Manslaughter is a form of illegal homicide. Unlike murder, which generally requires an intent to kill, the crime of manslaughter is based on a voluntary but reckless act that leads to another person’s death. In this instance, Brent’s criminal liability would be based on his voluntarily drinking alcohol to such a degree that his driving was a reckless act.

If it turns out that Brent was legally drunk, prosecutors might charge him with the more severe crime of second degree murder. Second degree murder is appropriate when an unintended killing is the result of gross recklessness. Brent was convicted of DUI in 2009, about 3 years before Brown’s death. The prior DUI makes Brent’s decision to drink and drive even more reprehensible, and may constitute gross recklessness that elevates his crime to second degree murder. Sadly, his “celebrity status” as a professinal football player may discourage local prosecutors from charging him with murder.

On the same ballot, an initiative to eliminate the death penalty was defeated by about 5 percentage points. This is a rather narrow margin of victory for death penalty proponents. A decade or so ago, they could have counted on about 70% support. The tea leaves seem easy to read– the death penalty is on its way out in California. WIth the availability of LWOP sentences- life with no possibility of parole- the death penalty is no longer the only guarantee that dangerous offenders will never be released back into society. Cost is also a factor. The cost of prosecuting capital cases and housing inmates on death row is immense, especially since most inmates sentenced to death remain on death row for decades and die before they are executed.

Lurking behind these rulings is a sense that juvenile offenders may not be fully aware of the seriousness of their crimes, no matter how heinous they may be. Moreover, in a country that prides itself on second chances and the possibility of redemption, incarcerating people forever for a crime they committed when they weren’t old enough to vote seems unduly harsh and unforgiving as well as incredibly expensive.

In the 2012 case of People v. Caballero, the California Supreme Court extended the reasoning of Graham to a case in which a juvenile convicted of attempted murder was ineligible for parole until he had served 110 years. The California court decided that a minimum sentence of 110 years is the functional equivalent of a mandatory life sentence. The ruling allows prisoners to file writs of habeas corpus in trial courts, asking judges to consider their suitability for parole based on their “demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.”

California Governor Jerry Brown extended this trend when he signed new legislation allowing for the possibility of parole to juveniles who had been convicted of murder and given no-parole sentences. Under the new law, which takes effect in 2013, offenders must serve a minimum of 15 years in prison and their record while in prison must demonstrate remorse and steps towards rehabilitation. (The new law does not apply to those offenders who tortured their victims or killed a police officer.)

None of these changes constitutes an automatic ticket to freedom. But they do offer hope to juvenile offenders, and motivation to work on themselves while they are in prison.

In the June 2012 cases of Jackson v. Hobbs and Miller v. Alabama, the Court by a 5-4 vote extended the rule by holding that the 8th Amendment is also violated if juvenile offenders are automatically given an LWOP sentence (life without possibility of parole) under statutes that provide for “automatic LWOP.” The ruling allows “individualized” LWOP sentencing of juveniles based on the circumstances of individual cases, so juveniles may receive LWOP sentences in the future.

Murders committed by juveniles are often as horrific as those committed by adults, and their age in no way lessens the effects of their crimes on victims’ family members and friends. Nevertheless, automatic LWOP sentences for juveniles seems unfair. As the majority argued, juveniles have less impulse control than adults, and they have had less time than adults to escape the impact of factors that are often assiciated with violent crimes, such as poverty and and child abuse.

Even the worst juvenile offenders have the capacity to lift the human spirit and offer hope if, perhaps over the course of a few decades of imprisonment, they are able to change their lives so positively that they are fit to live decent and productive lives. The limited lifeline that the Supreme Court offered in these two cases is a worthy step in the right direction.

In the recent case of US v. DeLeon, decided by the federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, statements made by an 8 year old child to a social worker were held to be NOT testimonial and therefore admissible in evidence. This is potentially important because many judges have struggled to find a way of allowing hearsay when the circumstances warrant.

What happened is that a father was charged with murdering his stepson. Sometime prior to his death, a social worker, at the behest of a teacher, talked to the child about bruises that the teacher had noticed on his body. The social worker testified at the murder trial to what the murdered boy had told her. The Court said this this was proper, since the social worker was trying to formulate a treatment plan rather than investigate a crime. Also, there was no police investigation of the defendant’s behavior at the time the social worker spoke to the boy.

Most of the time prosecutors have been losing these confrontation clause arguments. This time, the prosecutor won.

Ravi’s sentence also illustrates the challenges that judges confront when they have to punish behavior that is perhaps as insensitive and immature as it is illegal. People all too often engage in behavior that is demeaning, intimidating or ignorant. But if all such activity were deemed to be criminal, jails would be more crowded than urban freeways. Moreover, at the outer edges the notion of “equal justice for all” is challenged by punishment that differs according to the circumstances of particular victims. Ravi is fortunate that the judge sentenced him to a short jail term rather than a few years in prison. But given the difficulty of drawing rational lines between ignorant and criminal actions, the judge probably got it about right. Whatever the answers to motivating people to accept others for who and what they are, the criminal justice system is unlikely to provide them.

During his final pre-verdict remarks to the jury, the defense lawyer had made an argument that examplifies the fact that circumstantial evidence always gives rise to conflicting inferences. The evidence showed that a few days after Shaw was killed, Espinoza kept his appointment to meet with his parole officer. The defense lawyer argued that the evidence supported an inference that Espinoza was not the killer: if he had killed Shaw, Espinoza surely wouldn’t risk a meeting with a parole officer. But the jurors might well have concluded that the evidence was consistent with Espinoza’s guilt. If he had killed someone a few days earlier, Espinoza would want to avoid looking suspicious or lead the police to come looking for him by failing to keep an appointment with a parole officer.

The jury will decide next whether tim recommend that Espinoza be sentenced to death.

The US Supreme Court is likely to answer this question when it decides the cases of Dorsey v. US and Hill vs. US. The decision is particularly important because the former sentences for crack cocaine violations were widely viewed as racist. Crack cocaine was a “black man’s crime” while powder cocaine was a “white man’s crime,” and until the passage of the Fair Sentencing Act violators of crack cocaine laws werepunished far more harshly than violators of powder cocaine laws.

Whichever way the majority rules, the Court’s opinion will no doubt review the Act’s language with a fine tooth comb in the course of deciding what Congress intended. But there’s a good chance that Congress had no intent beyond punting the issue to the courts to make a decision that the legislators should have made themselves.

In my opinion, the only fair outcome is for the Court to apply the reduced sentencing provisions to all those people still awaiting sentencing. The racial disparity in sentences for for violations of the cocaine laws has gone on long enough. Congress has established a more enlightened and fair sentencing policy. Though Congress may not have spoken as clearly as it might have, the Supreme Court needs to apply the new policy to as many people as possible.

While the ruling was a close one, the decision probably reflects as much as anything else the majority’s unwillingness to second guess jailers’ decisions as to when a strip search may be warranted. For one thing, jail personnel might not even know why a person has been brought to jail. Thus, a decision to strip search may be more a product of conditions in the jail than a suspect’s dangerousness.

Moreover, Justice Kennedy’s opinion noted that “about 13 million people are admitted to jails each year,” making it sound like arrestees have gotten into college. Given the goings and comings of the jail population, probably only a small percentage will be strip searched anyway.

Finally, the opinion leaves plenty of room for arrestees to challenge the legality of individual searches. For example, a strip search may be invalid because of the particularly humiliating or dangerous manner in which it was conducted.

Generous as this deal might seem, Frye never had a chance to accept it. The reason: his lawyer never bothered to tell him about the deal, and the deal expired. Frye eventually was arrested for a 5th time for driving with a revoked license. This time he plead guilty and was sentenced to 3 years in prison. Frye challenged the sentence, arguing that his defense lawyer’s ineffective assistance violated his Sixth Amendment right to competent counsel. Had he known about the prosecutor’s offer to the 4th charge, Frye argued, he would have pleaded guilty in a nanosecond and been spared a lengthy prison sentence.

In Missouri v. Frye (2012), the US Supreme Court upheld Frye’s claim. The majority and dissenting opinions debate the wisdom of putting the plea bargaining process under the microscope of the Sixth Amendment. But the shameful behavior of Frye’s lawyer is shocking. Or it would be if it didn’t confirm so many complaints about the shoddy representation provided by all too many criminal defense lawyers.

Neither the majority nor the dissenting opinion mentions the name of Frye’s lawyer, or indicates whether the lawyer was a public defender, a “panel” lawyer appointed by the court or a privately retained lawyer. But it shouldn’t matter. Ethical guidelines adopted by the American Bar Association and virtually all states require criminal defense lawyers to communicate and explain all plea proposals. Sadly, this case is a reminder that in the trenches of the criminal justice system, far too many defendants suffer because of the ineptitude of their lawyers.