prison.  He estimated that the state’s legal bill for appeals "has come to well over $400,000.” Uelman concluded,"It just shows that in California, a sentence of death is usually a sentence of life without parole, except it costs us a lot more."

2010 Olympics torch looks like marijuana joint...

After months of debate and millions of dollars in lobbying, a House panel has approved a climate and energy bill to reduce greenhouse gases. While several environmental groups have welcomed the bill, others remain critical of its concessions to the coal, nuclear, gas and oil lobbies, the scaling back of the greenhouse gas reduction target, and the giving away of the majority of pollution credits for free, instead of auctioning them. We host a discussion with Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen and Dan Lashof of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

We get reaction to President Obama and Vice President Dick Cheney’s dueling speeches on torture from Vince Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Warren took part in a secret meeting Wednesday between Obama and several human rights groups. Warren says although he welcomes Obama’s willingness to hear critical views, he’s disappointed in Obama’s new support for preventive detention.

Legendary historian Howard Zinn joins us to talk about war, torture and the teaching of history. Zinn says Obama had Obama heeded the lessons of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he wouldn’t be escalating US attacks abroad and increasing the size of the US military budget. We also play excerpts of the forthcoming documentary, The People Speak, featuring dramatic readings based on Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and Voices of a People’s History of the United States.

Old-timers at the Statehouse are already wondering, while the echoes of the gavel that adjourned the 2009 Legislature are still faintly ringing in the building, about next year.

We’re especially wondering about the Kansas House, which institutionally looks at life in two-year segments, the length of the term of a state representative.

What we are seeing is a real gamble, some reason for taking that gamble, and the prospects for the 2010 Legislature, all while some just-returned-home lawmakers are reacquainting themselves with their pets.
This was a session of dramatic budget cuts, hundreds of millions of dollars pulled out of state agencies that we expect to do their jobs. Practically, it’s ugly stuff. But, for a new House Speaker, Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, who relentlessly opposed raising taxes or even putting already-in-law tax cuts on hold, the session was just what he proposed.

For a first-year Speaker, he got the end result he was after, and while it wasn’t pretty, it worked, and he and his House followers can say they delivered on their promise. Not a bad start, is it?

But next year, with a projection of $570 million in shortfalls again, including tax boosters that haven’t been approved anywhere, we’re looking at probably $650 million in cuts ahead.

The presumption is that next year turns out to be a year of tax increases. Oh, and did we mention that those tax increases come during a year when House members stand for reelection?

(The Senate? Members aren’t up for reelection until 2012, when it’s very possible that the economy will have rebounded and they’ll be able to base their brochures on recent nice things they’ve done for Kansans.)

Was this the right order? Spending cuts this year, tax increases next year?

Or, you have to wonder, was O’Neal’s no-tax victory this year a necessary step that will give him additional horsepower next year on rejecting or at least minimizing tax increases next year?

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