The Effectiveness of Traditional Enforcement Strategies and Importance of Defense Counsel

 Michael Herring, Cecilia Low-Weiner, and Preeti Chauhan

 The Misdemeanor Justice Project at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, released a special issue of Criminal Justice Policy Review on the criminal justice system’s response to lower-level offenses. Four of the nine articles provide valuable insights for prosecutors.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ENFORCEMENT STRATEGIES

Prosecutors often have the opportunity to support police departments in building goodwill between the police and the community. Results from Piza (2018) suggest that traditional policing techniques may not be the most effective at crime prevention. Indeed, his results indicate that guardian policing actions (e.g., citizen contacts, business checks, taxi inspections) have greater crime prevention effects than traditional enforcement actions (e.g., arrests, summonses, field interrogations). Prosecutors may wish to assist police by encouraging the use of community building methods like guardian actions for public safety. Another study suggests that implicit bias may play a role in determining who enters the courtroom and prosecutors may wish to think through the fairness and effectiveness of enforcement actions such as stops, particularly when wishing to enhance police-community relationships. Chanin et. al. (2018) found although Black drivers were more likely to be searched after a traffic stop, the likelihood of a search resulting in the seizure of contraband was lower than for White drivers.  These results question traditional enforcement strategies from public safety and legitimacy perspectives.

THE IMPORTANCE OF DEFENSE COUNSEL

Effective and fair court proceedings are of paramount concern to prosecutors. The role of defense counsel in achieving these goals is critical. Both public defenders and prosecutors share similar goals of reducing the unnecessary involvement of individuals in the criminal justice system and creating a more equitable and just system. Knowing this, prosecutors wishing to efficiently handle lower-level cases and increase the public’s confidence in prosecutors’ objectivity and fairness may wish to advocate for the presence of counsel, even for lower-level crimes.

The presence of defense counsel may decrease constitutional violations, wrongful convictions, and disproportionate punishments. Harvey et. al. (2018) found that the right to counsel, in misdemeanor prosecutions, was frequently violated and led to misguided plea bargains, invalid waivers, and unconstitutional sentences in no-lawyer courts in St. Louis. The Worden et. al. (2018), study found that when counsel was present at first appearance, defendants were more likely to be released on recognizance or have a lower bail amount set. These results highlight the value and need for an adversarial environmental to ensure a fairer system.

Former longtime federal prosecutor Peter Strasser took the helm of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Orleans on Monday after a quiet swearing-in ceremony.

Confirmed late last month by the U.S. Senate, Strasser becomes the first presidentially appointed U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana in 18 months, since Kenneth Polite Jr. was swept out in a March 2017 purge by the Trump administration of all U.S. attorneys named by former President Barack Obama.

Strasser, 64, leaves the Chaffe McCall law firm, where he was a partner and sparred with some of the same prosecutors he will now lead, as he defended clients in some high-profile cases involving gangs, drugs and a murder-for-hire plot.

Strasser was sworn in by U.S. District Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown in a private ceremony Monday morning. By afternoon he was settling into his new 17th-floor office. Dressed casually in a linen jacket and tasseled loafers with no socks, Strasser sidestepped questions over how he plans to put his stamp on an office that has seen its share of upheaval in recent years.

He said he had been meeting informally with members of the office during the past week or so at a nearby coffee shop, just to get to know them on a personal level. He’s also been reviewing their resumés and said he’s been blown away by the caliber of the staff, which includes 58 prosecutors.

“I’ve never seen such a bright, talented, brilliant group of people,” he said. If the U.S. Attorney’s Office were a private law firm, he said, “we’d put every other law firm out of business.”

He said there will be some reshuffling of the deck in terms of leadership positions in the office, but his entire team will be drawn from the roster of existing employees. He already has picked the new leaders but can’t announce them until they’ve been approved by the Department of Justice, he said.

Strasser, who was among the first to throw his hat in the ring for the U.S. attorney’s job last year, wryly compared the process to running for political office, but noted that the campaign takes place completely outside of public view and doesn’t require any fundraising.

“Like anything in life, it’s a competition,” he said.

He said he met with “literally hundreds” of people during his quest for the post, including members of “the business community, the law enforcement community, the political community, the government community and the legal community.”

He wanted the job because he takes an “extreme satisfaction in fighting crime,” he said. That passion was enhanced, he said, during stints in developing countries like Pakistan, Malawi and Georgia, where as a legal attaché Strasser helped teach local prosecutors to become more professional.

He described public corruption, white-collar crime and “guns and drugs” as the traditional “troika” of federal law enforcement. Strasser, who has lived in the same Uptown neighborhood since the 1980s, bristled at the notion that the U.S. attorney might emphasize one of those spheres over others.

“I don’t like crime,” he said flatly. “It’s crime that’s ruining this city. I don’t care if it’s coming from a street corner, if it’s coming from a corporate boardroom, if it’s coming from City Hall or what. And I have a talented staff that I’m gonna let loose.”

Asked whom he considers a role model, he cited John Volz, who was the U.S. attorney in New Orleans when Strasser began working in the office. Volz was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and continued to serve under Ronald Reagan, a Republican. Volz died in 2011.

Strasser’s wasn’t the first name that U.S. Sen. John Kennedy forwarded to the Trump administration to lead one of 93 U.S. attorney’s offices in the country. Pugnacious defense attorney Kyle Schonekas had that honor, before his chances sank for unknown reasons.

But Strasser had been the presumed nominee since late last year, withstanding a vetting process that has dragged out for many U.S. attorney’s offices around the country.

He is the last of Trump’s three U.S. attorney picks in Louisiana. Brandon Fremin has been confirmed by the Senate as U.S. attorney for the Middle District, while David Joseph was confirmed as U.S. attorney for the Western District.

It’s common for new administrations, particularly with a switch of parties in the White House, to make wholesale changes at the top of U.S. Attorney’s offices nationwide.

Two New Orleans-area figures – Volz and former U.S. Attorney Jim Letten – bucked that tendency; both served for over a decade under both GOP and Democratic presidents.

The Eastern District encompasses 13 parishes in the southeastern part of the state, including the New Orleans metropolitan area. Prosecutor Duane Evans has served as acting U.S. attorney since Polite’s departure.

A native of Charlottesville, Virginia, Strasser earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and his law degree from Washington and Lee University.

He spent the first few years of his legal career as a lawyer with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, the U.S. Army’s legal arm, according to a copy of his resumé posted on LinkedIn.

Strasser moved to New Orleans in 1984 to work as an assistant U.S. attorney, a job he held for 18 years, eventually heading the fraud and organized crime sections in that office.

He was on the prosecution team that convicted former Gov. Edwin Edwards of racketeering in 2001.

He was the lead prosecutor in the 1995 federal bank fraud case against former Jefferson Parish Council Chairman Bob Evans, who was acquitted of all charges.

Strasser left the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2002 but remained with the Department of Justice as a legal attaché, working at embassies in Africa, Europe and Asia. He returned to New Orleans in 2013 to join Chaffe McCall.

As a defense attorney, he was among the first in New Orleans to voice allegations of misconduct against Chad Scott, a longtime U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent who is facing 10 corruption-related charges, including perjury and obstruction of justice.

Strasser also represented Damian “A.D.” Barnes, one of 10 alleged “39’ers” gang members accused of more than a dozen murders and extensive drug-dealing activity in New Orleans. A jury convicted Barnes on racketeering, drug and firearms conspiracy charges but acquitted him in the April 2011 murder of Floyd Moore.

In that trial, early last year, Strasser got into a heated argument with Assistant U.S. Attorney Myles Ranier that turned into a minor physical tussle, with Strasser either pushing or poking Ranier in the chest.

The incident prompted a recent jab on Twitter from Polite, the former U.S. attorney, but didn’t derail Strasser’s path through the Senate.

KINGSLEY — Despite its scope, the animal abandonment case discovered in Kingsley in July, in which at least 38 animals were removed from a Voice Road residence and two people were arrested, is not an anomaly according to state and local records.

Incidences of animal cruelty reported to the Michigan State Police rose 575 percent statewide between 2016 and 2017, the latest year for which figures are available, according to the MSP’s 2017 Quality Assurance Report.

Of the 98 crime categories tracked by the MSP, only three — fraud hacking/computer invasion, narcotic equipment violations, and possession of burglary tools — had a higher increase.

Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Bob Cooney says animal cruelty cases are on the rise locally, too. In 2015, two cases were referred to his office for prosecution; in 2016 it was 20 cases; in 2017 it was 18 cases; and so far this year Cooney said his office has already investigated 15 cases.

“I know, as a prosecutor, the amount of public concern over these cases,” Cooney said. “The public gets really upset if an animal is abused.”

Cooney said that depending on the level of cruelty, the number of animals involved, and whether the alleged abuser has previous convictions, animal abuse cases can be prosecuted as a felony.

Since becoming prosecutor in 2012, Cooney said he or his staff have prosecuted a variety of animal abusers, from a Louisiana man who was hunting in the Williamsburg area and had “coolers and coolers full of squirrel carcasses,” to an Acme man who shot and killed a golden retriever after it ran into his yard.

Cooney, a dog owner, said that like most people, animal suffering repels him, but once someone is arrested for neglecting or abusing their pet, he immediately has additional concerns.

“People who abuse animals tend to take it to the next step,” he said.

By “next step” Cooney was specifically referencing domestic violence, something Sue Bolde, executive director of Traverse Bay Children’s Advocacy Center on Chartwell Drive in Traverse City, has dealt with in her work as a clinical psychologist specializing in children and teens.

“Where there is animal abuse, there is often a child or family in danger,” she said, in a an article published on the center’s website titled, “The Direct Link Between Animal Abuse and Child Abuse.”

In Leelanau County, prosecutor Joe Hubbell said he has not seen as dramatic a rise in such cases.

In 2014 and 2015 there were no cases referred to his office; in 2016 there were three cases referred, in 2017 one case and none so far this year. Hubbell did say, however, that the cases he has prosecuted over the years have been particularly dire. Dozens of sick and injured horses, badly neglected sheep, and a puppy kicked to death, for example.

In Benzie County, two cases were referred to Prosecutor Sara Swanson in 2017. She said when pets are found to have been neglected for economic reasons, those cases are thoroughly investigated but not always referred to her office for prosecution.

“Animal Control will ask to take possession of the animals, we find them new homes, and if people aren’t fighting that then these kinds of cases tend to be handled more out of the court system.”

According to Shanon Banner, MSP spokesperson, animal cruelty was added as a stand-alone offense category in 2016, after the Federal Bureau of Investigation deemed it a “crime against society.”

Authorities say economic hardship, an increase in substance abuse, a lack of funding for spay and neuter programs, and the growing willingness on the part of the public to call Animal Control when they see an animal being neglected or abused could also be contributing to the dramatic increase.

The June 29 firing of Grand Traverse County Animal Control Officer, Deb Zerafa, after an investigation showed she falsified time and mileage records and entered property without a warrant, complicated matters. Zerafa has vociferously disputed these claims and two Animal Control officers remain on staff and available to investigate reports.

“There are so many moving parts to this issue,” said Heidi Yates, executive director of the Cherryland Humane Society. “From people who have too many animals and can’t take care of them, to people who do things we just can’t understand. That’s why it is so important to call Animal Control if you see something. Animals can’t speak for themselves. We have to speak for them.”

Another reason for the dramatic rise in incident reports could be increased awareness by law enforcement. In May, the CHS, which serves Grand Traverse and Leelanau Counties, worked with the Michigan Humane Society to offer a one-day training for law enforcement. Representatives from the Traverse City Police Department and the Grand Traverse Tribal Police attended the “Animals in the Field Law Enforcement Training” program, which covered human violence and animal cruelty, animals as evidence, and Michigan animal law, among other topics. The MHS started the course in 2015 and has trained more than 400 officers statewide to recognize animal cruelty cases.

In the Voice Road case, a married couple, Joseph Lewis Plowman, 39, and Lacie Lee Plowman, 37, were arrested in July on charges of animal abandonment or cruelty involving more than 10 animals, a felony publishable by up to four years in prison, according to court documents.

They did not live at the Voice Road residence, are currently free on $10,000 bond, and being represented by Traverse City criminal attorney, Gerald Chefalo.

At a probable cause conference for the Plowmans on July 27 in 86th District Court, the couple waived their right to a preliminary hearing and the case was bound over to circuit court.

Joseph Plowman pleaded guilty to the charge against him Friday. Lacie Plowman is scheduled for a final conference Wednesday with a trial in October.

Of the 38 animals the Plowman’s allegedly neglected and abandoned, five died or were deceased when law enforcement officers responded to the scene and 32 — 19 dogs and 13 cats — were surrendered by Animal Control into the care of the Cherryland Humane Society.

Yates of CHS said return visits by investigators to the residence found more animals, some deceased and some roaming the property. The animals in the care of CHS were bathed and groomed by volunteers, and assessed by CHS staff.

Seven of the dogs and eleven of the cats have already been adopted, additional animals from the case are at the shelter and available for adoption, while CHS is currently taking foster home applications for four dogs who need additional socialization before they can be cleared for adoption.

“They’re just great dogs and I simply cannot say enough about the humane society and what care they take in putting the right dogs in the right homes,” Anita Scussel said. “Evie was so underweight you could see her ribs poking through, and when I put a bowl of food out she’d grab a mouthful and then run into a corner to eat it. But that only lasted a couple days. We just came back from the dog park where she played and played. Lady is more reserved but that’s just her personality.”

Those interested in fostering or adopting a rescue animal from CHS can fill out an application on the organization’s website, cherrylandhumane.org. If you suspect an animal is being abused or neglected, call your local Animal Control office. In Grand Traverse County that number is 995-6080; in Traverse City, it is 995-5150; in Leelanau County, 231-256-9829; in Benzie County 231-882-9505.