Category Archives: Studies

Average Washingtonian Drinks Six Days in a Row During Holidays

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Infographic: Drinking and DUIs During the Holidays

A survey from the Addiction-treatment.com shows that among 3,000 state residents 21 and older, the average Washingtonian drinks for six days in a row over the holiday season, without having a day off. It could be wine, beer, cider, or whatever a particular person’s choice is.

That puts Washington drinkers at the top of the list of states, according to the group. The average American drinks for four days in a row over the holidays, it says.

Some may be drinking to celebrate the end of 2020 but others may be drinking due to loneliness, depression and isolation. Here’s some other highlights from the organization’s 12 Days of Christmas infographic:

  • Almost half of respondents say drinking at Christmas is a family tradition.
  • Over 1 in 3 say they give alcohol as a gift to loved ones at Christmas.
  • A quarter admit they spike their morning coffee with alcohol during the holidays.

“It’s important that people not use the pandemic or the holidays to justify excessive drinking,” Brittney Morse, a spokesperson for Addiction-Treatment.com, said in a statement.

“We know that overindulgence in alcohol can start the process for bad habits and lead to unhealthy coping skills that could ultimately result in alcohol dependence. Now is a great time to establish new, healthy traditions that are not centered around the consumption of alcohol. This ensures every family member, even those in recovery, can enjoy the holiday traditions together.” ~Brittney Morse, a spokesperson for Addiction-Treatment.com

Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with a drug crime or alcohol-related crime over the holidays. The temptation to imbibe is especially pronounced these days due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. Hiring an experienced criminal defense attorney is the first and best step towards justice.

Survey Finds Binge Drinking Increased Nearly 20% Every Week of COVID Lockdowns

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Study: Binge Drinking Increases With Every Lockdown Week - InsideHook

Apparently, binge drinking increases during Coronavirus lockdowns. According to a survey, adults consume more alcohol when lodged in their homes during coronavirus lockdowns.

Nearly 2,000 Americans over 18 years old completed the online questionnaire. It identified binge drinkers as those who consume five or more drinks within two hours for men and four or more drinks for women within the same period.

The survey found that the odds of consuming heavy amounts of alcohol jumped an extra 19% every week of lockdown.

“Increased time spent at home is a life stressor that impacts drinking and the COVID-19 pandemic may have exacerbated this stress,” ~survey/study author Sitara Weerakoon, an epidemiology PhD candidate at the University of Texas.

On average, every respondent was in lockdown for four weeks, spending 21 hours at home each day, with the majority (72%) working from home. Survey participants’ average age was 42, with the majority being white and female.

The odds of picking up a bottle of booze among binge drinkers were more than double that of regular alcohol consumers — 60% and 28%, respectively, according to the survey.

Binge drinkers also reported downing four drinks per drinking session, sometimes drinking a maximum of seven drinks. Meanwhile, regular alcohol drinkers consumed an average of two drinks per session, often capping out after that second beverage.

The researchers also found that living with children reduced the odds of drinking by 26% for people, in general, the release said.

My opinion? The Coronavirus Pandemic – mixed with the holiday season and the general uncertainty of politics and rampant unemployment – seems to have Americans turning to alcohol. Unfortunately, Domestic Violence and DUI cases tend to rise in situations like these.

Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member face criminal charges and alcohol is a factor. Hiring an experienced and effective criminal defense attorney is the first and best step towards justice.

The Consequences of Arrest Leads to Different Outcomes for Black, White Youth

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The criminal justice system is riddled with racial disparities | Prison Policy Initiative

For black youth, the Consequences of Arrest by eighth grade predicts they will be arrested by young adulthood – but the same is not true for white youth, a new University of Washington study finds.

The study, titled, The Usual, Racialized, Suspects: The Consequences of Police Contacts with Black and White Youth on Adult Arrest, finds that Black young adults are 11 times more likely to be arrested by age 20 if they had an initial encounter with law enforcement in their early teens than Black youth who don’t have that first contact.

In contrast, white young adults with early police contact are not significantly more likely to be arrested later, compared with white peers without that history.

The study also found that Black youth are more likely than white youth to be treated as “usual suspects” after a first encounter with police, leading to subsequent arrests over time. Even as white young adults report engaging in significantly more illegal behavior, Black young adults face more criminal penalties, the study finds.

Researchers also said it’s not just the number of stops, but what transpires during a police stop that sets the tone for future interactions with police.

“What we know about police contacts and youth generally is that Black youth are more likely to be stopped by police to begin with, and are more likely to have a negative experience when that happens,” said first author Annie McGlynn-Wright, a postdoctoral fellow at Tulane University who led the study while pursuing her doctorate at the UW. “What we haven’t known previously is the long-term effects of police contacts in terms of criminal justice outcomes.”

Racial differences in who is stopped, why and for what penalty have been well documented, the researchers said. Also, police stops have been linked to individuals’ later run-ins with law enforcement.

While the data was collected in Seattle, researchers say the patterns they found are likely occurring in cities around the country — Seattle is “more like every other town” than some larger metro areas like Chicago and Philadelphia, where many criminal justice studies are located, noted co-author Robert Crutchfield, a professor emeritus of sociology at the UW.

“When police interact with communities, and young people in communities, they have to be especially mindful of the nature and substance of the encounters, and police really need training to avoid negative interactions. What we found is that contact matters. In this study, we couldn’t parse out the nature of the interactions, but I suspect most kids experienced the interaction in a negative way. The message is, cops need to do better to minimize unnecessary contacts, and when they do contact people, to treat them better.” ~Robert Crutchfield, UW Professor Emeritus of Sociology.

For this study, UW researchers wanted to examine the effects of the first stop on the lives of Black and white adolescents, and whether a stop in the early teen years is associated with “secondary sanctioning,” or a “usual suspects” treatment by police that plays out over future stops and/or arrests. The study is among the first to explore the racial differences in police contact over time.

It also comes during a period of significant reckoning over race and policing in the United States, after a series of law enforcement killings of Black people around the country. As communities grapple with how to address institutionalized racism, police procedures and accountability, many school districts, including Seattle, have ended their contracts with law enforcement agencies for school resource officers, the personnel who are assigned to specific school buildings. Research has shown that students of color are disproportionately subject to discipline and monitoring by school resource officers.

Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged and arrested and race might play a factor in the charges. Hiring an experienced criminal defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.

FBI Releases 2019 Hate Crime Statistics

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Pie chart depicting breakdown of motivations of bias-motivated crimes in the Hate Crime Statistics, 2019 report.

In a press release issued today, the FBI gave Hate Crime Statistics, 2019, which is the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program’s latest compilation about bias-motivated incidents throughout the nation. The 2019 data, submitted by 15,588 law enforcement agencies, provide information about the offenses, victims, offenders, and locations of hate crimes.

Law enforcement agencies submitted incident reports involving 7,314 criminal incidents and 8,559 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity.

Victims of Hate Crime Incidents

  • According to the report, there were 7,103 single-bias incidents involving 8,552 victims. A percent distribution of victims by bias type shows that 57.6% of victims were targeted because of the offenders’ race/ethnicity/ancestry bias; 20.1% were targeted because of the offenders’ religious bias; 16.7% were victimized because of the offenders’ sexual-orientation bias; 2.7% were targeted because of the offenders’ gender identity bias; 2.0% were victimized because of the offenders’ disability bias; and 0.9% were victimized because of the offenders’ gender bias.
  • There were 211 multiple-bias hate crime incidents, which involved 260 victims.

Offenses by Crime Category

  • Of the 5,512 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against persons in 2019, 40% were for intimidation, 36.7% were for simple assault, and 21% were for aggravated assault. Fifty-one (51) murders; 30 rapes; and three offenses of human trafficking (commercial sex acts) were reported as hate crimes. The remaining 41 hate crime offenses were reported in the category of other.
  • There were 2,811 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against property. The majority of these (76.6%) were acts of destruction/damage/vandalism. Robbery, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and other offenses accounted for the remaining 23.4% of crimes against property.
  • Two hundred thirty-six (236) additional offenses were classified as crimes against society. This crime category represents society’s prohibition against engaging in certain types of activity such as gambling, prostitution, and drug violations. These are typically victimless crimes in which property is not the object.

In Washington, Malicious Harassment is a crime you may face in addition to any other existing charges if the prosecution has deemed that there is sufficient cause to believe that your actions were motivated by personal bias or bigotry. Malicious Harassment is a Class C Felony. The statute reads:

“(1) A person is guilty of malicious harassment if he or she maliciously and intentionally commits one of the following acts because of his or her perception of the victim’s race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or mental, physical, or sensory handicap:

(a) Causes physical injury to the victim or another person;

(b) Causes physical damage to or destruction of the property of the victim or another person; or

(c) Threatens a specific person or group of persons and places that person, or members of the specific group of persons, in reasonable fear of harm to person or property. The fear must be a fear that a reasonable person would have under all the circumstances. For purposes of this section, a “reasonable person” is a reasonable person who is a member of the victim’s race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, or sexual orientation, or who has the same mental, physical, or sensory handicap as the victim. Words alone do not constitute malicious harassment unless the context or circumstances surrounding the words indicate the words are a threat. Threatening words do not constitute malicious harassment if it is apparent to the victim that the person does not have the ability to carry out the threat.”

The jury must put themselves into the shoes of what the statute defines as a reasonable individual, rather than their own mindset.  From a defense standpoint, the prosecutor’s burden of proof may be difficult to properly enact if the jurors are not members of the group that the alleged hate crime has offended. Moreover, not all crimes that occur between people of different races and nationalities are necessarily hate crimes.

Please contact my office if you or a loved one is currently facing charges for a hate crime, and/or Malicious Harassment. Defending against these allegations is difficult, and there is very little room for negotiation. Hiring competent and experienced defense counsel is your first and best step towards justice.

Coronavirus Crime Trends

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Coronavirus Quarantines Spark Drop in Crime – for Now | National News | US News

Excellent and informative article in Safewise.com written by lead safety reporter and in-house expert gives us updates on the latest crime statistics and trends in the major cities throughout the Coronavirus pandemic.

The gist?

“It depends on who you ask. From a research standpoint, it’s difficult to make a sweeping assumption—even after six months of living in a COVID-19 world. But there are consistent signs across the country that certain crimes have seen jumps during the global pandemic. The biggest increases have been in violent crimes, particularly murder, aggravated assault, and shooting incidents.” ~Rebecca Edwards, Lead Safety Reporter, Safewise.com

Edwards gives the statistics in violent crime and trends during the pandemic:

  • Preliminary FBI data for the first six months of 2020 shows murder and non-negligent homicide as up nearly 15% compared to the same time period last year.
  • A report by the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) paints an even more dire picture—showing a 53% jump in homicides in 27 major US cities this summer, compared to the last.
  • FBI data also shows a 4.6% jump in aggravated assaults between January and June 2020, versus the same period in 2019.
  • Aggravated assault rose 14% summer over summer, according to the CCJ analysis.
  • Gun violence has been relentless for much of 2020, particularly in major cities like Chicago, New York City, and Philadelphia.
  • As of September 28, the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) has recorded 13,641 homicides, murders, and unintentional gun-related deaths for 2020. That’s almost 90% of the total recorded for all of 2019.

“It’s not all bad news, though,” reports Edwards. “There are plenty of other crimes that have dropped dramatically amid stay at home orders, physical distancing, and other pandemic conditions.” She gives us the following data:

  • Counts of rape have dropped, according to FBI data—falling almost 18% year over year.
  • Robberies have also been on the decline, dropping 7% for the first half of 2020.
  • Overall, property crimes have been on a downward trajectory this year.
  • According to a preliminary FBI report,  property crime saw an 8% decrease nationwide between January and June 2020, compared to the same timeframe last year.
  • The FBI shows burglaries down across the board by nearly 8% year over year, although cities like Seattle and San Francisco have seen drastic increases.
  • Larceny thefts also dropped by nearly 10% in the first half of 2020, according to FBI data.
  • Car thefts and break-ins have been on the rise during the pandemic. The FBI shows a 6% climb in vehicle thefts between January and June 2020, compared to the same time in 2019.
  • Cities like Los Angeles, Denver, and Scarsdale, New York have broken records for the number of cars stolen so far in 2020.
  • The FBI also reports a drastic jump of 19% in arson offenses nationwide. The majority (52%) of that increase came from cities with more than one million residents.

Edwards also gives statistics on Washington State:

  • Seattle had 32 more burglaries per 100,000 people between March 16 and April 12, compared to the same time period last year.
  • One Seattle precinct saw an 87% jump in burglaries in March, as businesses shuttered due to the pandemic. Overall, the city has seen 21% more burglaries.
 Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member face criminal charges during the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Crime Fell In First 6 Months of COVID

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Coronavirus Is Slowing Down the Criminal Justice System. Will Criminals Cash In?

According to a recent FBI Report, crime fell in the first 6 months of Covid. More specifically, violent and property crime both plunged across the United States in the first six months of 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic swept the country.

Even though lockdowns to prevent the spread of Covid-19 were inconsistent and non-existent in some areas, murders fell 14.8 percent from a year earlier and rapes dropped 17.8 percent, according to preliminary data compiled by the FBI.

Violent robbery fell 7.1 percent, and non-violent thefts and larceny fell by slightly more from the first half of 2019, the FBI said.

But arson jumped in the first half of this year, especially in large cities and in West, it said. Arson cases rose more than 52 percent in cities with populations over one million, and were up 28 percent in the western part of the country. The FBI did not offer any explanation of the decline in crime overall, or the surge in arson.

But the period covered by the data coincides with the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, including the declaration of a national emergency on March 13, California’s stay-at-home order on March 19, and New York issued a stay-at-home order on March 20.

Violent crime of all types fell in the period by 4.8 percent in the northeast and by smaller levels in the West and Midwest. But violent crime increased compared to 2019 in the South, by 2.5 percent. Generally southern states lagged others in taking serious steps to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member face criminal charges. Hiring an experienced criminal defense attorney is the first and best step towards justice.

Study Finds Police Misconduct Leads to Wrongful Convictions

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Advocacy group speaks out against wrongful convictions

A recent study finds police misconduct leads to wrongful convictions. The misconducts included witness tampering, violent interrogations and falsifying evidence.

Titled, Government Misconduct and Convicting the Innocent: The Role of Prosecutors, Police and Other Law Enforcement, researchers from the National Registry of Exonerations studied 2,400 convictions of defendants who were later found innocent over a 30-year period and found that 35% of these cases involved some type of misconduct by police. More than half – 54% – involved misconduct by police or prosecutors.

The study comes as protests over racial injustice and police brutality spread across many cities for several months following the May 25 death of George Floyd in police custody.

Researchers found that misconduct by police and prosecutors is among the leading causes of disproportionate false conviction of Black defendants. For example, 78% of Black defendants who were wrongly accused of murder were convicted because of some type of misconduct. That number is 64% for white defendants, according to the study. An even wider gap: 87% of Black defendants later found innocent who were sentenced to death were victims of official misconduct vs. 68% for white defendants.

The study found that hiding evidence that is favorable to defendants is the most common type of misconduct.

Researchers cite five murder trials in which prosecutors concealed evidence about the cause of death. In one case, a woman was convicted of killing her boyfriend, but prosecutors did not disclose a medical report that found he had died of suicide.

“In a few rape exonerations, the authorities concealed evidence that the complainants had a history of making false rape allegations . . . And in at least a dozen child sex abuse cases, police, prosecutors and child welfare workers concealed statements by the supposed victims that they had not in fact been molested.” ~National Registry of Exonerations

In some cases – according to the study – police officers falsely claimed they were victims of assaults by defendants. In one such case, police officers from Chattanooga, Tennessee, beat a defendant at a reentry facility because he defended himself. Adam Tatum was sentenced to two years in prison for assaulting officers but was later exonerated after video showed that officers attacked him without provocation. Tatum sued and later settled for $125,000.

Also, police officers were disciplined or convicted of crimes in only 19% of exonerations that involved some type of misconduct, according to the study. That’s a rate five times higher than those for prosecutors, whose misconduct account for 30% of the cases.

Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with a crime and evidence appears to have been withheld. Hiring an experienced and effective criminal defense attorney is the best step toward justice. Experienced attorneys regularly file and argue Motions to Compel and/or a Brady Motions; both of which force the Prosecutor to give exculpatory evidence and release discovery that they otherwise wouldn’t.

Federal Government Encourages Men to Limit Drinking to Once a Day

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Men Should Limit Alcohol to One Drink Per Day, According to New ...

Excellent article by Cortney Moore of Fox News sheds light on how the federal government is advising men to not drink more than one drink per day  as it finalizes the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

This new guidance, which is updated every five years, is lower than the recommended serving limit the U.S. government issued in its previous iteration, which was set at two drinks per day.

“If alcohol is consumed, it should be in moderation,” the report stated at the time, which was jointly written by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “For those who choose to drink, moderate alcohol consumption can be incorporated into the calorie limits of most healthy eating patterns.”

Ms. Moore reported that during the Coronavirus Pandemic, alcohol consumption has notably increased. Days after the World Health Organization declared the virus a pandemic, alcohol sales rose by 55 percent in the week of March 21, according to market research from Nielsen. By June, alcohol sales were reportedly up by around 27 percent.

Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member face criminal charges with alcohol being a factor. Any increases in alcohol use during the pandemic could be a cause for concern. It can be very tempting to seek alcohol in an attempt to cope with negative emotions associated with the crisis.

Alcohol Consumption Increases During Coronavirus Pandemic

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A recent study from RTI International found that “Pandemic Drinking” has increased in direct response to the surging Coronavirus Pandemic.

According to the article, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic forced many people into their homes, where they were encouraged to shelter in place for weeks. And, while many restaurants and bars closed as a result of the pandemic, a new study finds that people – especially women, those who are unemployed, Black people and parents – have actually been drinking more than they did before COVID-19 hit.

The results of the study came from a poll conducted in May on about 993 people from various regions of the country. Overall, it found that a person’s average drinks per day increased 27 percent, while the increased frequency of exceeding “drinking guidelines” increased by 21 percent and binge drinking by 26 percent.

Drinking guidelines established by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism say that men should consume no more than four drinks per day and/or 14 drinks per week, while women should consume no more than three per day or seven per week.

But while on average Americans are drinking more, researchers found that minorities and women are more likely to be drinking more since the pandemic began.

The study also found:

  • 16 percent of respondents increased their usual quantity by an average of two drinks; and
  • 27 percent increased the total number of drinks consumed on “more than usual” days by 4.5 drinks.

Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with DUI, Domestic Violence or other alcohol-related crimes during the Coronavirus Pandemic. It’s very easy to become dismayed, distracted and depressed in these times. Hiring an experienced criminal defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.

Some Crimes Decreasing Amid COVID-19

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Coronavirus Quarantines Spark Drop in Crime – for Now | National ...

Great article in Bloomberg by Chris Dolmetsch, Edvard Pettersson and Christopher Yasiejko reports that in the largest U.S. cities, crime has dropped since the Coranavirus Pandemic.

In short, car thefts and store robberies are spiking in some municipalities even as crime overall — especially violent offenses — dropped in 10 of the 20 most populated cities, more than halving in San Francisco alone, according to data analysis from 10 major cities.

“It’s just a reflection of reduced opportunities for these kind of events,’’ said Daniel Nagin, a criminologist and professor of public policy at the H.J. Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “In the case of murders, these often occur in public places in bars and things like that. With those kinds of activities shut down there’s less social interaction.

Car theft is surging New York city, up 49% for the week ended April 12 as compared to the same period a year earlier. It’s risen 53% over the past month and more than 63% year to date. Car theft was the only major crime to show an increase in Los Angeles, rising 11.3% for the the 28 days ending April 11 from the previous period.

Burglaries are also on the rise in New York, up 26% year-to-date as compared to the same period in 2019. In the week ended April 12, they more than doubled in the southern half of Manhattan, where many stores are now unoccupied. Burglaries jumped almost 34% in Denver in March amid a growing number of break-ins at marijuana dispensaries. In Philadelphia, burglaries were down 6.7% overall, with residential break-ins falling 25% as more people stay home, but unoccupied businesses were hit hard, with commercial burglary rising 71%.

Robberies and burglaries dropped more dramatically in Los Angeles than some other major U.S. cities, perhaps because it closed non-essential businesses and told people to stay at home earlier than other cities, said Charis Kubrin, a professor of criminology at the University of California, Irvine.

“Property crimes are crimes of opportunity and with most businesses closed, there are simply fewer opportunities.” ~Charis Kubrin, Professor of Criminology

Each of the 10 major cities that provided data are showing a decline in rapes and sexual assaults, with San Francisco posting the biggest drop — more than 50% — as compared to the same period a year earlier.

For the most part, murders are on the decline, and in cities showing a rise the numbers are low to begin with. A 25% increase in Austin, for example, is the result of one additional homicide, with the number rising from four to five.

“There are fewer opportunities for young people to get together . . . So there’s less chance when there’s alcohol involved for arguments to get out of hand and to result in assaults or homicides.” ~Charis Kubrin, Professor of Criminology

According to the article, most cities are showing a decline in assaults, following the trend in other violent-crimes categories. Notably, the drop-off comes even after the release from prison of thousands of non-violent offenders. That may show that many such offenders need not have been put in jail to start with.”

Theft is also down across the board in the cities surveyed.  But Kubrin said the drop in street crime may be followed by an increase in white-collar crime, such as price gauging and online fraud. “Opportunities have shifted from the street to online,” she said.

Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member face criminal charges. Hiring a competent and experienced criminal defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.