A New York federal judge, Jed Rakoff, has proposed one reform: plea-bargaining conferences. In sealed proceedings, judges would examine each party’s position and recommend a nonbinding plea bargain. The plan needs to be refined so it allows a defendant to opt out if he publicly acknowledges he understands what he is giving up. The proposal, however, provides a layer of review to protect the innocent from being pressured into pleading guilty, while potentially encouraging fairer plea bargains through the oversight of a neutral party. It creates a record of plea-bargaining efforts, so there can be no uncertainty as to whether an offer was requested or ignored. Finally, it might help guilty people make a more informed choice about how to resolve their cases.

Why Adnan Syed of ‘Serial’ Should Have Pleaded Guilty, JAN. 22, 2015

“Sixteen- and 17-year-olds would be treated as juveniles rather than adults in New York’s criminal justice system under a series of policy changes Gov. Andrew Cuomo embraced today.

The recommendations, if passed by the New York State Legislature, would mark a major shift in the state’s criminal justice system.

…The new rules would allow more options for expunging or sealing criminal convictions for younger defendants… Raising the age to qualify as an adult criminal to 18 would require building and opening new facilities throughout the state to house younger people charged with misdemeanors and felonies, according to the report from the state’s Commission on Youth, Public Safety and Justice. It would also require hiring more judges to handle the new types of cases.

Removing lifetime criminal convictions from young people’s records — and getting them out of incarceration at an early age — eventually can drive down overall criminal conviction rates and prison costs to taxpayers, according to the commission’s findings. That long-term shift is part of the goal of advocates for “Raise the Age,” the key concept explored in the report.”

Cuomo: Treat 16, 17 as children, not adults, in NY criminal justice system, Syracuse.com, January 19, 2015

“[The] imposition of the death penalty [is often] not so much the result of the heinousness of the crime or the incorrigibility of the defendant-the factors upon which imposition of capital punishment supposedly is to turn-but rather of how bad the lawyers [are].

A justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court [provided the following testimony] before the U.S. Senate
Judiciary Committee:

I dare say I could take every death sentence case that we have had where we have affirmed, give you the facts and not tell you the outcome, and then pull an equal number of murder cases that have been in our system, give you the facts and not tell you the outcome, and challenge you to pick which ones got the death sentence and which ones did not, and you couldn’t do it.

Although it has long been fashionable to recite the disgusting facts of murder cases to show how deserving of death particular defendants may be, [v]irtually all murders involve tragic and gruesome facts. Whether death is imposed frequently turns on the quality of counsel assigned to the accused.

– From Stephen B. Bright’s article Counsel for the Poor: The Death Sentence Not for the Worst Crime but for the Worst Lawyer

Many states, led by Republicans as well as by Democrats, have acted to reduce sentences for low-level and nonviolent crimes and to improve drug and other treatment services, while still bringing down crime rates.

via the New York Times