41. Almost by definition, the shadow vigilante cannot meet the rules for the moral vigilante as laid out in chapter 5: shadow vigilantes typically do not give prior warnings, as rule 6 requires; typically do not report afterward what they have done and why, as rule 9 requires; and also commonly act alone, as rule 8 forbids. However, a group might be formed to coordinate activities in ways that might come closer to meeting chapter 5's rules. An organization might publish guidelines and advice about what shadow vigilante actions people should take and why, and to report what is done and why.
CHAPTER 11. BLOWBACK AND THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL
1. Julie L. Whitman and Robert C. Davis, Snitches Get Stitches: Youth, Gangs, and Witness Intimidation in Massachusetts (Washington, DC: National Center for Victims of Crime, 2007), http://archives.lib.state.ma.us/handle/2452/38544 (accessed June 21, 2017).
2. Ice Cube, Laugh Now, Cry Later, Lench Mob Records, 2006.
3. David Kocieniewski, “With Witnesses at Risk, Murder Suspects Go Free,” New York Times, March 1, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/nyregion/01witness.html (accessed June 21, 2017).
4. Jamie Masten, “Ain't No Snitches Ridin’ wit’ Us: How Deception in the Fourth Amendment Triggered the Stop Snitching Movement,” Ohio State Law Journal 70 (2009): 701, 702–704.
5. Tom Farrey, “Snitching Controversy Goes Well beyond ‘Melo,’” ESPN Magazine, January 18, 2006, http://www.espn.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=farrey_tom&id=2296590 (accessed June 21, 2017).
6. Masten, “Ain't No Snitches,” p. 705.
7. David Kocieniewski, “So Many Crimes, and Reasons to Not Cooperate,” New York Times, December 30, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/nyregion/30witness.html (accessed November 14, 2017).
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Kocieniewski, “With Witnesses at Risk.”
14. Ibid.
15. David Kocieniewski, “A Little Girl Shot, and a Crowd That Didn't See,” New York Times, July 9, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/nyregion/09taj.html (accessed June 21, 2017).
16. Kocieniewski, “So Many Crimes.”
17. David Kocieniewski, “In Prosecution of Gang, a Chilling Adversary: The Code of the Streets,” New York Times, September 19, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/nyregion/19gangs.html (accessed June 21, 2017).
18. Kocieniewski, “Little Girl Shot.”
19. David Kocieniewski, “Keeping Witnesses off Stand to Keep Them Safe,” New York Times, November 19, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/nyregion/19witness.html (accessed June 21, 2017).
20. Kocieniewski, “With Witnesses at Risk.”
21. Kelly Dedel, “Witness Intimidation, Guide No. 42 (2006),” Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, http://www.popcenter.org/problems/witness_intimidation/ (accessed June 21, 2017).
22. J. David Goodman, “As Shootings Rise in New York, Police Focus on a Small Number of Young Men,” New York Times, July 21, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/nyregion/as-shootings-rise-in-new-york-police-focus-on-a-small-number-of-young-men.html (accessed June 21, 2017).
23. Kocieniewski, “Keeping Witnesses.”
24. Mark Di Ionno, “The Killing Cycle: Inside Story of the Essex County Homicide Squad as It Tries to Break the Murder Chain,” Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), August 14, 2011, http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/08/essex_county_homicide_squad_in.html (accessed June 21, 2017).
25. “Police: Too Many Murders Are Unresolved Because Witnesses Refuse to Speak,” KMOV, October 16, 2014, http://www.kmov.com/story/28469636/police-too-many-murders-are-unresolved-because-witnesses-refuse-to-speak (accessed June 21, 2017).
26. Kocieniewski, “Keeping Witnesses.”
27. Rafael Di Tella, Sebastian Edwards, and Ernesto Schargrodsky, The Economics of Crime: Lessons For and From Latin America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), p. 331.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. Justin Fenton, “Baltimore Police Struggle to Close Murders with Few Talking,” Baltimore Sun, June 7, 2012, http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-jerry-isaac-murder-20120515-story.html (accessed June 21, 2017).
31. Essex County's Murder Map, “Getting Away with Murder,” Star Ledger (Newark, NJ), http://www.nj.com/news/murder/ (accessed June 21, 2017).
32. Kocieniewski, “With Witnesses at Risk.”
33. Ibid.
34. David Kocieniewski, “Few Choices in Shielding of Witnesses,” New York Times, October 28, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/nyregion/28witness.html (accessed June 21, 2017).
35. David Kocieniewski, “Keeping Witnesses.”
36. Ibid.
37. Kocieniewski, “With Witnesses at Risk.”
38. Todd Murphy, “Ignatow Witness Pleads Guilty to Evidence Tampering,” Courier Journal (Louisville, KY), December 3, 1991.
39. Kocieniewski, “With Witnesses at Risk.” However, in Brooklyn and Prince George's County, Maryland, the state and district attorneys are personally handling all single-witness cases. Even though in Prince George's County the prosecution has lost four cases in the past thirteen months from 2006 to 2007 with single witnesses, he continues to pursue these cases, stating, “If you have a single witness and you believe their story, I believe you've got to go forward, even if it's a case you might lose. I'm not going to give the gang members, the murderers and the rapists an easy out. And if they know that all they have to do is get your case down to one witness, I think it would encourage them to use even more intimidation.”
The total number of murders in Prince George's County has steadily declined from 2005 to 2012 (150 to 49), while the population has grown from 840,000 to 881,000. United States Census Bureau, “QuickFacts: Prince George's County, Maryland,” United States Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/24033 (accessed June 21, 2017).
40. Kocieniewski, “Keeping Witnesses.”
41. Kocieniewski, “Little Girl Shot.”
42. Kocieniewski, “With Witnesses at Risk.” The same article explains how at least fourteen recent murderers had been identified but not prosecuted due to lack of additional witnesses and evidence.
43. Abby Rogers, “The 25 Most Dangerous Cities in America,” Business Insider, November 4, 2012, http://www.businessinsider.com/the-25-most-dangerous-cities-in-america-2012-10 (accessed June 21, 2017).
44. For data on Newark, see “Crime Rate in Newark, New Jersey (NJ),” City Data, http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Newark-New-Jersey.html (accessed June 21, 2017). The average murder rate (per 100,000) was 9.02 for the following thirteen cities (the closest in size to Newark according to the 2013 United States Census population estimates): Anchorage, Stockton, Fort Wayne, St. Paul, Lincoln, Henderson, Jersey City, Buffalo, Greensboro, Cincinnati, Toledo, Pittsburgh, and Plano. The national average murder rate in 2012 was 4.7. “Uniform Crime Reports, 2011–2012,” FBI, https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/cities-and-counties-grouped-by-size-population-group (accessed June 21, 2017). Not all jurisdictions take this approach. In Prince George's County, Maryland, another area with high gang activity, the position is that failure to prosecute encourages witness intimidation. Prosecutors are bringing cases to trial and getting an 80 percent homicide conviction rate. Kocieniewski, “With Witnesses at Risk.”
45. Larry McShane, “3 Girls Defy ‘Lie or Die’ Note, Help Put Shooter Away,” Los Angeles Times, November 24, 2002, http://articles.latimes.com/2002/nov/24/news/adna-witnesses24 (accessed June 14, 2017).
46. McShane, “3 Girls Defy ‘Lie or Die.’”
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. Buffa, “Jury Jolted by News.”
50. McShane, “3 Girls Defy ‘Lie or Die.’”
51. For details on the aftermath, see the postscript.
52. This narrative is drawn primarily from the following sources: John Appe
zzato, “Reputed Bloods Member Arraigned in Newark Slaying,” Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), September 3, 2008, http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/reputed_bloods_member_arraigne.html (accessed June 21, 2017); Damien Cave and John Holl, “Arrest in Newark Alters Story of Year-Old Quadruple Murder,” New York Times, December 9, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/nyregion/arrest-in-newark-alters-story-of-yearold-quadruple-murder.html (accessed June 21, 2017); Alexi Friedman, “Two Men Acquitted in Shooting Death of a 41-Year-Old Man in Newark,” Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), March 4, 2010, http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/newark_man_is_found_innocent_i.html (accessed June 21, 2017); Katherine Santiago, “Newark Man Gets 16 Years in Prison for Killing Witness to Quadruple Shooting,” Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), September 17, 2009, http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/09/newark_man_sentenced_to_16_yea.html (accessed June 21, 2017).
53. An officer says Melvin “brazenly remained at the scene of the Lamar McMillan homicide and pretended to be a witness to the incident” (Cave and Holl, “Arrest in Newark”).
54. For the aftermath, see the postscript.
55. While the jury believed race played no role in their decision to support the officers’ actions against Rodney King, much of South Los Angeles vehemently disagreed. Americans across the country were outraged over the verdict. Just a few hours after the world learned of the officers’ acquittals, the city, according to Time magazine, would be known for “the worst single episode of urban unrest in American history.” Madison Grey, “The LA Riots: 15 Years after Rodney King,” Time, April 2007, http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/la_riot/article/0,28804,1614117_1615206_1614675,00.html (accessed June 21, 2017). The LAPD did not properly prepare for the verdict and the city's response, as they lost control of the streets in South Los Angeles, Koreatown, Hollywood, Mid-City, Pico-Union, and the Civic Center. Patrick Range McDonald, “Then & Now: Images from the Same Spot as the LA Riots, 20 Years Later,” LA Weekly, http://www.laweekly.com/microsites/la-riots/ (accessed November 17, 2017). Citizens set more than three thousand fires (damaging over eleven hundred buildings), looted stores across the city, and even physically assaulted other motorists on the road. The riots forced Mayor Tom Bradley to declare a state of emergency and Governor Pete Wilson to send in the California Army National Guard. The 1992 Los Angeles Riots lasted nearly six days, left more than fifty dead, injured over four thousand, and cost the city about one billion dollars in property damage. Seth Mydans, “The Police Verdict; Los Angeles Policemen Acquitted in Taped Beating,” New York Times, April 30, 1992, http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/02/08/home/rodney-verdict.html (accessed November 17, 2017).
56. Paul H. Robinson, “Black Lives Movement Can Improve Justice System,” Philadelphia Inquirer, December 15, 2015, http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/thinktank/Black-Lives-movement-can-improve-justice-system.html (accessed June 21, 2017).
CHAPTER 12. THE DAMAGES AND DANGERS OF THE COMMUNITY PERCEIVING THE SYSTEM AS BEING INDIFFERENT TO DOING JUSTICE
1. See part II of Paul H. Robinson, Intuitions of Justice and the Utility of Desert (New York: Oxford, 2013), pp. 96–208.
2. Paul H. Robinson and Sarah M. Robinson, Pirates, Prisoners, and Lepers: Lessons from Life Outside the Law (Omaha, NE: Potomac Books, 2015), p. 61.
3. A follow-up study used a slightly different methodology. Instead of the “within-subjects design” used in the former study, it used a “between-subjects design.” That is, instead of asking the same subjects their views before and after being “disillusioned” about the criminal justice system, the study used separate groups. Some were seriously disillusioned, some only mildly disillusioned, and some were not disillusioned at all. Then all subjects were asked the same deference and compliance questions. The study found that the extent of the disillusionment determined the extent to which the subjects would defer to the criminal justice system. Another study did not collect new data but sought to determine whether the same dynamic was present in some of the very large datasets of previously collected survey data. A regression analysis gave these results: the moral credibility measure in the study explains more of the variance in the “willingness to defer” measure than any of the other measures. In fact, it is the only predictor that is statistically significant. Robinson, Intuitions of Justice, chap. 9.
4. Paul H. Robinson and John M. Darley, “The Utility of Desert,” Northwestern University Law Review 91 (1997): 468–69.
5. Mark David Agrast et al., The World Justice Project: Rule of Law Index 2012–2013 (Washington, DC: World Justice Project, 2012–2013), p. 161, http://www.worldjusticeproject.org/sites/default/files/WJP_Index_Report_2012.pdf (accessed June 15, 2017). In a global survey of ninety-seven countries, the United States ranked twenty-sixth in the overall criminal justice category, which included questions pertaining to the efficacy and impartiality of a country's criminal justice system.
6. Lydia Saad, “Americans Express Mixed Confidence in Criminal Justice System,” Gallup, Washington, DC, July 11, 2011, http://www.gallup.com/poll/148433/americans-express-mixed-confidence-criminal-justice-system.aspx (accessed June 15, 2017). In 1999, the Hearst Corporation authorized a comprehensive national survey, “How the Public Views State Courts,” that was coordinated by the National Center for State Courts. The survey found that only 10 percent of the respondents felt the courts in their communities handled cases in an “excellent” manner. Additionally, respondents who reported a higher knowledge about the courts expressed lower confidence in the courts in their community, while 42 to 57 percent of respondents said the slow pace of justice and the complexity of the law contributes “a lot” to the cost of going to court. National Center for State Courts, “How the Public Views State Courts,” University of Nebraska Public Policy Center no. 25 (1999): 7.
7. “Confidence in Institutions,” Gallup, Washington, DC, June 4, 2013, http://www.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx (accessed June 15, 2017).
8. Ibid.
9. Perceptions of US Justice System (Chicago, IL: American Bar Association, 1999), http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/marketresearch/PublicDocuments/perceptions_of_justice_system_1999_2nd_half.authcheckdam.pdf (accessed June 15, 2017), reprinted in Albany Law Review 62 (1999): 1307.
10. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, in 1961, Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478, in 1964, and Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, in 1966.
11. Allen Rostron, “The Law and Order Theme in Political and Popular Culture,” Oklahoma City University Law Review 37 (2012): 323, 326.
12. David A. Nichols, Matter of Justice: Eisenhower and the Beginning of the Civil Rights Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), pp. 91–101; see also Ronald Kahn and Ken I. Kersch, eds., The Supreme Court and American Political Development (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006), p. 442.
13. Richard A. Leo, “The Impact of Miranda Revisited,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 86, no. 3 (1996): 621.
14. See George Gallup, “2 to 1 View: Confession Ruling Bad,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 27, 1966, http://newspaperarchive.com/salt-lake-tribune/1966-07-27/page-7 (accessed June 15, 2017).
15. Tom R. Tyler, “Public Mistrust of the Law: A Political Perspective,” University of Cincinnati Law Review 66 (1998): 847, 851, table 2. These data are from the US Department of Justice: Michael J. Hindeland et al., eds., Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1973), pp. 146–47, tables 2.36, 2.37; Bureau of Justice Statistics: Timothy J. Flanagan et al., eds., Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 1981 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1982), pp. 204–205, table 2.33; and Kathleen Maguire and Ann L. Pastore, eds., Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 1994 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1995), pp. 174–75, table 2.43; Rostron, “Law and Order Theme,” 326–27.
16. Johnny Firecloud, “10 Best Vigilante Films,” Crave Online, http://www.craveonline.com/culture/142210-10-best-vigilante-films (accessed June 15, 2017). Note that many of these movies use as triggers
for the protagonist's vigilante action some of the failure-of-justice doctrines discussed in chapters 6–9, such as Law Abiding Citizen (reliable DNA evidence excluded), Death Sentence (improperly short sentence), and Sudden Impact (one of Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry movies; evidence excluded for improper search). In a few instances, the storyline plays upon the problems that come from frustrated classic and “shadow” vigilantes (see chapters 13 and 14) who pervert the system, thereby requiring the hero to act, such as Righteous Kill (the hero played by De Niro must go classic vigilante to do justice because frustrated shadow vigilante cops have planted evidence, allowing the guilty to hide from justice), The Star Chamber (a vigilante judge played by Douglas must be taken down), and Brotherhood of Justice (Keanu Reeves as head of a high school vigilante group fighting crime that spins out of control; based on the real case discussed in chapter 4).
CHAPTER 13. WHAT IT TAKES TO STOP THE VIGILANTE ECHO
1. Paul H. Robinson and John M. Darley, “Intuitions of Justice: Implications for Criminal Law and Justice Policy,” Southern California Law Review 81, no. 1 (2007): 1.
2. Paul H. Robinson and Michael T. Cahill, Law without Justice: Why Criminal Law Doesn't Give People What They Deserve (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), chaps. 9 and 10.
3. Ibid., pp. 222–24.
4. P. J. and J. H. v. The United Kingdom, European Court of Human Rights, Application no. 44787/98, Strasbourg, Germany, September 25, 2001, para. 76; see generally Paul H. Robinson and Sarah M. Robinson, Pirates, Prisoners, and Lepers: Lessons from Life Outside the Law (Omaha, NE: Potomac Books, 2015), pp. 198–203.
CONCLUSION
1. The doctrines that create deviations from deserved punishment and how they might be reformed are examined in Paul H. Robinson and Michael T. Cahill, Law without Justice: Why Criminal Law Doesn't Give People What They Deserve (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
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