Georgia Chooses Path Toward Criminal Justice Reform; Oklahoma Misses an Opportunity
This year, both Georgia and Oklahoma took up criminal justice reform, but ended up in two quite different places.
In Georgia, Gov. Nathan Deal signed a bill this week that takes a smart approach to criminal justice. The new law creates less severe penalties for drug crimes, expands drug courts, and provides alternatives to incarceration for low-level, non-violent offenses. The package is projected to save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over the next five years by reducing the prison population.
Sadly, Oklahoma followed a different path. In that state, criminal justice "reform" legislation is on its way to the desk of Governor Mary Fallin. It's been called "historic", described as "highly touted", and billed as a "sweeping overhaul" of the criminal justice system.
But don't buy the hype. The soon-to-be law is a disappointing flop that will likely make the state's prison crisis worse and will actually end up cost taxpayers millions. Several of its provisions are awfully misguided. For one thing, the bill effectively takes the power to shorten prisoners' sentences away from judges and places it in the hands of prosecutors. Although the bill expands the time in which prisoners can ask for shortened sentences, giving prosecutors authority over this decision guts that reform. Prosecutors will be more invested in maintaining the original sentence that they themselves obtained to begin with. Now, prisoners who could be safely monitored outside of prison will instead serve unnecessarily and expensively long sentences. The bill also develops "intermediary revocation facilities" for nonviolent offenders who violate conditions of probation or parole. Technical violations like missing a meeting with a parole officer will be punished with up to six months of internment in what is essentially a jail. This isn't reforming the way Oklahoma punishes technical violations; it's renaming it. A truly smart reform would have been to use alternatives to incarceration to address technical violations.
But the bill's real shortcomings are what it doesn't do. The bill doesn't address the fundamental reasons that Oklahoma has the third-highest incarceration rate of any state and the highest rate of female incarceration in the nation. The original version of the bill would have modified the state's harsh truth-in-sentencing law, which requires prisoners to serve 85 percent of their sentences, in order to allow greater flexibility such as time off for good behavior. Leaving out that provision is perhaps its greatest sin of omission. Now, Oklahoma's criminal justice system will continue to be ruled by laws that put away nonviolent offenders for long terms, while failing to expand tried and tested diversion and treatment programs.
Oklahoma lawmakers would be wrong to think they can now cross criminal justice reform off their to-do list; the truth is, few states need to fix their criminal justice system more urgently than Oklahoma. Lawmakers missed a real opportunity to do so by making their system more effective, less costly and better at keeping the public safe.
Georgia lawmakers did much better, but that doesn't mean they should cross criminal justice reform off their to-do list either. The Georgia bill is a significant step toward reforming its system and we hope the state will take up more reform next year.
Across the nation, states are taking a real look at criminal justice reform. They should choose Georgia's path – towards real, effective reform. It's not too late for Oklahoma to switch course, either.
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Update: This post has been updated to more accurately describe the Oklahoma legislation.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
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VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
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Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government’s case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi’s detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
Federal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is UnlawfulFederal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is Unlawful
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi’s case, his claims challenging the government’s detention of him would fail. “Reviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we’re heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “The government’s arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi’s detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court’s ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. “Mr. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.