Acquitted Conduct Gets USSC Hearing, Drug Recriminalization in OR & More

"[Oregon lawmakers] didn't give decriminalization combined with harm reduction a chance to work."

Last week, the Oregon legislature overwhelmingly approved legislation that recriminalizes low-level drug possession, reversing a landmark reform that voters endorsed when they passed Measure 110 in 2020. By last August, an Emerson College poll found that 64 percent of Oregon voters favored reinstating criminal penalties for possession—less than 2 years of the law being in place—due to a continuing increase in opioid-related deaths coupled with nuisances related to public drug use. Reason delves into the potential consequences and the broader implications for drug policy reform across the nation.

"I think the thing we didn’t anticipate is that these rollbacks would happen in such a concerted and quick way regardless of the facts and the data and the research that said they were a bad idea."

Louisiana’s special legislative session on crime pushed by newly-elected Governor Jeff Landry is over, and came with a stunning major rollback of justice reforms that have saved taxpayers in the state over $152 million over the past five years. In a sweeping session that took less than two weeks to complete, legislators passed a long list of punitive policies Governor Landry touted as necessary for public safety, but which advocates and experts warned will cost the state billions at no added benefit to public safety.

"Fewer people in the labor force means fewer people to hire and fewer people to produce and consume goods and services."

According to a new study released last week by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Ohio’s practice of suspending driver’s licenses over unpaid traffic tickets is robbing the state of a significant portion of its workforce. According to the study, 14.4% of the Ohio labor force could be at risk of leaving it in any given year due to such suspensions.

"[T]he problems at the BOP have generally increased over the years."

On Wednesday, Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Colette Peters, was questioned by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee over two February reports that found hundreds of preventable deaths of people in federal custody, and the persistent overuse of solitary confinement. The Marshall Project details the hearing as well as the continued crises in federal prisons this week.

"I felt like I had been tricked into thinking that a not guilty verdict was different than a guilty verdict."

In his 1996 drug-related trial, Jessie Ailsworth felt relief after receiving 28 “not guilty” verdicts. As he told U.S. Sentencing Commission this week, that feeling of relief quickly dissipated once he realized those “not guilty” verdicts were being used to enhance the sentence he was receiving for other convictions. His testimony came as the Commission considers guidelines that, among other things, would end the practice of enhancing sentences for acquitted conduct. JAN teamed up with the Due Process Institute earlier this year to submit public comment in support of the provision, as well as changes to consideration of juvenile convictions.