The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne. April 28, 2014.
Sentencing revisions signal a welcome trend
This year’s revision of Indiana’s criminal code was a welcome move to address an urgent problem. President Barack Obama’s plan to dramatically increase clemencies for nonviolent federal drug offenders is a step in the right direction nationally. But there’s more to be done at all levels of lawmaking and law enforcement.
Murders and shootings in Fort Wayne mar the larger picture, but violent crime and property crime generally have been going down nationally for years. Yet prisons and jails are overflowing.
In the early 1970s, there were 250,000 inmates in the United States. Now, the Sentencing Project estimates, there are 2.2 million American prisoners. Much of the increase has been blamed on drug laws from the 1980s and laws that forced judges to send nonviolent offenders off to prison where some of them have remained for decades. “Inflexible sentencing policies,” the Washington Post said, “have made the United States the world’s leading jailer.”
Obama’s decision has the federal government gearing up to process thousands of requests from inmates who may already have served more time for their crimes, and the U.S. Sentencing Commission moved earlier this month to reduce sentences for current and future drug-possession defendants. (High-level drug dealers, whether violent or not, are not eligible for leniency or sentence redress.)
In Indiana, the legislature this year passed a revision of the criminal code that toughens penalties for more serious felonies but reduces those for some nonviolent offenses. Predicted reductions in prison populations will save the state money and reduce pressure on its aging prisons, where the inmate population also has ballooned in recent years. But the new law will mean that some convicts will be serving their shorter sentences in county jail rather than in prison.
The Allen County Jail already is sometimes near capacity, so authorities here are preparing for further challenges with the expected influx of new inmates. It’s likely that both the revised criminal code and provisions for shifting costs to local jails will have to be revisited once the new code’s effects begin to be felt later this year.
The principle is a simple one. Jails and prisons should be for those who pose a demonstrated danger to society. Other countries seem to have done a better job striking the balance between using incarceration to protect their citizens and putting people behind bars because they’ve committed a non- violent offense. Unless we’re prepared to spend more and more money expanding jails and prisons and building new ones, finding that balance will be a continuing challenge at the state and national levels for many years to come.
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Evansville Courier & Press. April 28, 2014.
President should put brakes on plans to downsize military
The Obama administration should put the brakes on its plans to downsize the U.S. military. If the reductions being talked about go ahead as planned, we are asking for trouble.
The Army grew to 570,000 during the peak Iraq years of 2006 to 2008. It is now down to 520,000; plans call for it to be 490,000 by October 2015, and automatic budget cuts could further reduce it to 420,000. Officials say the Army will be the smallest it’s been since before World War II as if this is something to be proud of rather than cause for serious alarm.
The Associated Press says that’s “a size service leaders say may not allow them even to wage one major, prolonged military campaign.”
It was only in 2012 that the administration and the military abandoned the long-standing goal of being able to fight two major wars simultaneously, although we had been drifting in that direction for some time.
One of the world’s most serious flashpoints is the eastern Ukraine, which Russian leader Vladimir Putin would like to reincorporate in Russia and has massed 40,000 troops along the border in case he decides to do just that.
Ukraine is not a NATO member, so we are under no treaty obligation to defend it. At the same time, our NATO allies, whom we are under treaty obligation to defend, are nervously watching to see how we react.
Our reaction? We are sending 600 troops for military exercises to four Eastern European nations that are NATO members. That’s barely enough to hold a decent parade.
The United States has largely pulled out of bases in Europe it had occupied since the end of World War II, leaving behind substantial infrastructure. As long as Russia is throwing its weight around, we should rethink that pullout and consider rebuilding some of our old bases in Germany.
For the moment, the United States has a trained, tested military staffed by officers and NCOs, many of them veterans of multiple combat tours. We paid heavily for that hard-won experience and it should not be lightly dispersed by a president who at times doesn’t seem to be paying attention.
The Army intends to shed 3,000 officers, including 1,500 captains and 550 majors - the backbone of the midlevel officer corps and far short of the 20 years they need to qualify for benefits. These are not aging timeservers; large numbers are still in their 20s.
Meanwhile, President Obama on his Far East swing further deepened our military commitment there by affirming last week that the United States would defend Tokyo in a confrontation with Beijing. The White House says that the president took no position on whom the islands belong to, but for all practical purposes he did.
Obama and his successor may find themselves faced with the old schoolyard taunt from Moscow or Beijing or Tehran, couched in more diplomatic language, “Oh, yeah? You and what army?” The one the president has now will do just fine.
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Journal & Courier, Lafayette. April 26, 2014.
Welcomed caution on e-cigarettes
The Food and Drug Administration already has its hands all over the advertising and sales of cigarettes and other tobacco products. And rightly so. Smoking remains a preventable health hazard that kills way too many Americans each year and ratchets up health care costs across the board.
Last week the FDA laid out a proposal that would expand its reach into a host of other smoking products, including an emerging market of electronic cigarettes.
Once again, rightly so.
Also on the FDA’s list are dissolvable tobacco products, pipe tobacco, cigars and hookahs. The e-cigarette market is one likely to raise the most questions.
E-cigarettes have been touted as a way to help those addicted to smoking by offering a product that delivers a similar satisfaction with fewer of the health concerns. The battery-powered e-cigarettes deliver doses of nicotine through vapor as liquid in a cylinder is heated. But doubts are starting to crop up about the safety of e-cigarettes and whether they actually are cancer-free alternatives.
The FDA wants new rules that would bans e-cigarette sales to those younger than 18. The FDA also wants to force e-cigarette makers to list ingredients.
The upshot here: E-cigarette makers should have to prove their product and the vapor it produces are safe. That’s the FDA’s stance on a product that is so new to the market and is, at this point, avoiding the scrutiny put on the cigarette cousin it’s working to replace.
The FDA’s stance here is a bit of welcomed caution.
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Tribune-Star, Terre Haute. April 23, 2014
Path set to overturn gay marriage ban
It’s only a matter of time before Indiana’s ban on same-sex marriages is overturned by a federal appeals court, an inevitability underscored last week by U.S. District Judge Richard Young’s temporary restraining order against it.
Young’s order applies only to one specific case - a Munster same-sex couple’s lawsuit asking the state to recognize its marital union, which took place in Massachusetts, one of 17 states where gay marriage is legal. Indiana’s law not only forbids same-sex marriage but refuses to recognize those marriages performed elsewhere.
Although the lesbian couple’s case is part of a larger lawsuit, it was singled out by the judge because one of the women suffers from terminal cancer. They have been married 13 years and have two young daughters conceived through “reproductive technology” by the partner who is not ill. The judged ordered the state to recognize the marriage on the ill woman’s death certificate when it is issued. She is still alive today.
This particular case is a stirring example of why the state’s ban is so inhumane, unjust and unfair. Fortunately, constitutional law is catching up on this issue through application in the courts of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. A number of state bans have already been overturned by federal appeals courts, setting up what will surely be an eventual major ruling on the issue by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Judge Young’s explanation for his ruling is as compelling as the state’s continuing defense is weak. According to The Associated Press, Young said he granted the request partly because the couple is likely to succeed in having Indiana’s gay marriage ban declared unconstitutional. He also said that one of the plaintiff’s terminal illness required urgent action.
“The Equal Protection Clause requires states to treat people equally under the law,” Young wrote. “If the state wishes to differentiate between people and make them unequal, then it must have at least a legitimate purpose.”
And the judge specifically stated that he found no evidence to show that the state has a legitimate purpose in banning same-sex marriage.
The battle will go on, of course. Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller says he is obligated to defend the state statute. He will undoubtedly continue to do so until the Supreme Court finally settles the matter once and for all.
Indiana has never had a forward-thinking legislature on matters pertaining to civil rights or social justice. No one expected our legislature to demonstrate the type of enlightened leadership in this area that surfaced in other states.
But change will come nonetheless. Judge Young’s narrow ruling and explanation gives us the framework of how that change will emerge.
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