Raising Arizona’s Commitment to Health and Safety: The Need for Independent Oversight of Arizona’s Prison System

2020, Past Issues, Print, Volume 52 (2020) Issue 3 (Fall)
Michele Deitch* Full Article. Introduction Over the last decade or so, Arizona’s prisons have become synonymous with mismanagement, lack of safety, unconstitutional health care, and abysmal conditions for people in custody. The problems that have marred the corrections agency’s reputation have been documented in countless news stories and show the agency’s seeming inability to address even the most fundamental flaws in its operations that lead to violence and deaths in custody.[1] A litany of scandals, including broken locks on cell doors, abuses of incarcerated people, riots, escapes, horrific care of pregnant women, and water shortages have also dominated news headlines.[2] Moreover, a federal class-action lawsuit about Arizona’s disastrous privatized prison health care delivery system has spanned many years; it led to a detailed settlement and also to a civil contempt…
Read More

Safety, Crisis, and Criminal Law

2020, Past Issues, Print, Volume 52 (2020) Issue 3 (Fall)
Jenny E. Carroll* Full Article. Introduction Concepts of safety and prevention of danger pervade the criminal law canon.[1] Arizona is no exception.[2] The state’s criminal systems[3] pivot around central and entwined goals of protecting public safety and preventing danger. The state constitution permits pretrial detention both for the most serious offenses and when no other condition of release will adequately protect the community from the danger the accused’s freedom might pose.[4] The rules of criminal procedure and the criminal code designate some offenses and actors “dangerous”[5] and urge judges to weigh not only the accused’s risk of flight, but also his future dangerousness in making decisions to release or detain pretrial.[6] On the other end of the criminal law continuum, post-conviction considerations follow suit. Arizona’s sentencing guidelines permit enhancements of…
Read More

Ensuring Marijuana Reform Is Effective Criminal Justice Reform

2020, Past Issues, Print, Volume 52 (2020) Issue 3 (Fall)
Douglas A. Berman* and Alex Kreit** Full Article. Introduction In less than a decade, marijuana legalization has gone from unthinkable to seemingly unstoppable. The idea was viewed as so far outside the mainstream in 2009 that President Barack Obama’s first drug czar Gil Kerlikowske dismissively told a reporter that “[l]egalization [was] not in the President’s vocabulary.”[1] When California voters rejected the first major state-wide marijuana legalization ballot initiative in November 2010, the Obama administration celebrated the result.[2] Fast forward just six years, and voters in eight states had approved full adult-use legalization laws and Obama was telling Rolling Stone that he thought marijuana should be treated “as a public-health issue, the same way we do with cigarettes or alcohol.”[3] Today, marijuana legalization enjoys broad bipartisan support. Sixty-seven percent of Americans…
Read More

Forensic Evidence in Arizona: Reforms for Victims and Defendants

2020, Past Issues, Print, Volume 52 (2020) Issue 3 (Fall)
Valena E. Beety* Full Article. Introduction Arizona is nationally recognized as a leader in forensic science. Our state court judges serve on the Legal Resource Committee for the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) and provide guidance to NIST’s Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science.[1] Our Phoenix lab analysts and lab directors have national reputations.[2] And Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law has been home to many leading academics in the field of forensics and the law, among them Michael Saks, David Kaye, and Jay Koehler.[3] We have a robust forensic science community in Arizona and in Phoenix in particular. Thus, this Article identifies the strengths of the current system in Arizona and proposes innovative reforms appropriate for labs that are already leaders in…
Read More

Improving Criminal Justice Decisions

2020, Past Issues, Print, Volume 52 (2020) Issue 3 (Fall)
Michael Serota* Full Article. All government decisions matter. But few matter more—or are more consequential for society—than those involving the criminal justice system.[1] That’s because we depend upon the criminal justice system to perform two of the government’s most critical functions: securing justice and promoting public safety. To achieve these goals, we afford those who operate the criminal justice system great authority: the power to investigate and monitor, to arrest and detain, to convict and punish. But with this delegation of power comes great vulnerability: we must trust that the government officials who make criminal justice decisions will exercise their authority responsibly, in a manner that respects individual rights, preserves communities, avoids undue delay, and conserves limited societal resources. Today, there is an emerging societal consensus that the U.S. criminal…
Read More

Lessons from Disaster: Assessing the COVID-19 Response in Youth Jails & Prisons*

2020, Online, Online Volume 2 (2020) COVID-19 Symposium
Madalyn K. Wasilczuk** Full Article. I.    COVID-19 in Youth Jails and Prisons A. The Spread of COVID-19 in Youth Facilities B. Responses to COVID-19 in the Juvenile Legal System C. Race and Disability Disparities in Youth Facilities During COVID-19 II.  COVID-19 as a Disaster III. Assessing the Pandemic Response In Youth Jails & Prisons A. Confined Children’s Vulnerability to the COVID Disaster B. Applying Lessons from Disaster to Children’s Conditions of Confinement Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare many of the cruel and inhumane conditions that persist in U.S. jails and prisons.[1] Headlines have highlighted the lack of access to adequate cleaning supplies and personal hygiene materials, restrictions on hand sanitizer, under-resourced medical facilities, and the costliness of phone calls and video visits for people in custody.[2] Jails,…
Read More

Working from Home in the Era of COVID-19: Why American Workers May Need Federal Tax Reform Relating to Home Office Deductions

Arizona State Law Journal Blog
Today, nearly half of American workers are working from home full-time. As COVID-19 cases across the country and in Arizona specifically continue to rise, it is clear that working from home is the new normal. Teachers are lesson planning from their living rooms, therapists are Zooming with clients from their kitchens, news anchors are telecasting live from their dining rooms, and many other workers are working from their home offices. Whether you have always worked from home or have recently transitioned due to COVID-19 safety measures, you may be wondering whether you can claim a federal income tax deduction for the home office expenses you have incurred in the year 2020. Unfortunately, and perhaps surprisingly, the answer is likely no.The 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) "Home Office" by…
Read More

Pandemic as Opportunity for Competence Restoration Decarceration*

2020, Online, Online Volume 2 (2020) COVID-19 Symposium
Susan A. McMahon** Full Article.  People are dying. We urge immediate action by the Court.[1] I.     Introduction II.  Competence Restoration Purgatory III. Impact of COVID-19 A. Pandemic as Crisis B. Pandemic as Solution IV. Next Steps and Dangers A. Deinstitutionalization Redux B. Retrenchment V.  Conclusion   I. Introduction Before the pandemic, a defendant found incompetent to stand trial was often stranded in jail for weeks or months as she waited for an inpatient bed to open at a psychiatric facility.[2] While there, she usually received no treatment, her mental health deteriorated, and she was astonishingly likely to be abused and neglected.[3] She almost certainly came out of jail in a worse state than she was when she went in. The pandemic has made this desperate situation even worse.…
Read More

Learning from the Past and the Pandemic To Address Mental Health in Tribal Communities*

2020, Online, Online Volume 2 (2020) COVID-19 Symposium
Heather Tanana** Full Article. I.    Introduction II.  A Look at the Past To Understand the Present A. Federal Policies and the Perpetuation of Historical Trauma B. A Brief History of Mental Health and Health Services in Tribal Communities III. The Impact of COVID-19 on Tribal Communities and Response To Facilitate Mental Health Services A. COVID-19 B. Adapting To Address the Mental Health Needs of Tribes Through Telehealth Services IV. Conclusion I. Introduction The United States’ response to the coronavirus pandemic has been widely criticized.[1] The federal government failed to provide leadership and to fully appreciate the seriousness of the virus until it had reached all corners of the country. For many Americans, the lack of federal leadership may not have had a direct impact on their access to health…
Read More

Why Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer Care About the Arizona Corporation Commission—and You Should Too

Arizona State Law Journal Blog
By Sarah Brunswick.Before a chunk of coal or beam of sunlight can charge a phone or brew coffee, electricity must first be made (generation), transported to your area (transmission), and delivered to your home (distribution). Electric utilities make this happen for the smallest of households and the largest of Amazon server farms. Thus, utilities make an ideal target for renewable energy policies.Renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) have been one of the most successful policies in driving renewable energy development. Renewable portfolio standards set goals, or mandates, for what percentage of electricity sales or production should be renewable by a target date. In states with mandatory RPSs, utilities are forced to diversify their energy sources. In voluntary states, incentives drive utilities to make changes. Thirty-seven states have RPSs. Most states target between…
Read More