Category: reason

A Georgia mom and dad convicted of murdering their days’ old baby daughter have had all charges dismissed—after they each spent almost 13 years in prison.

The district attorney apologized that they never received a fair trial.

The case began in May 2008. Just a day after Ashley and Albert Debelbot brought their seemingly healthy baby girl, McKenzy, home, a bump was discovered on her forehead. The Debelbots brought her to Martin Army Hospital in Fort Benning, where she died a day later. The couple was accused of crushing her skull.

At their joint trial, their defense attorneys failed to present alternative explanations for the baby’s death, including the fact that the baby may have been born with serious birth defects, exacerbated by a difficult delivery.

The defense attorneys also failed to object when, in closing arguments, Assistant District Attorney Sadhana Dailey told the jury that the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard “does not mean beyond all doubt.” She added: “It does not mean to a mathematical certainty. Which means we don’t have to prove that 90 percent. You don’t have to be 90 percent sure. You don’t have to be 80 percent sure. You don’t have to be 51 percent sure.”

The parents were sentenced to life in prison.

Over the years, with the help of the Georgia Innocence Project, Wisconsin Innocence Project, and Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit’s public defenders office, the couple sought a new trial. While Muscogee Superior Court Judge Arthur Smith refused to grant one, the Supreme Court of Georgia eventually heard the case last year. This time, the defense presented medical evidence that the baby did indeed have a serious brain defect, and added that the DA’s office had illegally suppressed brain scans that would have helped the defense make its case. The court unanimously overturned the Debelbots’ convictions, saying they had been denied their Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel.

Initially, the government planned to retry the Debelbots. But just a few weeks ago, District Attorney Mark Jones, who inherited the case, decided not to do that. He told the Supreme Court that there was “mounting medical evidence that says the child was born this way”—that is, with a fatal brain defect. Then he went a step further and apologized to the Debelbots, on behalf of his office, for “not getting a fair trial.”

This seemed to shock Ashley Debelbot almost more than being freed from a life sentence. Asked in a press conference how she felt about the DA’s apology, she replied, “I thought I would never hear that word being said to me, ever. Once you’ve been incarcerated, the word ‘sorry’ never comes to you at all.”

She added, “I do not hold any bitterness toward anybody.”

Her husband, Albert Debelbot, seemed a little less mellow. “I joined the Army protecting the same freedom that was taken from me. I lost a buddy in Iraq and [another] buddy lost his leg protecting the freedom we so believe in. We came home and the same system that we went to war to protect would never protect us.”

As an attorneys for the Debelbots observed: “Too often we would rather believe that good people did a bad thing for no reason, than believe that a bad thing happened to good people for no reason.” Sadly, there are far too many people languishing in prison as a result of panic over shaken baby syndrome: See this and this and this.

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A New York police officer is under investigation after video emerged showing him intentionally damaging a person’s car while executing a search warrant.

The local news outlet North Country Now reports that the police department in Massena, New York, has launched an internal investigation following the release of a 20-second video. The video shows the officer, identified by North Country Now as Brandon Huckle, entering a garage. The door hits a silver car as Huckle enters. Huckle then intentionally grabs the door and swings it twice more into the side of the car.

There have been countless accusations over the years of police maliciously ransacking houses during the executions of search warrants, but it’s not often captured on video.

“Clients tell me all the time that property is destroyed or stolen during search warrants,” Brian Barrett, the car owner’s attorney, told North Country Now. “This is a rare occasion where we have a video of a police officer destroying a client’s property. I’m more inclined to believe my clients now that I’ve seen this with my own eyes. I’ve got to take a very close look at those cases and the returns on the warrant and things like that.”

Barrett also said that his client believes the officers in the raid didn’t report all of the cash they seized. The reported amount, he said, is about $2,000 short.

Reason recently reported on a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by a Virginia lawyer who says cops used an armored vehicle to tear apart her unlocked door and then went room to room trashing her house, all to retaliate for winning a case several days earlier.

Last year, a Chicago woman filed a lawsuit after 15 plainclothes officers allegedly broke through the front door of her apartment and trained their guns on her 70-year-old mother and 4-year-old daughter. The suit claims the officers then herded the trio onto a couch, still at gunpoint, and ransacked her apartment. “They cut couch pillows open, dumped clothes, damaged dressers and tables,” the lawsuit says. “They threw Jasmine’s nail products all over the floor and destroyed her technician’s table, costing her thousands of dollars. They even destroyed Khamme’s Christmas decorations and ripp[ed] or [cut] open Leyalina’s prized stuffed animals, ‘bunny Sarah’ and ‘monkey.'”

Barrett told North Country Now he is considering filing a complaint on his client’s behalf with the county sheriff or the New York State Police.

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When California’s secretary of state determined last week that there were enough valid signatures to force a recall vote for Gov. Gavin Newsom, I predicted it would be a circus. I meant that figuratively, but on Tuesday candidate John Cox literally brought a live bear to a press conference.

The 1,000-pound kodiak bear named Tag, which Cox has selected as a mascot for his campaign, predictably got more attention than Cox did, causing him to complain that people weren’t focusing on policy. Perhaps that’s because Cox, a Republican businessman and habitual candidate, hasn’t presented much actual substance for us to sink our teeth into. His initial campaign ad revolves heavily around the bear, calling Newsom a “pretty boy” and saying that California has to “do things differently” without actually explaining what that means.

The “beast,” you see, is Cox himself, who is going to “hit the ground running” and apparently cut the cost of living and “slash taxes.” But he doesn’t offer any actual policy proposals, let alone how he’ll overcome a Democratic Party that holds a super-majority over the state legislature? There are no actual policy proposals or actions he says he will take that will lead to these solutions. His campaign page on “solutions” just lists six uncontroversial outcomes he supports, such as lowering the cost of energy and fighting homelessness, all presented as though these are things that Cox can somehow just will into happening. No wonder the bear got all the attention.

Here’s the ad. Just try to figure out what he would actually do as governor:

Cox faced off against Newsom in the 2018 election and lost in a landslide: Newsom beat him by more than 20 percentage points.

Caitlyn Jenner’s first ad similarly has little actual substance, but it leans less on mocking Newsom and more on sweeping views and swelling music:

Jenner also has the benefit of having friends in conservative media. On Wednesday night she sat down for an hour with Sean Hannity on Fox News, spelling out her conservative bona fides. She declared her support for the police, said she had “watched the state crumble,” called herself a “thoughtful disruptor,” and noted that Newsom gives the impression that “there’s one set of rules for Sacramento, and one set of rules for everybody else.”

Oddly, Jenner seems to think (or wants us to think) that California is still fully closed and that the hair salons where she lives aren’t open. They’re open here in Los Angeles and have been for a couple of months. The reality is that California is finally opening back up. The push for the recall revolves heavily around Newsom’s poor management during the pandemic, and you certainly won’t get much defense of the governor from Reason. But the fact that things are going back to normal means a lot of Californians are probably less likely to vote to recall him.

Jenner did namecheck libertarians, saying she gets along with everybody: “Democrats, Republicans, libertarian, vegetarians, it doesn’t make a difference to me.” She also proposed dumping the costly high-speed rail construction and using that money instead for desalinization plants to prevent future water shortages. Arguing against the rail plan, she noted that there are plenty of flights between Los Angeles and San Francisco, a comment that prompted some inane tweets from people who seem to think that flying between the two cities is something only rich jetsetters can afford.

In fact, flying between L.A. and San Francisco is pretty cheap and accessible (currently starting from $77). That’s less than the bullet train is likely to cost. Back in 2015, studies estimated that tickets would be $86 a pop, and now it will almost certainly have to be higher, given the project’s cost overruns. (Its price tag has ballooned to three times the initial estimate.) If anything, Jenner is being too kind, since the route between the two cities won’t even be high-speed rail the entire way. High-speed rail is not being designed to make long-distance transit more affordable for low-income people, and it will not meet their transportation needs.

I noted on Monday that Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Hewitt—a member of the Libertarian Party—is running in the recall. In a subsequent interview, Hewitt differentiated himself from other candidates by pointing to his 11-year record as an elected official.

“I’ve taken on Cal Fire and the very professional firefighters union,” Hewitt tells Reason. “I’ve also taken on pensions. I’ve shown that I know how to build coalitions and such. If I move to the governor’s office, the fundamentals of governing remain the same.”

Hewitt accuses Newsom of ignoring the science by ordering such a broad lockdown. The vast majority of people who were vulnerable to COVID-19 were older, Hewitt argues, so shielding them should have been the priority, not shutting down the whole state.

“We should have been spending our time and money making those who were vulnerable safe from it,” Hewitt says. “Over the next 10 years, this is going to be shown to be some of the worst decisions ever made.”

Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, a Republican, was one of the first out of the gate to announce he was running, dropping his first campaign ad back in February:

Faulconer’s ad hits the same themes as the other recall candidates, but he fleshes out some specifics about why Californians are upset enough to sign onto a Republican-driven recall in a heavily Democratic state. He doesn’t just take note of the chaotic, incomprehensible state COVID-19 guidelines. He name-checks A.B.5, the anti-gig economy legislation that was partly rejected by voters in November. He notes the billions of dollars in unemployment fraud the state failed to catch during the lockdown. He has thrown his support behind chef Andrew Gruel‘s fight against COVID-19 regulations that have harmed the restaurant industry.

And those are only the most prominent candidates. At least 22 people have gotten at least some media coverage by publicly declaring themselves candidates. When Gov. Gray Davis was recalled in 2003, 135 candidates ran.

As for Newsom himself, he and Democrats have decided to play up the cost of having a recall. Apparently, government frugality is suddenly important.

“Now is not the time to waste hundreds of millions of dollars on a recall effort,” Newsom said in a Tuesday press conference with the California Professional Firefighters union. “It is nothing more than a partisan power grab.”

A power grab it may be, but it’s a power grab that has managed to get pretty far in a state where Republicans account for only 24 percent of registered voters. I’m not sure playing up partisanship will help Newsom keep his polling lead, but we’ll see.

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Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey yesterday signed a package of civil forfeiture reforms that will make it substantially harder for law enforcement agencies to take people’s stuff by alleging that it is connected to criminal activity. H.B. 2810—which was approved by the state House in February and by the state Senate last week, in both cases by overwhelming margins—shows once again that legislators can defy the money-grubbing objections of police and prosecutors who worry that due process for property owners will derail the civil forfeiture money train.

Civil forfeiture, which is based on the legal fiction that property can be guilty even when its owner is innocent, allows the government to confiscate people’s assets without ever accusing them of a crime, let alone convicting them. H.B. 2810 addresses that problem by requiring a criminal conviction prior to forfeiture in most cases.

Under the law, property can still be seized based on probable cause to believe it was used to commit a crime or represents the proceeds of illegal activity. But now the government can complete the forfeiture only after convicting the owner. That new rule applies to all forfeitures except when the owner has died or fled, no longer lives in the United States, has abandoned the property, has agreed to surrender it as part of a plea deal, or has received immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony.

Most jurisdictions theoretically allow innocent owners to recover their property, but that typically requires them to prove their innocence, a reversal of the presumption that applies in criminal cases. H.B. 2810 instead puts the burden on the government to prove by “clear and convincing evidence” that the owner “had actual knowledge of the underlying crime that gave rise to the forfeiture.”

According to a tally by the Institute for Justice, Arizona is the 16th state to require a criminal conviction for some or all forfeitures. It is the 14th state to require that the government prove an owner is not innocent rather than making the owner prove that he is.

Even though it is perfectly legal to carry large amounts of cash, police tend to view it as inherently suspicious; they often seize money even when there is no evidence that it was derived from criminal activity. H.B. 2810 takes aim at that practice by declaring that “the presence or possession of U.S. currency, debit cards or credit cards, without other indicia of a crime that subjects property to forfeiture, is insufficient probable cause for seizure.”

Police have been known to cite the odor of marijuana or the discovery of drugs, even in tiny quantities, as an excuse to seize cash. H.B. 2810 eliminates “the inference that money or any other negotiable instrument found in proximity to contraband or to instrumentalities of an offense are proceeds of the contraband or intended to be used to facilitate the offense.”

Even when an owner can afford to challenge a forfeiture, and assuming that the property is worth enough to justify the legal expense (which it often isn’t), he cannot do anything until he is officially notified that the government is seeking to keep the property. Delays can drag on for months or even years. But not under H.B. 2810. Within 60 days of a seizure, it says, the government must return the property or notify the owner of a pending forfeiture proceeding, and the notice must include “the specific statutory and factual grounds for the seizure.”

After an owner receives a forfeiture notice, the law gives him 60 days to respond—twice as long as previously allowed. It requires a hearing within 30 days after the owner files a claim seeking the return of his property. The court is required to grant the claim if it finds that “the final judgment will likely require the state to return the property,” “the property is not reasonably required to be held for evidentiary reasons,” or “the property is the only reasonable means for a defendant to pay for legal representation.”

To complete a forfeiture, the government must show by clear and convincing evidence that “the property is subject to forfeiture,” that “the criminal prosecution related to the seized property resulted in a conviction,” and that “there is no innocent owner or third-party interest holder to whom the property should be delivered.” The government also has to prove that the value of the property “does not unreasonably exceed” the “pecuniary gain” from the underlying crime or the “pecuniary loss” caused by the crime.

That last requirement is aimed at preventing forfeitures that are clearly disproportionate to the offenses cited to justify them. Under Arizona’s new standard, for example, it would be hard to defend confiscating someone’s car because it was used for a $25 drug sale. While the Supreme Court has held that “grossly disproportionate” civil forfeitures can violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “excessive fines,” Arizona’s requirement seems more demanding.

Police previously could avoid the nuisance of actually pursuing a forfeiture by pressuring the owner to “voluntarily” surrender it. H.B. 2810 bans that practice. It says “a peace officer may not request, require, or in any manner induce a person to execute a document that attempts to disclaim an interest in or right to property or that relinquishes interests in or rights to property.”

Another shortcut previously allowed in Arizona authorized prosecutors to declare forfeitures “uncontested,” in which case judges were required to approve confiscation of the property. “Amazingly,” the Institute for Justice noted before H.B. 2810 was passed, “Arizona law says that courts have to take prosecutors at their word when they demand ‘uncontested forfeiture,’ an administrative proceeding where there is no judge, but rather a prosecutor who reviews petitions and decides whether to keep the property or return it.” H.B. 2810 abolishes that practice as well.

These changes go much further than the forfeiture reforms that the Arizona legislature approved in 2017, when it increased oversight and transparency, prohibited federal adoption of forfeitures worth less than $75,000, and raised the standard of proof from a preponderance of the evidence to clear and convincing evidence. The overwhelming support for H.B. 2810, which was opposed by only two members of the state House and just one member of the state Senate, is especially striking in light of what happened last year, when a bill requiring conviction prior to forfeiture was unanimously approved by the Senate but foundered in the House, where Democrats unanimously opposed it.

Among other things, opponents of that bill worried that it would deprive law enforcement agencies of money they need to supplement their budgets. Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel did not mention that financial motive when she urged Ducey to veto H.B. 2810. Instead she argued that “civil asset forfeiture is an important and powerful tool, used by law enforcement to efficiently interrupt the money supply of criminal enterprises.” She warned that the reforms would make Arizona “an attractive home for money laundering and other criminal financial transactions.”

There is little evidence to support Adel’s fear that forfeiture reforms will cripple law enforcement. “This does not prevent law enforcement from doing their jobs,” Lauren Krisai, a senior policy analyst at the Justice Action Network, told The Arizona Republic. “They can still seize property that they are suspecting is connected to a crime. They just have to achieve a criminal conviction before they can permanently keep it.” Adel thinks that is too much to expect, because “in many situations” it is “obvious that funds are the product of criminal activity”—too obvious to bother proving it.

“Civil forfeiture threatens everyone’s property and due process rights,” says Paul Avelar, managing attorney at the Institute for Justice’s Arizona office. “The government can take your car, your home, and your life savings without ever charging you with a crime, much less convicting you. HB 2810 makes important reforms to Arizona’s forfeiture laws to protect innocent property owners from government abuse.”

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If you’ve ever wondered what “equity” means, as distinct from “law,” here’s a primer I recently posted on SSRN. It’s called “A Student’s Guide to the Meanings of Equity.” Here is the abstract:

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