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Alex Kreit

February 21, 2012
Court to Weigh Scope of Double Jeopardy Clause
Guest Post

By Alex Kreit, associate professor of law and director of the Center for Law and Social Justice at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Kreit is also the chair of the American Constitution Society’s San Diego Lawyer Chapter.

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will be hearing oral argument on an unusual double jeopardy issue in Blueford v. Arkansas. Blueford presents the following problem: What happens if a jury orally announces in Court that it has voted “unanimous against” guilt on Charges A and B, is sent back to continue deliberating about lesser-included Charge C without a verdict being entered as to A and B, and finally deadlocks. Can the government retry the defendant on Charges A and B?

The facts of the case are heartbreaking: Blueford’s then live-in girlfriend left her 19-month-old son McFadden in Blueford’s care while she went to run some errands. Soon after, the baby suffered a serious head injury. He was taken to the hospital and died days later. The injury’s cause was hotly contested at trial. The prosecution’s theory — based on expert testimony and evasive conduct by Blueford following the incident — was that Blueford had slammed the child to a mattress on the floor. Blueford testified that the injury resulted from an accident. According to Blueford, McFadden had grabbed hold of a lit cigarette and brought it near Blueford’s face from behind. This startled Blueford and led him to jump, striking McFadden in the process. The defense presented two medical expert witnesses of its own in support of Blueford’s account.

The trial court instructed the jury on capital murder and three lesser-included offenses: first-degree murder, manslaughter, and negligent homicide. The court told the jurors that they should consider the charges one at a time, starting with the most serious. Only if the jury had a “reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt on the charge of capital murder” should it go onto to consider the lesser-included offense of first-degree murder, and so on.

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Supreme Court, Criminal Justice, Alex Kreit, Blueford v. Arkansas, double jeopardy, Guest Post
April 30, 2010
Get to Know California's Marijuana Ballot Initiative
Guest Post
By Alex Kreit, Assistant Professor of Law & Director of the Center for Law and Social Justice, Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Kreit is also Chair of the City of San Diego's Medical Marijuana Task Force & President of the San Diego Lawyer Chapter of ACS.

Judging by the early election season news coverage a California ballot initiative to tax and control cannabis -- for recreational, not just medicinal, uses -- is poised to be one of the most closely watched races of the cycle. So, just what would this ballot initiative do and how likely is it to pass? This post will provide a primer on the law and politics of California's marijuana legalization initiative.

The aspect of the ballot initiative that I've found catches most folks by surprise is what it won't do: make the sale of marijuana legal in the state of California. That's right, despite being billed in media reports as a vote on marijuana legalization, the proposal would not directly legalize the commercial sale, cultivation, or distribution of marijuana. Instead, it would allow local governments to enact ordinances to tax and regulate the commercial sale of marijuana.

In other words, Amsterdam-style marijuana coffee shops would be legal only in cities or counties that wanted to permit them. And, in the cities and counties that did not take up the ballot measure's invitation, buying and selling marijuana would remain illegal. In the near term, it is likely only a relatively small percentage of localities would decide to opt-in and so marijuana would remain illegal to buy and sell in most of the state even if the initiative were to pass.

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Federalism, Preemption, Criminal Justice, Democracy and Voting, Separation of Powers and Federalism, Alex Kreit, Ballot Initiative, California, Guest Post, Marijuana, War on Drugs
August 20, 2009
Assessing the Administration’s Evolving Drug Control Policy
Guest Post
By Alex Kreit, professor of law and director of the Center for Law and Social Justice at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego, Calif.

We're only three months into Gil Kerlikowske's tenure as head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy-a position commonly referred to as "drug czar"-but already there have been a number of steps toward reforming some of drug policies that I highlighted as most in need of change in my ACS Issue Brief, which is now available in the new issue of Advance: The Journal of the ACS Issue Groups.

Since President Obama took office, we've seen positive developments in the areas of sentencing reform, needle exchange funding, medical marijuana, and overseas crop eradication programs, just to name a few. With respect to sentencing reform, the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act, which would eliminate the 100-to-1 disparity between crack and powder cocaine penalties, and the Ramos-Compean Justice Act, which would allow courts to sentence below the mandatory minimum sentence in some circumstances, have both made read progress through committees in Congress. A few weeks ago, the House of Representatives voted 218-211 to lift the ban on federal needle exchange funding. Attorney General Eric Holder has repeatedly said he will discontinue the Bush Administration's medical marijuana raids (while the DEA executed paramilitary-style raids of two dispensaries in Los Angeles just last week, reportedly allegations of tax evasion are being used to try and distinguish them from previous dispensary raids.) And, the U.S, envoy for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, has announced an end to the failed poppy eradication program, calling eradication "a waste of money" that had "just helped the Taliban."

Perhaps even more encouraging than developments with respect to any specific policy, however, was the Senate's confirmation two weeks ago of addiction expert A. Thomas McLellan for the post of Deputy Director of National Drug Control Policy. This is because the nomination of McLellan, previously a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, to such an important position is a hopeful indication that the Administration may be interested in exploring making broader changes to our drug abuse strategy and pursuing a public health approach to the problem.

McLellan is committed to the view that addiction is a medical problem, not a criminal or moral problem, and has spoken out strongly in favor of the use of methadone to treat opiate addiction. To get a sense of why McLellan's confirmation is such a positive sign for those of us who believe that treatment and prevention, not mass incarceration, is the most effective strategy for reducing drug demand, this interview he gave to Bill Moyers in the late 1990's is worth a look.

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Prison policy/incarceration, Criminal Justice, Advance Journal, Alex Kreit, Drug Control Policy, Guest Post