Smelly Commutations & A Narrative-Unraveling Apology.
In crime news this past week, we had some smelly commutations and an apology that unravels a racial-narrative tale.
The smelly commutations.
This past Thursday, President Biden issued federal pardons to 39 people and commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 others. According to the White House statement announcing these moves, these recipients of presidential grace “have shown successful rehabilitation and a strong commitment to making their communities safer.”
Among the sentences commuted is the sentence of Pennsylvania ex-judge Michael Conahan. Conahan was serving a 17-year sentence for his role in a scheme that is widely known as “kids for cash.” The scheme involved Conahan and another Pennsylvania Judge, Mark Ciavarella, sentencing juveniles to a for-profit juvenile detention facility in exchange for more than $2.1 million in kickbacks. Some of the kids committed suicide after being sentenced to the facility.
Conahan’s commutation has been received with outrage in Pennsylvania, especially by families affected by Conahan’s official-corruption scheme. How did Conahan’s commutation happen? It’s part of a broad, one size-fits-all Biden Administration gesture. According to Politico, the Administration, which touts the mass commutations as “a record-setting act of mercy carried out just before the holidays,” extended them to
people on Covid-related home confinement after federal authorities verified that their offenses were nonviolent and not a sex offense or terrorism related… They were also all considered a low risk for recidivism, had not engaged in any violent or gang-related activity while in prison and had been on good behavior for at least a year. None of the commutations granted were individual decisions, the official added, and none who met the criteria were excluded.
There you have it. All commutation recipients were previously released to home confinement after convincing the authorities that they were at high risk of dying from COVID-19 if left in prison during the pandemic. They were all nonviolent offenders, at low risk for recidivism, not engaged in any recent violent or gang-related activity, and on good behavior for at least a year. Also, none of their convictions were terrorism-related or for sex offenses. It’s just a bunch of non-violent offenders. Isn’t that all you need to know?
Maybe not. After all, even the ex-Honorable Michael Conahan fits those criteria. He didn’t physically aggress against anyone and his kickback scheme didn’t involve any sex or terrorism offense. There is no indication he was ever in a gang, and he has evidently been on good behavior for at least a year and is at low risk for recidivism. All of that adds up, in the Biden Administration’s calculus, to successful rehabilitation and a strong commitment to making his community safer.
It doesn’t matter that Conahan used his position as a judge to get rich by unjustly sending juvenile offenders to a juvenile prison, or that some of the juveniles he abused this way killed themselves because of it, or that Conahan traumatized and ruined the lives of others. After all, Conahan isn’t violent, or a terrorist, or a sex offender, and now that he’s lost his position as a judge and is 72-years-old, he’s obviously at very low risk to repeat his crimes. How could he even if he wanted to? That’s a low risk of recidivism, right there!
Still, I suspect there’s a little something that the geniuses who crafted the criteria so they could tout Biden’s merciful release of 1,500 “nonviolent” offenders failed to take into account, something that they should have taken into account. Maybe “nonviolent” and “at low risk of recidivism” aren’t necessarily all you need to know.
Biden’s commutation of Rita Crundwell’s sentence for embezzling $53 million from a small town in Illinois also has a certain je ne sais quoi that wasn’t captured by the Biden Administration’s one-size-fits-all criteria. Lovely Rita’s commutation is also getting backlash in the state where she used the stolen taxpayer funds to fund her own lavish lifestyle, complete with the purchase of splendid show horses. How exactly has she demonstrated a strong commitment to making her community safer? We are left to speculate.
Biden’s sweeping gesture to burnish his “record of criminal justice reform” might better demonstrate the folly of governance through the sweeping virtue signal than anything else. How many more turds are floating around in this punch bowl? Are there more to be added, still? Stay tuned till January 20.
Racial narrative tale unraveled: Duke Lacrosse accuser apologizes, admits she made it up.
In other national crime news this past week, the accuser in the bogus 2006 Duke lacrosse team rape case came forward to apologize to the three then-lacrosse players she accused of beating and raping her. The case drew massive attention at the time, sparking a narrative of three rich, white lacrosse players at a prestigious private university exercising white privilege to have their way with the poor Black woman they hired to do “exotic dancing” at a party. The accuser, who is currently serving a prison sentence for murdering her boyfriend in 2013, came forward this week in an interview for the Let’s talk with Kat podcast to confess that she made the story up and to apologize to the three men she previously accused.
All charges against the three were dismissed in April of 2007 after the case thoroughly unraveled. The D.A. who handled it, Micheal Nifong, was disbarred later in 2007 for lying to the court and withholding exculpatory DNA evidence from the defense – a racial-narrative-surfer who hoped to ride the wave to reelection but instead crashed into the rocks, the only real justice in the case.
#BelieveAllMembersOfNoGroup #CategoricalThinkingErrors #TheyToo
