The Supreme Court is back in session on Monday, and we’re not ashamed to admit that we’re excited.  As always.  And they’re starting off the argument season with a bang — a critical issue on federal sentencing of gun crimes.  Can’t wait.

The case is actually two cases, Abbott v. U.S. and Gould v. U.S.  The issue is just what the heck 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) means.

§ 924(c) says, if you’re convicted of possessing a gun during a narcotics crime, you get a 5-year minimum sentence, to be served consecutively.  Unless, that is, “a greater minimum sentence is otherwise provided by this subsection or any other law.”

Such straightforward language, and yet capable of so many different interpretations.  Is it written to make sure that you get at least 5 years if you carried a gun during a drug crime?  Or is the point to make sure that you get at least an extra 5 years, added to the original sentence?

Does it mean that, if you’re already facing a mandatory minimum greater than 5 years for the gun, then § 924(c) doesn’t even apply?

Does it mean that, if you’re already facing a mandatory minimum greater than 5 years for any crime, not just the gun, then § 924(c) doesn’t apply?

Does it only protect you if there’s another law imposing a greater sentence specifically for your violation of § 924(c)?

This is where statutory construction gets hairy.  Poorly-drafted statutes are not trifles.  Lives and liberty are at stake.  Just as with the horrible “honest services” law the Court dealt with last term, this is an example of those crafting the laws being unclear and uninformed about the very area of law they are affecting.  They either didn’t think it through, or they didn’t make the point clearly enough.  And thousands of people suffer as a result.

We don’t know the stats, but we’d estimate that thousands of people every year get sentenced under this section.  How many are doing 5 years too many?

We can’t wait to see what the answer is going to be.

Yesterday, President Obama signed S.1789, the long-awaited sentencing fairness act that reduced the appalling 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine.  It still doesn’t go all the way to undo the hysteria of the crack epidemic, however.  For powder cocaine there’s a 10-year minimum for selling or possessing with intent to sell 5,000 grams — for crack cocaine the figure was just 50 grams, but that just went up to 280 grams.  There’s a 5-year minimum for selling/possessing with intent 500 grams of powder — for crack that just went up from 5 grams to 28 grams.  So there’s still a roughly 18-to-1 sentencing disparity.  And the 5-year mandatory minimum for mere possession of crack — personal use here — was eliminated entirely (it had applied to possession of 5 grams for first offenders, 3 grams for second offenders, and 1 gram for third offenders).

That’s all good news.  Getting rid of the mandatory minimum for mere possession is the best part, because throwing people in jail for mere possession is stupid, wrong, unjust, and doesn’t solve the problem.  Drug court and treatment diversion programs work very well.  (The new law also requires a federal report one year from now on just how well the federally-funded drug court programs are doing.)  Reducing the sentencing disparity from the appalling (and racist) 100-to-1, to the merely shocking (and still racist) 18-to-1… well, it’s better than nothing.  Powder and crack are equally bad, there is no disparity in their effects, their addictiveness, or anything meaningful.  There shouldn’t be any disparity at all.  But reducing it is a step in the right direction, and the new law is rightly praised for so doing.

But in all the hoopla, the press (and the defense bar) seem to have overlooked the other provisions of the new law — provisions which can dramatically increase some drug sentences.

There are now 2+ level enhancements for drug crimes involving violence or the threat of violence (not unheard of).  There are now 2+ level enhancements if premises were used for the manufacture or distribution (very common).  There will be 2+ level enhancements if the defendant was using his girlfriend to mule the drugs, or an addict to sell the drugs on the street in exchange for a freebie, or any other typical buffering relationship.  There will be 2+ enhancements if they sold to, or involved, someone under 18, someone over 64, or someone who was pregnant (common).  There are 2+ enhancements if the defendant made his living by selling drugs (a majority of cases, no?). 

That’s just a partial list of enhancements.  But you can see how a typical drug defendant can now wind up facing significantly more time now than before Obama signed “the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. ”

We can think of a number of ways to describe the new law.  “Fair Sentencing” is not one of them.

For as long as we can remember, the word on the street has always been that cops cannot lie.  So if you’re doing a drug deal with an undercover cop, and you ask him point blank if he’s a police officer, then he has to tell you the truth.  He might try to technically get out of it by saying yes in a sarcastic tone of voice, but he has to be able to testify later on that he did say he was a cop.

And for as long as we can remember, we thought that was dumber than dirt.  The first time we heard this, back in our dim and distant teens, we imagined something like this:

It just made no sense.  And, of course, it’s simply not true.  No undercover cop is ever going to jeopardize his investigation or his safety by admitting to the fact that he (or she) is a cop.  And there is no rule anywhere that says they have to.

But even so, this myth has persisted.  We can’t count how many cases we’ve dealt with where the suspect asked an undercover if he was a cop, the undercover said no, and that was apparently good enough.  You’d think that, after suspects keep getting arrested anyway, word would get out that undercovers don’t have to admit the fact.  It seems like important information, something that would quickly become common knowledge among people who have a reason to care about such things. 

It’s not just lying about being a cop, by the way.  Cops are allowed to lie about anything.

Let’s repeat that: The police are allowed to lie to you… about anything.

The most common example of this is police interrogation.  The cops are allowed to use any deception they like, in order to get a confession. 

For example, they can tell you your partner’s being interrogated upstairs, and just confessed, so you’d better come clean if you know what’s good for you (when they haven’t even arrested your partner yet.)  They can say the victim told them you did it before she died (when she’s actually still alive, and never said anything of the sort).

The biggest lie (and one that works all the time) is that this conversation is strictly off the record.  “Just between you and me.”  Nothing you ever say to a police officer is ever off the record.  If it can be used against you, it will.

The second-biggest lie (also one that works all the time) is that, if you come clean, the officer will make sure you get treated leniently.  He’ll make sure the DA gives you a lighter charge.  He’ll put in a word with the judge to make sure you get off with a lighter sentence.  He’ll only arrest you for the misdemeanor.  Complete horseshit, of course — that cop’s going to make sure you go down for whatever it is you just confessed to — but it works all the time.  People cut their losses, seeing themselves in a hopeless situation, and grasp at the opportunity to at least minimize the bad.

Oh, and if you think innocent people don’t do that too, then you’ve got another think coming.  Innocent people do confess to crimes they didn’t commit, for a variety of reasons.  (That’s a subject for a whole nother myth.)  And lying cops is one of the big ones.

And the cops are completely within their rights to lie this way.  Unlike prosecutors and judges, who have professional ethics to comply with, the police are allowed to use whatever lawful tools they have in order to solve a crime.  It’s not against the law for them to lie.  They’re allowed to.

And so they will.  They’re trained to do it.  They’re supposed to do it.  They’re gonna do it.

You’ve been warned.

Just a quick update.  The Supreme Court decided Dillon v. U.S. today (read the opinion here), and the decision totally sucks.  Here’s what we said about it a couple of weeks ago:

There are a lot of federal inmates serving unfairly long sentences, due to the bizarre discrepancy in sentencing for crack vs. powder cocaine.  (See our latest piece on this here.)  In 2007, the Guidelines were amended a teeny bit, permitting a 2-level reduction for crack cases.  In 2008, that was made retroactive, so prisoners could get resentenced.  Dillon wanted to get resentenced.  But he wanted more than the 2-level reduction.  He wanted a departure from the Guidelines recommendation itself, as permitted by Booker.  But the feds say Booker only applies to full sentencing proceedings, not to resentencings like this — this is just an adjustment of the guideline range that should have been applied to a pre-Booker sentence.  As Scalia pointed out at oral argument, that would require the courts to essentially disregard Booker.  And given the universal loathing of the crack/powder disparity, we think a finding for Dillon would give the courts the ability to take the injustice into account and impose variance sentences more proportional to those for powder.

But noooo.

Writing for a 7-1 majority (Stevens dissented, and Alito recused himself), Justice Sotomayor said that Booker doesn’t apply here — the Guidelines are not advisory, and have to be applied as they were back in the bad old days.

This is just infuriating.  The 100-1 disparity in sentencing for crack vs. powder cocaine is fundamentally unjust.  One would think that the judiciary would just wipe it out as simply unconstitutional.  But instead, we get the Supremes saying §3582(c)(2) — the whole point of which is lenity for those sentenced under the disparate Guidelines — doesn’t allow for any lenity beyond what the Guidelines themselves permit.

Sotomayor’s legal reasoning isn’t bad.  It’s actually pretty good.  But her result is appalling.

There are four Mondays left in June.  Four more days in which the Supreme Court is expected to announce its decisions in the 27 or so cases still out there this term.  That’s about one case per day from now till then.  We’re picturing the Justices pulling all-nighters, stacks of empty pizza boxes in the halls at 2 a.m. next to the burn bags (do they still use burn bags there?), and sleepy zombie-like clerks dropping in their tracks every now and then.

Some of those cases have to do with boring old civ pro or shipping or labor law.  But a whole bunch are about the cool stuff, criminal law.  Here are a few of the criminal cases we’re watching particularly closely:

Black v. United States
Weyrauch v. United States
Skilling v. United States

This trio of cases attack the “honest services” fraud law.  18 U.S.C. § 1346 was supposed to prevent political corruption, but Congress wrote it so sloppily that it’s become a catch-all crime for federal prosecutors.  Anyone can get charged with it, and nobody knows what it means.  The Court telegraphed its dislike of the statute during oral arguments of all three cases.  We’re going to be shocked and appalled if the statute survives the month.  (Read more of our commentary here.)  The feds also see this going the way of the dodo, as evidenced by their rush to add other charges to prominent cases after the first oral arguments in December.

Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project

This one also delves into the constitutionality of a law, this one intended to stop people from providing assistance to terrorists.  Like the honest services statute, however, 18 U.S.C. § 2339B(a)(1) is pretty darn vague.  It also seems to limit perfectly lawful speech, which would also be unconstitutional.  The feds (represented by nominee Elena Kagan) seem to want the law interpreted very broadly, to maximum effect, but during oral arguments the Supremes expressed deep problems with the statute.  It might get kicked back to the lower courts for more fine-tuning of the issues, though, rather than an outright invalidation of the law.

Dillon v. United States

There are a lot of federal inmates serving unfairly long sentences, due to the bizarre discrepancy in sentencing for crack vs. powder cocaine.  (See our latest piece on this here.)  In 2007, the Guidelines were amended a teeny bit, permitting a 2-level reduction for crack cases.  In 2008, that was made retroactive, so prisoners could get resentenced.  Dillon wanted to get resentenced.  But he wanted more than the 2-level reduction.  He wanted a departure from the Guidelines recommendation itself, as permitted by Booker.  But the feds say Booker only applies to full sentencing proceedings, not to resentencings like this — this is just an adjustment of the guideline range that should have been applied to a pre-Booker sentence.  As Scalia pointed out at oral argument, that would require the courts to essentially disregard Booker.  And given the universal loathing of the crack/powder disparity, we think a finding for Dillon would give the courts the ability to take the injustice into account and impose variance sentences more proportional to those for powder.

McDonald v. City of Chicago

A follow-up to the Heller case a couple of years ago, which said as a matter of federal law that the Second Amendment recognizes an individual right to own a gun, which predated the Constitution.  In McDonald, the issue is whether that applies equally to the states as well, or whether the states can limit or regulate the right to bear arms.  The Court seems likely to narrowly rule that the 2nd Amdt. is incorporated into the 14th, and that the right’s a fundamental one that all the states have to respect, but not get into whether this limitation or that regulation is constitutional.  Those details can be dealt with in the lower courts on remand.

Magwood v. Patterson
Holland v. Florida

Habeas cases that we admit not reading up on when they were argued.  In Magwood, the defendant already won a federal habeas petition, and got resentenced.  Now he’s got a second federal habeas, challenging the new sentence on constitutional grounds.  He could have challenged the original sentence on those same grounds.  So the issue is whether this new petition is a “second or successive” claim that has to be rejected under the AEDPA.  Just on a gut level, we don’t think the defendant’s got much of an argument here.

Holland deals with a defendant whose habeas petition was filed too late, due to the negligence of his attorney.  The defendant wants the limitations period tolled equitably, in the interests of justice.  Florida says equitable tolling should never be allowed.  Seems like the Court’s going to allow it, but clarify when it’s available.

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Also, we’re still waiting on an important case out of New York’s Second Department, which might create a new emergency exception to the warrant requirement.  Fingers crossed.

“Why is this case here, except as an opportunity to upset Melendez-Diaz?”

So wondered Justice Scalia during oral argument a couple weeks back in the case of Briscoe v. Virginia. For some background, see our previous post on this case here. Briefly, the Supreme Court held last year in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts that, in a drug case, the prosecution cannot prove the existence of a controlled substance by merely introducing the lab report — the chemist has to testify, or else the Confrontation Clause is violated. There was a huge outcry from prosecutors’ offices across the country. It would be too much of a burden to get chemists to testify at every drug trial. There was a concerted effort to get around this new ruling, or better yet to get the Supremes to reverse themselves.

So in Briscoe, Virginia tried to get around the rule by saying the prosecution only needs to introduce a lab report, and if the defense wants to confront the chemist then the defense can subpoena the chemist as a witness.

More than half the state attorneys-general filed an amicus brief, arguing that the expense and administrative burden of getting chemists to testify at trial would just be unworkable. At oral argument on January 11, it sounded like Justice Alito, at least, was buying into that argument (Tr. at 16, lines 16 to 18). And there was hope that Justice Sotomayor would be that one extra vote to undo Melendez-Diaz.

In our previous post, we pointed out various reasons why such hopes weren’t based in reality, and why the claims of expense and burden don’t hold water. We seriously doubt that anyone at the Supreme Court bothers to read this blog. But these observations are fairly self-evident, we think.

So it was no surprise to see a one-sentence smackdown from the Supreme Court this morning:

We vacate the judgment of the Supreme Court of Virginia and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with the opinion in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. ___ (2009).

It is so ordered.

In other words, if the states do not put the chemist on the stand in the People’s case, then they violate the Confrontation Clause. End of story. Bureaucratic convenience does not trump individual rights.

As for all those prosecutors’ offices who whine that it can’t be done? We’d ask them to look at New York City, whose courts are far busier than theirs ever will be, and who nevertheless manage the job as a matter of routine. Defense counsel often stipulates to the substance being what it is, and when there is no stipulation then getting the chemist to court is no more challenging than any other police employee who’d rather not be there. It’s just part of the job, and amazingly enough it works out just fine.

On June 25 last year, the Supreme Court held in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts that in a drug case the prosecution can’t simply use a sworn lab report to prove the existence of a controlled substance. If the chemist doesn’t testify, it violates the Confrontation Clause. (See our previous post about it here.)

Four days later, on June 29, the Court granted cert. in Briscoe v. Virginia, to decide whether the states can get around this requirement if they permit the defendant to call the lab analyst as a defense witness. Oral arguments are scheduled for next Monday, and we can’t wait to hear how the Commonwealth of Virginia tries to make its case.

It seems to us that there is an obvious burden-shifting problem here. The state, and only the state, has the burden of proving every element of the crime. Since the Winship case in 1970, this has been a due process requirement of the Constitution. Unless he asserts an affirmative defense, the defendant has no burden to prove a thing.

So the prosecution has to prove an element. It needs a forensic test to prove it. It needs the testimony of the analyst to introduce the results of that test. The defense does not have a burden to prove anything, one way or the other, about the test.

But Virginia wants to be able to prove its case using only the lab report, and get around the Confrontation Clause by saying the defense is allowed to call the analyst if they want to confront him.

First, who cares whether the state allows the defense to call the analyst or not? Last time we checked, the defense could call any witness they chose, by subpoena if need be. The defense always has the opportunity to put the analyst on the stand as a defense witness. This “permission” doesn’t actually give the defense permission to do anything it couldn’t already do. All it does is imply wrongly that the defense couldn’t have done so otherwise.

Second, the state cannot impose a burden of proof on the defense like this. Virginia’s scheme essentially precludes the defense from challenging the state’s evidence during the state’s case. It forces the defense to act affirmatively and put on a defense case in order to challenge the state’s evidence. That’s a big due process violation.

Third, the state does not get around the Confrontation Clause by shifting the burden to the defendant to call those witnesses it wishes to confront. In a murder case, it would absurd to let the prosecution introduce an eyewitness’s written account of what happened, and no more, so long as the defendant himself could have called the eyewitness if he wanted to. That’s indistinguishable from what Virginia wants to do.

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Lots of prosecutors’ offices are hoping that the Supremes will side with Virginia on this one. Particularly in the more amateurish offices, there is a feeling that the Melendez-Diaz decision imposes too great a cost on the criminal justice system, and imposes unworkable inefficiencies, by requiring chemists to take time off from their busy jobs to testify at trial. An amicus brief filed by half the nation’s attorneys general makes these arguments.

But just look here at New York City, the busiest criminal courts and crime lab in the world. Lab reports are used in the grand jury, where there is no confrontation right, but the chemists themselves must testify at trial. Somehow, this requirement has not bankrupted the city. Getting the chemist to show up is just one more minor hassle that prosecutors have to deal with, no more challenging than getting cops to show up. The requirement is so minor that nobody really thinks about it.

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Still, Melendez-Diaz was a 5-4 decision. And one of the five, Justice Souter, has been replaced by former prosecutor Justice Sotomayor. So people are thinking that she’s going to be more pro-prosecution here, and help the Court either reverse or severely limit that decision.

We don’t think so. We’d remind Court observers that Sotomayor came out of the Manhattan DA’s office, not one of the “amateur hour” offices. Her own personal experience is that requiring the chemist to testify at trial is really no big deal.

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So we’re looking forward to the oral arguments next week. If Scalia gives as good as he did in last June’s decision, and if we’re right about Sotomayor, then Virginia’s in for a spirited beatdown.

The AP’s Sam Hananel has a nifty piece on Law.com today, called “Drug Courts Successful for Few Who Get In.” He sums up the situation fairly well. The short version is “drug court works, and with more funding it would work even more.”

A lot of crime is the result of drug addiction. Addicts deal drugs, rob, steal, burglarize and hurt people just to feed their addiction. Other crimes would never have happened but for that addiction. And addicts tend to keep committing these crimes over and over again. The damage to society is great, and the public cost of dealing with it is enormous.

So if we could somehow stop the addiction, the thinking goes, then we could prevent a large amount of future crimes and save ourselves a lot of resources. That’s where drug court comes in. If selected for drug court, addicts get treatment and counseling. And if they succeed, their case gets dismissed or reduced in the interests of justice.

That’s the carrot. There’s a stick, as well. Before entering the program, the offender has to take a plea. No judgment is entered, however. If the offender completes the program successfully, then they get their plea back. If they fail, however, then that plea can be enforced, and they face jail.

But a drug program that’s going to work is also going to be very hard to endure. Lots of offenders would rather just do the time, frankly. Because it’s not just about kicking the habit. Quitting is the easy part. Look at any population of inmates who can’t afford to maintain their drug habit while incarcerated, if you want to see “cold turkey” in action. The problem is, when they get out, they go right back into the same neighborhoods, with the same temptations, the same social pressures, and the same inability to just say “no.” They never rejoin lawful society.

So a decent drug program is going to hammer home, not only the ability to say “no” and keep pissing clean, but also the skills one needs to survive in law-abiding society. How to get a job, and keep it. How to take care of oneself, one’s family, and even put some savings aside. How to get that high school equivalency, or vocational certificate that can make all the difference in the world. It’s damn hard.

But it works. For those who graduate these programs, a mind-boggling 75% stay out of trouble. They’re cured. It worked.

Of course, a large reason why the success rates are so high is that candidates are cherry-picked by DA’s offices. Sources cited in the AP article complain about this selectivity, but in a world where the number of addicts vastly outweighs the resources available for treatment, it is hardly surprising that the government would focus its resources on those addicts most likely to respond to treatment. Accepting someone who’s probably going to fail is doubly unjust — it wastes tax dollars that could have helped another equally-needy addict, and it sets up the failer for the big stick punishment.

That big stick punishment is another complaint we’ve heard, and it pops up in the AP article, too. It’s not fair, they say, to require defendants to take a plea before they go into treatment. But these critics fail to recognize that it is a crucial part of the equation. Without the plea first, there is no incentive not to backslide. We’re talking about people who have already exercised poor judgment, poor impulse control, and a general tendency to take the easy way out. And again, this is a difficult process. Offering a risk-free escape route would set the whole system up for failure. It would be unjust, and a huge waste.

On top of that, the system would have to resuscitate each case one by one as people dropped out of the programs. DA’s offices would never be able to close a case, really. It would only increase their uncertainty and their workload. What possible incentive would they have to recommend our clients for treatment in such a situation? Time to be realistic, people.

So screw the naysayers. When we were narcotics prosecutors, we liked it. Now that we’re on the side of the angels, we love it. It makes a difference. It works. Keep both the carrot and the stick, if you want it to keep working. And if you want less cherry-picking, cough up more taxes so there are enough spots for all the good candidates, and then cough up some more to pay for the long shots.

In the meantime, let’s keep working to make it work.