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theliberaltony · 6 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

In California, a member of Congress was indicted this year on charges that he used a quarter-million dollars in campaign donations to purchase family vacations and an airplane ticket for his pet rabbit, among other things. In New York, another member of the House was arrested on insider-trading charges. In New Jersey, a senator whose corruption trial ended with a deadlocked jury was rebuked by his peers for violating standards of conduct.

All these things happened this year to incumbents who will be on the ballot come November. They are also all currently favorites to win re-election, according to FiveThirtyEight’s forecasts. And they aren’t alone. But while it may feel like we’re becoming immune to scandal, incumbency and partisanship have long held sway in the U.S., even in the face of bad headlines.

Several candidates seem to be banking on it. The investigation into the campaign finances of Republican California Rep. Duncan Hunter predates this year’s primaries, but he declined to bow out despite knowing that the charges could come out before Election Day (which they did). After New York Rep. Chris Collins, also a Republican, was arrested, the GOP tried to get him off the ballot. When it realized that would be all but impossible, he simply returned to campaigning. And despite heavy criticism, Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez has forged ahead with his re-election bid in New Jersey. All three have denied the charges against them.

Scandals in Washington are nothing new, and they definitely hurt an incumbent candidate’s chances of winning re-election (which is why they are a line item in the FiveThirtyEight midterm forecasts). FiveThirtyEight and other analysts have found that in recent decades, scandals have taken a toll on candidates’ support, to the tune of 6 to 9 percentage points.

And that’s just among incumbents who decide to stay in the game. FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich maintains a database of statewide and federal elected officials accused of scandals, which he defines as a credible accusation of objective criminal or ethical wrongdoing, such as embezzlement or adultery. (Mere controversies, such as when a candidate makes an offensive comment, don’t count.) In that data set, 48 percent of the U.S. representatives and senators who were involved in a scandal from 2008 to 2016 resigned or retired after allegations emerged, without running for re-election. Among those who stayed the course and ran (for any office, not just the one they previously held), just shy of 50 percent won.

This election season, 10 incumbents are running for the House or Senate with clouds hanging over their heads, according to FiveThirtyEight’s database of scandal.

Scandal-plagued candidates are mostly favored

Incumbent House and Senate candidates who have been involved in a scandal in the current election cycle, by district partisan lean and 2018 FiveThirtyEight midterm forecast category as of Oct. 1

District/seat Incumbent Scandal type name Partisan Lean 2018 forecast Rod Blum (R) Ethics IA-1 D+0.7 Solid D Dana Rohrabacher (R) Election collusion CA-48 R+6.7 Lean D Scott Taylor (R) Election fraud VA-2 R+7.8 Likely R Bob Menendez (D) Corruption NJ (Sen.) D+13.3 Likely D David Schweikert (R) Campaign finance AZ-6 R+17.6 Likely R Duncan Hunter (R) Campaign finance CA-50 R+21.6 Likely R Chris Collins (R) Corruption NY-27 R+22.9 Likely R Bobby Scott (D) Sex VA-3 D+28.5 Uncontested Jim Jordan (R) Sexual harassment coverup OH-4 R+30.0 Solid R Tony Cárdenas (D) Sex CA-29 D+55.5 Solid D

A district’s “partisan lean” is FiveThirtyEight’s measurement of how much more Republican- or Democratic-leaning a district is than the nation as a whole. It is based on 2016 and 2012 presidential results within the district, plus an adjustment for state-legislative results.

But whether or not voters are more tolerant of shenanigans, many of these candidates are headed into election season with a sizable political advantage, one that most likely would be difficult for challengers to overcome by scandal alone.

Much of that is due to the incumbency advantage, which has been a master salve that can see politicians through all sorts of political ailments (though it’s increasingly less effective). In the U.S., we give a lot of priority to people who are already politicians. Combine that advantage with an electorate that doesn’t follow politics closely, and scandals aren’t always a cause for concern among voters, according to research by Marko Klašnja, a professor at Georgetown University.

That could be a boon to Hunter, who hails from a rural and suburban electorate in eastern San Diego and parts of Riverside counties that’s not particularly engaged when it comes to politics, according to a variety of Republican and Democratic leaders who work in the area.

That means that even though the Hunter indictment is nearly 50 pages long and full of details about the allegations against him, it’s likely that many in the area have not heard of the charges against him. But they might be familiar with his name: Before Duncan Duane Hunter, there was Duncan Lee Hunter, his father, who represented the area for many years. “Older people sometimes think they are voting for his dad,” said Shawn VanDiver, an active Democrat in the area. Collectively, the two Hunters have represented the area for nearly four decades. Hunter also made a name for himself by being a strong, and early, supporter of Donald Trump’s presidential bid (as did Collins).

Hunter’s district is among the most reliably Republican districts in California. Several other candidates who are seeking office despite scandals plaguing their campaigns are in comfortable districts as well. Collins’s congressional district — New York’s 27th — is nearly 23 percentage points more Republican-leaning than the nation as a whole, according to FiveThirtyEight’s partisan lean metric.1 And in Menendez’s home state of New Jersey, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by nearly 900,000. Not only are these areas decidedly shaded in red or blue, partisanship is generally on the rise. Even if our tolerance for scandal has stayed the same, it is possible that a more partisan electorate might be more welcoming to a politician under the magnifying glass.

While still plenty conservative at an R+18 partisan lean, Arizona’s 6th Congressional District is not quite as politically lopsided as other areas with scandal-plagued contests this year. Rep. David Schweikert is under investigation after being accused of campaign finance violations (he has said that the irregularities are the result of a clerical error), but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has not stepped in with its full force to support his opponent, Anita Malik, even though some prognosticators think the race could be competitive.

It probably helps Schweikert (Collins and Hunter, too) that they are accused of financial crimes. While the FiveThirtyEight model doesn’t distinguish between types of scandals, there’s some evidence that what an incumbent is accused of might matter. Morality-related scandals, including sexual indiscretions, (usually) seem to hurt incumbents slightly more than financial scandals (though not always), according to a 2011 study by Nicholas Chad Long,2 a professor at St. Edward’s University. That may be because financial crimes are more difficult to understand, and complexity matters when determining whether or not voters punish politicians, according to Klašnja.

But even though incumbents enjoy these big advantages, a win isn’t a foregone conclusion. In Hunter’s case, his opponent in the general election, Ammar Campa-Najjar, wasn’t expected to have much of a chance until the indictment was announced, even though he beat out five other Democrats and Republicans in California’s top-two primary. Campa-Najjar was born and largely raised in the district, and he worked for the U.S. Labor Department and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce before launching his own business. He’s the toughest opponent the younger Hunter has faced, VanDiver said.

And the Hunter campaign seems to feel threatened. It has made false statements about Campa-Najjar’s religion (he is Christian) and upbringing. Most recently, it has been conflating Campa-Najjar’s Palestinian heritage and the growth of the Muslim population in the U.S. Hunter has described his opponent as trying to “infiltrate Congress.” It’s not clear how well that tactic will sit with the district’s immigrant population, which includes a concentration of Iraqi Chaldeans, a Christian sect associated with the Catholic Church. They have expressed mixed reactions to President Trump’s anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies.

Tony Krvaric, chairman of the Republican Party of San Diego County, is banking on the fact that voters will stick to their partisan ideologies and trust in the justice system to take care of Hunter on its own. He said that he’s been spending time reminding voters of three things: First, the names on the ballot aren’t changing — Hunter is who the GOP has on offer. Second, if the House were to move to impeach Trump, Campa-Najjar would only hurt the president. And, third, the authorities will handle the charges against Hunter.

Krvaric, who is an immigrant from Sweden and says he fell in love with Ronald Reagan’s politics as a teenager, thinks the bad air around Hunter has largely cleared. He said he’ll also be reminding San Diegans that the most important thing is to get a Republican in office.

As the old saying goes, he may be a scoundrel, but at least he’s their scoundrel.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Anna Maria Barry-Jester

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lifewithchronicpain-original · 5 years ago

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On Sept. 16, Tulare County in California announced the nation’s seventh death from vaping-related illness. Its advisory warned about “the dangerous effects of using electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes.”

As federal and state health officials struggle to identify what exactly is causing the deadly outbreak, vaping advocates are stepping into the void and crafting an alternative narrative that is being echoed broadly in online communities.

The people getting sick, according to their version of events, all vaped THC — the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis — using products bought on an illicit black market. They also contend federal officials have seized on the crisis to crack down on a nicotine vaping culture they don’t appreciate or understand, a culture proponents insist has helped them and millions of others quit smoking.

As of Oct. 1, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had identified more than 1,000 cases of vaping-related lung illness in 48 states. Eighteen people have died, including two in California. Of the 578 patients who have reported using specific products, most said they had vaped THC, but a significant portion — 17% — said they had used only nicotine.

CDC officials maintain they can’t identify one product or chemical culprit, and while they recently began emphasizing the risks of vaping THC, they continue to warn against any vape use at all.

Meanwhile, cities and states have responded with a divergent mix of warnings and bans. Michigan, New York and Rhode Island have moved to ban most flavored nicotine vaping products. The California Department of Public Health recently warned against all vaping devices, and the governor of Massachusetts issued a four-month ban on all vaping products. (Read more at link)

I live in MA which sucks! Luckily going to NH this weekend anyway and can get some there. If vaping is banned, I will end up back on cigarettes I know it. Nicotine is one of the worst addictions and hardest to quit.

#vaping #e cigarette #thc vaping #vape bans #ex-smokers #nicotine #vaping deaths #article

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outragedtortilla · 2 years ago

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The reasons why are not a mystery either. Among other things, Black people are less likely than white people to have a regular doctor, less likely to have insurance coverage and more likely to have HIV, diabetes and other diseases that generally put people at greater risk for new infections. White people are more likely to have benefits that can lessen the effects of illness, such as jobs that allow them to take paid sick leave and wealth that can buy them better care.

Anna Maria Barry-Jester

#racism #health #racial disparities #monkeypox #healthcare

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perfectlydangerousarbiter · 2 years ago

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Conservative Blocs Unleash Litigation to Curb Public Health Powers

Lauren Weber and Anna Maria Barry-Jester Through a wave of pandemic-related litigation, a trio of small but mighty conservative legal blocs has rolled back public health authority at the local, state, and federal levels, recasting America’s future battles against infectious diseases. Galvanized by what they’ve characterized as an overreach of covid-related health orders issued amid the pandemic,…

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reportwire · 2 years ago

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Conservative Blocs Unleash Litigation to Curb Public Health Powers

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gordonwilliamsweb · 3 years ago

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From the FDA’s Empty Seat to Chock-Full ICUs, Journalists Recap the Week’s Stories

KHN correspondent Rachana Pradhan discussed why President Joe Biden hasn’t yet nominated a permanent leader for the Food and Drug Administration on Newsy’s “Morning Rush” on Thursday.

Click here to hear Pradhan on “Morning Rush“

Read Pradhan’s “Public Health Experts ‘Flabbergasted’ That Biden Still Hasn’t Picked an FDA Chief”

KHN freelancer Nick Ehli discussed Montana’s overrun intensive care units on the Northern Broadcasting System’s “Voices of Montana” on Wednesday.

Click here to hear Ehli on “Voices of Montana“

Read Ehli’s “At an Overrun ICU, ‘the Problem Is We Are Running Out of Hallways’“

KHN chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner discussed covid-19 vaccine booster shots on WAMU/NPR’s “1A” on Thursday. On Wednesday, she joined C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” to discuss the reconciliation bill’s provisions related to Medicare prescription drug costs.

Click here to hear Rovner on “1A“

Click here to watch Rovner on “Washington Journal“

California Healthline reporter and producer Heidi de Marco discussed how a group of disabled migrants is organizing for better health care on KCET’s “SoCal Update” Sept. 17.

Click here to hear de Marco on KCET

Read de Marco’s “No Papers, No Care: Disabled Migrants Seek Help Through Lawsuit, Activism”

KHN senior correspondent Sarah Jane Tribble discussed how Dr. Anthony Fauci and the National Institutes of Health got ahead of the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the need for covid vaccine boosters on CNN’s “New Day” Sept. 17.

Click here to watch Tribble on “New Day“

Read Tribble’s “How Fauci and the NIH Got Ahead of the FDA and CDC in Backing Boosters“

KHN Midwest correspondent Lauren Weber discussed public health legislation on Newsy on Sept. 17.

Click here to watch Weber on Newsy

Read “Over Half of States Have Rolled Back Public Health Powers in Pandemic” by Weber and Anna Maria Barry-Jester.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

From the FDA’s Empty Seat to Chock-Full ICUs, Journalists Recap the Week’s Stories published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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stephenmccull · 3 years ago

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From the FDA’s Empty Seat to Chock-Full ICUs, Journalists Recap the Week’s Stories

KHN correspondent Rachana Pradhan discussed why President Joe Biden hasn’t yet nominated a permanent leader for the Food and Drug Administration on Newsy’s “Morning Rush” on Thursday.

Click here to hear Pradhan on “Morning Rush“

Read Pradhan’s “Public Health Experts ‘Flabbergasted’ That Biden Still Hasn’t Picked an FDA Chief”

KHN freelancer Nick Ehli discussed Montana’s overrun intensive care units on the Northern Broadcasting System’s “Voices of Montana” on Wednesday.

Click here to hear Ehli on “Voices of Montana“

Read Ehli’s “At an Overrun ICU, ‘the Problem Is We Are Running Out of Hallways’“

Click here to hear Rovner on “1A“

Click here to watch Rovner on “Washington Journal“

California Healthline reporter and producer Heidi de Marco discussed how a group of disabled migrants is organizing for better health care on KCET’s “SoCal Update” Sept. 17.

Click here to hear de Marco on KCET

Read de Marco’s “No Papers, No Care: Disabled Migrants Seek Help Through Lawsuit, Activism”

Click here to watch Tribble on “New Day“

Read Tribble’s “How Fauci and the NIH Got Ahead of the FDA and CDC in Backing Boosters“

KHN Midwest correspondent Lauren Weber discussed public health legislation on Newsy on Sept. 17.

Click here to watch Weber on Newsy

Read “Over Half of States Have Rolled Back Public Health Powers in Pandemic” by Weber and Anna Maria Barry-Jester.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

From the FDA’s Empty Seat to Chock-Full ICUs, Journalists Recap the Week’s Stories published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

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medicalcodingjob · 4 years ago

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Journalists Examine How Covid Polarizes Communities

California Healthline senior correspondent Anna Maria Barry-Jester discussed public health backlash on WABE’s “Did You Wash Your Hands?” on Jan. 5. KHN Colorado correspondent Rae Ellen Bichell dissected how covid-19 exacerbates tensions between counties in Colorado on NPR’s “Weekend Edition” on Jan. 9. KHN chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner talked about mental health care and the…

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#California #COVID-19 #Public Health #Vaccines

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eggwhiteswithspinach · 2 years ago

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Jeffries was angry for the hundreds of people, mainly gay and bisexual men, who were infected with monkeypox. He was angry that the burden was falling particularly hard on Black and Latino communities. He was angry that the federal government had been saying for eight weeks that it had the tools necessary to deal with the growing outbreak yet people were still struggling to find care.

Anna Maria Barry-Jester

#LGBTQ #monkeypox #long reads

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theliberaltony · 6 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Graphics by Ella Koeze

Quantitative analysis by Mai Nguyen

When Dawud Moore heard he’d been assigned bail, he felt relieved. It was January 2015, and Moore, a black man who was a 38-year-old Brooklyn resident at the time, was in an arraignment hearing on forgery charges — he had cashed a paycheck that his employer claimed was fraudulent. He maintained then and now that the company accidentally paid him twice, once in person and once by mail. The company claimed he’d forged a duplicate check.

All things considered, the $10,000 bond1 felt manageable. Moore had been arrested before, including for a drug-related conspiracy charge that put him in federal prison for nearly a decade. This time he was a little more than a year out of prison and had several months of steady work as a mason under his belt. He had a little bit of cash in his bank account, enough to pay the bondsman and make bail. Posting it would allow him to be released from jail while he awaited trial, and Moore was familiar enough with the system to know that he was much more likely to beat the case if he wasn’t locked up. “It’s funny because this is the first time in my adult life where I got a bail,” he said recently. “I was thinking, ‘I’m working, I’m out of trouble, I can pay this.’ And I know I didn’t do anything wrong,” Moore said.

But not all judges in New York City treat bail the same way. A FiveThirtyEight analysis of 105,581 cases handled by The Legal Aid Society, the largest public defender organization in New York, found that how much bail you owe — and whether you owe it at all — can depend on who hears your case the day you’re arraigned.

New York’s judges are assigned to arraignment shifts, hearing every case that comes into the court during that time. Because the assignments are random — judges hear cases solely based on when people are arrested and how busy the court is — we can identify whether defendants are being treated equally regardless of who hears their case. They are not.

In New York City, when clients of The Legal Aid Society who were charged with a misdemeanor in 2017 entered their initial arraignment, they had anywhere between a 2 and 26 percent chance of the judge setting a cash bail, depending on which judge was randomly assigned to oversee the court that day. For felonies,2 the range was even wider: anywhere between 30 and 69 percent. Those not assigned bail are likely to be released without having to pay, which means getting arrested on the wrong day can have a major consequence: You are more than twice as likely to have to pay your way to freedom. Can’t find the money? You’re stuck in jail.

Moore, who was a Legal Aid client, found a bondsman. But when the bondsman went to the court to post Moore’s bail, he had to go to the New York County Supreme Court judge now assigned to his case. (After an initial arraignment, felonies are moved to a different court system.) That judge, Charles Solomon, said the bail set by the initial judge was too low, and the amount Moore had paid the bondsman as security on his bond, a total of $1,600, wasn’t sufficient given Moore’s criminal history, according to transcripts of the court proceedings.

Moore’s lawyer protested,3 but Solomon declined to tell Moore’s lawyer what amount would be an acceptable collateral. At a subsequent hearing, he raised the bail to $25,000. Moore says his family got more money together and gave it to the bondsman, but Solomon continued to refuse it.

Judges do not comment on the details of individual cases, according to a spokesperson for the New York State Unified Court System, and Judge Solomon retired late last year. But while Moore was locked up, the court argued that Solomon’s refusal to accept the bond was not an abuse of his discretion because he made it clear that he planned to increase the bail after Moore received a felony indictment, citing relevant aspects of Moore’s criminal history.

Moore says he spent 10 months locked up, most of it in the notorious jails on Rikers Island, a 400-acre island in the East River that’s home to New York City’s main jail complex.

His time on Rikers included some of the most violent months in the jail system’s history. Working in the medical unit,4 he remembers seeing other inmates come in on stretchers with stab wounds and other injuries on what felt like a daily basis. “I’m not going to say that because I spent 10 years in [federal] prison, I’m tough,” Moore said. “No, I was scared.”

Desperate to get off the island, Moore pleaded to a misdemeanor, a fine and time served.

Moore’s case is not typical. FiveThirtyEight spoke with several public defenders who said that while it’s not unheard of, it is rare for a judge in New York City to demand additional collateral before accepting a bail posted by a bondsman. But it does highlight a feature of the bail system in many parts of the country: Judges have wide-reaching discretion to decide how much bail a defendant must pay — discretion that judges deploy in very different ways.

Random justice

For several years, politicians on the national and local level have been wondering what to do about America’s bail system. Few are happy with it. Empirical research has suggested that it has deleterious consequences for defendants, the penal system and recidivism rates. FiveThirtyEight’s findings add another layer to previous reports about the system’s inequality.

This FiveThirtyEight analysis covers all arraignments in criminal court in New York City in 2017 that are handled by The Legal Aid Society, which represented about 60 percent of all individuals arrested in the city last year. (By nature of qualifying for a public defender, the defendants involved are people who would likely struggle to pay bail.) In our analysis, we only looked at the initial arraignment in each case (some cases have follow-up hearings, which we did not include), and we have excluded cases that were dropped or concluded on the day of first arraignment. We categorized judge decisions as one of the following: bail greater than $1, which is cases where cash bail was set; remand, which is when defendants are held without bail; or released without bail or bail of $0, which groups together cases where people were assigned non-cash forms of bail, received supervised release, or were released on their own recognizance. The data did not allow for us to do any demographic analysis, so we don’t know if bail rates differ depending on, for example, the race of the defendant.

More on the methodology can be found in the footnotes.5

Where a person is arraigned also matters. New York City has five boroughs, each with its own criminal court and a unique culture when it comes to bail setting, according to people who work in the court system. Moore’s case was filed in Manhattan because that’s where the construction company reported the crime; 58 percent of felonies there were assigned bail in 2017,6 according to FiveThirtyEight’s analysis. In Brooklyn, where Moore lives, 47 percent of felony cases were assigned money bail.7

FiveThirtyEight requested interviews with the New York State Unified Court System and the judges who appear in the data, and emailed a list of questions about bail-setting practices. In response, the courts issued a short statement:

“The setting of bail or bond in New York state is solely up to the presiding judge on the particular case. The particular type and amount of bail, or whether bail is appropriate at all, for the defendant, is advocated by both the prosecution and defense bar with the final determination coming from the presiding judge.

The New York State legislature promulgates the laws and that would include any changes to New York’s bail statutes.”

What role does bail serve?

Bail was created as a way to get people out of jail while they await trial by providing an incentive to make sure they show up for subsequent court dates. But today, jails around the country are filled with some 450,000 people who are being held pretrial. And just a few days in jail can have significant consequences.

Research has found that when a defendant is not granted bail or cannot pay it and so winds up being held in custody while they await trial, that leads to worse outcomes for defendants, including a greater likelihood that they will plead guilty to crimes and receive worse deals from the prosecutor’s office. A study of cases handled by The Legal Aid Society in 2015 found that setting bail led to a 34 percent increase in the likelihood of conviction. Even small amounts of bail are prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of people for whom they are set, and short stays in jail can often lead to lost jobs and housing issues. For poor defendants, awaiting trial in jail, even if the charges turn out to be false or are for only a minor offense, can lead to major crisis. And holding people prior to trial costs taxpayers around $13.6 billion a year, according to one study.

In recent years, the American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association and even some prosecutors have supported efforts to limit the use of cash bail in favor of supervised release or releasing more people on their own recognizance. At the beginning of 2018, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance directed his assistants not to request bail when they brought charges for nonviolent misdemeanors.

“There’s a real opportunity for judges … to look at their bail-setting practice and be able to reduce the pretrial population with the tools they already have at their disposal.”

But despite this momentum toward reducing the use of bail, many prosecutors continue to ask judges to set bail, and many judges continue to agree.

“Why in the world would we keep people in [jail], in these inhumane conditions that exist in many of our jails, when there’s no reason, when those people should be home with their families and their communities,” said Judge Jonathan Lippman, former chief judge for the state of New York and chair of an independent commission on criminal justice and jail reform in NYC.

Lippman and the commission have advocated to end cash bail entirely, saying there is no evidence that it is more effective than other forms of bail at increasing the likelihood that people will return to court for hearings.

He would, however, like judges to be allowed to consider public safety when they are deciding what to do with a defendant awaiting trial, which is not currently allowed in New York. Lippman is sure that some judges in some cases set cash bail because they are worried about the crimes a person may commit if they are released before their trial. “It is a fiction that judges don’t consider public safety,” he said. But, like many critics of cash bail, he believes that the current system frequently penalizes the poor and is particularly harmful to communities of color.

In 2016, just 15 percent of bails were paid at arraignment for non-felony cases. For felony cases, it was 8.8 percent.

In Moore’s case, the bail decision by the second judge put Moore in jail for the better part of a year, which in turn damaged his relationship with his family and friends, relationships he’d been trying to repair since he’d been released from federal prison. “Everyone is like, ‘It must be serious if the judge isn’t letting you out.’”

New York’s bail problem

New York City has been searching for an answer to its bail problem for years. In 2014, The New Yorker reported on the case of Kalief Browder, a teenager who was accused of stealing a backpack and spent three years on Rikers as a result, much of it in solitary confinement. His case was later dropped, and in 2015 he killed himself.

In response, the New York City Council Speaker requested an independent commission, the one chaired by Judge Lippman.

In addition to recommending that New York stop using money bail, the commission also found that Rikers is beyond redemption and recommended shutting down the jail complex altogether. In 2017, de Blasio said he wanted to close Rikers within 10 years. The Legal Aid Society’s data suggests that if the judges who were most likely to set bail in 2017 instead started setting bail at the median rate, the inmate population could be reduced by several thousand people — which would go a long way toward helping to close Rikers.

“There’s a real opportunity for judges … to look at their bail-setting practice and be able to reduce the pretrial population with the tools they already have at their disposal,” said Jane-Roberte Sampeur, a staff attorney with The Legal Aid Society.

All this data from New York points to one of the reasons that state and local governments are moving to limit the use of cash bail across the country. It’s been several decades since someone was held because of their inability to pay bail in Washington, D.C., for example, the defendant’s financial circumstances are taken into consideration when cash bail is set.

New York, though, hasn’t yet followed suit, despite significant efforts to move the state away from the cash bail system. The state assembly recently approved legislation that would end the use of cash bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies. But with two working days left in the state’s legislative session, the bill is not expected to be passed by the state senate, which means it can’t become law this term. However, activists, lawmakers and public defenders say they remain hopeful that there will be legislative change next year.

In the meantime, New York City has reduced its use of cash bail. Advocates of bail reform have been encouraging judges to release more people without asking for any kind of bail, or to make more frequent use of other kinds of bail — things like unsecured bonds, which amount to a promise to return to court or pay a fine. The city also recently created a large-scale program for supervised release, which allows judges to let people out without bail, but requires that the defendants do things like check in with the court, similar in some ways to parole.

George Grasso, the supervising judge for Bronx county criminal court, was involved in creating that program. He says judges must be aware that setting bail can potentially lead to a long stay in Rikers. “We have a lot of good alternatives if we’re concerned about [a defendant’s] appearance” at later court dates, he said. He also pointed out that though there’s a lot of attention on New York City’s criminal justice system, it releases people without bail far more often than other parts of the U.S.

“What we do in New York City — in wide swaths of the country, from the defense perspective — would be nirvana,” said Grasso.

The problem is bigger than New York City

Bail-setting practices are no more consistent in upstate New York. In Erie County, where Buffalo is located and where 64 percent of people in one local jail are waiting for their trials, people charged with minor misdemeanors are routinely asked to pay bail, according to research by the Partnership for the Public Good, a community-based think tank in Buffalo. Pretrial data is hard to come by and bail data is not made publicly available, so from Nov. 2017 to Feb. 2018, the group sent court watchers to observe 240 arraignment hearings.

They found something similar to what FiveThirtyEight found in New York City: Cash bail was set in 64 percent of hearings and defendants were released in 33 percent of cases, but the frequency varied dramatically between judges. One judge set bail in 46 percent of all cases, while another set bail in 92 percent.

Bail-setting practices are inconsistent elsewhere too

Share of felony and misdemeanor arraignments where bail was set by five anonymous judges in Buffalo, New York, from Nov. 2017 to Feb. 2018

share of cases where bail was set Judge Misdemeanors Felonies 1 83%

–

100%

–

2 72

–

3 55

–

4 67

–

5 42

–

Source: Partnership for the Public Good

When the Partnership for Public Good compared cases with similar backgrounds and charges, the group found that there seemed to be differences in both how often bail was set and the amount it was for depending on what judge happened to be presiding the day a person landed in court, said Andrea Ó Súilleabháin, deputy director at the organization. And the different approaches that showed up in the data were also recognizable in the courtroom. One judge regularly asked defendants about their ability to pay bail, while one judge assigned bail to a defendant (after initially approving him for a supervised release program) after scolding him for slouching in his chair. “It’s almost bail as punitive, we could see that feeling in the courtroom,” said Ó Súilleabháin.

Judge Paula Feroleto, the administrative judge for New York’s Eighth Judicial District, which covers Buffalo, agreed to an interview with FiveThirtyEight, but declined to comment on questions relating to cash bail, noting only that judges follow the law.

Ó Súilleabháin said that PPG’s interviews with judges in the Buffalo area suggest that there are cultural explanations for the heavy use of cash bail. Some judges said they fear that someone who was released would commit a violent act while awaiting trial. Others said they believe their constituents want a conservative approach. (Many judges are elected in New York state.) One judge even told PPG that judges sometimes use high bail as a way of clearing crowded court dockets, trying to force people to plead out.

If a court is really using its discretion, said Rebecca Town, a public defender in Buffalo, then judges will set bail using the method that is the least onerous for the defendant while still being robust enough to get the person to return to court. “Our courts are not using the flexibility they have,” she said, noting how rarely non-monetary forms of bail are used in Buffalo.

How far will reform go?

Even in places moving to end the use of cash bail, the conversation is usually limited to first-time offenders or people charged with misdemeanors. Reforms likely wouldn’t apply to people like Moore who are charged with felonies or already have criminal records. And even though felonies tend to be more serious crimes, it’s not uncommon for charges to be brought on questionable evidence.

Darryl Herring, a 61-year-old black man, recently moved into his first steady apartment in many years. Before finding his current home, he had fled the putrid aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for New York, the city where he grew up, then lived in a series of homeless shelters before finding himself on Rikers Island for almost two years.

In July of 2015, a female acquaintance from the shelter where he was living at the time accused him of rape. He was assigned a bail of $75,000 at arraignment, but Herring said it would have been impossible for him to pay even $100. His attorney advised he plead to a lower charge, which would likely have put him on a sex offender registry for the rest of his life. But a plea bargain was never an option as far as he was concerned. “I was 58 when they picked me up. Any sentence to me was a death sentence.”

Since his stay on Rikers, which included endless days on lockdown due to the rampant fighting among younger inmates, he says he hasn’t been able to sleep through the night. “The psychological effect is the worst part,” he said. “It really got your mind down.”

Weak discovery laws in New York meant the prosecution didn’t have to hand over its evidence until right before trial, but when Herring’s attorney and the judge finally got a look at the prosecutor’s case — 18 months after Herring’s initial arrest — he was quickly acquitted. Herring’s file is sealed, but he says that the records showed that information gathered by the police and prosecutors cast significant doubt on the accuser’s statement, and physical evidence failed to link him to the accuser.

And like that, he was released. He’d been found guilty of no crime.

“People who haven’t been through it, they gotta think it can’t be that bad.” Herring said. “But it is.”

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Anna Maria Barry-Jester

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diaspora9ja · 4 years ago

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Political backlash hits health officials

State and native public well being officers throughout the U.S. have discovered themselves on the middle of a political storm.

Some have change into the targets of far-right activists, conservative teams and anti-vaccination extremists, who’ve coalesced round frequent targets — combating masks orders, quarantines and make contact with tracing with protests, threats and private assaults. Public well being powers are being undermined within the courts. And lawmakers in a minimum of 24 states have crafted laws to weaken long-held public well being powers.

Amid this pushback, a minimum of 181 state and native public well being leaders in 38 states have resigned, retired or been fired since April 1, in line with an ongoing investigation by The Related Press and Kaiser Well being Information. In line with consultants, that is the biggest exodus of public well being leaders in American historical past.

About 40 million folks — 1 in 8 Individuals — reside in a group that has misplaced its native public well being division chief in the course of the pandemic. High public well being officers in 20 states have left state-level departments, and an untold variety of lower-level staffers have additionally departed.

Lots of the leaders exited due to political blowback or pandemic stress. Some left to take higher-profile positions or due to well being issues. Others had been fired for poor efficiency. Dozens retired.

“We do not have a protracted line of individuals outdoors of the door who need these jobs,” mentioned Dr. Gianfranco Pezzino, well being officer in Shawnee County, Kan., who had determined to retire from his job on the finish of the yr. “It is an enormous loss that might be felt most likely for generations to return.”

However Pezzino couldn’t make it to Dec. 31. On Monday, after county commissioners loosened restrictions, he instantly stepped down.

Because the pandemic started, the general public well being workforce in Kansas has been hit arduous — 17 of the state’s 100 well being departments have misplaced leaders for the reason that finish of March.

In Idaho, lots of of protesters, some armed, swarmed well being district places of work and well being board members’ houses in Boise on Dec. 8, screaming and blaring air horns. They included members of the anti-vaccination group Well being Freedom Idaho.

Now, opponents are turning to state legislatures and even the Supreme Court docket to strip public officers of the authorized energy they’ve held for many years to cease foodborne diseases and infectious illnesses by closing companies and quarantining people, amongst different measures.

Lawmakers in Missouri, Louisiana, Ohio, Virginia and a minimum of 20 different states have crafted payments to restrict public well being powers. In some states, the efforts have failed; in others, legislative leaders have embraced them enthusiastically.

In the meantime, governors in a number of states, together with Wisconsin, Kansas and Michigan, have been sued by their very own legislators or others for utilizing their govt powers to limit enterprise operations and require masks.

Together with the political backlash, many well being officers have confronted threats of non-public violence. In California, a person with ties to the right-wing, anti-government Boogaloo motion was accused of stalking and threatening Santa Clara’s well being officer. He was arrested and pleaded harmless.

Info for this text was contributed by Michelle R. Smith of The Related Press and by Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Hannah Recht and Lauren Weber of Kaiser Well being Information.

Dr. Oxiris Barbot, a pediatrician and former well being commissioner for New York Metropolis in the course of the coronavirus outbreak, poses for a portrait within the Brooklyn borough of New York, on Monday Dec. 7, 2020. Barbot left her job as commissioner in August amid a conflict with Democratic Mayor Invoice de Blasio. Through the peak of the pandemic, the mayor empowered town’s hospital system to steer the combat in opposition to COVID-19, passing over her extremely regarded division. (AP Picture/Bebeto Matthews)

FILE – On this Monday, Aug. 24, 2020 file picture, Ammon Bundy, middle, stands on the Idaho Statehouse steps in Boise, Idaho, to attend a particular session of the state legislature known as because of the coronavirus pandemic. Bundy, whose household led armed standoffs in opposition to federal brokers in 2014 and 2016, has change into an icon for paramilitary teams and right-wing extremists, most lately forming a multi-state community that has organized protests in opposition to public well being measures. (AP Picture/Keith Ridler)

Linda Vail, well being officer for Ingham County in Michigan, speaks with a colleague at their places of work in Lansing, Mich., on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020. Vail has acquired emails and letters at her dwelling saying she can be “taken down just like the governor,” which Vail took to be a reference to the thwarted try to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. At the same time as different well being officers are leaving, Vail is selecting to remain regardless of the threats. (AP Picture/Mike Householder)

Kelly Aberasturi, vice-chair commissioner of the board of Southwest District Well being, stands outdoors the SWDH workplace in Caldwell, Idaho, on Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2020. Aberasturi does not assist masks mandates, however he did again the board’s unanimous suggestion that folks locally put on masks. He mentioned individuals who imagine even a suggestion goes too far have threatened to protest at his home. (AP Picture/Otto Kitsinger)

This undated picture supplied by Tisha Coleman exhibits her along with her mom, Nina Worthington. Coleman fought to carry again tears whereas describing her 71-year-old mom, a former well being care employee who was contaminated with the coronavirus. Worthington died Dec. 13, 2020. (Courtesy Tisha Coleman by way of AP)

Tisha Coleman, public well being administrator for Linn County, talks to a resident in entrance of her household ironmongery shop in Mound Metropolis, Kan., Monday, Dec. 7, 2020. In late November, she spoke at a county commissioner’s assembly to debate a brand new masks mandate. It was her first day again within the workplace after her personal bout with COVID-19. (AP Picture/Charlie Riedel)

Tisha Coleman, public well being administrator for Linn County, stands in entrance of her workplace Monday, Dec. 7, 2020, in Pleasanton, Kan. Throughout the US, state and native public well being officers corresponding to Coleman have discovered themselves on the middle of a political storm as they fight the worst pandemic in a century. (AP Picture/Charlie Riedel)

Tisha Coleman, public well being administrator for Linn County, sits at her desk close to a HEPA air filter in her workplace in Pleasanton, Kan., on Monday, Dec. 7, 2020. On this group with no hospital, she’s failed to steer her neighbors to put on masks and take precautions in opposition to COVID-19, at the same time as instances rise. In return, she’s been harassed, sued, vilified and known as a Democrat, an insult in her circles. (AP Picture/Charlie Riedel)

FILE – On this April 15, 2020, file picture, protesters carry rifles close to the steps of the Michigan State Capitol constructing in Lansing, Mich., throughout a rally in opposition to coronavirus measures within the state. (AP Picture/Paul Sancya, File)

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lawrencedienerthings · 4 years ago

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Public health officials — including in Colorado — face wave of threats, pressure amid coronavirus response

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By Michele R. Smith, Lauren Weber and Anna Maria Barry-Jester, The Associated Press and Kaiser Health News

Emily Brown was stretched thin.

As director of the Rio Grande County Public Health Department in rural Colorado, she was working 14-hour days, struggling to respond to the coronavirus pandemic with only five full-time employees for 11,000 residents. Case counts were rising.

She was at odds with county commissioners, who were pushing to loosen public health restrictions in late May, against her advice. But she reasoned standing up for public health principles was worth it, even if she risked losing the job that allowed her to live close to her hometown.

Then came the Facebook post: a photo of her and other health officials with comments about “armed citizens” and “bodies swinging from trees.”

The commissioners had asked her to meet with them the next day. She intended to ask them for more support. Instead, she was fired.

“They finally were tired of me not going along the line they wanted me to go along,” she said.

Emily Brown was director of the Rio Grande County Public Health Department in Colorado until May 22, when the county commissioners fired her after battling with her over coronavirus restrictions. “They finally were tired of me not going along the line they wanted me to go along,” she says. (Photo by Theresa Anselmo/Courtesy of Emily Brown)

In the battle against COVID-19, public health workers spread across states, cities and small towns make up an invisible army on the front lines. But that army is under assault when it’s needed most.

Officials who usually work behind the scenes managing immunizations and water quality inspections have found themselves center stage. Elected officials and members of the public frustrated with lockdowns and safety restrictions have turned public health workers into politicized punching bags, battering them with angry calls and physical threats.

On Thursday, Ohio’s health director, who had armed protesters go to her house, resigned. The health officer for Orange County, California, quit Monday after weeks of criticism and personal threats from residents and other public officials over an order requiring face coverings in public.

As pressure rises, many more health officials have chosen to leave or been pushed out of their jobs. A review by Kaiser Health News and The Associated Press finds at least 27 state and local health leaders have resigned, retired or been fired since April across 13 states.

From North Carolina to California, they’ve left their posts due to a mix of backlash and stressful working conditions, all while dealing with chronic staffing and funding shortages. Some health officials haven’t been up to the job during the biggest health crisis in a century. Others previously had plans to leave or cited their own health issues.

COVID-19 IN COLORADO

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But Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, said most of the exodus resulted from increasing pressure as states reopen. Three of those 27 were members of her board and well known in the public health community — Rio Grande County’s Brown; Detroit’s senior public health adviser, Dr. Kanzoni Asabigi; and the head of North Carolina’s Gaston County Department of Health and Human Services, Chris Dobbins. Asabigi and Dobbins did not reply to requests for comment.

Freeman warned more departures could be expected as political pressure trickles down from the federal to the state to the local level.

Since the pandemic began, federal public health officials have complained of being sidelined or politicized. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been marginalized; a government whistleblower said he faced retaliation because he opposed a White House directive to allow widespread access to the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment.

In Hawaii, Democratic U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard called on the governor to fire his top public health officials, saying they were too slow on testing, contact tracing and travel restrictions. In Wisconsin, several Republican lawmakers demanded the state’s health services secretary resign, and the state’s conservative Supreme Court ruled that she’d exceeded her authority by extending a stay-at-home order.

With the increased public scrutiny, security details — like those seen on a federal level for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious-disease expert — have been assigned to state health leaders, including Georgia’s Dr. Kathleen Toomey after she was threatened. Ohio’s Dr. Amy Acton, who resigned Thursday, had a security detail assigned after armed protesters went to her home.

In Orange County, in late May, nearly 100 people attended a county supervisors meeting, waiting hours to speak against an order requiring face coverings. One person invoked Second Amendment rights to bear arms; another read aloud the home address of the order’s author — the county’s chief health officer, Dr. Nichole Quick.

After another public meeting that included criticism from members of the board of supervisors Monday, Quick resigned. She couldn’t be reached for comment.

Many local health leaders, accustomed to relative anonymity as they work to protect public health, have been shocked by the threats, said Theresa Anselmo, executive director of the Colorado Association of Local Public Health Officials.

After polling local health directors across the state at a May meeting, Anselmo found about 80% said they or their personal property had been threatened since the pandemic began. About 80% also said they’d encountered threats to pull funding from their department or other political pressure.

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In Colorado, the Tri-County Health Department, serving Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas counties near Denver, has received hundreds of calls and emails from frustrated citizens, deputy director Jennifer Ludwig said. Some were angry their businesses couldn’t open. Others were furious with neighbors who weren’t wearing masks outside.

Then rocks were thrown at an office window — three times. The department also received an email calling its members “tyrants,” adding “you’re about to start a hot-shooting … civil war.” Health department workers decamped to another office.

“It does wear on you, but at the same time we know what we need to do to keep moving to keep our community safe,” Ludwig said.

Back in Colorado’s Rio Grande County, COVID-19 case counts jumped from 14 to 49 as of Wednesday.

Brown grapples with what she should do next: dive back into another strenuous public health job in a pandemic or take a moment to recoup?

When she told her 6-year-old son she no longer had a job, he responded: “Good — now you can spend more time with us.”

This story is a collaboration between The Associated Press and Kaiser Health News.

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