Author Archives: Kim

Want a job?

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Last week I had a meeting with several local criminal-justice agency heads. One thing we discussed was their hiring needs, so I thought this would be a good time to discuss how someone qualifies for a job in law enforcement (there are plenty of other CJ jobs too, but the qualifications for those vary).

In every jurisdiction, the minimum criteria to become a police officer include a high school diploma (or GED) and a record clean of felonies. A driver’s license is usually mandatory too. Once upon a time, those things would have been enough to get you a job as a cop.

Nowadays, though, most agencies want more. Some want an associate degree or a bachelor’s degree. All of them will require a clean background check, which means not just lack of criminal activity but also good credit and good associates. Agencies will check candidates’ social media accounts. They may use a lie detector. They will also ask about drug use. Standards for this have shifted, but at least in my area, agencies won’t hire anyone who has ever used hard drugs or who has used pot within the past year or two (even though it’s now legal here).

In many states, applicants will be subject to a psychological evaluation. They’ll also be given a physical agility test and a test to evaluate their ability to communicate clearly in writing.

New police officers have to go through training, of course. Some agencies want new hires to have already completed the academy, but others, especially the larger ones, will hire people first and pay them as they go through the academy.

Last week the chiefs said their ideal candidate is someone who can pass the background check and tests, who has strong writing skills, who has CJ experience as an intern, and who shows a meaningful commitment to the community.

Right now almost every police agency in the US is desperate for strong candidates. The Las Vegas PD has 600 openings! During a recent trip to Vegas, I saw them advertising on the Strip. I don’t know what kind of applicants they think they’ll get from that.

House arrest

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Like many people, I lead a hectic life: a demanding day job, another job as an author, a busy family. Some days I spend all my time running from the office to the kids’ schools to the office to the store to the bank to the store to the grocer to my house to the schools…. You get the drill. So perhaps it’s understandable if I occasionally have brief fantasies about having some wonderful excuse not to leave the house.

Like house arrest, maybe?

House arrest is an alternative to detention (jail or prison). It may be used while a suspect is awaiting trial or after he is convicted, as an alternative to locking him up. It’s generally used when the person is low risk and when incarceration might be difficult due to health concerns, family issues, or financial situations. In addition to making the person’s life easier than incarceration might, house arrest can have fewer bad effects on his family. It’s also cheaper than incarceration and helps reduce prison overcrowding.

When a person is placed under house arrest, he’s forbidden from leaving his home. There will usually be some exceptions, however. He is often allowed to go to work, medical appointments, religious services, and the like.

A person placed under house arrest is usually required to check in regularly with a probation officer. He’s also subject to having the probation officer make announced visits to his home. Technology has improved the ability to monitor people under house arrest. In previous years, probation officers might check in by calling the residence to ensure the person was home. But today the person might wear ankle bracelets with GPS tracking. Or they may be required to call in periodically via cell phone; the probation officer can track the location of the call.

I think if I were placed on house arrest, I’d probably go stir crazy after a short time. Still, it would be far better than sitting in jail.

Change of scenery

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Detective Jim Hamilton picked up his coffee and took another sip. He needed to get back to work—he had a long list of witnesses to interview—but outside, the wind roared and the snow was beginning to pile up. “I’m sick of winter,” he aid.

His partner, Detective Maria Soto, shrugged. “It’s only January, dude. You’ve got a lot of winter left to go.”

“No, I mean I’m sick of it in general, not just for this year.”

“Minneapolis. Comes with the territory.”

He sighed. “Yeah. You know what? I think I’m gonna move. They’re hiring in Phoenix and Honolulu and LA. No—San Diego. I’m gonna get a job with the SDPD.”

When a police officer moves from one department to another, it’s called a lateral transfer. Unfortunately for Jim, it’s not an easy thing.

To begin with, the officer is going to lose all seniority. It’s probably taken Jim years to work up to detective, but if he leaves Minneapolis, he’s going to be ranked with brand-new rookies. That alone might be enough to dissuade him, but he’s also going to have to start fresh with a brand-new retirement system.

In addition, training requirements for police vary across jurisdictions. While some places might hire him as is, others could require additional training or certification. Some, like California, will make him go through the entire police academy process again (although many police departments may be willing to pay his salary while he’s doing so).

The difficulty of lateral transfers is one thing that distinguishes the US police structure from most other countries. The majority of countries do most of their policing at the federal level, and it’s relatively easy for employees to transfer. The same is true of employees of American federal agencies such as the FBI and the ATF. But the vast majority of American police officers work for local agencies, and they will usually find it hard to move. Looks like poor Jim’s going to have to tough it out until retirement.

Plot bunny: olde tyme forensics

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Usually I focus these posts on the criminal justice system in the modern US. But today I’m veering from that a bit to give you a plot bunny. This one might come in handy if you’re writing a historical or spec fic.

We generally think of forensics—the use of science to help solve crimes—as a modern phenomenon. Certainly, in recent years we’ve made much wider and more frequent use of forensics, and science has made huge advancements. But even hundreds of years ago, science was occasionally used in criminal cases.

As far as I can tell, the earliest documented example of this was a Chinese judge named Song Ci, who was born in the late 12th century. He wrote a textbook called Washing Away of Wrongs. Among other things, his book described an early use of forensic entomology, or the use of insects as crime evidence.

Your book’s setting might not allow for state-of-the-art DNA analysis or spectroscopic analysis of paint samples. But even if your book is set in a pre-industrialized locale, you could take inspiration from Song Ci and make use of some scientific detection methods.

You’re out: three strikes

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Jamie looked resignedly at his public defender. “Fine. Fine. Yeah, I stole that crap from Walmart. Big deal. I’ll plead guilty, the judge’ll give me probation, and I can get on with my life. Right?”

But his lawyer shook her head. “You don’t understand. The DA’s charging this one as burglary. A felony.”

“So? I do a stint in jail.”

“Prison. And more than a stint.”

He frowned at her. “For stealing movies from Walmart?”

“Remember those two convictions you had for assault with a deadly weapon?”

“Those were over twenty years ago! I was a stupid kid. But I did my time, and I haven’t touched a gun or anything since.”

“I know.” The lawyer sighed. “But you have two violent felony convictions. You’re looking at 25 to life.”

Poor Jamie has just found himself on the wrong end of a three-strikes law.

Several jurisdictions have passed these laws; most were enacted in the mid 90s, in the midst of the push to get tough on crime. They’re also known as habitual offender laws—or, more familiarly, the Bitch (as in, poor Jamie just got Bitched). The purpose of these laws was to increase penalties for repeat offenders.

The laws vary across jurisdiction, but they generally increase penalties severely for third offenses. And by severely, we could be talking life sentences. In order to qualify, the offender must have been convicted of his third (or greater) felony. In some cases the first two felonies might need to be for violent offenses, but the third one need not. In California, for instance, someone like Jamie could face life for a fairly minor third felony.

Another interesting facet about three-strikes laws is that in some cases—like California—the first two strikes can be for certain violent offenses that were prosecuted by juvenile courts. That takes a lot of people by  surprise.

Incidentally, there’s no real indication that these laws reduce crime. But they could make an interesting plot point.

 

Plot bunny: plea bargaining dilemma

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Last week I gave you a plot bunny (big city cop in a small town!), and here I am with another. This one will work pretty well if you want a sympathetic protagonist with a criminal record.

Here are the facts. About 95% of criminal cases never make it to trial. The primary reason for that is plea bargaining, in which the defendant agrees to plead guilty—often to lesser charges—in exchange for a reduced sentence. (For more on plea bargains, check this previous post.)

Plea bargains offer a lot of potential benefits. The defense attorney has a lighter caseload. So does the prosecutor—who also gets another conviction credited to her. The courts have fewer cases, resulting in less expense and less backlog. And guilty defendants get a lighter punishment.

But. What if the defendant is innocent? What if he honestly didn’t commit the crime, but his defense attorney comes to him with a deal from the DA: plead guilty and spend, say, 5 years in prison, or go to trial and risk getting convicted and spending  even longer locked up? What if the stakes in this gamble are really high—as in a potential life sentence? What’s our poor, innocent hero going to do? Well??

(Incidentally, that handsome plot bunny was drawn by the very talented Catherine Dair. You should check out her other work!)

Plot bunny: big city cop

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I’m doing something a little different this week. Instead of giving you criminal justice facts, I’m giving you a plot bunny. If you write romantic suspense, listen up! Because this is a book I’d love to see written.

Here’s the background you need to know. Serious crimes like homicides don’t happen often in small towns, yet these crimes usually require experienced investigators if they’re going to be handled well. One way some towns get around this conundrum is by contracting with police departments in larger cities. If someone gets murdered in Tiny Town, the local cops can call on the homicide detectives from nearby Big City to investigate. The locals are still going to be involved, of course, but the Big City detectives will lead the show.

So… someone in your Tiny Town turns up dead. Make it someone juicy. The mayor? The high school principal? The mysterious reclusive millionaire with the estate at the edge of town? Local cops call in Detective Sexy from your Big City to see what’s what. And maybe sparks fly between Det. Sexy and Tiny Town’s police chief—but so do tempers, because maybe the chief isn’t best pleased at the detective’s big city ways.

Write this. Please?

History of juries

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I sort of have a thing for history, and today I’m indulging myself by talking about the history of juries.

Like many other components of our legal system, juries come to us from Merry Olde England. Way back when—and I do mean way back, because we’re talking at least as early as the 12th century—a group of local men would investigate claims and present the evidence under oath to the judge. Essentially they were both prosecutors and witnesses, and they were called presenting juries. This is quite different from our modern concept of jurors as people who initially know nothing about a crime, although presenting juries still exist to an extent in our modern system; today we call them grand juries, and their job is to determine whether enough evidence exists to proceed with a criminal prosecution.

In 1166, in an act called the Assize of Clarendon, King Henry II required presenting juries throughout England. This was part of his effort to standardize the legal system throughout the country and also to ensure he maintained power in a way that wouldn’t piss off his subjects too much. (This was shortly after the Norman Conquest, when not much love was lost between the Anglo-Saxon commoners and the Norman nobility.) It was a clever idea in that it provided local input into prosecutions while still allowing the king-appointed judges to be in charge. The size of juries was already set at twelve men, although the precise reason for this is not certain.

At this point many criminal cases were still tried by the Catholic church using trial by ordeal. The accused would do something dangerous, like carrying a hot iron, and if he wasn’t harmed, it meant God had been protecting him, which indicated he was innocent. But in 1215 Pope Innocent III called the Fourth Lateran Council. Among other things, the council forbade priests from officiating over trials by ordeal.

As it turns out, 1215 was an important year law-wise, because it’s also the year in which Magna Carta was signed. Magna Carta was essentially a peace treaty between King John and a bunch of unhappy barons who’d been at war with him. The charter limited the king’s powers in several respects, and it guaranteed trial by jury—at least for noblemen.

Stripped of the ability to use trial by ordeal and with Magna Carta as a model, the English legal system turned to those presenting juries as a handy way to determine guilt. These new kinds of juries were called petit juries—small juries—and over the years they were invested with a surprising amount of power, including  jury nullification. That’s the power to essentially ignore the law and acquit an guilty defendant when doing so is just.

English colonists brought their legal system to America. And we ran with the idea of juries, maybe due in part to our populist ideals. Today, the US uses juries more extensively than any country in the world—including the UK, which has scaled back on them in several respects. Most countries don’t use juries at all, leaving it to the judge to determine guilt. Here in the US, the laws and rules regarding juries have evolved as well, but in essence juries are an institution that has been in place for a millennium or so.

Warranted: the exclusionary rule

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Today is the final post on warrants—at least for now.

I’ll start with a story. In 1957, Cleveland police were looking for evidence of a bombing, and although Dollree Mapp wasn’t the suspect, they believed she might have evidence in her home. But she refused to let them in. So they returned a few hours later, waving a paper and claiming it was a search warrant. She snatched the paper and shoved it down the front of her dress; they wrestled her and took the paper back. With Mapp in cuffs, they proceeded to search her house. Inside a trunk in the basement they found pornographic books and pictures (the property, Mapp said, of a previous tenant). They arrested Mapp and prosecuted her for possession of illegal pornography. No warrant was ever produced at trial. It’s pretty clear none ever existed.

Mapp appealed her conviction all the way to the Supreme Court, arguing that because police did not have a warrant, the search violated her 4th Amendment rights. Therefore, she said, the evidence should be thrown out of court and her conviction overturned.

In Mapp v. Ohio, SCOTUS agreed. They articulated the exclusionary rule, which says that illegally obtained evidence can’t be used in court. This is a powerful rule because it means that sometimes people we know are guilty will still go free because the cops screwed up. But, the Court said, the rule was the only realistic way to deter police misconduct and protect constitutional rights.

As you might imagine, the exclusionary rule has been unpopular among a lot of people. Over the years, SCOTUS has carved out a number of exceptions to the rule. But the heart of the rule remains intact.

And this concludes our whirlwind tour of warrants!