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Trust in Government Declines
Josey1
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Trust in Government Declines
Post-9/11 Jump in Americans' Confidence in Washington Is Fading
_____Poll Vault_____
By Claudia Deane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 31, 2002; Page A29
The post-Sept. 11 romance between the public and the federal government is fading fast, according to a survey released yesterday by the Brookings Institution's Center for Public Service.
While polls conducted in the weeks after Sept. 11 found that long-languishing trust in government had increased dramatically, a survey conducted this month suggests that confidence in government is headed back down.
Forty percent of Americans say they trust the federal government to do what's right at least most of the time. That's down 17 percentage points from a survey conducted for the center in October, but it is higher than the 29 percent recorded in July.
Government favorableness ratings followed the same pattern. The percentage of people viewing the government favorably rose from 50 percent last summer to 78 percent in the fall, only to drop 18 percentage points since then.
"The simple answer to why trust in government rose is the rally-round-the-flag effect: We love government more when government is threatened," said G. Calvin Mackenzie, a professor at Colby College and co-author of the center's report. "But that's like desert rain, it evaporates very quickly."
Others at the news conference releasing the survey pointed to recent, highly publicized missteps by federal agencies such as the INS and FBI as factors causing the decline in trust.
"The heightened focus on government after September 11th initially created a heightened respect, because government did good things and showed leadership. But in succeeding months, significant issues surfaced and people rightly concluded the government has serious problems," said Constance Horner, a former head of the Office of Personnel Management who is serving on the center's new National Commission on the Public Service.
Social scientists have been consistently measuring the public's faith in Washington for nearly half a century. Trust reached its peak of 76 percent in the early 1960s, before the Vietnam War, Watergate and a series of corrosive scandals sent ratings plummeting to low levels from which they have not recovered.
Experts disagree on whether this is a problem. Some say that a healthy skepticism about excessive government runs throughout American history. Others say these attitudes may hinder any administration's ability to react to events.
"When government is trusted, it has broad latitude to take bold actions. When trust is low . . . everything is a harder sell for leaders," Mackenzie said.
An additional problem is that dim views of the federal government get in the way of attracting talented workers. "We're in a vise where in recent years trust has gone down and we've gone from a healthy skepticism to a pervasive cynicism, which affects the kind of people you can get in government," said commission head Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
"There were some people who thought the surge in trust in government would mean an end to recruiting difficulties, that there would be people lining up," said Brookings Vice President Paul Light. "I think there has been some improvement in agencies that can directly articulate a link to the war on terrorism, such as the CIA, FBI and Defense, but I'm not hearing much about a surge in other agencies."
Unlike trust in government, public ratings of the president and key Cabinet officials have not eroded as substantially since their spike after Sept. 11. This may even be a reason why trust has not receded to last summer's levels.
"The high levels of trust in President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the Cabinet members might be holding up trust in government," Mackenzie said.
Other measures relating to the government never experienced an increase, however, including negative perceptions of government efficiency and cynical views of federal employees, according to Light.
Yet while some Americans may say they don't trust the government, their actions show implicit faith, Mackenzie said.
"When we go get meat at the stores, and the government labels say it is safe, we believe we won't get trichinosis from it. . . . When we send a big check through the mail we assume it will get there," Mackenzie said. "We do, in our actions, express trust in government."
c 2002 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36238-2002May30.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Post-9/11 Jump in Americans' Confidence in Washington Is Fading
_____Poll Vault_____
By Claudia Deane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 31, 2002; Page A29
The post-Sept. 11 romance between the public and the federal government is fading fast, according to a survey released yesterday by the Brookings Institution's Center for Public Service.
While polls conducted in the weeks after Sept. 11 found that long-languishing trust in government had increased dramatically, a survey conducted this month suggests that confidence in government is headed back down.
Forty percent of Americans say they trust the federal government to do what's right at least most of the time. That's down 17 percentage points from a survey conducted for the center in October, but it is higher than the 29 percent recorded in July.
Government favorableness ratings followed the same pattern. The percentage of people viewing the government favorably rose from 50 percent last summer to 78 percent in the fall, only to drop 18 percentage points since then.
"The simple answer to why trust in government rose is the rally-round-the-flag effect: We love government more when government is threatened," said G. Calvin Mackenzie, a professor at Colby College and co-author of the center's report. "But that's like desert rain, it evaporates very quickly."
Others at the news conference releasing the survey pointed to recent, highly publicized missteps by federal agencies such as the INS and FBI as factors causing the decline in trust.
"The heightened focus on government after September 11th initially created a heightened respect, because government did good things and showed leadership. But in succeeding months, significant issues surfaced and people rightly concluded the government has serious problems," said Constance Horner, a former head of the Office of Personnel Management who is serving on the center's new National Commission on the Public Service.
Social scientists have been consistently measuring the public's faith in Washington for nearly half a century. Trust reached its peak of 76 percent in the early 1960s, before the Vietnam War, Watergate and a series of corrosive scandals sent ratings plummeting to low levels from which they have not recovered.
Experts disagree on whether this is a problem. Some say that a healthy skepticism about excessive government runs throughout American history. Others say these attitudes may hinder any administration's ability to react to events.
"When government is trusted, it has broad latitude to take bold actions. When trust is low . . . everything is a harder sell for leaders," Mackenzie said.
An additional problem is that dim views of the federal government get in the way of attracting talented workers. "We're in a vise where in recent years trust has gone down and we've gone from a healthy skepticism to a pervasive cynicism, which affects the kind of people you can get in government," said commission head Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
"There were some people who thought the surge in trust in government would mean an end to recruiting difficulties, that there would be people lining up," said Brookings Vice President Paul Light. "I think there has been some improvement in agencies that can directly articulate a link to the war on terrorism, such as the CIA, FBI and Defense, but I'm not hearing much about a surge in other agencies."
Unlike trust in government, public ratings of the president and key Cabinet officials have not eroded as substantially since their spike after Sept. 11. This may even be a reason why trust has not receded to last summer's levels.
"The high levels of trust in President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the Cabinet members might be holding up trust in government," Mackenzie said.
Other measures relating to the government never experienced an increase, however, including negative perceptions of government efficiency and cynical views of federal employees, according to Light.
Yet while some Americans may say they don't trust the government, their actions show implicit faith, Mackenzie said.
"When we go get meat at the stores, and the government labels say it is safe, we believe we won't get trichinosis from it. . . . When we send a big check through the mail we assume it will get there," Mackenzie said. "We do, in our actions, express trust in government."
c 2002 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36238-2002May30.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
Who's Minding your Money?
By Wayne Hicks - Sierra Times
Americans who send and receive money, even as part of day to day business procedures, are subject to far more scrutiny by the Federal Government than ever before, under the USA PATRIOT Act, the Bank Secrecy Act, and other so-called "anti-money-laundering" laws.
Money laundering is the attempt to conceal or disguise the nature, location, source, ownership, or control of illegally obtained money. Unfortunately, an accusation of money laundering is not an easy one to defend against, no matter how innocent you may be. and a number of innocent Americans have already been placed under surveillance or arrest, simply because money they send or receive appeared "suspicious" to a clerk at a store or bank, without any evidence to support that suspicion.
This is because Money Service Businesses (MSB's), as well as Banks and other financial institutions, are now required by law to make such reports anytime you use cash to send money, or exceed certain limits on the amounts you send or receive. The fines and penalties these businesses are threatened for non-compliance are so severe that most of them admit that they prefer to err on the side of caution, filing such reports on most, if not all, of the transactions they are involved in.
In other words, they don't care how innocent you are. it's safer for them to finger you as a possible criminal and let Federal Authorities investigate (read: threaten, intimidate, harass, arrest, possibly shoot) you, than to take a chance that you might have been exactly what you appeared to be: somebody sending some money to help out a friend or relative.
Let's examine the laws and see just how they might affect you.
The USA Patriot Act requires that all MSBs adopt an anti-money laundering program in order to guard against money laundering. Accordingly, they must establish an anti-money laundering program that includes, at a minimum, the following:
A. Internal policies, procedures and controls
B. The designation of a compliance officer
C. An ongoing employee training program; and
D. An independent audit function to test the program Item D gives away the key to why this is posing such a problem for Americans, since the testing program must necessarily be a secret from the employees of the business. Since they don't know which customer might really be a company or government decoy, they tend to report every customer that fits within the minimum guidelines for possible criminal activity, and as we'll see in a moment, that means most such customers!
Money Orders: Whenever a customer purchases money orders, or checks, with cash in the amount of $3,000 to $10,000, whether in a single transaction, or in several transactions on the same day, certain information must be obtained and retained. (Purchases of more than $10,000 require filing a Currency Transaction Report (CTR.) The information is to be recorded on a Monetary Instrument Log ("Log"). If you send more than $3,000, your information will be recorded and provided to Federal Authorities!
Note that only cash purchases are covered by this requirement - purchases by check or credit card are not, regardless of the amount. (Postal Muney Orders are constituted as cash. Editor)
Before completing a transaction that requires a Log entry, the clerk must verify the name and address of the individual buying the money orders by looking at a valid identification document, such as a driver's license, passport or alien identification card that contains the customer's name and address.
The regulations require them to record:
1. Customer's name
2. Customer's address
3. Customer's Social Security number or alien identification number
4. Customer's date of birth
5. Date of purchase of the money order(s)
6. The serial number of each money order(s) purchased
7. The dollar amount of each money order(s) purchased
8. The location where the money order(s) was purchased
9. The total amount purchased with cash
10. They are also required to record specific information on the identification used to verify the purchaser's identity (e.g., driver's license number and state of issuance).
11. If the clerk knows or suspects that the money orders being purchased are for a third party (someone other than the purchaser), then the following information also needs to be recorded in the Log: the third party's name, the third party's address and the third party's Social Security number, alien identification number or tax identification number. They must obtain all of this information before completing the transaction.
Cash transactions involving more than $10,000, whether in one lump sum, or scattered throughout the day, require even more ominous paperwork to be filed, called a Cash Transaction Report (CTR). This report must be filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on a Currency Transaction Report Form 4789. It can also be obtained from your local IRS office.
The regulations require that the clerk record the customer's name, address and Social Security number (or taxpayer identification number or other identifying number) on the CTR. The CTR form also asks for occupation, date of birth, and other information.
If two or more people are doing the transaction, or if the transaction is on behalf of a third person other than the individual performing the transaction, then they must obtain similar information for all parties before completing the transaction.
Structuring: Under these laws, it is illegal to structure transactions in order to avoid the record-keeping or reporting requirements. For example, if a customer buys $2,000 of money orders in the morning and $2,000 of money orders at the end of the day, they may be structuring their purchases in order to avoid the record-keeping "Log". "Structuring" involves breaking up a larger transaction that would have to be recorded or reported into smaller transactions in order to avoid the reporting and record-keeping requirements. Even it it's done for a legitimate reason, the fact that the transaction is broken up to avoid the reporting and record-keeping requirements is still considered "structuring." In other words, there is no innocent excuse for "structuring."
SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY REPORTING: Among the most ominous portions of the anti-money-laundering laws is the Suspicious Activity Report Requirement. The clerk must file a Suspicious Activity Report by Money Services Business ("SAR-MSB") whenever any activity is attempted or occurs that involves at least $2,000 in one or more transactions and they "suspect or have reason to suspect" that:
1. The transaction involves funds derived from illegal activity or is intended to hide funds derived from illegal activity;
2. The transaction is structured to avoid record-keeping or reporting requirements; or
3. The transaction has no business or apparent lawful purpose. (this clause is easily defined: If you choose not to reveal, voluntarily and without being asked, the reason why you are sending money, then the transaction fits this criterion and requires the clerk to file a Suspicious Activity Report!)
EXAMPLES OF SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY
1. A customer appears to be structuring transactions in an attempt to avoid a BSA record-keeping or reporting requirement;
2. An individual provides phony or expired identification (note: if the clerk is not "certain that the identification is valid", then a SAR-MSB must be filed!)
3. Two or more individuals, who are obviously together, split up to conduct separate transactions for under $3,000, but which together add up to over $3,000
4. An individual refuses to proceed with a transaction once he/she is informed a CTR will have to be filed
5. A customer asks an employee how to avoid reporting or record-keeping requirements
6. An individual attempts to threaten, or bribe an employee
7. Several customers complete money transfers to the same recipient in a single day, and there is no apparent business reason for such transfers
8. The same person buys one or more money orders several times a day, but never buys money orders totaling more than $3,000 during any single visit (this clause requires a SAR-MSB to be filed, regardless of the amounts of the Money Orders. in this way, the "minimum" of $2,000 is dropped to almost zero, and any Money Orders for any amount become "Suspicious Activity". Again, clerks know that to fail to file such a report can bring severe criminal or civil penalties down on them, and will reason that if you are innocent, then you have nothing to worry about, so it's better to let you deal with the repercussions of the report than take a chance that you might be innocent and fail to file it.)
9.. Multiple money orders are purchased by the same person in even hundred dollar denominations or in unusual quantities.
Suppose such a report is filed when you send money to your children in college, and the resulting investigation causes you harm. Do you have any recourse against the clerk or his employer? No! Federal law provides protection from civil liability for all reports of suspicious transactions made to appropriate authorities, including supporting documentation. This means that the clerk cannot be prosecuted or sued, even if they falsify or manufacture evidence to support the report!
In addition, the clerk cannot even tell you that a report is to be filed! Federal law makes it illegal to disclose to you that the money order you just purchased will result in a Suspicious Activity Report!
Implicit in that last paragraph, and in the sections on "structuring" are a hidden potential for disaster: since you now know that certain transactions will result in your financial business, and possibly your entire life, being placed under scrutiny by the Federal Government, you are automatically suspect. if you use conventional MSB's for sending and receiving money, but never send or receive any amount designed to trigger such a report, then you may be subject to having a SAR-MSB filed simply because your activity is not suspicious enough!
For this reason, many MSB's are opting out of the programs that could require such a filing. This is possible because the requirements under which an MSB must comply have a single loophole, designed to limit your ability to use their services. The Bank Secrecy Act and USAPATRIOT Act define MSB's as:
A. A money transmitter
B. A seller of money orders, or stored value (other than a person who does not ever sell such checks or money orders or stored value in an amount greater than $1,000 to any person on any day in one or more transactions)
C. A person engaged in the business of a check casher (other than a person who does not ever cash checks in an amount greater than $1,000 for any person on any day in one or more transactions).
By limiting your transactions to no more than $1000 in a single day. regardless of any other factor. they can avoid reporting legally. This is why many Internet Based MSB's, such as PayPal and ALFI, set such limits on their customers and members.
Unfortunately, there is no way to lawfully avoid these intrusions into your financial, business and personal privacy other than accepting limitations such as these, and today, even carrying cash in large amounts is sufficient to cause you to be arrested and have your money or property confiscated without due process of law, on the theory that the mere possession of cash must be evidence of criminal wrongdoing.http://www.federalobserver.com/archive.php?aid=2685
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
FNC
Attorney General John Ashcroft on Fox News
Friday, May 31, 2002
WASHINGTON - Attorney General John Ashcroft on Friday defended the FBI's reorganization plan against charges the new, proactive approach to fighting terror will infringe on Americans' constitutional rights.
"If you sit and wait for a crime to happen, and then you respond to it, that isn't a very good prevention strategy," Ashcroft said in an interview with Fox News. "You have to be able to develop or to get a lead from your own information, not wait for something to happen to trigger your activity."
Ashcroft has been criticized by civil libertarians who fear the FBI's new approach to fighting crime will infringe on a range of personal liberties.
Opposition to the plan to shift key parts of the agency from law enforcement to domestic intelligence came almost immediately after Ashcroft announced a draft outline Thursday that frees the bureau to conduct investigations without prior approval from headquarters.
The new guidelines also allow agents to enter public areas such as churches, libraries and meetings of political organizations, from which they were previously barred. Ashcroft maintained these new guidelines actually further enable the U.S. government to protect constitutional guarantees.
"I want to protect the constitutional right of individuals. I want to protect the right of Americans to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," he said in the interview. "Protecting against terrorism protects the most important of our rights."
FBI agents will be encouraged to participate in undercover investigations by "visiting places and events which are open to the public, on the same terms and conditions as members of the public generally, for the purpose of detecting or preventing terrorist activities," according to the "Attorney General's Guidelines on General Crimes, Racketeering Enterprise and Terrorism Enterprise Investigations."
"Our philosophy today is not to wait and sift through the rubble following a terrorist attack," Ashcroft told a news conference Thursday.
Critics lined up to denounce the new guidelines as another erosion by the Bush administration of Americans' constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism.
"The administration's continued defiance of constitutional safeguards seems to have no end in sight," complained Michigan Rep. John Conyers, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
"It only serves the purpose of heightening the scare in the society and the paranoia against Muslims," said Shaker Elsayed, secretary general of the Muslim American Society.
The new outlook stems from recent criticism from Congress and others the FBI failed to string together a pattern of suspicious activity that was occurring in the United States prior to Sept. 11.
Though Mueller says none of the information provided by Phoenix and Minneapolis field agents about Arabic men training at flight schools could have helped them predict the day of terror, agents were hindered from continuing investigations that may have turned up useful leads.
With the combined change in structure, mission and techniques employed at the bureau, Mueller and Ashcroft hope agents will be able to take on new initiatives that they were previously prohibited from doing under restrictions laid down in the 1970s, including conducting computer and Internet searches that weren't even an investigative tool back then.
"To give the FBI the right to go to public places on the same terms and conditions as the public, to give agents the right to search the Internet, to go where any 12- or 14-year-old who knows how to operate a computer can go," Ashcroft said Friday, "these are things the FBI needs the authority to do."
"Nothing that we have put in the revised provisions or guidelines can, should or would erode the constitutional guarantees or even any statutory guarantees," he added.
Ashcroft said nothing in the guidelines would permit the FBI to routinely build files on people or organizations.
Critics disputed that, arguing a domestic intelligence organization allows the FBI to spy on citizens.
"They are using the terrorism crisis as a cover for a wide range of changes, some of which have nothing to do with terrorism," said James X. Dempsey, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology.
Dempsey predicted that one new tool, the power to mine commercial data, will be used in drug and child pornography and stock fraud and gambling and "every other type of investigation the FBI does."
Stringent guidelines on FBI activities were put in place in the 1970s because of the FBI's domestic surveillance of prominent Americans, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whose private life was subjected to electronic surveillance.
The American Civil Liberties Union said the lifting of restrictions could renew abuses of the past.
King's "persecution by law enforcement is a necessary reminder of the potential abuse when a government with too long a leash seeks to silence voices of dissent," ACLU legislative counsel Marvin Johnson said.
Others said the authority granted by the new anti-terrorism law passed by Congress in the month following the terror attacks gave the FBI far more leeway than the guidelines would suggest.
"The impact is far less significant and far less subject to abuse than what was enacted into law" by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks, said attorney Raymond J. Gustini, who chairs a subcommittee of the American Bar Association on electronic privacy and co-chairs an ABA task force on financial privacy.
"The FBI really needs this right now. They're under a microscope now more than any other player other than the president. It's very important for the FBI to deliver."
Fox News' Carl Cameron and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,54115,00.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Christine Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
May 31, 2002
(CNSNews.com) - A Bush administration program that calls for federal agents to prosecute gun crimes runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution, some legal scholars believe.
"In actuality and despite what the federal courts have felt constrained to do, the federal government has no more legitimate constitutional authority over gun crime that happens in one state than it does over jaywalking or drunk driving," said Gene Healy, Cato Institute legal scholar.
At issue is a Bush administration policy called Project Safe Neighborhoods, unveiled in early 2001, that establishes a network of law enforcement and community initiatives targeted at gun violence.
The law provides federal tax dollars for hiring 113 federal and 600 state prosecutors and initiating a range of "community outreach efforts." It also directs tax dollars to police departments like those in Denver, Lakewood and Colorado Springs, Colo. for example, that recently received $50,000 apiece for local firearm law enforcement.
And law enforcement officials credit the program for bringing down gun crime rates.
The National Rifle Association has been a strong supporter of the initiative, out of concern that existing federal gun crime laws were not being enforced by the Clinton administration Justice Department.
"The federal government wasn't enforcing the current gun laws that were already on the books," said Kelly Whitley, NRA spokesperson. "At the same time, people in Congress and in the state legislatures were proposing new gun control laws that would restrict law abiding citizens.
"We felt that we should try to enforce the [laws] we already have on the books first before implementing new restrictions," said Whitley. "That was our reasoning behind getting involved with Project Exile in Richmond, (Va.)," the prototype for the federal initiative.
The Richmond initiative worked well, said Whitley. It "worked and did a good job and enforced gun laws against criminals and helped reduce the violent crime rate in Richmond by almost 70 percent in just two years.
"It's a program one can get behind from an aspect of getting criminals off the street," said Whitley. "Our main concern is the Second Amendment and making sure that law abiding citizens have the ability and right to bear arms."
Still, Healy believes the NRA and the Bush administration should have heeded their own advice on federalism.
According to Healy, the president has spoken to governors about respect for federalism and enumerated powers while NRA chief Wayne LaPierre has spoken of the importance of every part of the Constitution, so "these guys know, or should know, that the Constitution doesn't give the federal government authority over ordinary, garden variety gun crimes, no matter what the federal courts have allowed the federal government to get away with."
But an escalating federal presence in criminal law will also produce a host of unwanted consequences, federalists warn.
Healy believes it will result in "prosecutorial mischief affecting the racial composition of juries" and, in creating single-issue prosecutors, lead to a "mindless zero tolerance policy for technical infractions of gun laws."
"You're eroding the states' power and some of the diversity that's one of the great things about this country," adds Michael Rushford from the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.
"States get to try different things and see what works. When you federalize everything, and it's a one size fits all thing, you're asking Wyoming and New York to be operating under the same system, and that may not be a good idea," Rushford said.
The Constitution does not give the federal government unrestricted authority to interfere in intrastate criminal matters, said Healy, who points to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case, U.S. v. Lopez, as proof that the nation's highest court agrees.
In that 1995 case, the Supreme Court struck down a provision of the Gun-Free School Zones Act on the grounds that the commerce clause did not give Congress such power.
But the lower courts are not following the Lopez decision, said Healy, probably because if courts were to start "recogniz[ing] that the commerce clause [grants] very limited power to ... create a nationwide free trade zone" then "it has dramatic implications for 99 percent of what the federal government does.
"So it may just be for political reasons that the courts have not taken this as far as the Constitution would warrant," said Healy.
Another problem, Healy believes, is that state law enforcers are not defending their turf.
"A lot of local prosecutors are getting on board because Project Safe Neighborhood brings federal tax dollars and allows them to hire new prosecutors," said Healy. "I haven't read any articles of [them] saying I'm not taking this grant money because I don't want the strings that are attached to it and we want to handle it ourselves." http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200205\NAT20020531a.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Friday, May 31, 2002
By MARY KELLI BRIDGES, mkbridges@naplesnews.com
and CHRIS W. COLBY, cwcolby@naplesnews.com
In the Florida Legislature's winter 1999 session, tough-on-crime politicians passed a law that puts people who have or use a gun during a crime behind bars for a long time.
What they didn't do was put money behind enforcement of the plan that became known as 10-20-Life, which went into effect later that year. So local prosecutors fought for the money themselves.
Marshall Bower, the second-in-command at the State Attorney's Office that encompasses Lee, Collier, Hendry, Glades and Charlotte counties, won a $480,000 federal grant that's to be used over the next three years for prosecuting gun-related crimes.
The grant will pay for about 80 percent of the salaries for four prosecutors to be shifted to handle solely firearms crimes. Those salaries range from about $43,000 to almost $55,000.
With the new funding in place, four prosecutors in the judicial circuit have begun taking over their new dockets during the past few weeks.
Assistant State Attorney Dave Scuderi has been assigned the Naples cases involving firearms, except for theft of firearms. That means his caseload will include homicides, armed robbery, armed burglary, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon or by a violent career criminal and possibly carrying a concealed firearm. However, there are so many of those cases it's not definite the firearms-related prosecutors will get all them.
Some cases will stay with the prosecutor already assigned to them, such as those that involve domestic violence.
"It's a dangerous individual who uses a gun in a crime," Scuderi said. "People who are willing to do that really need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
The new docket began May 13 for Scuderi when a new felony prosecutor took over his old docket. In some instances, the State Attorney's Office chose to hire new prosecutors to replace the more experienced ones who will take the firearms-only docket rather than have the new attorneys move into the more complex gun cases.
The changes are indefinite and won't be abandoned once the federal money runs out.
Scuderi said he didn't receive any training specifically because he is taking this docket. Instead, his experiences with serious firearm cases contributed to the decision of supervisors to ask him to handle the new docket. Scuderi has handled numerous firearms cases in his seven years as a prosecutor, most notably the trials of Lenny Mardis and David Edison.
Mardis was convicted of second-degree murder in the April 23, 1997, slayings of his wife, Melissa, 18, and her reputed lover, Barney Ray Phillips, also 26, in Golden Gate. The slayings involved a .22-caliber rifle.
A jury acquitted Edison, formerly of Immokalee, of using a shotgun to shoot Janice Faison and Jerry Sloan in 1995 at a reputed gambling house.
The victims of gun crimes benefit by having a more experienced prosecutor handle those cases and nothing but those cases, Scuderi said.
"The benefit is a lot of these cases have minimum mandatory sentences and are under 10-20-Life so they are more likely to go to trial. You need someone who's experienced as a trial attorney and who can work with law enforcement to get the case successfully prosecuted," Scuderi said.
The severe penalties associated with 10-20-Life often mean it's not to the benefit of a lot of defendants to consider taking a plea, Bower said. So the office needs to have experienced trial attorneys who can handle cases in which the defendant is much more willing to take his chances at trial.
Jean-Paul Galasso, a prosecutor with three years of experience, started taking on some of his firearms-related cases about a month ago. He agreed most of the cases will go to trial.
"If someone is shot, no one will plead to 25 years," Galasso said.
Galasso said he expects his usual docket of about 80 cases to drop to between 35 and 55 soon. He hopes that will allow him more time to devote to the more complicated cases.
"The more serious the crime, the more time it takes," he said.
Galasso and Frank DiPlacido III will handle Lee County cases, while Martin Stark in Punta Gorda will handle Charlotte, Hendry and Glades county cases.
http://www.naplesnews.com/02/05/naples/d784897a.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
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May 30, 2002, 8:49 PM EDT
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department on Thursday urged the prosecution of two men who invoked a pro-gun stand by the Bush administration in seeking dismissal of criminal charges for carrying a pistol without a license.
The Justice Department said that the controlling court precedents in the District of Columbia uphold the firearm statutes and that criminal cases against the two men -- Michael Freeman and Manuel Brown -- should be pursued.
Reversing decades of Justice Department policy, the Bush administration told the Supreme Court this month that it believes the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects an individual's right to possess firearms.
Attorney General John Ashcroft caused a stir when he expressed a similar sentiment a year ago in a letter to the National Rifle Association.
Freeman and Brown say the Justice Department's position is inconsistent with a court of appeals ruling in the District of Columbia, where they are charged.
The court ruling "remains binding ... even though it contains reasoning that is inconsistent with the position of the United States," the Justice Department said in court papers filed in Superior Court in Washington.
The ruling the Justice Department disagrees with says the Second Amendment guarantees a collective rather than an individual right to bear arms, protecting a state's right to raise a militia.
The Bush administration also has said that the right to carry a gun is subject to reasonable restrictions designed to prevent possession by unfit people or to restrict the possession of types of firearms that are particularly suited to criminal misuse.
Copyright c 2002, The Associated Press
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"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878