Right on the heels of  the Ray Rice domestic violence incident, NFL star Adrian Peterson was charged with negligent injury to a child. Known for being the best running back for the Minnesota Vikings, Peterson allegedly punished his 4-year-old son by whipping him with a tree branch, leaving cuts and bruises on the boy’s legs, backs, buttocks, hand and scrotum.

This subject is something I am really passionate about, and I was in absolute shock when Peterson gave a statement to the police following the incident claiming he felt confident in his actions, and is thankful for what spanking has done to him in his life. Each parent is responsible for choosing the way he or she disciplines his or her child, but if we start to say spanking is acceptable, how will we ever be able to set boundaries and limits? In typical NFL handling of these cases, Peterson was suspended from a game and no further action is being taken until the official police investigation is complete.

Last week I referenced the punishment for the father of a child who died as a result of being left in a hot car. That father was charged with murder. In the case of Adrian Peterson, I ask you what would happen if Peterson gave one more hit as opposed to the 10-15 lashes his poor child received, and that final hit resulted in the child’s death? Would he be let off because he didn’t intend to hurt the child? Would it be accepted like it is now, because that’s the way he grew up and spanking does “good”? I find it appalling that excuses are being made to justify what allows parents to discipline their children in this way.

Legislation is proposed all the time to stop acts of abuse toward children, and yet this incident has the potential to make parents think it’s OK to discipline their children in this way. I do not doubt that Peterson is telling the truth when he claims his intentions were harmless, but I do doubt that he feels any kind of remorse or is aware that his actions were wrong. In 2013, Peterson’s other two-year-old son was killed by his ex-girlfriend’s partner. Although Peterson had only found out about the child three months prior to his tragic death, one would have thought it would make him change his own actions.

All it takes is one hit in the wrong area, or with a certain amount of force, to cause serious harm and fall under the realm of child abuse. NFL players have the responsibility not only to be great athletes but also to be good role models. With the influx of recent incidents involving NFL players and their mistreatment of the law, I worry what effect this will have on the general public. Yes people make mistakes, yes people can change, but we should not be encouraging this behavior by making excuses. Each article I read about Rice and Peterson is drenched in excuse after excuse, each justifying the simple fact that these acts are wrong. In my opinion, if these acts of abuse were done by anyone else not in the public eye, I can guarantee the punishment would be a lot different.

Hannah Kaye

Hannah Kaye is originally from London, now living in New York. Recently graduated with an MA in criminal justice from John Jay College. Strong contenders for things she is most passionate about are bagels and cupcakes. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post There Is No Excuse for Child Abuse, Not Even for Adrian Peterson appeared first on Law Street.

Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice has been removed from his team and suspended indefinitely by the NFL. The move came after a video surfaced of Ray Rice hitting his then-fiancee in an elevator. She was knocked unconscious in the February 15 incident, and then was dragged out of the elevator. She has since married Rice, but the video just made its way into the public consciousness.

The video is below, but I do have to warn you that it’s pretty disturbing.

Now when allegations of domestic abuse first surfaced against Rice, he was originally just suspended for two games. The NFL claims that they didn’t know the full extent of the incident between Rice and Janay, now his wife. “Claim” is the important phrase there. There’s some speculation that the NFL did have access to the damning video, but at this point it’s unknown whether that’s true or not. Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, one of the most well-known sports reporters around, claimed earlier that the NFL had seen the video; he has since recanted that statement. Chris Mortenson, from ESPN, references that this video existed back in July, although he doesn’t confirm whether or not NFL or Ravens officials had seen it.

So, to sum up, we’ve known this video existed for a while. The Ravens and/or NFL officials claim they didn’t see it, despite making inquiries to the police. However, a member of the Ravens’ PR team did send an email to Deadspin, saying:

Only thing we know for sure is that police who arrested Ray and Janay and then let them leave together that night saw the video.

The meaning behind that statement isn’t hard to figure out. The Ravens were essentially saying, “Well we have no idea what happened, but he was allowed to leave with her, right guys???”

That’s pretty crappy logic, and it’s especially bad logic on which to base a punishment. Before the outcry when this video was released, the NFL gave Rice a two-game suspension. They didn’t have all the facts, they didn’t have that video, but they clearly knew it existed. So instead of waiting for the evidence, and playing it safe in the meantime, they just went ahead and arbitrarily created a punishment for him. At least that’s what they expect us to believe, and I understand why, because its certainly better than the alternative — that they knew exactly what had happened in that elevator, gave him a measly two-game punishment, and then rolled it back after their PR nightmare.

No one should be applauding the Ravens for cutting Rice, or the NFL for suspending him indefinitely. They’re doing that to, for complete lack of a better term, cover their own asses. They’re trying to hide the fact that the they either a) didn’t do their jobs and look into the incident appropriately or b) suspended him for only two games despite having seen the evidence. Either way, they do not deserve our applause.

It shouldn’t be a surprise — the NFL is, after all, a business. They’re going to do what serves them the most profit, and avoids the most bad publicity. That’s profit driven too — the worse your publicity, the more you have to pay people to handle it, the more people complain, the less satisfied your customers are. It’s similar to Donald Sterling’s situation with the NBA — they didn’t do anything until the public outcry developed.

The NFL deserves no praise for the way they’ve handled this. They did their job belatedly and poorly. Instead of applauding them for their actions over the last year, we should demand that they do it right if there is, god forbid, another incident like this.

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Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [m01229 via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Job Poorly Done: The NFL’s Handling of Ray Rice appeared first on Law Street.

More police officers than ever before are being held accountable for misconduct as a result of increased public awareness, media pressure, and new technologies capable of documenting altercations in horrifyingly graphic detail. While the frequency of punishments has increased, however, victims and their families are starting to realize that the word “accountability” may not actually mean very much.

For many officers accountability can be considered little more than a slap on the wrist. Verbal or written reprimands, the loss of a few vacation days, or suspension are all standard fare punishments for police misconduct. In extreme cases involving excessive force, an officer may be put on paid leave, forced to retire (with full benefits), or fired.

For people like Mike Gomez, whose 22-year-old son was shot and killed by an Albuquerque police officer in 2012, these punishments are a far cry from justice. The officer who shot his unarmed, mentally ill son in the chest was put on paid leave and given $500 by the Albuquerque police union to cope with the stress of the shooting. Naturally this was very upsetting to the victim’s family; as Mike Gomez puts it, while officers get a bonus and a paid vacation for the killing, all the family gets is a funeral bill.

A report by the Cato Institute of Justice reveals that if excessive force complaints involving fatalities were prosecuted as murders, then “the murder rate for law enforcement officers would exceed the general population murder rate by 472%.” This statistic speaks for itself, but a part of the problem is that the consequences for unnecessarily ending someone’s life seem to fall on cities in the form of settlements rather than on the officers themselves.

For example, while the officer who shot Mike Gomez’s son was cleared of all charges, the city still decided to settle the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the Gomez family for $900,000 rather than go to trial, citing the move as the “best economic, legal and policy decision”.

To the Gomez family this is simply blood money and the only legal recognition that they will receive that the death of their son was unwarranted. The fact still remains that the man who shot him will never spend a day behind bars or face any legal consequences for the act.

Even having video documentation is no guarantee that officers will ever be brought to justice. A perfect example of this is an incident at UC Davis where Lieutenant John Pike was recorded using military-grade pepper spray at point-blank range on a line of seated protesters.

The iconic incident sparked international outrage and a cry for Lt. Pike and other members of UC Davis leadership to be removed immediately from the campus payroll. Two independent inquiries into the incident (summarized in a conjoined report) condemned Lt. Pike for needlessly assaulting the group of students, finding him culpable for other professional transgressions as well.

This report was the result of months of thorough investigation, based on intense review of video footage of the incident, interviews with multiple witnesses, and conducted by independent consultants and a panel of well-respected statesmen. Nonetheless, their findings did not bear any weight on whether or not Lt. Pike would keep his job or even if he would face any disciplinary measures. That was left solely to the determination of an internal affairs investigation conducted by the police department because in states like California, police officers’ rights are so extensive that they severely limit independent public review of police conduct.

What’s worse is the fact that their methods, findings, and any actions that resulted from the investigation are all secret. To this day we still don’t know if Lt. Pike was fired or able to retire with full benefits – all the university was allowed to disclose is that he is no longer employed at the school.

While it is no secret that being a police officer is a dangerous job, it is undoubtedly true that officers sometimes step outside the bounds of their authority, often at the expense of those in their care. While the majority of police officers conduct themselves in a way that befits their position of power, it is distressing that those who flagrantly disregard rules receive little more than a slap on the wrist for conduct that has ended lives, torn apart communities, and violated constitutional rights.

In most cases, even when the officer in question is found culpable, the only punishment he or she receives is the loss of employment. While some may argue that losing one’s livelihood is a sufficiently severe punishment for excessive force – and perhaps in certain instances it is – it is not an adequate response to the functional equivalent of murder.

From start to finish, the way that officers are investigated, prosecuted, and eventually punished needs to be reformed. If someone can go to jail for the rest of his life for stealing tools from a tool shed then it is absurd that most cases of police brutality do not even result in criminal charges. Police officers are meant to protect the law, not stand above it.

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Nicole Roberts (@NicoleR5901) a student at American University majoring in Justice, Law, and Society with a minor in Mandarin Chinese. She has a strong interest in law and policymaking, and is active in homeless rights advocacy as well as several other social justice movements. Contact Nicole at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Steve Rhodes via Flickr]

Nicole Roberts

Nicole Roberts a student at American University majoring in Justice, Law, and Society with a minor in Mandarin Chinese. She has a strong interest in law and policymaking, and is active in homeless rights advocacy as well as several other social justice movements. Contact Nicole at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Families of Victims of Police Brutality Question Officer Accountability appeared first on Law Street.

The effect of crime on society is often — and justifiably so — more victim-focused than offender-focused. We tend to think of someone breaking the law as an affront to society at large. That’s why in some states criminal cases are titled “The People v. ______.” To be sure, in many ways our criminal justice system is retributive. We are meant to feel some form of solace when someone is punished for offending the morals and values of society in the form of breaking the law. But I ask, when has our justice system gone too far? When do the  consequences on the offender far outstrip the damage that person did to society?

Two words: Felony Disenfranchisement.

Felony disenfranchisement is a so-called collateral consequence — the impediments to normal life and reintegration convicted persons suffer beyond their actual sentence of incarceration or supervision — and is often seen as part-and-parcel of our criminal justice system. While some may feel having been incarcerated is enough for an individual to pay their debt to society, still many others think that when you choose to break the law, you do so with the implicit acknowledgement that because you have deviated from the norms of our culture, you must take all the bad that comes from that deviation. A cold look at the facts, particularly in the area of felons who have been released from their conditions of custody being permanently denied their fundamental right to vote, might convince some to change their minds.

The Sentencing Project estimates that about 5.8 million Americans are denied their right to vote due to laws that prohibit voting by convicted felons. As a matter of perspective, that’s like the entire population of the State of Wisconsin not being allowed to vote.

The disparate impact these laws have on minority communities is quite telling. These draconian laws lead to 1 in every 13 African Americans not being able to vote due to felony conviction. According to Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent statements on this issue at Georgetown University Law Center, 1 in 10 people in the state of Florida may no longer vote due to its laws restricting felony voting. Did I mention that 38 percent of those nearly six million Americans are Black? The Attorney General is now leading the charge to help push policy reform in this area, and for that he should be applauded. In his own words:

“These restrictions are not only unnecessary and unjust, they are also counterproductive”

I would venture to add that these laws are not only counterproductive, but oppressive. In a nation that considers voting so fundamental to the democratic process that  we have an entire amendment to the Constitution dedicated to it, one might think these laws would have been struck down by now. Alas, the Supreme Court in Richardon v. Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24 (1974) upheld the California law disenfranchising felons by pointing to the lesser known section 2 of the 14th amendment which states:

“But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime . . . .”

That last line, according to both the text of the Constitution and the debate history around the provision, allows states to prevent certain classes of convicted individuals from voting.

Yet more important than the historical practice of disenfranchising those convicted of a crime is the modern impact of the practice today. What does it say about a system that prides itself on the democratic process that nearly 6 million American are essentially left out in the cold? Sure, they could lobby their respective state legislatures to get these laws repealed, but they don’t have access to the most potent form of lobbying imaginable: the ability to disapprove of a legislator with one’s ballot. They must do indirectly what the rest of us can do directly.

We must ask ourselves what goals are being advanced withholding the ballot from millions of citizens. Is disenfranchisement really the deterrent to crime some hope it to be, or is it just another major impediment to the reintegration of people who should have already “paid their debt to society.”

Without a doubt, crime is crime is crime, and those who commit crime should be punished. It is not the fact of punishment but rather the nature and extent that motivates this analysis. Must we continue to isolate individuals from our society even after they have been released from confinement? When will it ever end?

Felony disenfranchisement is just one more badge on the permanent underclass our society is creating with many of its criminal laws. It’s time we move forward.

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Dominic Jones (@DomPerinyon) is originally from Atlantic City, NJ. He attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga. followed by law school at the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, DC. In his spare time he enjoys art, photography, and documentary films.

Featured image courtesy of [Rama via Wikipedia]

Click here for additional Law Street coverage on felony disenfranchisement.

Dominic Jones

Dominic Jones is originally from Atlantic City, NJ. He attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga. followed by law school at the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, DC. In his spare time he enjoys art, photography, and documentary films. Contact Dominic at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Felony Disenfranchisement: Collateral Consequences appeared first on Law Street.

The United States will be able to report a lower number of executions in 2013. Thirty-nine people were executed in nine different states, a 10% reduction from 2012. Twenty-three of those executions took place in just two states–Florida and Texas. To put this in context, in 1999, there were 98 people executed for their crimes. In addition, eighty new death sentences were handed out, which is a dramatic shift from 315 just 19 years ago.

There has also been a slow but perceptible trend of death penalty abolition on the state level. There are now 18 states and the District of Columbia that have abolished the death penalty. Six of these states have done so since 2007.

So, why? Why are we seeing a reduction in executions?

There a few different viable answers. The first is a declining availability of the drugs used in lethal injection. The vast majority of executions in the United States are done by lethal injection, although there are occasionally exceptions, and some states still allow methods such as firing squads or hanging.

But the states that intend to carry out death penalty sentences by lethal injection have run into a problem. Most of the drugs used come from European-based companies, and in 2011, the European Commission put extremely tight regulations on the import of those drugs. Some European drug companies, such as Danish-based Lundbeck which produces one of the most efficient and popular drugs for use during a lethal injection, flat out banned its use during executions. The death penalty has been abolished in all European states with the exception of Belarus.

As a result, states are scrambling to find a way to carry out lethal injections. Some states have experienced with drug cocktails, and others use untested drugs. According to Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, “the states are scrambling to find the drugs. They want to carry out these executions that they have scheduled, but they don’t have the drugs and they’re changing and trying new procedures never used before in the history of executions”. Some lawsuits have alleged that this experimentation could be considered cruel and unusual punishment and has led to stays on executions in the state of California, among others.

Another proposed reason for the drop in executions is the discovery of evidence that proves the innocence of many people who had been previously executed. Improved forensic technology and DNA testing show that trials do not always result in justice. Groups such as the Innocence Project attempt to exonerate people who have been convicted of crimes, and since 1989, there have been 311 post-conviction exonerations based on DNA evidence alone. Eighteen of those people were awaiting their executions on death row.

Finally, the trend may be attributed to a number of other reasons. Part of it may be moral–the US stands essentially alone among its allies in its use of the death penalty. Another reason may be that most violent offenders die in prison anyways, which makes prosecutors and judges less likely to push for it.

Whatever the reason for the diminished use of the death penalty over the last few years, it will be interesting to see if it sticks. If those who attribute the shift to the inability to get the appropriate medications are correct, we should see an uptick in executions as that issue is resolved. If it’s more about the moral constraints, maybe executions will continue to lessen. Either way, capital punishment in the US will change.

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Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [CACorrections via Wikipedia]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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