An Arizona Based Blog!

An Arizona Based Blog!
I'm not a native of Arizona, and I often wish I was somewhere else, but here is where I am, so here is where I shall make the most of my situation.

Monday, April 1, 2024

Label Me a Dunce, Then....




 Am I the only human on the face of the planet who doesn't appreciate A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole?  It's a Pulitzer Prize winner, for heaven's sake!  

I read it last year and I can't say I'm very much impressed by it.  Sorry?


On the other hand...(which is to say, "calm the fuck down") I am enjoying the chance to learn a bit more about the life of the author, John Kennedy Toole, reading Butterfly in the Typewriter, by Cory MacLauchlin.  Perhaps, personally, this isn't much of a surprise, since I find that I've enjoyed reading more about Hunter Thompson than I have enjoyed reading his works.  Same goes, in some small way, for Ernest Hemingway.  And Capote, come to think of it.  

Should it surprise us that oftentimes, the lives of writers, the details of their existence, are more interesting than their actual writing? Even more so if they came to grief in the end? (Toole, Hemingway and Thompson committed suicide).  Let's consider the reasons.  Obviously if the end is in any way gruesome, then we're interested; that's intuitive.  What draws me to the biography more so is the fact that I don't have to dissect or interpret the life of a writer as laid out by a biographer.  When I read "Hills Like White Elephants" (Hemingway), there's this inevitable pressure to figure out just what the fuck Papa Hemingway was driving at. I recall from an undergraduate course some literary reference to unplanned pregnancy in "...White Elephants," but then there was always some underlying message.  In his "Big Two Hearted River," Hemingway was evidently referring to the stress of a post-war veteran and a form of undiagnosed PTSD in the decades before such a thing existed. We're talking post World War One, before the Great Depression, before World War Two and deep in the "suck it up and move on," world.

So that brings me to John Kennedy Toole and Confederacy of Dunces.  There's an obvious, nearly measurable degree of sadness that comes from the notion of knowing that one's literary work hits the big time after we've killed ourself waiting for publication, right?  Toole's overbearing mother managed to get Confederacy of Dunces published years after John Kennedy killed himself and, perhaps more tragically, the work earned a Pulitzer Prize in the process.

Reading MacLauchlin's tidy biography, I've come to understand where writing dreams can be born, where they might begin to flourish and where they may be snuffed out.  In Toole's case, he borrowed a typewriter from a fellow Army draftee while stationed in Puerto Rico as an English instructor and, there in the solitude of his room, he clacked out the bulk of the effort just prior to the expiration of his enlistment in the early 1960s.  

I recall borrowing a giant, heavy IBM Selectric typewriter from the headquarters office of the unit to which I was assigned in about 1986.  I know a small thing or two about wiling away the off-duty hours clacking away on a typewriter.  In my case, nothing much came of it, but I know where nascent dreams of authorship can expire without one really knowing what's happening. I typed a few witty letters home to friends and family.  I jotted a lot of beer addled gibberish that now resides somewhere in a filing cabinet in the closet.  In the end, I didn't accomplish a damned thing artistically.  I left the army after four years wishing I'd enlisted to be a journalist instead of a cavalry scout. 

Toole had an advanced degree before he was drafted into the Army, he went on in the civilian world to pursue a doctorate and he worked hard to mold A Confederacy of Dunces into a marketable commodity.  God bless him and his effort. 

In the end, he couldn't make the loose ends come together with a large publishing house in New York City.  The editor was never quite happy with the product and Toole became discouraged.  I haven't finished the biography yet, but I know how it will end:  carbon monoxide suicide someplace near Biloxi.  Toole was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for a book nobody seemed to want, after his mother found the manuscript once he was dead and in the ground.

Perhaps it's best if literary dreams die early, in some barracks room, far from home, but in the end, the life lived will be of interest.

     

    



    

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Hi! Remember me?

So much has happened in my life since I last posted here in 2015.

Retired from one job.  Started another job.

Grandkids growing up and nearly out of school.

Bicycling nearly every day.

With all that's gone on, you'd think I would find subject matter to post here, and I do; the problem is in the lack of drive to do so.

For now, enjoy some random pictures from my saved images.  This set is from a cross country drive from New Mexico to North Carolina in 2020.

I do hope to come back here and post more...and more diligently.  I sure hope my blog doesn't get deleted.








Wednesday, March 18, 2015

1917 DWM

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Rough draft ms. for
It's Complicated w/ artwork
It’s Complicated: Arguments For and Against
Capital Punishment as a Deterrent to Crime.
Grand Canyon University: JUS 615
Originally Submitted in November 2011

            Perhaps no question in criminal justice is as polarizing as the question of capital punishment.  Arguments on both sides of the issue abound with proponents arguing that the threat of a death penalty serves as a deterrent (Radelet & Lacock, 2009) and that the imposition of the death penalty satisfies a societal need for retribution and in some cases a need for vengeance (Waller, 2009).  Opponents of the death penalty argue there is no evidence that capital punishment deters crime any more than the threat of long-term incarceration.  Some opponents even point to a so-called brutalization effect that leads to increased homicide rates following each execution of a condemned prisoner (Radelet & Lacock, 2009, p. 496).  Finally, there are opponents who argue from a moral standpoint that killing in response to killing is wrong and that doing so sets a “savage example” for the rest of society (Thomson, 1999, p. 130).  

            A common argument put forth by proponents of capital punishment is the claim that executing convicted murderers serves as a deterrent to others who might contemplate murder or other death-penalty eligible crimes.  Central to deterrence theory is the flimsy notion that criminals act rationally and give consideration to the risks and rewards associated with their illegal activities.  When the consequences are bad enough, the argument goes, individuals will be deterred from participating in the illegal behavior (Flexon, Stolzenberg & D’Alessio, 2011).  There is evidence to suggest that this belief is based largely on nothing more than public opinion.  In the mid-1980s, a Gallup Poll found that 62% of respondents felt the death penalty served as a deterrent to crime.  By 2006 the percentage of respondents who felt that the death penalty served as a deterrent had dropped to 34% (Radelet & Lacock, 2009, p. 492).[i]  It would seem public opinion is coming into line with empirical fact as there does not appear to be widespread empirical evidence that capital punishment acts as a deterrent to crime.  Radelet and Lacock (2009) refer to a National Academy of Sciences study which concluded that “available studies provide no useful evidence on the deterrent effect of capital punishment” (p. 493) and Thomson (1999) notes that studies conducted in 1997 and 1988, “uniformly failed to support deterrence theory” (p. 131).     

            Thomson (1999) refers to two particular studies that offered a unique before and after snapshot of the potential deterrent effect of capital punishment.  Researchers looked at the deterrent effect of executions in Oklahoma and Arizona before and after each state’s imposition of a death sentence following a decade’s long hiatus (25 years in Oklahoma and nearly 30 years in Arizona).  In Oklahoma there was a statistically insignificant decline in homicides following the execution of Charles Troy Coleman in 1990.  In Arizona, slight increases in homicides were detected following the execution of Donald Eugene Harding in 1992 (p. 133-134).  In the end, the results were a wash.

            What is the impact of capital punishment on law enforcement?  Research in this regard is more difficult to extract from the available scholarship, however some inferences can be drawn.  One school of thought subscribes to the notion that homicide crimes may actually increase in the days and weeks following an execution (Colon, 2009, Thomson, 1999).  If this is the case, then naturally local law enforcement is impacted when a death sentence is carried out.  An extension of this would be death penalty cases that are particularly contentious, with agitated factions on each side of the debate mustered in support or opposition to the impending execution.  Law enforcement is definitely impacted by these situations because additional staffing is needed to meet the potential threat of civil unrest. 

            Another area where the threat of capital punishment intersects with the practice of local law enforcement is in the area of specific crime statistics, or the incidence of particular crimes relative to whether the death penalty is an option in the event a perpetrator is apprehended.  Does the threat of a death sentence make a criminal more desperate?  Are potential witnesses more likely to be killed in jurisdictions that impose capital punishment?  While not addressing this sort of relationship directly, Mannheimer (2011) raises the issue of pre-meditation in connection with drive-by shootings in California.  The upshot is that drive-by shooters have made a calculated decision regarding the means by which they carry out their crime and it begs the question: do criminals chose their methods in relation to local death penalty statutes and if so, how does this impact the response of local law enforcement?[ii]

            There can be little doubt that in its current manifestation, capital punishment is not a significant deterrent to crime, however arguments that the death penalty be abolished because it is not a deterrent are narrow-minded and short-sighted.  For all the sound and fury surrounding the issue, the death penalty is rarely imposed.  One commentator noted that 90 percent of those convicted of first-degree murder in California are eligible for the death penalty but that only about 5 percent of all death penalty eligible murderers were actually sentenced to death and that since 1978 California has only actually executed .08 percent of those on death row (Colon, 2009). [iii]  Under this sort of sentencing scheme, one might compare the potential deterrent effect of the death penalty to the deterrent effect of police issued speeding tickets.  The percentage of drivers who actually receive speeding tickets is a very small percentage of the total number of drivers on the road, and thus most drivers speed because the odds of receiving a speeding ticket are small; drivers take a calculated risk.  The same might be said for the potential murderer who, stacking up his odds in a system where a very small percentage of death-penalty eligible defendants are actually put to death, decides he’ll kill the potential witness and take his chances with the hangman.  If every speeding driver received a speeding ticket, speeding and accident rates would decline.  If every murderer were executed – promptly – murder rates would likely decline.  The message then is that capital punishment fails to serve as a useful deterrent because it is so rarely imposed.

            Perhaps Thomson (1999) states the obvious when he notes that “the effect of executions is complicated” (p. 136) but matters of life and death are seldom simple.  Deterrence – or lack of deterrence – as a justification for retaining or abolishing capital punishment is a wobbly, two-legged stool when used on either side of the argument.  One commentator uses the analogy of the lighthouse that warns ships at sea of the impending danger posed by the rocky shoreline.  Observers and commentators can only frame their arguments in terms of those ships that actually hit the rocks since no one can ever know of the untold numbers of ships that navigate safely by as a result of the lighthouse and its constant warning signal (Waller, 2009, p. 274).[iv]  The death penalty is little different; we only know of those cases that went horribly wrong, we never will be able to calculate how many potential murders were stopped as a result of the threat of a sentence of death.  In the end, we might all be better served if the question of capital punishment was revisited and reformed with regard to the potential risk of killing of innocent suspects, or its disparate use against the less affluent and people of color.  I do not advocate abolishing the death penalty, however I do believe that things like verified guilt or innocence, class, and racial status are tangible realities around which to frame an honest debate, and that any alleged deterrent effect has proven to be more a matter of personal feeling than tangible fact.

Postscript October 3, 2012

            I chose this essay as the first to post in my electronic portfolio blog because the issue of capital punishment is so polarizing in our society and because, so often people frame their perceptions and opinions of others within the context of personal beliefs regarding things like the death penalty and abortion, criminal justice reform and immigration issues.  Why not begin this blog with a previous paper that spells out where I am currently in my thinking regarding the issue of capital punishment?  To be sure, my thoughts and opinions are evolving.

            It has been almost exactly a year since this paper was submitted as a weekly assignment for a course entitled Critical Issues in Criminal Justice at Grand Canyon University.  Since that time, I have become even more convinced that discussions regarding the deterrent effect of capital punishment are largely pointless whether they come from advocates or opponents of capital punishment.  Many criminals are irrational and thus unlikely to fully think through the potential consequences of their actions.  Furthermore, with different sentencing regimes from one jurisdiction to another, it is likely that some criminals aren’t even aware of the potential consequences at the time of their crimes.  Finally, given that capital punishment is not applied consistently, it seems likely that some criminals simply accept the odds and commit the crime.

            At this writing, I have just finished reading Ralph F. Voss’s book Truman Capote and the Legacy of In Cold Blood (2011), an outstanding, detailed exploration of Capote’s seminal work of creative non-fiction – his “non-fiction novel” – the account of the killing of four members of the Clutter family in a west Kansas town in the early 1960s and the subsequent search for the killers, their trial and eventual execution.  I read In Cold Blood while in the army during the mid-1980s and ironically, the officer I worked for had grown up in another small town in Kansas and was all too familiar with the story and its impact on small town life at the time.  Personally, I didn’t read In Cold Blood as much more than a journalistic treatment of a hideously tragic crime on a par with Joseph Wambaugh’s The Onion Field, which I read during that same period in my life.[v]  Thanks to Voss’s exploration of Capote’s work, I have gained a better appreciation of the process of writing and perhaps more importantly, I’m more aware of the various subtexts in the work, especially Capote’s anti-capital punishment message, which I must confess, I missed in my first reading of the book.  Perhaps it is time to revisit my worn copy of In Cold Blood.

   

References

 

Colon, S. (2009).  Capital crime:  How California’s administration of the death penalty violates the eighth amendment.  California Law Review, 97(5), 1377-1417.

Flexon, J. L., Stolzenberg, L. & D’Alessio, S. J. (2011).  Cheating the hangman:  the effect of the roper v. simmons decision on homicides committed by juveniles.  Crime & Delinquency, 57(6), 928-949.

Kaufman, S. B. (2011).  Citizenship and punishment:  situating death penalty jury sentencing.  Punishment & Society, 13(3), 333-353.

Mannheimer, M. J. Z. (2011).  Not the crime but the cover-up:  a deterrence-based rationale for the premeditation-deliberation formula.  Indiana Law Journal, 86(3), 879-937.

Radelet, M. L., & Lacock, T. L. (2009).  Do executions lower homicide rates?:  The views of leading criminologists.  The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 99(2), 489-504.

Thomson, E. (1999).  Effects of an execution on homicides in California.  Homicide Studies, 3(2), 129-150.

Voss, R.F. (2011).  Truman capote and the legacy of in cold blood.  Tuscaloosa, AL:  The University of Alabama Press.

Waller, B.N. (2009).  You Decide!  Current debates in Criminal Justice.  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Prentice Hall.

Wambaugh, J. (1973).  The onion field.  New York:  Dell.



[i] I would argue that deterrence ranks high in public opinion polls because high numbers of respondents are personally frightened by the prospect of being executed for a criminal offense and thus they naturally respond in accordance with that very personal belief.  I would further argue that a decline in the number of respondents who view capital punishment as a deterrent is the result of rising personal pessimism in response to a perceived increase in crimes of all sorts, rather than the result of some widespread lessening of personal fear of being executed.  In other words, respondents still fear the personal prospect of being executed but they perceive crime as rampant and no longer hold the view that capital punishment is a means of bringing crime rates down.
[ii] Mannheimer (2011) notes that in California, a shooting would be dealt with differently depending on whether the shooter was sitting on the curb (second-degree murder) or sitting in a car (first-degree murder), because the act of sitting in a car connotes premeditation on the part of the shooter, who has presumably, weighed his options and decided it is more advantageous for him to operate from a vehicle.
[iii] At the national level, Kaufman (2011) notes that “the death penalty is used rarely” (p. 336) and goes on to point out that in 2002 over 14,000 homicides were recorded in the U.S., with just 155 defendants sentenced to death as a result.  Of those 155 sentences, 71 prisoners were executed.
[iv] “We do not have proof of the number of ships it saves, but we do not tear the lighthouse down” (Waller, 2009, p. 274).
[v] Compared to the Clutter family killers, the outcome for the Onion Field killers was drastically different.  Both died of old age behind bars – one a pathetic recidivist after having been paroled and rearrested, the other just this past August, having never left prison though not for lack of trying.








 





   


 








 








 
 


 


   

 


 





Thursday, May 24, 2012


Murder and its Lesser Brethren:
The (Fictitious) Case of Woody Woodburner
© Michael I. Smith, 2012

INSTRUCTOR SCENARIO
At approximately 8:30 p.m. on February 2, 1974, at Indian Gulch, Pennsylvania, Woody Woodburner, his brother, and three friends visited a tavern several miles from Woody's home. They had never been to the tavern and did not know any of the patrons. Woody was carrying a pistol tucked under his belt when he entered the tavern.
At approximately 1:00 a.m., a fight broke out in the men's room between Woody's brother and several other patrons of the tavern. Woody rushed towards the men's room. As he entered the doorway to the men's room, Woody was pushed back by the victim, "Roughhouse" Henry Lee.
There is conflicting testimony concerning what happened next. The Commonwealth's witnesses testified that Woody drew his pistol and shot Roughhouse while they were a few feet apart. Woody testified that he went back into the men's room to look for his brother, and that Roughhouse grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head down. Woody claimed that he was hit several times as he struggled to get free, and that the pistol fell out from under his belt. He testified that, while Roughhouse still held him, he picked up the pistol and it accidentally discharged. Woody stated that he did not intend to fire the pistol.
Woody has been charged with murder, its lesser included offenses, and voluntary manslaughter. Research these various crimes using the resources introduced throughout the course. What are the elements of each crime? Are there any cases that support your conclusions? You will need to find cases that Harvey can use to help support Woody's defense. Explain how the cases you selected will support the defense.

THE RESPONSE
It seems unlikely that a jury will completely absolve Woody Woodburner in the shooting death of “Roughhouse” Henry Lee, however that does not mean that defense counsel should simply argue their case, hope for the best and place the matter in the hands of the jury.  Defense counsel should focus on the elements of the crime for which Woodburner is charged; namely murder and all of its lesser offenses. 

The Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, Title 18 defines criminal homicide as the act of intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or negligently causing the death of another person.  The statute sets out the classifications of criminal homicide as murder, voluntary manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter.  With respect to the Woodburner case, the three degrees of murder are off the table because in order to sustain a conviction for 1st degree murder under Pennsylvania statute, the Commonwealth must show that the killing was premeditated (Commonwealth v. Brown, 1998).  To convict for 2nd degree murder, the accused must have been engaged as a principal or accomplice in some other felony act.  Any other kind of murder is categorized as 3rd degree murder (18 Pa. C.S. § 2502).  Additionally, the charges against Mr. Woodburner do not include a weapons violation, consequently we proceed with the knowledge that he has not been charged with felony murder under 18 Pa. Con. Stat. § 6106 and that he was in lawful possession of the firearm that was used to kill Mr. Lee.  A final consideration that makes a murder conviction unlikely in the case of Woodburner is the concept of mens rea; the prosecution must prove that Woodburner had a “guilty mind” when he shot Roughhouse (Garner, 2001, pg. 445).

With a conviction for the crime of murder outside the reach of statute, we are left to consider the remaining included offenses, which are voluntary and involuntary manslaughter.  The case of Commonwealth v. Garcia (1977) is what Garner refers to as a whitehorse case, or a case that stands on all fours with the current case involving Woodburner (Garner, 2001, pg. 766).  Bennie Garcia had his conviction for voluntary manslaughter reversed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court solely over the issue of included offenses under the charge of murder and the requirement that a jury be given full instructions regarding those included offenses.  The court ruled that in any case involving murder or voluntary manslaughter, “the jury might conclude that the Commonwealth failed to meet its burden of proving malice, intent, or knowledge, but has proven recklessness or negligence,” (Commonwealth, v. Garcia, 1977) in which case it would be entirely appropriate to return a verdict of guilty on the count of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter.

Having broached the subject of included offenses and proper jury instruction in Garcia (1977), the court laid the matter fully to rest three years later in Commonwealth v. White (1980) and Commonwealth v. Williams (1980).  Noting on one hand that charging a jury with “extraneous offenses in homicide trials” would confuse jurors in a manner contrary to sound justice policy, the court went on to admit that failure to fully inform a jury regarding pertinent lesser included offenses would risk robbing a defendant of a fair trial (Commonwealth, v. White, 1980).  In Commonwealth v. Williams (1980) the court clarified its decision in Garcia (1977) - and by extension the likely line of reasoning to be taken in the current case involving Mr. Woodburner – stating that in cases of murder, the jury will only be charged with considering the lesser included offense of involuntary manslaughter if requested by counsel and only when the offense has been made an issue at trial and the evidence would reasonably support such a verdict (Commonwealth v. Williams, 1980).
In the same way that an arresting officer must consider the totality of circumstances in order to assess reasonable suspicion, when a case comes to trial the opposing counsel, the judge and the jury must be privy to the totality of circumstances surrounding both the commission of the alleged crime as well as the totality of the criminal act for which they are judging the accused.  Nowhere is this more important than for the jury, comprised as it is of individuals who are unlikely to be fully familiar with every aspect of law.  Consequently, while it may be a fairly straight forward matter to show that Mr. Woodburner is not guilty of murder under Pennsylvania’s rules of evidence, it is imperative that at the very least the defense team make a sufficient case for involuntary manslaughter at trial and that a formal request be submitted on the record to have the jury properly instructed regarding the matter of involuntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense under the charge of murder.  Precedent has shown that failure to do so will not be grounds for reversal on appeal (Commonwealth v. Edwards a/k/a Sanford, 1981).

References
18 Pa. Con. Stat. § 6106.
18 Pa. Con. Stat. § 2502.

Commonwealth v. Brown, 551 Pa. 465 (1998).
Commonwealth v. Edwards a/k/a Sanford, 493 Pa. 281 (1981).
Commonwealth v. Garcia, 474 Pa. 449 (1977).

Commonwealth v. White, 490 Pa. 179 (1980).

Commonwealth v. Williams, 490 Pa. 187 (1980).

Garner, B.A. (Ed.).  (2001). Black’s Law Dictionary (2nd pocket edition).  St. Paul: West Publishing.

Sunday, November 13, 2011


Is anybody really safe?
Get used to it.
Responding to Questions Posted by a Criminal Justice Professor

How is the Patriot Act necessary in the Age of Terrorism?
As with any law or government action, time will be the best judge of the so-called Patriot Act. Polemists like Andrew McCarthy, Stephen Schulhofer and Robert McKay (Waller, 2009) can wax rhetorical until the sun sets but simply arguing one point or the other outside the court system will not settle the matter. (I’m especially suspicious of the likes of Schulhofer and McKay who feel a need to bring up Hurricane Katrina (Waller, 2009, p. 388) as part of their discussion of the Patriot Act. Such a digression only leads me to think the axe they grind has George Bush’s name on it.)

There seems little doubt that the Patriot Act treads a fine line in relation to the Constitution, particularly with respect to the 1st Amendment and the 4th Amendment’s protection of a person’s right to be “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” (Fechter, 2011). But if the Act is troubling, can we at least take some comfort in the fact that it appears to be under attack from all sides? Waller (2009) points out the fact that the Act had broad-based support when it was enacted and now it appears that a similarly broad-based coalition is arrayed against the act. Indeed, within the past few weeks, the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF) filed suit against the Justice Department to compel the release of records related to Section 215, the provision that permits the FBI to obtain even the most mundane of business records under secret court order. Tellingly, the EFF proudly proclaims they’ve “successfully challenged” another aspect of the Patriot Act – National Security Letters, used to obtain phone records, information on banking transactions and internet activity, all with associated “gag orders” that prohibit disclosure of the effort to the public, including the individual being investigated. But even as they tout their effort in challenging these gag orders as unconstitutional under the 1st Amendment, the EFF admits that the overall practice remains in place (Timm, 2011). And well it should if the rule itself is valid. Certainly EFF has a right to challenge individual cases but if the language of the Act is sound, then it shouldn’t be subject to complete dismantling because a portion of it was used improperly.

Is the Patriot Act necessary in the “Age of Terrorism”? To be sure, terrorism existed before the Patriot Act was written and terrorism will continue to exist if the Patriot Act is abolished. The simple answer may be that some additional protections are necessary in a world where distinct factions are bent on imposing their ideology on others through any means no matter how violent. One can easily make the argument that some investigations must be undertaken promptly and in secret. Personally, I would reserve the right to choke a confession from someone who I suspected of placing a bomb at my children’s daycare center and then stand willingly in the face of whatever judgment might face me in the event I was right or wrong. It seems to me that the Patriot Act is functioning in largely the same manner today, rising and falling with the perceived threat level, coming under more or less scrutiny (often depending upon the political leanings of the executive office, I would argue) and constantly being challenged by one group or another. The concern I have is whether we’ll know quickly enough when the line has been crossed or will we be in the position of issuing apologies long after the fact? (The internment of Japanese-Americans in 1941-1945 comes to mind as a significant case in point.)
Explain if the Patriot Act is an unconstitutional infringement of individual rights or not.
Provide examples to support your claims.

Critics argue that provisions of the Patriot Act violate the First Amendment (freedom of speech, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances) and the Fourth Amendment (the right to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures). A focal point of opposition is the use of National Security Letters (NSL) by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. NSL’s allow the government to access records related to telephone and financial institutions. Anyone receiving an NSL request is barred from disclosing the matter ever, at any time, to anyone. Whether NSL’s violate the First Amendment or not depends at least partly on whether one measures the act’s constitutionality under a strict scrutiny standard or under a relaxed intermediate scrutiny. The Act prevents disclosure of information regarding investigations by “wire or electronic communication service provider[s], or officer[s], employee[s], or agent[s] thereof…to any person…” and it does so for an unending period of time (Gorham-Oscilowski & Jaeger, 2008, p. 630) Under the standard of strict scrutiny the Patriot Act’s restriction is acceptable if it is narrowly focused to promote an important Government concern and it will be ruled invalid if other less restrictive options are available. Under intermediate scrutiny, the standard is less restrictive and the disclosure prohibitions are allowed so long as they advance government’s best interests in matters unrelated to free speech and they don’t restrict more speech than necessary to carry out their ends. Advocates of the strict scrutiny standard argue that the Patriot Act does violate the Constitution’s First Amendment because the Act imposes the secrecy standard on all investigations without requiring authorities to justify the secrecy on a case-by-case basis and because the Act throws a permanent blanket of secrecy over the matter – the nondisclosure requirement never terminates (Gorham-Oscilowski & Jaeger, 2008).

With respect to the Fourth Amendment and individual privacy, opponents of the Patriot Act argue that NSLs do not require sufficient showing of cause relative to a terrorist investigation and they do not provide an opportunity for proper judicial oversight.

Normally, I argue that the constitutionality of an act can be borne out in its case history, however, the fact that NSLs are so secretive, leads me to be concerned that there just isn’t a sufficient record of court challenges to prove the matter one way or the other. In Doe v. Ashcroft, an internet service provider challenged an NSL records request and their case was upheld by the Court, with the nondisclosure provision being likened to using “a sledgehammer when a flyswatter would do” (Gorham-Oscilowski & Jaeger, 2008, p. 634). In Doe v. Gonzalez, the court again sided with a challenger who contested an NSL request for library computer records. The gag order provision was found to be overly broad and eventually the names of the recipients of the NSL were disclosed when the government dropped its opposition (Gorham-Oscilowski & Jaeger, 2008).

So based on limited court history, it seems that aspects of the Patriot Act are unconstitutional. It strikes me that when the Act comes up for review and renewal, our leaders would do well to consider adding some kind of sunset provision into the secrecy requirement surrounding the issuance of NSL’s. Indeed, this has been the case, as Waller (2009) notes, that the gag order provision has been relaxed at least to the extent that NSL recipients are now at least permitted to consult an attorney. Further, the Justice Department is now required to report the number of demands granted and declined, but not much else (p. 384). In this regard, I view the Patriot Act as a self-correcting instrument. My only hope is that the corrections are made in a timely fashion in order to avoid truly egregious violations of individual rights.

How is it possible for civil liberties to co-exist with a perpetually-enabled Patriot Act?
Support your answer.

Gorham-Oscilowski and Jaeger (2008) argue that no matter the modifications made, elements of the Patriot Act (specifically NSLs) “will still raise significant questions in terms of the actual information behaviors of citizens” (p. 641) and I’m inclined to agree, simply because in our society, it has come to pass that no one is ever completely happy or satisfied with the manner in which the government undertakes its business (or our business).

The United States is surrounded – indeed it’s full of – people who are bent on seeing our culture and way of life turned upside down. Schulhofer and McKay, commenting in Waller (2009) make the absurd statement that, “No one, of course, seeks public disclosure of operational details, such as the names of suspects targeted or the technical capabilities of the equipment used.” I’m inclined to chalk this statement up to stupidity, but will simply call it ignorant since it was made in the days before Julian Assange and WikiLeaks were household words. Of course there are people out there who want to know the details surrounding the government’s investigations into all manner of crimes and terror threats – that is why the Patriot Act has gag order provisions! But having said this, I must also admit that too much secrecy, for too long a time, is a distinct danger and I can only take comfort in the fact that the Patriot Act comes up for review and when it does, it would seems that our leaders are willing to revise the Act in accordance with the preceding court findings. The Patriot Act is a fluid, dynamic bit of legislation that has evolved since its birth in the fright-filled days after September 11th. I don’t think the Patriot Act is nearly as draconian as it was when first written, and I suspect in another ten years we’ll find it even less imposing, and ultimately, we will arrive at a day when the provisions of the act have become so eroded as to allow another massive terror strike on our soil, at which point, a new, evermore draconian response will be implemented. That seems the way of things here. In the meantime, stand under the umbrella of protection provided by the Patriot Act or be prepared to get wet from the rain – I don’t think it can be both ways.


References

Fechter, J. (n/d). Patriot act turns 10 years old. The Ranger. Retrieved November 12, 2011, from http://www.theranger.org/mobile/patriot-act-turns-10-years-old-1.2666392

Gorham-Oscilowski, U. & Jaeger, P. T. (2008). National security letters, the usa patriot act, and the constitution: the tensions between national security and civil rights. Government Information Quarterly, 25(4), 625-644.
Timm, T. (October 26, 2011). Ten years after the patriot act, a look at three of the most dangerous provisions affecting ordinary americans. Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved November 12, 2011, from https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/ten-years-later-look-three-scariest-provisions-usa-patriot-act

Waller, B.N. (2009). You Decide! Current debates in Criminal Justice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
© M. I. Smith 2011