11-14-2024  8:01 pm   •   PDX and SEA Weather

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NORTHWEST NEWS

Trump Was Elected; What Now? Black Community Organizers on What’s Next

The Skanner spoke with two seasoned community leaders about how local activism can counter national panic. 

Family of Security Guard Shot and Killed at Portland Hospital Sues Facility for $35M

The family of Bobby Smallwood argue that Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center failed to enforce its policies against violence and weapons in the workplace by not responding to staff reports of threats in the days before the shooting.

In Portland, Political Outsider Keith Wilson Elected Mayor After Homelessness-focused Race

Wilson, a Portland native and CEO of a trucking company, ran on an ambitious pledge to end unsheltered homelessness within a year of taking office.

‘Black Friday’ Screening Honors Black Portlanders, Encourages Sense of Belonging

The second annual event will be held Nov. 8 at the Hollywood Theatre.

NEWS BRIEFS

Multnomah County Library Breaks Ground on Expanded St. Johns Library

Groundbreaking marks milestone in library transformations ...

Janelle Bynum Statement on Her Victory in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District

"I am proud to be the first – but not the last – Black Member of Congress from Oregon" ...

Veterans Day, Monday, Nov. 11: Honoring a Legacy of Loyalty and Service and Expanding Benefits for Washington Veterans

Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs (WDVA) is pleased to share the Veterans Day Proclamation and highlight the various...

Nkenge Harmon Johnson honored with PCUN’s Cipriano Ferrel Award

Harmon Johnson recognized for civil rights work in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest ...

Death penalty sought for an Idaho gang member accused of killing a man while on the run

LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty if an Idaho white supremacist gang member is convicted of killing a man while he was on the run after shooting officers in a plot to help a fellow gang member escape from prison. Nez Perce County Prosecutor Justin...

Democrat Janelle Bynum flips Oregon’s 5th District, will be state’s first Black member of Congress

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Democrat Janelle Bynum has flipped Oregon’s 5th Congressional District and will become the state’s first Black member of Congress. Bynum, a state representative who was backed and funded by national Democrats, ousted freshman GOP U.S. Rep. Lori...

Missouri takes school-record 72-point win over Mississippi Valley State

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Marques Warrick scored 11 of his 16 points in the first half when Missouri took off to a huge lead on its way to a 111-39 win over Mississippi Valley State on Thursday night — the 72-point margin matching the largest in Tigers history. It was Missouri's...

No. 23 South Carolina looking for 4th straight SEC win when it faces No. 24 Missouri on Saturday

No. 24 Missouri (7-2, 3-2 Southeastern Conference) at No. 23 South Carolina (6-3, 4-3), Saturday, 4:15 p.m. EST (SEC Network) BetMGM College Football Odds: South Carolina by 12 1/2. Series record: Missouri leads 9-5. What’s at stake? South...

OPINION

Donald Trump Rides Patriarchy Back to the White House

White male supremacy, which Trump ran on, continues to play an outsized role in exacerbating the divide that afflicts our nation. ...

Why Not Voting Could Deprioritize Black Communities

President Biden’s Justice40 initiative ensures that 40% of federal investment benefits flow to disadvantaged communities, addressing deep-seated inequities. ...

The Skanner News 2024 Presidential Endorsement

It will come as no surprise that we strongly endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president. ...

Black Retirees Growing Older and Poorer: 2025 Social Security COLA lowest in 10 years

As Americans live longer, the ability to remain financially independent is an ongoing struggle. Especially for Black and other people of color whose lifetime incomes are often lower than that of other contemporaries, finding money to save for ‘old age’ is...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

New Orleans marks with parade the 64th anniversary of 4 little girls integrating city schools

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans marked the 64th anniversary of the day four Black 6-year-old girls integrated New Orleans schools with a parade — a celebration in stark contrast to the tensions and anger that roiled the city on Nov. 14, 1960. Federal marshals were needed then to...

Businesses at struggling corner where George Floyd was killed sue Minneapolis

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Several business owners at the struggling corner where George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020 are suing the city to demand it take over their properties and compensate them. The owners of the Cup Foods convenience store and other...

Former Marine misused a combat technique in fatal chokehold of NYC subway rider, trainer testifies

NEW YORK (AP) — When Daniel Penny wrapped his arm around the neck of a homeless man on a Manhattan subway last year, the 25-year-old veteran appeared to be deploying a non-lethal chokehold long drilled into U.S. Marines. Done right, the maneuver should knock a person out without...

ENTERTAINMENT

Book Review: 'Those Opulent Days' is a mystery drenched in cruelties of colonial French Indochina

It’s not often that a historical novel is set in the Vietnam of the 1920s, a period when the land in Indochina was occupied and exploited by French colonizers. It’s also unusual that such a novel would be a whodunit murder mystery. “Those Opulent Days,” the debut novel of...

Book Review: Reader would be 'Damn Glad' to pick up a copy of actor Tim Matheson's new memoir

Tim Matheson has portrayed a president and vice president. A police officer and military officer. And more than a few doctors. He's worked with Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, Jackie Gleason, Clint Eastwood, Kurt Russell and Steven Spielberg. He appeared in episodes of everything from “Leave to...

Book Review: A new book about cult favorite Eve Babitz throws shade on reputation of Joan Didion

An entire generation of literary-minded women has not stopped telling itself stories influenced by master storyteller Joan Didion. The same, alas, cannot be said of Eve Babitz, a Hollywood bad girl whose life briefly intersected with Didion’s in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Few...

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Former Marine misused a combat technique in fatal chokehold of NYC subway rider, trainer testifies

NEW YORK (AP) — When Daniel Penny wrapped his arm around the neck of a homeless man on a Manhattan subway last...

Suicides in the US military increased in 2023, continuing a long-term trend

WASHINGTON (AP) — Suicides in the U.S. military increased in 2023, continuing a long-term trend that the...

Shel Talmy, produced hits by The Who, The Kinks and other 1960s British bands, dead at 87

NEW YORK (AP) — Shel Talmy, a Chicago-born music producer and arranger who worked on such British punk classics...

Israel demolishes village at the heart of Bedouin minority's struggle over land

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli authorities on Thursday completed the demolition of a village at the heart of a...

Man kills himself with blasts outside Brazil's Supreme Court after failing to get inside

SAO PAULO (AP) — A man who failed in an attempt to break into Brazil's Supreme Court killed himself in...

South Africa's government says it won't help a group of illegal miners inside a closed mine

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa's government says it won't help a group of illegal miners inside a closed mine...

Kat Aaron Investigative Reporting Workshop

Fifty years ago, an eloquent drifter from Florida changed the American justice system. Clarence Earl Gideon, accused of breaking into a pool hall, was tried without a lawyer in Bay County, Florida, in 1961. Convicted after representing himself, he petitioned the Supreme Court for a new hearing and ultimately won not just his own freedom but a new right for all criminal defendants: the right to counsel. It's thanks to Gideon and his case that if a defendant cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided.

More than 12 million people were arrested in America in 2011. Most of them were charged with a crime and many were poor, qualifying for a public defender. The American Council of Chief Defenders suggests that each public defender handle no more than 400 misdemeanors or 150 felonies per year; many carry caseloads two to three times those guidelines, and some much more than that. There are simply far, far more poor people needing lawyers than there are public lawyers to represent them. Despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright, adequate counsel for poor Americans is far from guaranteed.

Detroit's 36th District Court handles about half a million misdemeanor cases a year. Most of those defendants will be represented by a publicly funded attorney, and most will exchange few words with the person who is officially their lawyer. In Wayne County, which encompasses Detroit, there are both traditional public defenders, whose full-time job is representing the indigent, and appointed counsel, lawyers named by the judge to represent all needy defendants in court that week.

Traffic cases make up a lot of the court docket on any given day. People drive everywhere in the Motor City, and they drive without licenses, without insurance and without the ability to pass a breath test. The judge will call the names of everyone with a drunk driving charge, say, and they all line up in front of the dais. The court-appointed counsel will explain to the group that they're all going to pay a fine and may have to do community service. There's no apparent opportunity to have an individual conversation, to contest the charge or explain the individual circumstances of the arrest. There's no clear warning that these people are taking a plea deal, no hint that they are pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge that will stay on their record forever.

The courtrooms at the 36th District are, technically, fulfilling their constitutional mandate to provide counsel to people who can't afford it. That the representation does not typically involve any meaningful interaction between defendant and attorney is standard, in Michigan and many states. The Gideon decision didn't spell out how states should go about providing indigent defense. Michigan wound up with a hodgepodge of systems: some public defender offices, some appointed counsel and some flat-fee contracts. In a flat-fee contract model, attorneys bid to represent all comers in a given courthouse for the year, and the lowest bid wins. The system incentivizes lawyers to spend as little time with each defendant as possible; the more clients they have, the less they earn per case. The appointed counsel model also has its critics, who say that lawyers may be quick to push a plea or may hesitate to request a trial, for fear of angering a busy judge and losing future appointments.

Michigan is one of just seven states that provide almost no state funding for trial-level indigent defense, leaving the counties holding that particular fiscal bag. County income derives mainly from property taxes, and property values in Michigan have been in free fall for years. Per capita spending on indigent defense is not regularly tracked, but in 2012, Michigan spent just $7.38, ranking the state among the lowest in the nation. Simply put, "Michigan fails to provide competent representation to those who cannot afford counsel in its criminal courts," according to a 2008 report by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.

The indigent defense system in Michigan is so ill-funded, and so overburdened, that the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan sued the state. The case, Duncan v. Granholm, was a class action representing defendants facing felonies in three Michigan counties, where, according to the suit, the state has failed to meet the requirements of Gideon. It was filed in 2007, and for six years, the state tried to stop the case from proceeding. In April, the ACLU won yet another decision from the state court of appeals, allowing the case to move forward.

The suit sought to "prove what everybody knows, which is that the criminal defense system is broken for poor people in Michigan," said Michael Steinberg, legal director of the ACLU of Michigan.

As the suit wound its way through the courts, the state government was assessing the problem. Gov. Rick Snyder named an Indigent Defense Advisory Commission in 2011, and the group released a set of recommendations last summer. Legislation to improve the system was introduced in April 2013 and was signed into law (http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2013-2014/publicact/pdf/2013-PA-0093.pdf) in July.

The law establishes a permanent commission, which will create minimum standards for public defense, including allowing defenders to control their caseloads. The law also provides funds to counties that aren't able to meet the standards alone. And because the law should remedy the crises that sparked the ACLU's suit, the group has voluntarily dismissed its case. The changes won't go into effect immediately, though. The courts won't see the impact for another two years, estimates Marcela Westrate of the Michigan Campaign for Justice, a coalition that backed the bill.

The law is a big step, but implementation of the new standards is contingent "upon the appropriation of sufficient funds," according to the bill. Michigan's economy is climbing out of the basement, but budgets are still lean. The ACLU's Steinberg says they'll be monitoring the law's progress closely.

Detroit has its own financial problems, distinct from those of the state. And the 36th District Court, which is in and partly funded by the city of Detroit, is not insulated from the city's fiscal woes. Even before Detroit filed for bankruptcy on July 18, the court was found to be significantly over budget for last fiscal year, spending close to $36 million when the city council allocated $31 million. A report commissioned by the state found that the court was rife with problems: overstaffed, inefficient, reliant on outdated technology and hostile to the City Council.

While criticizing the leadership of the court, the report also acknowledged that the municipal and regional context play an important role.

"It is our contention that the current economic crisis confronting the City is the new 'norm' and not merely an aberration in the history of the City to ride out until times are better," the report's authors wrote. "The erosion of the City's tax base, loss of its population, and increase in blight and dwelling abandonment has been occurring over several decades. Without extraordinary interventions, it likely will continue into the future."

Within days of the report's release in May, the state appointed Judge Michael Talbot as "special judicial administrator" to get things under control at the 36th District. Less than a month later, the city filed for bankruptcy. The court and its users are feeling the impact. More than 100 staff members have been laid off. Kenneth King was removed from his post as chief judge, although he will still sit on the bench there. The union representing the remaining court staff rejected a one-year contract offer from Talbot, which would have cut pay and reduced benefits. The labor conflict may come to a head soon, with a deadline to resolve the contract set for July 31.

The budget shortfalls at the court and its city are not likely to improve the quality of legal representation at the 36th District any time soon. But it's not just in Detroit that public lawyers are drowning in a sea of defendants, pressured to compromise years of clients lives in order to stay afloat. As in all budgetary matters, there are two sides to the equation. If the problem is an imbalance between the supply of lawyers and the demand for their services, one approach is to increase the number of attorneys. Another, of course, is to reduce the number of criminals.

"I think that has to be part of the answer," said David Carroll, executive director of the Sixth Amendment Center, a group that advocates for the right to effective counsel. "We can never spend our way out of this problem."

While more money would help the defense system, fewer criminals would, too. Reducing the number of criminals requires not a shift in behavior, but a shift in how people think about crime, punishment and redemption. That reassessment may now be under way, in Michigan and across the country. There is growing recognition that the current system of impossible caseloads, over-criminalized rule books and overflowing prisons is incredibly expensive, unsustainable — and avoidable.

America will not have to become a nation of angels. Legislatures and advocates are exploring how to shift some acts from criminal offenses to ticket-able ones. Organizers are teaming up with public defenders, bringing people power where money is short. And lawyers are trying to address the issues that led people into the justice system in the first place. None of that is without cost, but with states spending more than $50 billion a year on corrections, it may be an investment worth making.



Read more about the holistic defense movement, community organizing strategies and the bipartisan push for decriminalization at the Investigative Reporting Workshop

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