REALLY GOOD NEWS! With the discussion of the numbers in jail, we may have the good news that hordes of 14-year olds may not be added to the numbers. Prop 21, an initiative to force many juvenile offenders into adult courts and prisons, may be headed for defeat. It's still close and the turnout could be critical, but we need to hope. This is a truly odious bill and its defeat, combined with the moratorium on Ill. executions and the Diallo trial, we may be seeing a turnaround agains the get-tough-at-any-cost approach to crime control.
-- Nathan Newman
Lining Up Against Prop. 21 The juvenile justice initiative once seemed a sure thing, but the tide may be turning Catherine Bridge The Recorder/Cal Law February 17, 2000
San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan will join Sheriff Michael Hennessey and Superior Court Judge Kevin McCarthy this morning to denounce Proposition 21, the juvenile crime initiative sponsored by former Gov. Pete Wilson, backed by current Gov. Gray Davis and coming before voters in the March 7 primary.
In the era of Three Strikes and routine voter approval of tough-on-crime measures, Proposition 21 was expected to glide to victory. But liberals like Hallinan may be in the majority this time out. A controversial Field Poll last week indicated that the turn of the millennium could spell the end to an electorate on autopilot, especially when the focus is putting kids in prison.
Proposition 21 proposes giving prosecutors -- instead of judges -- the authority to send juveniles as young as 14 into adult court when they are accused of violent felonies such as murder, rape or drive-by shootings. It expands the category of felonies that would funnel youth into adult courts and prison, and it would increase punishment, particularly for gang-related offenses. It also eliminates informal probation for juveniles committing felonies, among a host of other provisions in a 43-page list of tougher penalties that proponents say crack down on the worst of the worst among teen criminals.
Called the "Gang Violence and Juvenile Crime Prevention Act" by its sponsor, the California District Attorneys Association, it is also backed by an array of law enforcement and crime victims' groups.
But it's called something different by critics like Lisa Greer, an attorney in the appellate division of the L.A. County Public Defenders Office.
"This is essentially an effort on behalf of DAs to grab power from judges at great expense to taxpayers," she says. The Legislative Analyst's Office has estimated one-time state costs at $750 million and ongoing annual costs over $330 million. The California State Association of Counties estimates local costs at $600 million.
Critics like Greer contend that Proposition 21 ignores juvenile crime rates, already sharply declining since at least 1993. By making transferable felonies of a whole new roster of crimes like robbery and graffiti vandalism, a tsunami of kids is likely to flood the adult system, she says.
Judges, probation officers and some prosecutors say that adult incarceration is not what turns youthful offenders around. And all worry that once the complex and multifaceted package is locked into law, no element of it can be undone without a two-thirds vote of the Legislature, or by passing another initiative.
Certainly the measure has been greeted with a near visceral loathing by a host of civil rights and children's advocacy groups, who formed a broad-based alliance in opposition. That alliance includes the state's juvenile court judges, probation officers, the 23,000-member Los Angeles County Bar, defense attorneys, religious leaders, the state PTA -- and a handful of prosecutors and law enforcement officials like Hallinan and Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks.
It's even given rise to a high school-based youth crusade among minority teens, who take the initiative personally. They will stage a "Week of Rage" starting next Monday, complete with demonstrations and candlelight vigils up and down the state.
But until last week's Field Poll, most opponents assumed they were fighting a losing battle. The poll surprised and galvanized the "No on 21" campaign by finding that 41 percent of likely voters opposed the measure, with only 24 percent in favor and 35 percent undecided.
"I was just about to pick up the phone and fund-raise based on the poll numbers: Proposition 21 is losing," said a jubilant David Steinhart the morning the results appeared. He's the Marin-based juvenile justice attorney serving as informal head of the No on 21 campaign.
Now, opponents predict a landmark defeat three weeks from now. "People realize there is a fiscal and social impact to constantly ratcheting up criminal penalties," says Greer. "We're 41st in school spending and first in prisons ... do we want that record? We're in a different place than in '93."
But inevitably, the poll's validity has come under attack. Those pushing for passage say their independent polling shows Proposition 21 passing by 61 percent. The Field Poll's results were skewed because it didn't include the felony offenses most voters will see spelled out on their ballots, according to Steve Kinney of Public Opinion Strategies.
What's surprising is that the Field Poll's Mark DiCamillo concedes Kinney may be right. He'll re-poll in two weeks using the most common ballot description statewide, one he was still awaiting from the Secretary of State's office on Tuesday.
A new poll could also reflect potential changes in the electorate. While interest in the race for the Republican presidential nomination has increased dramatically in recent weeks, the Democratic race is shaping up as an Al Gore landslide. That could suppress Democratic turnout and draw more conservative GOP voters to the polls.
Three weeks from election day, the only thing clear about Proposition 21 is that it's contentious in the grand tradition of wedge politics, dividing the criminal justice community and pitting its members against each other.
JUDGES OPPOSED The state's 200-plus juvenile court judges have already gone public with their opposition to Proposition 21, and they hope to convince the executive board of the California Judges Association to join them this Saturday.
"CJA's position is of great import," says Los Angeles Judge Terry Friedman, chair of the Juvenile Court Judges of California, "and it's coming when the public will pay the most attention."
No single judge has been more outspoken in opposition to Proposition 21 than James Milliken on the San Diego Superior Court bench. The key to reducing juvenile felonies is rigorous supervision of those already on probation, he argues, pointing to a local program that cut juvenile felony rates by 50 percent in three years. He calls Proposition 21 "bad law; it's a mistake to incarcerate any kid as an adult if we don't have to."
Similarly, Judge Kevin McCarthy, of the juvenile delinquent division of San Francisco Superior Court, says his past several years presiding in juvenile court have shown him "that when you make an effort to rehabilitate, you succeed."
District attorneys given license to file many more crimes in adult court "will push the envelope," he worries, "asking 'Can we do this,' not 'Should we?'"
Judges are simply concerned with protecting their own turf, says Cregor Datig, supervising deputy DA and chief of the juvenile division in Riverside County under Grover Trask, and one of the architects of Proposition 21.
Prosecutors routinely win judicial approval in over 80 percent of the juvenile transfer cases they bring before judges, he and others acknowledge, and then win most of the small remaining percentage on appeal.
"Prosecutors don't file all the cases we could," he argues. "We wouldn't win so much if we did." Such a high rate of judicial accord indicates prosecutorial discretion, he says, in seeking transfer for appropriate cause. Hence, the system should be streamlined to send the most serious and violent offenders straight to adult court, especially when they can always be remanded to juvenile court by later judicial or jury decision.
In its current state, the system places "resource emphasis on minors who've already lapsed into serious and violent criminal patterns," according to Datig, who says camps and community-based programs should be reserved for first and second-time juvenile offenders.
About half the state's 58 district attorneys have gone on record in support of Proposition 21. Others, like Paul Pfingst in San Diego County, have chosen not to comment. Only Hallinan and Ronald Ruiz in Santa Cruz County are in the "NO" camp.
Kamala Harris, an assistant DA in San Francisco who heads the career criminal division, has been trying to organize Bay Area public prosecutors to join her in opposition. "I have not talked to one DA in two dozen who has said they will vote for Proposition 21," she said Monday.
"The perception that law enforcement is 100 percent behind it is false ... DAs object to the removal of judges from the process, to the cost and many feel it's basically redundant of current law."
But, she concedes most don't feel strongly enough to publicly buck the CDAA's outspoken position. And she notes, "One of the things giving me the luxury to come out publicly against Proposition 21 is Hallinan's stance."
In Los Angeles, a senior federal prosecutor has taken a leading role in convincing both the 23,000-member Los Angeles County Bar to oppose Proposition 21 as well as the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Miriam Krinsky, an attorney in the Los Angeles office of the U.S. attorney -- and the Bar's vice president -- calls the initiative too detailed and sweeping to be considered in one all-encompassing vote. She also said it is too hard to undo if it doesn't pass the test of time.
In addition, she says, "in the Bar's view, with the checks and balances of appellate review, the current system of judicial review works appropriately and well and shouldn't be made automatic."
But of all those in the criminal justice system, probation officers are probably the most vehement opponents of Proposition 21.
Now the chief probation officer in Santa Cruz County, John Rhoads has spent 32 years in his profession and supervises 68 officers. Proposition 21 would create a "culture change," he says by overturning the concept that juveniles should be treated differently from adults. "Now a shakedown for lunch money or pushing a kid off a bike and taking it would qualify for transfer [to adult court]."
More cases filed there, he argues, "means elongated stays, more crowding, more incarcerated in jails from gangs, less informal probation, a dramatic increase in budgets for the care of court wards, more to ranches, more staff, more violations of probation, more impact on current program -- nothing good can come of this."
But Datig and other proponents are counting on voters continuing to think first and last about the victims of crime and their incalculable costs.
If crime overall, and violent juvenile crime in particular, has dropped in the past decade, Datig says, it's because local jurisdictions have established gang strike forces, and "because law enforcement and district attorneys are on the front line ... surely [our opponents] don't suggest that public defenders and juvenile court judges are fighting crime."