The State House Being the State House (on Police Secrecy and Similar Legislation)

Vote “NO” on House Bill 27. Photo from flickr.

By Andy Hoover, Communications Director, ACLU of Pennsylvania

Baseball fans are familiar with the phrase, “It’s just Manny being Manny.” It was the thing to say about the often eccentric behavior of Red Sox and Indians slugger Manny Ramirez. Manny disappears into the Green Monster — Fenway Park’s famous left field wall — to drink Gatorade and talk on the phone. Manny high fives a fan while making a catch against the fence and then throws back to the infield for a double play. Manny refuses to talk with reporters all through spring training but breaks his silence to talk about the grill he sold on Ebay.

In Pennsylvania government, we have our own version of “Manny being Manny,” but it isn’t nearly as amusing. It’s the House being the House. The Pennsylvania House of Representatives is the place where ways to compound mass incarceration and police brutality go to live.

This week alone, the House passed legislation to forfeit bail money to cover fines and restitution, even if the depositor is not the defendant. Your mom or your buddy bails you out, and now they’re paying your fines, too, if this bill becomes law.

The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill to reinstate mandatory minimum sentencing, which has been on ice for two years thanks to federal and state court rulings, despite growing evidence that mandatories have no impact on public safety and are discriminatory.

And on Monday, the House passed a bill to make it a crime for public officials to identify cops who kill, a bill we’ve told you about before.

It’s the House being the House.

And lest anyone thinks in these hyper partisan times that this is a product of a Republican majority, Democrats vote for this stuff, too. Like this one and this one and this one.

We are in a fierce struggle now to stop House Bill 27, the police secrecy bill, in order to protect transparency and accountability in policing. Governor Wolf agrees with us that hiding the identity of public employees who seriously injure or kill someone is no way to run a transparent government. He vetoed this bill last year. A handful of state senators agreed with us last session, but we need more this time.

The best thing you can do right now to stop the police secrecy bill is call your state senator and tell them to vote “no” on HB 27. You can find your state senator’s contact information with our “find your legislator” tool. And you can find more information about HB 27 on our website.

The message here is simple: Police officers are public employees to whom we give a great deal of power. With that power comes the responsibility to be transparent and accountable to the public.

A democratic society starts to lose its moorings when police can kill in secret.

And frankly, local officials already have the power to hide an officer’s identity if they think it’s necessary for safety reasons. This is a decision to be made at the local level, based on circumstances in the community, not by politicians in Harrisburg.

Your state senator needs to get the message: Vote “NO” on House Bill 27.

On to the links.

EXCERPTS
(Criminal justice news that could use a second look.)

Philadelphia DA Seth Williams was indicted Tuesday on 23 counts of corruption and bribery-related charges. Photo from The Inquirer.

From Philadelphia Magazine: “Here’s What’s Behind the Sharp Left Turn in Philly’s District Attorney Race”

“Unlike most local elections, the Democratic primary for district attorney is a real, honest-to-goodness fight. There is no clear front-runner in the seven-person race. Some candidates have more advantages than others, though. Untermeyer is a self-funded millionaire. Krasner might have that super PAC waiting in the wings. Because so few Philadelphians typically vote in off-year elections — only 105,000 of the city’s 1.2 million voting-age citizens turned out in the last competitive Democratic primary for DA — factors like race and party endorsements could also make a difference. According to an analysis of local elections, whites and blacks usually cast ballots for candidates of their own race. El-Shabazz is the only black candidate in a city that’s 44 percent black in a year in which many African-Americans are worried about President Trump’s law-and-order agenda. Negrin is the only Latino at a time when many Hispanics have those same fears. Khan’s father is Pakistani, but the South Asian-American community here is comparatively small; the rest of the Democrats are white. Will the vote split along racial lines, or will a broad coalition usher someone into office, à la the 2007 and 2015 mayoral elections?”

From The Philadelphia Inquirer: “Highlights from federal indictment of Seth Williams” 

“The indictment recaps multiple text-message exchanges between [Mohammad N.] Ali and Williams in the days and weeks that followed; Williams expresses appreciation for the multiple gifts Ali bestowed upon him, and ultimately offers to get personally involved with Ali’s friend’s case. The conversations begin Feb. 8, 2012: Ali: “the guy pleaded guilty, he will take any punishment but he just doesn’t wanna do jail! . . . If you can do anything for him it would be very appreciative (as long as you have no problem with it).” Williams: “I will look into it.” Shortly thereafter, the indictment shows that Williams texted one word to Ali: “April?” Authorities allege that was in reference to another trip to Punta Cana that Ali was expected to pay for. Williams:  “I am merely a thankful beggar and don’t want to overstep my bounds in asking … but we will gladly go.” On Feb. 24, Williams and Ali had another text conversation — this one about a $3,212 couch that Ali planned to buy for the district attorney. Ali attached a photo of the couch to the text thread. Ali:“Is that it?” Williams: “That is the exact one … but the special order color Chocolate.”

From The Marshall Project: “The public shaming of ‘sanctuary cities’ begins.”

“The Department of Homeland Security Monday issued its first ‘Declined Detainer Requests’ list of jurisdictions where local law enforcement officials allegedly have refused to adequately help with federal detention and deportation operations. The public notice was ordered by President Trump in January. The feds made 3,083 requests between January 28-February 3 and were ‘declined’ help in 216 incidents, most of which occurred in Travis County, Texas. HUFFINGTON POST Related: Here’s the official notice. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY More: Hey, LA, you made the list. LOS ANGELES TIMES Still more: So did you, Hennepin County, Minnesota. MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE”

HEADLINES

(Criminal justice news to be aware of.)

The PA Senate is considering a bill that would automatically seal non-violent criminal records after 10 years, an effort that could diminish the difficulty ex-offenders face when seeking employment. Photo from WESA. 

Pennsylvania

• From Philly.com: “Solomon Jones: Shame on Seth Williams for letting down African Americans”
• From BillyPenn: “Big Trial breaks big Philly news but faces funding crisis”
• From The Post-Gazette: “Armed police at city’s public schools generating buzz during board election year”
• From The Daily News: “Now he slings ice cream, instead of cocaine; ShopRite finds talent in former drug dealers”
• From PennLive: “Mandatory minimums still don’t work, Pa. lawmakers: Bret Bucklen and John E. Wetzel”
• From Philadelphia Magazine: “Pa. House Passes Another Cop Shooting Bill”
• From TASER International: “Sacramento, San Bernardino and Pittsburgh Police Deploy Cameras on the Axon Network”
• From The Incline: “Parents, advocates push for Pittsburgh to end suspensions for younger students”
• From Lehigh Valley Live: “Lawsuit blames Easton police for 25-year-old’s death”
• From BillyPenn: “This Harrisburg odd couple is working together on criminal justice reform”
• From WESA: “PA Senate Considering Bill Allowing Criminal Records To Be Automatically Sealed After 10 Years”
• From Buzzfeed: “Putting troubled kids in strict environments is big business for Camelot Education.”
• From The Inquirer: “Blue, red, urban, rural — Pennsylvania voters back help for ex-offenders”
• More information on Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams’ indictment: From City and State, “Philly DA Seth Williams indicted by US Attorney’s office”; From The Inquirer, “How defense lawyers would fight the case against Seth Williams” and “Who is Mohammad Ali, the businessman who took the DA to Punta Cana?”; From Philadelphia Magazine, “Philly D.A. Pleads Not Guilty to Corruption Charges”

National

• From The Intercept: “Real-time face recognition threatens to turn cops’ body cameras into surveillance machines”
• From The Los Angeles Times: “Two sheriffs elected as reformers end up destroyed by corruption scandals”
• From Slate: “Retired North Carolina Police Chief Detained at JFK Airport”
• From The Miami New Times: “Rundle Won’t Charge Prison Guards Who Allegedly Boiled Schizophrenic Black Man to Death”
• From The New York Times: “Door-busting drug raids leave a trail of blood”
• From CityLab: “The Mean Tweets of New York: Tracking gang conflicts on social media is controversial, but it can help community members and law enforcement get ahead of shootings—without arrest and incarceration.”
• From SCOTUSblog: “Opinion analysis: The Fourth Amendment governs unlawful pretrial detention claims even after legal process begins; everything else is remanded”
• From The San Diego Union-Tribune: “San Diego police go after drugged drivers with new mouth swab test”

Trump Criminal Justice Watch

• From The CATO Institute: “Jeff Sessions Is Rip Van Winkle on Drug Policy”
• From The New York Times: “Law Enforcement Agencies Bristle at U.S. Report on Immigration Detention”
• From Mother Jones: “Immigrants Fear a Choice Between Domestic Violence and Deportation”
• RELATED from Slate: “’I Wish I’d Never Called the Police’: For years, the United States has given a safe path to citizenship for victims of abuse. Under Trump, they may face an impossible choice: silence or deportation.”
• From ACLU National: “The Government Is Trying to Name and Shame Local and State Police Departments That Won’t Do Their Bidding”

The Appeal is a weekly newsletter keeping you informed about criminal justice news in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania and beyond. It is written and compiled by Matt Stroud, ACLU-PA’s criminal justice researcher, along with ACLU-PA interns Morgan Everett and Bethel Habte.

If you have suggestions for links or criminal justice-related work that you’d like to highlight in The Appeal — or ways that we might improve — please email Matt Stroud at mstroud@aclupa.org. And if someone forwarded this email to you, and you’d like to receive it every Friday, you can subscribe here.

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