Prosecutorial Jerk Off

Miami Herald columnist Fred Grimm reports (pasted below) on the prosecution of a 20-year male prisoner for masturbating in his cell in the Broward County Jail. Yep. Terry Lee Alexander was tried by the office of Broward County State Attorney, Michael J. Satz and convicted. Obviously this case will be the source of innumerable jokes and puns. But it demonstrates an all-too-common lack of perspective in prosecutors' offices around the country -- cases that do not warrant prosecution get to court because they can be brought.

Let's look at the Florida Criminal Code to see if the no-nonsense Florida legislature might have thought this kind of case deserves prosecution:

775.012 General purposes.--The general purposes of the provisions of the code are:

(1) To proscribe conduct that improperly causes or threatens substantial harm to individual or public interest.

(2) To give fair warning to the people of the state in understandable language of the nature of the conduct proscribed and of the sentences authorized upon conviction.

(3) To define clearly the material elements constituting an offense and the accompanying state of mind or criminal intent required for that offense.

(4) To differentiate on reasonable grounds between serious and minor offenses and to establish appropriate disposition for each.

(5) To safeguard conduct that is without fault or legitimate state interest from being condemned as criminal.

(6) To ensure the public safety by deterring the commission of offenses and providing for the opportunity for rehabilitation of those convicted and for their confinement when required in the interests of public protection."

Raise your hand if you think this "conduct improperly causes or threatens substantial harm to individual or public interest."
Raise your hand if you think there is a "legitimate state interest" in "condemn[ing] as criminal" a 20 year old who masturbated in his jail cell.

In 1991, The National District Attorneys Association adopted National Prosecution Standards, 2nd Edition. An appropriate general guidance is in standard 1.1, "The primary responsibility of prosecution is to see that justice is accomplished." No room for argument there, is there?

Standard 42.3 (at pp. 125-126) spells out the factors a prosecutor should consider in exercising his or her discretion to screen out a case for non-prosecution -- cases in which the "prosecution is not justified or not in the public interest." Such factors potentially relevant in this case include:

"d. Possible improper motives of a victim or witness;
e. The availability of adequate civil remedies; [like punishment by the jail]
f. The availability of suitable diversion and rehabilitative programs;
k. The attitude and mental status of the accused; [yes, consider being 20 years old in jail]
l. Undue hardship caused to the accused;
m. A history of non-enforcement of the applicable violation;
p. Any mitigating circumstances."

One would think that State Attorney Satz, who took office in 1976, might recognize "a history of non-enforcement of the applicable violation" would apply in this case.

This case did not belong in court.

Update:
The American Bar Association On-line Journal reports that there were eight more cases!

And, upholding the dignity of our justice system (if not to assure a fair trial for the accused), jurors were questioned about the masturbation habits!
This prosecutor is shameless!

* * * *

Miami Herald

Posted on Thu, Jul. 26, 2007
Justice went blind in this jailhouse case

BY FRED GRIMM

First, in the spirit of full disclosure, I attended a military boarding school. If Ken Jenne had been headmaster, my entire senior class would have been up on charges.

Jenne, as sheriff and chief jailer in Broward County, has launched a crackdown on self-abusing miscreants. It's no longer enough to warn hairy-palmed drooling deviants that self-indulgence risks stunted growth, blindness, sallow skin, slackened jaws, amnesia, shrunken testicles, impotence and, for Catholics in particular, eternal damnation. Jenne wants jail time.

And, late Wednesday afternoon, in a triumph of creative law enforcement, masturbation in the county jail became a criminal pleasure. Good for another 60 days behind bars.

Sheriff Jenne, with help from the office of State Attorney Mike Satz, who has taken on additional duties as Broward's dean of boys, notched a law enforcement triumph when a county court jury convicted Terry Lee Alexander, 20, of going at it in his cell last November.

At the time of the offense, Alexander was punished with 30 days without TV, music, exercise time and other jail house perks. But obviously self-abuse demands a criminal charge and a full-blown jury trial, and two prosecutors, and a court-appointed taxpayer-paid defense lawyer and six jurors (and an alternate), and a judge, and a court reporter, and a couple bailiffs, and a pretrial deposition, and a daylong trial.

Not that any of the time and expense of a trial would have any actual effect on the life of the defendant. Alexander was already looking at 10 years for a robbery conviction. But the trial was clearly intended to send a message from the sheriff and state attorney to other sex fiends lurking in their lock-up.

The sheriff's critics, of course, might find the prosecution of a masturbation case curious given the burst of violent crimes that has beset the county lately. They might also point out that Sheriff Jenne, who's feeling the heat of a federal criminal investigation himself, may come to appreciate the sexual needs of a lonely inmate.

And there's also the lingering issue of what seems to be a spectacular case of selective prosecution. The prosecution's only witness, jailer Coryus Veal, testified Wednesday afternoon, ``They had warned me about what goes on there.''

Indeed, ''they'' were right.

Deputy Veal initiated criminal charges against eight inmates (Four, so far, have taken plea deals while three others await trial.) for what may be the most flouted violation in the history of jails, boarding schools, seminaries and military barracks. And who knows what goes on underneath those flowing black judicial robes.

Technically, Alexander faced charges of indecent exposure, with lots of lewd, lascivious, wicked, deviant, etc. tacked on. He also faced the prosecution's tortured contention that his jail cell qualified as a ``public place.''

In the course of the one-day trial, prosecutor Cynthia Lauriston and Veal managed to describe Alexander's offense in startling detail, eight times, once with Lauriston approximating the action with arm motions. It was hard to imagine the original act could have had a much more lascivious effect than the lurid stuff those poor women had to utter, over and over, in Courtroom 417 Wednesday.

''It was very vulgar. Very indecent,'' Veal testified.

She was describing the crime but she could have been characterizing the prosecution, the trial, the verdict and the obscene, indecent, vulgar, lascivious, downright stupid waste of time and money.

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