Latest news with #Democratic-run
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Lefty Albany pols pushing series of bills to approve early parole for violent convicts, Nassau DA warns
The Democratic-run New York state legislature could rush through a series of bills to give convicts early parole and prevent law enforcement from keeping dangerous criminals off the streets, Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly warned Sunday. In recent years, Democrats clawed back controversial cashless bail and discovery laws after serial criminals were let loose, triggering massive political blowback. 'These bills undercut everything we work for every day — building strong cases, securing convictions, and ensuring justice is served,' Donnelly, a Republican up for re-election this fall, told The Post. 'When prosecutors do the hard work of putting violent offenders behind bars, we should be backed by laws that protect that progress — not laws that allow those same criminals to return to our communities years before their sentences are complete,' added Donnelly, who is holding a press conference Monday announcing her opposition to the bills. Among the bills drawing concern is the Elder Parole bill — which would require inmates aged 55 and older who have served at least 15 years of their sentence to be considered for early release, regardless of the seriousness of the crime committed. The measure is sponsored by Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D-Manhattan) and Assemblywoman Maritza Davila (D-Brooklyn). Another bill, the Earned Time Act, would make most violent felons eligible for time allowance credits, potentially slashing their prison sentences in half, Donnelly said. The earned time bill is sponsored by Sen. Jeremy Cooney (D-Rochester) and Assemblywoman Anna Kelles (D-Ithaca). A third bill — the Second Look Act — would permit prisoners to petition the courts for a sentence reduction after serving 10 years, including inmates convicted of violent crimes. The legislation is promoted by Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn) and Assemblywoman Latrice Walker (D-Brooklyn). GOP Long Island lawmakers oppose the early parole bills, including Assemblyman Edward Ra and Sen. Jack Martins. Crime victims' advocate Madeline Brame, whose Army Sergeant son Hason Correa was murdered in a scuffle outside a Harlem apartment building seven years ago, expressed outrage at the proposals to give violent cons a break. 'These proposals completely disregard the pain and effort that go into holding criminals accountable,' she said. 'We need to help prosecutors put violent offenders behind bars — not give criminals new waysto get out early.' Gov. Kathy Hochul toyed with early release proposals in April as a way to try to alleviate the prison population amid an illegal prison guard strike and a staffing shortage. She was forced to bring in the National Guard to staff the prisons. She proposed opening eligibility for merit time in the state budget, then backed down after it was revealed doing so could lead to people who were in for violent crimes to be released early. Donnelly was among those who raised the alarm. Inmate advocates have pushed for early parole and other reforms after prisoners were allegedly killed at the hands of guards over the past year.
New York Post
3 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Nassau DA warns of Albany push to approve early parole for violent convicts
The Democratic-run New York state legislature could rush through a series of bills to give convicts early parole and prevent law enforcement from keeping dangerous criminals off the streets, Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly warned Sunday. In recent years, Democrats clawed back controversial cashless bail and discovery laws after serial criminals were let loose, triggering massive political blowback. 'These bills undercut everything we work for every day — building strong cases, securing convictions, and ensuring justice is served,' Donnelly, a Republican up for re-election this fall, told The Post. Advertisement 3 Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly. Brigitte Stelzer 'When prosecutors do the hard work of putting violent offenders behind bars, we should be backed by laws that protect that progress — not laws that allow those same criminals to return to our communities years before their sentences are complete,' added Donnelly, who is holding a press conference Monday announcing her opposition to the bills. Among the bills drawing concern is the Elder Parole bill — which would require inmates aged 55 and older who have served at least 15 years of their sentence to be considered for early release, regardless of the seriousness of the crime committed. Advertisement The measure is sponsored by Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D-Manhattan) and Assemblywoman Maritza Davila (D-Brooklyn). Another bill, the Earned Time Act, would make most violent felons eligible for time allowance credits, potentially slashing their prison sentences in half, Donnelly said. The earned time bill is sponsored by Sen. Jeremy Cooney (D-Rochester) and Assemblywoman Anna Kelles (D-Ithaca). 3 Madeline Brame's son, Hason Correa, was murdered in a scuffle outside a Harlem apartment building seven years ago. Steven Hirsch Advertisement A third bill — the Second Look Act — would permit prisoners to petition the courts for a sentence reduction after serving 10 years, including inmates convicted of violent crimes. The legislation is promoted by Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn) and Assemblywoman Latrice Walker (D-Brooklyn). GOP Long Island lawmakers oppose the early parole bills, including Assemblyman Edward Ra and Sen. Jack Martins. 3 The New York State Capitol building. Hans Pennink for the NY Post Advertisement Crime victims' advocate Madeline Brame, whose Army Sergeant son Hason Correa was murdered in a scuffle outside a Harlem apartment building seven years ago, expressed outrage at the proposals to give violent cons a break. 'These proposals completely disregard the pain and effort that go into holding criminals accountable,' she said. 'We need to help prosecutors put violent offenders behind bars — not give criminals new ways to get out early.' Gov. Kathy Hochul toyed with early release proposals in April as a way to try to alleviate the prison population amid an illegal prison guard strike and a staffing shortage. She was forced to bring in the National Guard to staff the prisons. She proposed opening eligibility for merit time in the state budget, then backed down after it was revealed doing so could lead to people who were in for violent crimes to be released early. Donnelly was among those who raised the alarm. Inmate advocates have pushed for early parole and other reforms after prisoners were allegedly killed at the hands of guards over the past year.
Boston Globe
6 days ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
‘They're on. They're off.' Court rulings add to whiplash for businesses on Trump's tariffs.
'We've taken a position of remaining cool and seeing what happens,' said Dana Katz, owner of Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up He hasn't raised prices yet on his tailored men's suits, blazers, and other merchandise even though about 95 percent of it is imported from a variety of countries. But Katz said he's been in frequent communication with his wholesale suppliers and will have to raise prices if the tariffs remain in place. Advertisement Right now, that's a big if. Trump has made tariffs a centerpiece of his economic policy. He has argued that increasing the levies the US government slaps on foreign imports from dozens of nations — as high as 145 percent at one point this year on goods from China — will lure more manufacturing back to the United States and provide leverage to negotiate more favorable trade deals. Advertisement But the higher tariffs have triggered trade wars with several foreign nations, including China and Canada, which raised their own levies on US goods in response. Trump has tried to mitigate the fallout, which included major financial market selloffs, by reducing or pausing some of the increases, including through Trump's actions also spurred lawsuits from business owners and several Democratic-run states arguing that he had exceeded his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. Trump had said the federal trade deficit and the flow of fentanyl into the country constitute emergencies. On Wednesday in Manhattan, a three judge panel of appointees by Presidents Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, and Trump himself unanimously struck down most of the president's tariffs, saying the law did not give him 'unbounded authority.' The court kept in place tariffs on steel, aluminum, and automobiles imposed under other laws. Then on Thursday, that ruling was temporarily halted by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Separately, US District Judge Rudolph Contreras, an Obama appointee, granted a preliminary injunction Thursday against the same set of tariffs in a case filed in Washington, D.C., by two small businesses. He paused the injunction for 14 days to give the Trump administration time to appeal. White House officials decried the rulings as the actions of 'rogue judges' and predicted Trump ultimately would prevail. Advertisement 'As far as we're concerned, our trade agenda is moving forward . . . and we fully expect to win this case in court,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Administration officials are continuing to negotiate trade deals with foreign leaders and Leavitt said Trump spoke to Japan's prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, Thursday in a call she described as 'very good.' But William Reinsch, a trade expert who served in the Clinton administration, predicted that foreign officials won't want to agree to any trade deals until the tariff court cases are fully resolved. 'It seems to me that no government in its right mind will agree to concessions given the possibility that the need to do that might go away,' said Reinsch, now a senior adviser at the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. The stalling of trade talks will just add to the uncertainty on tariffs that has frozen US businesses, he said. 'They're up. They're down. They're on. They're off. There are exceptions. There aren't exceptions. They're bigger. They're smaller. They're postponed. They're not postponed,' Reinsch said. 'I mean, who knows on any given day what's going to happen? And so nobody does anything because they're waiting for the dust to settle." Senator Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, got a firsthand taste of the trouble when he held a roundtable on tariffs in Manchester, Vt., on Wednesday with local businesses, including fishing gear manufacturer Orvis and Back Roads Granola. 'We literally have situations . . . where if they're importing something, it'll be on a cargo ship from abroad, and just before it hits the port there will be a 50 percent tariff increase,' Welch told the Globe. 'They're complaining about the added price, but also the total uncertainty that makes it impossible to do their business, whether it's super-premium granola or super-premium fly casting rods.' Advertisement Trump's burst of tariffs in April raised the overall average US rate on foreign goods tenfold, to 25 percent from about 2.5 percent at the end of last year, said Gregory Daco, chief economist at global consulting firm EY-Parthenon. The temporary suspension of many of the tariffs on China earlier in May lowered that average tariff rate to 14 percent — still the highest since 1939, Daco said. If this week's court rulings are upheld, the rate would drop to 4.6 percent, which while much lower is still nearly double what it was at the start of the year. 'When you raise tariffs in such an extreme manner to levels that, until recently, were inconceivable and then you lower them back down to levels that are still at historical highs, you're still implementing a significant increase in cost of doing trade and doing business,' Daco said. The ongoing tariff rollercoaster has consumed business owners, said Greg Reibman, president of the Charles River Chamber, whose members are in Newton, Needham, Watertown, and Wellesley. 'It's a big issue for everybody that I hear from, the retailers and restaurants or anybody who's dealing with any kind of supply chain issue,' he said. 'If you're a business trying to decide when to place an order, it's like playing roulette right now.' That's why Katz, of Miltons, which has stores in Braintree, Chestnut Hill, and Burlington, has been trying to remain calm. 'We certainly watch it and discuss it every day, and we have conversations with our suppliers every day,' he said. 'There's certainly a degree of uncertainty. I liken it to COVID 2.0.' Advertisement Jim Puzzanghera can be reached at
Boston Globe
25-05-2025
- Boston Globe
Since George Floyd's murder, police killings keep rising, not falling
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Related : Advertisement Among them was Frank Tyson, an unarmed Black man in Canton, Ohio, who uttered Floyd's famous words last year before dying when he was wrestled to the ground in a bar by police officers. This happened even though police departments nationwide, especially after Floyd's murder, have known about the dangers of asphyxiation when keeping a suspect in the prone position. (Two officers were charged with homicide in Tyson's death.) Derek Chauvin, the officer who knelt on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes as he gasped for air, was convicted and sentenced to prison, along with three other officers who were on the scene. But even as the number of police killings has risen in the years since, it has remained exceedingly rare for officers to be charged with crimes for those deaths. Advertisement Last year, for example, 16 officers were charged with either murder or manslaughter in a fatal shooting, the same number as in 2020, according to data tracked by Philip Stinson, a professor of criminal justice at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Stinson said that given 'all of the promise of five years ago, in terms of the promises of police reform, from where I sit, the reality is that policing hasn't changed.' A mural depicting George Floyd at the spot he was killed five years ago by a police officer's knee on his neck, in Minneapolis on April 19. JOSHUA RASHAAD MCFADDEN/NYT Experts say it is difficult to draw definitive answers from the data about why police killings continue to rise without an analysis of the circumstances of each case. But they have plenty of theories about what may have contributed to the problem. An increasing number of guns in circulation heightens the chances of deadly encounters. A backlash against the police reform movement in conservative states may have empowered police in those places. And the decline in public trust in the police after Floyd's murder may have led to more deadly encounters. 'Public perception of policing can matter here,' said Seth Stoughton, a former police officer who is a law professor at the University of South Carolina and frequently testifies about use-of-force policies in criminal trials of officers. 'When police are viewed as more legitimate, folks are more likely to comply. When police are viewed as less legitimate, people are less likely to comply and more likely to resist, and that can increase the rates of violence.' Advertisement While answers may be elusive, here are some of the underlying trends that might explain the shifting nature of police violence in the United States. A growing divide in where people are getting killed by police After Floyd's killing, many Democratic-run states and cities made more robust changes to policing. And culturally, in more-liberal states, there were much louder calls for police to be reined in. This might help explain why there is a growing divide in where people are being killed by police. In more-liberal states, the rate has stabilized, but in more-conservative ones, the numbers have risen. If measured over the past 10 years, since the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 sparked wide-scale protests, fatal police shootings in more-Democratic states have declined 15% on a population-adjusted basis, with the rate holding relatively steady since Floyd's death. Related : But in Republican-leaning states, they have risen 23%. And within those redder states, exurbs and rural areas, which tend to be more conservative than cities, have the highest rates of police killings. Fewer people who are killed by police are unarmed Even as police killings have risen in the years since the killing of Floyd, killings of unarmed people have become less frequent. The numbers have fluctuated over the years, but have dropped significantly since 2015, when 152 people killed by police were unarmed. In 2020, that number was 95, and last year, it dropped to 53. The number of people killed while wielding replica weapons, fake guns that look like the real thing, has also dropped. Still, experts were split on why the drop may have occurred and how much weight to give the data. They said it was one of several statistics that would benefit from a more comprehensive national database of police use of force. Advertisement Some suggested the decrease in the number of unarmed people being killed could be a natural outcome in a country where a large percentage of people own guns. It is difficult to evaluate gun ownership in the United States, but polls have shown that more than 40% of adults report having a gun in their household. 'In a world in which we are awash in guns, and getting more awash, that's what's going to happen,' said Barry Friedman, a professor at New York University's law school who specializes in policing. Others were more skeptical. Protesters and residents watched as police in riot gear walk down a residential street in St. Paul, Minn., in May 2020. John Minchillo/Associated Press Justin Nix, an associate professor at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, said he hoped that the data was a reflection of improvements in policing and training, but that he was hesitant to draw any conclusions. That's in part because of how rare police killings of unarmed people are and the fluctuating number of cases where it is unclear whether the person who was killed had a weapon. Related : Nix, whose focus is on criminology and criminal justice, said the difficulty in interpreting the data was indicative of a larger problem, which is that data on police force and killings remains sparse. For example, he noted, there is little data on police shootings in which a person is not killed. One study estimated that there were roughly 800 such nonfatal shootings each year. The outlook for policing oversight Despite the rising overall number of police killings, legislators across the country have rolled back several attempts to reduce police violence. In Washington state, lawmakers passed an initiative last year that rolled back a law, passed in 2021, that had imposed limits on when the police could chase suspects in their cars. This year, Alabama enacted a new law seeking to make it harder to prosecute or sue police officers. Oregon in 2022 loosened the standard for when police could use tear gas after tightening regulations just a year earlier. Advertisement The federal government, under the Trump administration, has also pulled back from holding law enforcement agencies accountable. This past week, the Justice Department said it would no longer investigate or oversee nearly two dozen police departments that were accused of civil rights violations, including in Minneapolis and Louisville, Kentucky. And in April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at 'unleashing' law enforcement, including by directing the U.S. attorney general to 'provide legal resources' to defend police officers accused of wrongdoing. This article originally appeared in .
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
One branch vs. two: Trump's DOJ is now prosecuting a sitting judge and a sitting lawmaker
Cross the Trump administration on immigration, and you will pay. That's the apparent message behind two prosecutions that Trump's Justice Department has launched against officials in the other co-equal branches of government. Last month, prosecutors arrested a Wisconsin judge for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant leave a courthouse. Then, this week, prosecutors charged a New Jersey lawmaker with assault after a scuffle outside an immigration detention center. It's no coincidence that both cases target perceived opponents of Trump's signature issue. The president has pushed all manner of boundaries in his second term, facing off against courts and Congress at every turn. But in seeking to enact his mass deportation plan, he has tested constitutional limits most brazenly. The criminal charges against Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan and Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver are the latest examples of Trump's provocative constitutional warfare. Judges and lawmakers have broad immunity from criminal charges connected to their official duties, and prosecutors historically have been reluctant to challenge that immunity. 'There's nothing really to parallel this sort of full-on attack on the coordinate branches,' said Stanley Brand, a former general counsel to the House of Representatives. 'They've opened another new chapter in interbranch relations.' Trump's allies say he has an electoral mandate to implement his immigration crackdown, a personal conviction about the issue and broad legal authority to act. Judges and lawmakers who are impeding that effort are trampling on a core presidential power, they say. 'This is a defensive response by the administration to an assault on the law, on immigration law in particular,' said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies. He added that he believed the left has coalesced against Trump's immigration agenda because it is the president's 'marquee issue.' But Trump critics contend the intensity of the pushback Trump has received from judges and Democratic lawmakers is because so many of his policy moves push the legal envelope — and because his administration has shown signs of defiance in the face of court orders. And in the clashes with the other branches, the administration's posture has hardly been solely defensive. In addition to launching charges against Dugan and McIver, the Justice Department has sued Democratic-run cities, counties and states for failing to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Justice Department spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment on the department's growing conflicts with the other branches of government. The attacks have emanated directly from the White House, too. When a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled against Trump's bid to swiftly deport people deemed 'alien enemies,' Trump himself called for the judge's impeachment. The attitude is perhaps most embodied by Trump's top domestic policy aide, Stephen Miller, who has lashed out daily against a 'judicial coup' when judges have attempted to rein in some of Trump's most extreme deportation tactics. The newest escalation came this week with the charges against McIver. Alina Habba — the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey who previously served as Trump's personal lawyer — brought the case. Habba said the first-term lawmaker 'assaulted, impeded and interfered with law enforcement' during a confrontation at a Newark Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility earlier this month. 'No one is above the law — politicians or otherwise,' Habba said in a statement Monday. 'It is the job of this office to uphold justice impartially, regardless of who you are.' In a criminal complaint made public Tuesday, prosecutors alleged that McIver 'attempted to thwart the arrest' of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, whom federal agents had attempted to remove from the facility when they realized he was not a member of McIver's congressional delegation. McIver 'pushed an ICE officer' and 'used each of her forearms to forcibly strike' a uniformed Homeland Security agent, according to the complaint. The statute the congresswoman is charged with violating includes in its definition anyone who 'forcibly assaults, resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates, or interferes with' federal officials. In a statement, McIver called the single felony charge against her 'purely political,' adding that DOJ's claims 'mischaracterize and distort my actions, and are meant to criminalize and deter legislative oversight.' Members of Congress are permitted by law to inspect immigration facilities. Democrats rushed to defend McIver while bashing the charge as politically motivated. In a joint statement, House Democratic leadership said the move was 'extreme, morally bankrupt and lacks any basis in law or fact' and blasted it as 'a blatant attempt by the Trump administration to intimidate Congress and interfere with our ability to serve as a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch.' Trump, meanwhile, celebrated the charge. 'She was shoving federal agents. She was out of control,' the president told reporters Tuesday. 'The days of that crap are over in this country. We're going to have law and order.' The case against McIver resembles the one that the Justice Department brought in April against Dugan. She, too, is accused of impeding immigration agents — though not through a physical altercation. Prosecutors say the Milwaukee judge directed an undocumented immigrant through a side exit in her courtroom when she learned that ICE agents were in a nearby hallway seeking to arrest him. Dugan, who is charged with concealing an individual to prevent arrest and obstruction, has pleaded not guilty and is fighting to dismiss the charges. 'No one — regardless of their job title — can be allowed to assault ICE agents or harbor illegal aliens and get away with it,' White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement to POLITICO. 'President Trump is committed to removing illegal aliens from the country and defending our brave law enforcement officers. To those who plan to break the law to defend criminals and assault law enforcement agents: you will be held accountable.' Legal experts said the charges against McIver and Dugan — and the bellicose rhetoric the White House has hurled toward federal judges — seem intended to pressure other members of the judicial and legislative branches to stop resisting Trump's agenda. 'I think they're all part of the same pattern,' said former House and Senate lawyer Michael Stern, although he added that he remains unsure whether the moves are driven by a long-term desire to expand executive power or just to please Trump. 'Maybe there's some more thought-out plot to expand executive power so the only source of law is the president's word. That seems to be the effect. I don't know how thoughtful they're being about it because the courts are not going to, I think, take kindly to this.' Stern also said some of Trump's claims are so aggressive that they undercut a central argument by the Justice Department that Trump is the victim, not the perpetrator, of breaches of the separation of powers. It is actually judges and state officials, the argument goes, who are overstepping their authority by meddling in national immigration policy. 'You can't have separated power if any one branch is completely disregarding the interests of the others. That will not work,' Stern said. 'And this administration considers its own prerogatives to be untouchable and has no regard whatsoever for any of the prerogatives of any of the other branches, including the states.' But Trump and many of his supporters frame the question as a simple issue of law and order, not an abstract problem about divided constitutional powers. Nor do they see a danger that the recent criminal prosecutions will have a chilling effect on other judges or lawmakers. 'I don't know what the issue of chilling is that we're supposed to be worried about,' said Tom Fitton, the president of the conservative activist group Judicial Watch. 'You can object to prosecutorial priorities by the Trump administration and arresting people and detaining them for deportation, as the law allows. But you can't break the law.' Of course, the Justice Department has often prosecuted lawmakers and judges at both the federal and state level over alleged corruption. And there have long been complaints that decision-making in those cases was tinged with politics. But Stern sees the current prosecutions differently. 'There's clearly a campaign of intimidation, generally, that's going on. It looks like that to me,' he said, adding that McIver 'would never have been prosecuted in a million years except for the political ramifications.' McIver is expected to make arguments that the prosecution intrudes on her rights as a legislator to conduct congressional business — rights protected by the Constitution's 'speech or debate' clause. But Stern noted that she may face challenges wielding that immunity against a charge that she committed a crime of violence. 'If she came in there and shot the officer, I'm not sure I'd be willing to say it's covered by speech-or-debate. So, I'm not sure legally there's a distinction,' Stern said. 'That's what makes it a little tough from a defense point of view.' The charges filed against Dugan last month aren't an entirely new foray for the Trump administration. During Trump's first term, the Justice Department filed a similar criminal case against Massachusetts District Court Judge Shelley Joseph and a court deputy for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant elude immigration authorities as he exited a courthouse. Joseph fought the criminal charges, which were dropped during the Biden administration as part of an arrangement that effectively handed off the case to a state judicial disciplinary commission. That board has accused her of being dishonest with colleagues about the episode. A formal public hearing is set for next month. A former federal judge who helped defend Joseph in the criminal case, Nancy Gertner, said the Trump administration's aggressive posture is, at a certain point, likely to provoke reactions from both Congress and the courts. 'The question is: What's the moment of overreach?' Gertner asked, noting that at the moment the House is pushing legislation that would actually expand the administration's ability to defy the courts. 'When will they take action to cabin what the DOJ is doing with respect to other congressional representatives and judges? I don't know. What's the bridge too far?'
