SUMMARY: Baltimore [Maryland] has acquired a reputation for corruption, illustrated recently by Mayor Catherine Pugh, who resigned over allegations she had inappropriately taken payment in exchange for political favors. But the more ominous threats confronting the city, such as rampant crime and poverty, persist. Amna Nawaz talks to ProPublica’s Alec MacGillis about what could be a “fresh start” for Baltimore.
SUMMARY: A brutal murder of a 15-year-old girl in Southern Germany has placed the country's open-door immigration policy under intense scrutiny. In addition, a new government-sponsored study found that violent crime rose in one state by 10 percent in two years, with 92 percent of the increase attributed to young male migrants. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports on the political fallout.
Supreme Court rules 2012 decision banning mandatory life terms be applied retroactively
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that its 2012 decision banning mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juvenile killers must be applied retroactively, granting a new chance at release for hundreds of inmates serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for murders they committed in their youth.
The vote was 6-3, and the majority decision was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court’s leading proponent of cutting back on the death penalty and other harsh punishments for entire classes of offenders. His opinion strengthened the 2012 decision, which merely required new sentencing where life without parole had been imposed automatically, without taking into account the defendant’s youth.
Monday’s opinion indicated that life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders should be exceedingly rare. Kennedy also gave states a second option — instead of re-sentencing the affected prisoners, they could make them eligible for parole.
The case, Montgomery v. Louisiana, No. 14-280, concerned Henry Montgomery, who was 17 in 1963 when he murdered an East Baton Rouge police officer. He is now 69.
Kennedy said there was evidence that Montgomery deserved to be released, describing “his evolution from a troubled, misguided youth to a model member of the prison community” and noting that he was a coach on the prison boxing team, had worked in the prison’s silkscreen program and had offered advice to younger inmates.
There are more than 2,000 people serving sentences of life without parole for crimes they committed when they were not yet 18. Many of them automatically received those sentences for murders, without individualized consideration of their youth and other factors. It’s not clear how many cases in San Diego County could be affected by the federal ruling.
California law already allows people serving life in prison without parole for crimes they committed as juveniles to petition the court for re-sentencing. A few defendants have done so, including Oscar Ernesto Rubi Jr., who was convicted of killing a 55-year-old man during a 1993 robbery attempt in Imperial Beach, and Brae Hansen, who conspired in 2007 with her brother to kill her stepfather in Rolando. Rubi was resentenced to 29 years to life in prison; Hansen to 26 years to life.
In the 2012 decision, Miller v. Alabama, the Supreme Court ruled that automatic life sentences for juvenile offenders violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Life-without-parole sentences would remain permissible, the court said, but only after individualized consideration. But the court did not say whether the decision was merely prospective or whether it required new sentencing hearings or other review for offenders who had already exhausted their appeals.
The decision followed two others concerning harsh penalties for juvenile offenders. In 2005 in Roper v. Simmons, the court eliminated the juvenile death penalty. In 2010 in Graham v. Florida, the court ruled that sentencing juvenile offenders to life without the possibility of parole was also unconstitutional, but only for crimes that did not involve killing.
The question of whether the 2012 decision should be applied retroactively turned on whether it was substantive or procedural. New substantive decisions apply retroactively, while new procedural ones generally do not.
There was some reason to think the 2012 decision was procedural, because it required new sentencing procedures rather than banning the punishment of life without parole for all juvenile killers.
But Kennedy said the decision had been grounded on the diminished culpability of all juvenile offenders, who are, he said, immature, susceptible to peer pressure and capable of change. Very few, he said, are incorrigible. But he added that as a general matter the punishment was out of bounds.
“A sentencer might encounter the rare juvenile offender who exhibits such irretrievable depravity that rehabilitation is impossible and life without parole is justified,” he wrote. “But in light of ‘children’s diminished culpability and heightened capacity for change,’ Miller made clear that ‘appropriate occasions for sentencing juveniles to this harshest possible penalty will be uncommon.’ “As a result,” Kennedy wrote, “Miller announced a substantive rule of constitutional law.” He added that complying with Monday’s ruling should not be especially burdensome. “A state may remedy a Miller violation by permitting juvenile homicide offenders to be considered for parole, rather than by resentencing them,” he wrote. “Allowing those offenders to be considered for parole ensures that juveniles whose crimes reflected only transient immaturity— and who have since matured — will not be forced to serve a disproportionate sentence in violation of the Eighth Amendment. “Prisoners like Montgomery,” Kennedy wrote, “must be given the opportunity to show their crime did not reflect irreparable corruption; and, if it did not, their hope for some years of life outside prison walls must be restored.” Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined Kennedy’s majority opinion.
Justice Antonin Scalia dissented, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, and Thomas filed a separate dissent.
Scalia wrote that Kennedy had twisted the language in the Miller decision to make it sound categorical when it merely required a new sentencing procedure. “To say that a punishment might be inappropriate and disproportionate for certain juvenile offenders is not to say that it is unconstitutionally void,” Scalia wrote.
He added that it would be very difficult for juries and judges to decide if defendants were incorrigible many years after their crimes.
“What the majority expects (and intends) to happen,” he said, is for all states instead to allow the affected prisoners to apply for parole.
SUMMARY: Reuters reporter Luciana Lopez has been in South Carolina covering the fallout of the tragic shooting in Charleston on Wednesday, where nine people were killed at Emanuel AME Church. What do we know about the motives of Dylann Roof, who has been charged with nine counts of murder? Lopez joins Hari Sreenivasan from Mt. Pleasant, S.C. for more.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): Reuters reporter Luciana Lopez has been in South Carolina covering the story. She joins me now from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
So, what more do we know today about Dylann Roof and his motivations?
LUCIANA LOPEZ, Reuters: Well, one interesting thing that surfaced is that what appears to be a white supremacist manifesto has surfaced, and we’re trying to verify that — this does, indeed, come from Dylann Roof. But it lays out a little bit about how he was radicalized, looking up information about Trayvon Martin, and it lays out some of his feelings about other racial groups as well.
Again, we’re trying to verify that this is, indeed, his. But this goes a little bit deeper into his ideology.
HARI SREENIVASAN: And what’s in there? What does he think of and why — was there an explanation for why he did this?
LUCIANA LOPEZ: There is an explanation of sorts. Again, he talks about how he was radicalized and looking up information about different racial and ethnic groups in the United States, and then he says he’s picked Charleston, in fact, because of its significance, and because of its historical significance. And he says that he felt like he really needed to make a statement and that this was really the place to do it.
And he also implies that there wasn’t anyone else to do this, and so, he felt like this was something that he had some sort of mission to go out there to do.
SUMMARY: An estimated 260,000 suspected hate crimes happen in the U.S. every year. More than 50 out of every 1 million black citizens was the victim of a racially motivated hate crime in 2012, the highest of any group, according to FBI data. Washington Post reporter Christopher Ingraham joins Hari Sreenivasan from Baltimore to put this week’s attack in perspective.
SUMMARY: More Americans than ever before are spending time in jail despite a drop in the crime rate in the past two decades. That's according to a new report that also found that a disproportionate number of people in jail suffer from mental illness. Judy Woodruff discusses the findings with Nicholas Turner of the Vera Institute of Justice and Margo Schlanger of the University of Michigan.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): A new report finds that more Americans than ever are spending time in jail. The Vera Institute of Justice showed that, in the past two decades, despite a drop in the crime rate, the number of people going to jail has increased dramatically.
In addition, those behind bars are staying longer. Some 62 percent of them have not yet been convicted of a crime, and three-quarters of those jailed now are brought in for nonviolent offenses. The report also finds that a disproportionate number of those in jail suffer from mental illness.
Joining us are Nicholas Turner. He’s president and director of the Vera Institute. And Margo Schlanger of the University of Michigan.
Nick Turner, to you first.
Why are the jails and prisons of the United States so full today?
NICHOLAS TURNER, President and Director, Vera Institute of Justice: Well, you have to go back, really, almost four decades. We have, since the early 1970s, been on what some people describe as a binge in this country, a reliance on incarceration and on confinement as the primary strategy to keep people safe. That’s been the argument.
And so, for the past 40 years, the number of people in jail and in prison in this country has gone up almost 400 percent. When you look at jails now, there are additional other reasons as to why we have so many people in jail. In the past few decades, we have increasingly arrested more and more people, not only for felonies or serious charges, but also for misdemeanors.
And we are also seeing more people who are being arrested being put in jail, so there is a general reflex within the criminal justice system still to rely on confinement.
SUMMARY: A ship filled with refugees heading toward Italy was abandoned by its crew before making it to shore, the most recent case in an uptick in human smuggling. Hari Sreenivasan talks to Daryl Grisgraber of Refugees International about why human smuggling has become such a lucrative business option and who is responsible when hundreds of migrants are left at sea.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): For more on this, I’m joined by Daryl Grisgraber of Refugees International. She has interviewed migrants who have made this dangerous journey.
So, why is it that they’re abandoning these migrants in the ships on the middle of these dangerous routes?
DARYL GRISGRABER, Refugees International: It’s an easy way to make money, frankly.
People can be charged for the smuggling rates. You get on the ship, you can take them out into the water. And then, instead of having to risk getting them all the way to shore or being caught by a coast guard and being prosecuted, you can just leave and have the ship there. And whatever happens happens, right, because of the idea that these people are victims and civilians, and so maybe things won’t be so bad for them.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, so and you said paid. How much are people paying to get on these ships?
DARYL GRISGRABER: It depends where you’re going from, but we have heard anywhere between 2,000 and 5,000 U.S. dollars, depending on the length of the trip.
HARI SREENIVASAN: And that’s a lot money in that part of the world.
DARYL GRISGRABER: It’s quite a lot of money, yes.
As is the case elsewhere in the country, black San Diegans make up a disproportionate share of crime victims and crime suspects.
In 2013, blacks made up 5 percent of the county population, but 27 percent of violent crime victims and 29 percent of violent crime suspects were black. The 2013 crime data was in line with previous studies by the San Diego Association of Governments, which keeps the data.
According to a SANDAG crime bulletin from last year, “Blacks were overrepresented in every violent crime category in comparison to their proportion in the population.”
Cindy Burke, who keeps the data for SANDAG, said the best available discussion of possible racial bias in the San Diego justice system comes from a 2008 study of the juvenile system.
The study found that “race, along with other legal and social factors, increased the likelihood of a youth being detained following arrest.”
Latino youth were 2.8 times more likely than white youth to be detained, meaning held in custody, while black youth were 1.8 times more likely to be detained.
Despite evidence that a disproportionate number of black youth were serving time in long-term juvenile detention centers, the study did not find that race increased the likelihood of such detention.
Taken together, gang affiliation, prior criminal record and poor school performance were better predictors of long-term detention for youth, according to the study.
“It’s difficult to say the causality is race when there are so many socioeconomic factors tied to it,” Burke told the Watchdog.
Of the officers at the San Diego Police Department, 6.4 percent are black, mirroring the city’s 6.7 percent black population.
Lei-Chala Wilson, president of the San Diego chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said there is no doubt racial bias plays a role throughout the justice system in San Diego and other cities.
“The statistics have proven we don’t commit more crimes than anyone else, but we’re more likely to get stopped, detained and arrested,” she said. “The word is getting out and people are more aware of it.”
Inconsistencies in how data on race and police use of force are reported make it difficult to analyze, but Brian Marvel of the San Diego Police Officers Association said it’s imperative for law enforcement to listen to the community’s concerns and improve relationships wherever possible.
“Just because we don’t think there’s a problem, it doesn’t mean the community doesn’t think there’s one,” Marvel said.
Marvel said the events in Ferguson and New York were “a good opportunity for law enforcement to take a look at those incidents and see what we can gain.”
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Across the U.S., as inmate populations keep growing, calls to address prison crowding, conditions and other problems continue to be heard.
Just this week, the Justice Department issued a scathing report on abuse of teenage inmates at New York’s Riker’s Island. It spoke of a — quote — “culture of violence that encouraged beatings and excessive use of solitary confinement.”
In California, state officials are under federal court orders aimed at reducing severe overcrowding of prisons. And U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is pushing to shorten prison terms for many nonviolent offenders.
On the NewsHour recently, he cited a fundamental unfairness in drug sentencing.
ERIC HOLDER, Attorney General: If you are basing a sentence on something other than the conduct of the person who was involved, and the person’s record, if you’re looking, for instance, at factors of what educational level the person has received, what neighborhood the person comes from…
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Which, to be clear, some states are doing already.
ERIC HOLDER: They are, right. And using that as a predictor, though, of what — how likely this person, this individual, is going to be a recidivist, I’m not at all certain that I’m comfortable with that.
JEFFREY BROWN: The concerns have sparked bipartisan efforts.
In the Senate, Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky and Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey are focused on several issues, including drugs and racial disparities in prison.
Two more fatal shootings occurred in Chicago on New Year’s Eve, bringing the city’s murder total for 2013 to 415 people.
Vincent Rogers, a 26-year-old who lived in the 7100 block of South Damen and had a long arrest history, was the city’s last homicide victim of the year. He was gunned down in the Englewood neighborhood Tuesday night and was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.
A 23-year-old witness who saw Rogers’ killer fleeing the scene was shot in the hip, minutes later. He is expected to survive, police said.
But the gunman still wasn’t done shooting and finally escaped only after firing several shots at police as they rushed to the scene, police said.
On New Year’s Day, a large bloodstain — several feet wide — still marked the spot in the snow in front of a fried fish restaurant where Rogers fell.
Rogers’ devastated girlfriend stood crying next to the gruesome scene but was too overcome to talk about her dead lover.
Police think Rogers, who had served time for burglary, was selling marijuana when he was shot, but it’s unclear whether security video footage from a convenience store camera directly above the spot where he was killed will help them identify the gunman.
Earlier Tuesday, Donald Golladay, 67, fatally shot his son, August Golladay, 25, while the two argued inside a home in the 3700 block of South Wells in the Armour Square neighborhood, authorities said.
Cook County prosecutors said August Golladay was threatening to kill himself and went to a closet where his father kept his gun. The father then grabbed the gun and emptied some of the bullets before pointing the gun at his son and firing.
Donald Golladay told authorities he thought all the bullets were out of the gun.
August Golladay was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:19 a.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
The elder Golladay was charged with involuntary manslaughter. A Cook County judge on Wednesday ordered him held on a $250,000 bond.
Despite the two New Year’s Eve killings, the Chicago Police Department said 2013 ended with the fewest murders in Chicago since 1965 and the lowest murder rate since 1966. The 415 killings that the department handled in 2013 marked an 18 percent decrease from the 503 murders that the department reported in 2012.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office recorded a total of 434 homicides within Chicago city limits in 2013. That total includes killings on expressways that weren’t handled by Chicago Police.
Just outside the city, in Berwyn, a 20-year-old man died Tuesday after being found with gunshot wounds in a barbershop. Jose Mendoza, of the 2600 block of South East Avenue in Berwyn, was pronounced dead at Loyola University Medical Center at 10:07 p.m., according to the medical examiner’s office.
Barely two hours into the New Year, Chicago police shot and wounded at least two people in separate shootings that are among the first to be reported in 2014.
The first shooting happened moments after midnight in the Woodlawn neighborhood after a man allegedly raised a gun toward officers.
Charles Lemle, 28, of the 500 block of East 67th, faces three felony counts of aggravated assault with a firearm of a police officer and one felony count of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, according to a release from Chicago Police.
The second occurred just before 2 a.m., when at least one person was shot by police and two others also suffered gunshot wounds in the Fernwood neighborhood.
In the Woodlawn shooting, Area Central Operations Impact officers were patrolling the 500 block of East 67th Street when they heard gunshots, according to a statement from police News Affairs.
Pat Camden — a spokesman for the Fraternal Order of Police, the union that represents most Chicago cops — said Lemle was apparently celebrating the New Year by firing a gun. When police announced themselves, he allegedly pointed a weapon at them, and one of the officers shot him in the leg, Camden said.
Lemle was hospitalized with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound. Camden said that man had been free on home monitoring for a previous conviction for unlawful use of a weapon.
In Fernwood, police had been chasing a person in the 100 block of West 105th Street just before 2 a.m. when officers heard gunshots, according to a written statement from the department.
As some officers approached the front of a home on the block, others continued to the rear and found someone on the porch holding a gun. Police said that person pointed the gun at the officers, and an officer shot that person.
Police said two other people suffered gunshot wounds in the incident, but it’s not clear how they were injured.
Fire Media Affairs spokesman Juan Hernandez said one woman, whose age was not immediately known, was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in critical condition. Two men, ages 25 and 30, were also taken in critical condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, he said.
A witness who said she was a sibling of all three victims told reporters her family was holding a New Year’s Eve party at the home where the shooting happened. She said she didn’t see anyone at the party with a gun.
SUMMARY: The case against James "Whitey" Bulger drew to a close as both defense and prosecution gave their final statements. Margaret Warner talks to Kevin Cullen, who has been following the trial for the Boston Globe and was in the courtroom for the more than three-hour summation by the prosecution of all of the evidence against Bulger.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): And finally tonight: murder, drug deals, gangsters, and a decades-long crime spree. It's all on display at the trial of a reputed Boston mob boss.
Judy Woodruff has our update in a conversation she recorded yesterday.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): The trial is on break for the holiday, but for several weeks, prosecutors have been making their case against James "Whitey" Bulger.
Testimony at times has portrayed him as a cold-blooded-killer-turned-FBI-informant, as well as a drug lord feared on the streets of South Boston in the '70s and '80s. Convicted murderers, drug dealers, bookies and former FBI authorities have all been called to the stand. So have sons, daughters, siblings, and girlfriends of those allegedly murdered by Bulger and the mob.
Kevin Cullen, a reporter and columnist for The Boston Globe, has been there for all of it. He's the co-author of a book about the Bulger.
GWEN IFILL (Newshour): Now to the second of our stories on the role of technology in unraveling the Boston bombing case.
Last night, science correspondent Miles O'Brien traveled to an explosives testing facility to learn more about the bomb itself. Tonight, as part of his work for a special NOVA program (53:07), he reports on the facial recognition software that allowed investigators to identify the bombing suspects.
MILES O'BRIEN (Newshour): It is a small unit on the cusp of a big change in the way police do their job. Welcome to the New York Police Department's facial identification section.
Inspector Ken Mekeel is the man in charge.
Do you feel like you're sort of at the beginning of when fingerprints first came in? Is this the beginning of where policing is headed, in many respects?
INSPECTOR KENNETH MEKEEL, New York Police Department: Yes, very much so. It's not as good as a fingerprint.
MILES O'BRIEN: Right.
KENNETH MEKEEL: This doesn't have the confidence level of that. It's not a definitive science such as fingerprints and DNA. But this is good.
Just basically, maybe we can get a lead. Maybe we can be pointed in a direction that this might be a possible person. Hollywood makes facial recognition look easy. But when you face the facts, this law enforcement tool is not as easy as it looks in the movies.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): And we turn again to the shocking story in Cleveland (Ohio) of three women held captive and abused for a decade. Today, the man accused in the case appeared before a judge.
Ray Suarez has the latest.
MAN: Ariel Castro.
RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): Ariel Castro kept his head bowed and buried throughout his early morning appearance in Cleveland Municipal Court. It was his first public appearance since he was arrested Monday in the kidnapping of three women, Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight.
All had been held captive in Castro's Cleveland home since their separate disappearances between 2002 and 2004. Prosecutors said today the former school bus driver repeatedly beat and sexually assaulted the women.
TIMOTHY MCGINTY, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Prosecutor: This child kidnapper operated a torture chamber and private prison in the heart of our city. The horrific brutality and torture that the victims endured for a decade is beyond comprehension.
RAY SUAREZ: The New York Times reported today that, according to a police document, the women were chained in the basement for years before finally being moved to the second floor.
It also said Knight told police she'd been impregnated by Castro on multiple occasions and that each time, he starved and punched her until she miscarried. Castro didn't enter a plea today to the four counts of kidnapping, one for each of the women, plus Berry's six-year-old daughter conceived in captivity, and to three counts of rape.
His bond was set at $8 million dollars, $3 million more than the prosecution requested. After the proceedings, Castro's public defender said her client will likely be kept isolated.
KATHLEEN DEMETZ, Public Defender: I would imagine he will be in a single cell, and I would imagine he probably will be under a suicide watch observation unit.
RAY SUAREZ: Castro's brothers, Pedro and Onil, also appeared in court on unrelated misdemeanor charges. They were later released from custody. Authorities say the two men knew nothing about the women allegedly being held captive in their brother's home.
SUMMARY: Ray Suarez talks to Matthew Dolan of The Wall Street Journal for more details on the case, and then gets analysis from Dr. Frank Ochberg, clinical professor of psychiatry at Michigan State University, about the healing process for the Cleveland kidnapping victims and what can be learned from past cases of abuse and trauma.
GWEN IFILL (Newshour): Now the second of a two-part look at efforts to prevent felons from returning to New York's Rikers Island jail once they have served their time.
Last night, NewsHour economics correspondent Paul Solman reported on a new way of creating private financing for such public programs.
Tonight, he explores how the program hopes to keep participants from ending up in jail again.
It's part of his ongoing reporting Making Sense of financial news.
PAUL SOLMAN (Newshour): High school on New York City's Rikers Island, the world's largest jail. Though they make up just 6 percent of the population, the teen inmates here pose some of the biggest problems.
DORA SCHRIRO, New York City Department of Corrections: They contribute to 28 percent of all of the fights, which is the most common form of misconduct in a jail setting.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): One would be hard-pressed to think of any connection linking Rikers Island, Goldman Sachs, and a private charitable foundation. But they're all part of a new way to finance government social services through private investment.
The NewsHour's economics correspondent, Paul Solman, looked into the project as part of his ongoing reporting Making Sense of financial news.
PAUL SOLMAN (Newshour): New York City's infamous Rikers Island jail, responsible for the bulk of the city's billion-dollar corrections budget, it's home to 88,000 inmates a year, many of them regular repeat offenders.
JUDITH RODIN, Rockefeller Foundation: A complete turnstile.
PAUL SOLMAN: Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin has been as despairing as most social reformers about so-called turnstile recidivism and its costs, both to the taxpayer and to society.
JUDITH RODIN: These people don't get put back in prison for doing nothing, so there's all the social costs of what next crime they commit during this period and throughout the remaining periods that make them go back, and back, and back numerous times.
PAUL SOLMAN: But, in 2010, Rodin heard about a new financial approach to recidivism: social impact bonds.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): They begin as often grisly tales of murder, the stuff of the tabloids and nightly news, but some of these crime stories end up in the Supreme Court, part of a continuing and evolving debate in this country about the death penalty, its methods, its effectiveness, its morality.
A new book explores this history. It's titled "Murder at the Supreme Court: Lethal Crimes and Landmark Cases." Its authors are veteran journalists Martin Clancy and Tim O'Brien.
Opening another chapter in one of San Diego County’s longest-running and most controversial legal dramas, the state Attorney General’s Office said Wednesday it will retry Richard Tuite for the 1998 killing of Stephanie Crowe.
Tuite was convicted in 2004 of stabbing the 12-year-old Escondido girl in her bedroom and sentenced to 13 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter. His conviction was overturned last year by a federal appeals court, which ruled his trial was unfair because a judge limited defense cross-examination of a prosecution witness.
During a brief hearing in San Diego Superior Court, Jim Dutton, supervising deputy attorney general, told Judge Timothy Walsh that prosecutors decided to retry the case rather than release Tuite, a San Diego native with a long history of mental illness and drug abuse.
Outside court, Dutton, one of the prosecutors in the first trial, cited two reasons for the decision: “The gravity of the crime and public safety.”
Steve Crowe, Stephanie’s father, said in a phone interview from Oregon, where most of the family lives, “If we have to rehash this whole thing again, so be it. We’d much rather have him convicted of the crime again than have no one convicted and have the case be unsolved forever as far as San Diego is concerned.”
Tuite, 43, who is being held without bail, stood silently during Wednesday’s hearing. He has regrown the long hair and full beard he had around the time of the killing, a sharp contrast to the clean-shaven, preppy look he sported during his trial. His attorney, Brad Patton, said Tuite maintains his innocence and welcomes another trial.
“There’s no question that someone else did it,” Patton said.
The question of who did it has riveted the county for 14 years. Citing a lack of forced entry at the house, Escondido police concluded it was an inside job by Stephanie’s 14-year-old brother, Michael, and two of his high school friends, Joshua Treadway and Aaron Houser. They were charged with murder after confessing during long interrogations that multiple judicial authorities have subsequently criticized as illegally coercive.
The case against the trio collapsed in 1999 when DNA testing found drops of Stephanie’s blood on a red shirt Tuite was wearing the night of the slaying. The transient was seen roaming the Crowe neighborhood, banging on doors, looking in windows and asking for a woman named Tracy who used to live in the area. Police interviewed him briefly the next day and confiscated his clothes before dismissing him as a bungling prowler.
Sheriff’s detectives took over the investigation and in 2002 the state attorney general charged Tuite with the murder, which they said was fueled by his “obsession” with Tracy. The trial lasted three months. Jurors heard from almost 170 witnesses and reviewed evidence that included Stephanie’s blood found on a second shirt Tuite was wearing.
The jury that convicted him cited DNA as the most compelling evidence, rejecting defense claims that the blood got on Tuite’s clothing through inadvertent police contamination. Their deliberations took eight days as at least one juror was troubled by the lack of any hair or fingerprints tying Tuite to the crime scene.
Patton said he will again argue contamination to counter the blood evidence. He also said he will point the finger again at the teens originally charged in the case, even though the first jury immediately dismissed that theory when they began their deliberations.
Michael Crowe is 29 now, married with a child and attending college in Oregon. Last year, his family won a $7.25 million settlement against various law enforcement officials. Earlier this year, in an attempt to fully clear his name, he got a rare finding of “factual innocence” from a Superior Court judge.
Treadway, also 29, was included in the finding, and although Houser was not part of the hearing, lawyers said the ruling applies to him, too. He turns 30 on Friday. All three testified in the first trial.
Patton said the “factual innocence” ruling will have no bearing on Tuite’s new trial.
Attorneys are due back in court Nov. 2 to set a trial date and discuss bail. Patton said he will ask for bail, although he also said his client has no money to pay for it.
In the new trial, the most serious charge Tuite faces is voluntary manslaughter because the first jury acquitted him of murder, concluding that he lacked the necessary premeditation or malice. If he is convicted again, he would be returned to prison until February 2017, according to Dutton, the prosecutor.
Patton, however, said he believes once good-behavior credits are calculated, Tuite is already at or near the end of his sentence.
Because of Tuite’s mental-health history — he’s been diagnosed with schizophrenia — Patton asked the court to make sure he gets examined in jail by a doctor and receives his medication.
Tuite’s sister, Kerri, who has long maintained her brother is innocent, attended Wednesday’s hearing but declined to speak with reporters.
The consequences of the war here have become familiar: neighborhoods shelled, civilians killed and refugees departed. But in the background, many Syrians describe something else that has them cowering with fear: a wave of lawlessness not unlike the crime wave Iraq experienced during the conflict there.
From Dara’a, near the Jordanian border, to Homs, Damascus and here in Syria’s commercial capital — the fighting has essentially collapsed much of the civilian state. Even in neighborhoods where skirmishes are rare, residents say thieves prey on the weak, and police stations no longer function because the officers have fled.
Kidnapping, rare before, is now rampant, as a man named Hur discovered here last month. He simply wanted to drive home. The man shoving a pistol into his back had other plans. “Keep walking,” the gunman told Hur, 40, a successful businessman, as they approached his car. “Get in.”
Hur said he initially thought he was being arrested by government agents. But then, after blindfolding him, his three captors made a phone call that revealed baser motives.
“They asked my family to ransom me with 15 million Syrian pounds,” Hur said of the abductors’ demand for about $200,000. “They were criminals, not a political group. They told me they knew me and they knew my family could pay.”
Rebel leaders have been trying to fill the void. “We are running patrols to protect our areas from thieves and criminals,” said Abu Mohammad, 30, a rebel fighter in eastern Aleppo.
But as bloody ground battles rage throughout the city, rebel control is limited. Syrians in Aleppo and elsewhere now say they bury their jewelry and other valuables inside their furniture. Some people no longer keep money in their pockets when they venture outside; residents and business owners across the country are padlocking their property to protect against armed opportunists mingling with combatants.
“No one wants to leave their houses, because you never know who is going to stop you or attack you,” said Yasmin, 50, a resident of Aleppo who was too afraid to give her last name. “Chaos, lawlessness, fear, it is just so chaotic, and with all the thugs in the streets, you never know who might kidnap you and ask for a ransom.”
Aleppo’s slide toward something resembling anarchy began months ago. Factory owners here in the country’s industrial capital said the roads outside the city went first, as armed bandits seized whatever they wanted from passing vehicles. One of Syria’s main automobile exporters recently told a Lebanese friend that he had to start sending vehicles to Iraq by boat from Lebanon because of the insecurity.
Then more reports of kidnappings started surfacing. By the end of March, as the government claimed to have retaken control of nearby cities, ransom demands were a daily occurrence in Aleppo, said Amal Hanano, a Syrian writer and analyst living in the United States. Usually, she said, the kidnappers asked for around $75,000 and then dropped their price to a fifth of that after tough negotiations.
Hur, using a nickname out of fear that he could be targeted again, said that his brother talked his kidnappers down to about $30,000 in Syrian pounds. It took a week. He said he spent most of the time tied to a water pipe in the back of a small store somewhere outside Aleppo.
His kidnappers made sure he had enough food and water. They took his cellphone, his watch and a gold ring but they left his car near the city, to establish their credibility. “They told my family where to find the car and the keys to prove that I was with them,” said Hur, indicating that they had probably kidnapped before.
In addition to gaining more expertise as the conflict drags on, criminals are also becoming more brazen. Yasmin said that a few days ago her cousin, a 65-year-old man, was robbed in his garden at 1:30 in the afternoon. His family watched helplessly as the thieves stole all he had, about $70. Now her brother, who lives across the street, makes sure his pockets are empty before he leaves home.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): The woman at the center of one of China's most politically explosive trials didn't contest charges of murder at a hearing today.
John Sparks of Independent Television News filed this report.
JOHN SPARKS: The city of Hefei was wet and unwelcoming. And that's probably the way the Chinese Communist Party wanted it, the court complex playing host to a one-day trial, a murder case that the country's rulers will be keen to see the back of.
Still, it's not a story that can be tucked away, and the state news agency was there to record it.
In the dock, Gu Kailai, the wife of a famous politician accused of killing a British businessman called Neil Heywood, along with her assistant, Zhang Xiaojun.
U.K. diplomats were invited to watch, but the verdict's not in doubt. Gu Kailai chose not to contest the charges.
"The criminal facts are clear and the evidence is solid," said a court official.
Gu Kailai is married to Bo Xilai, considered until recently to be a rising political star. Together, they were one of the most powerful couples in the country.
They used Neil Heywood as a personal adviser until his death last November. One of Mr. Heywood's duties was organizing the education of the couple's son, Bo Guagua, who attended several elite British institutions.
But she had bigger plans in mind. This businessman said she asked Neil Heywood and himself to help smuggle money out of China. Their refusal infuriated her.
GILES HALL, businessman: She got cross and she was angry about it. And we were, in fact, told at one time that if we did go to China, that she would throw us in jail and we might never get out.
JOHN SPARKS: The court said Mr. Heywood was poisoned in a villa tucked round the back of a hotel in the city of Chongqing. Heywood and Gu had been drinking alcohol together when he asked for a glass of water.
It was then, said the court, that she poured the poison into his mouth. As for motive, well, they'd fallen out over money, and Heywood had threatened her child. This murky tale may have remained a secret in Chongqing had Bo Xilai, the former city governor, not fallen out with his police chief, Wang Lijun.
In February, Mr. Wang raced out of the city towards the nearest U.S. Consulate, where he told American officials he thought Bo's family was involved in Heywood's murder and brought an end to Bo Xilai's political career, this, a man once destined for the top. His supporters had even written songs about him.
MAN (singing): Xilai, Bo Xilai.
JOHN SPARKS: But his fall from grace would reveal the sort of political infighting and corruption that the party would prefer to keep hidden.
Formal charges are not been laid against Bo Xilai, and the party may feel his wife's conviction, accompanied by a long jail term, will put this embarrassing affair to rest.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): Next, a soaring homicide rate in Chicago prompts alarm, mourning and changes.
It's been a bloody year in the city. Nearly 300 people have been killed in the first seven months of the year. That's 31 percent higher than it was a year ago. Residents are angry.
Special correspondent Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW reports on how police are changing their approach in a hard-hit district.
LYNETTE HELM, Chicago police commander: OK. So, today, as always, we're going to make sure that we deploy to our conflict zones.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Commander Lynette Helm gives the afternoon shift their orders before they head out to their beats in Chicago's Third Police District on the city's South Side.
Officers once in specialized units and desk jobs are now being moved to the street. It's part of a new strategy to combat violence that Deputy Chief Eddie Johnson says is working.
