LNP/LancasterOnline. February 19, 2023
Editorial: In Elaina Smith’s memory, we offer a plea for justice for victims of sexual and domestic violence.
In August 2021, Jason Shackelford pleaded guilty under a negotiated plea agreement to indecent assault, terroristic threats and a firearms violation for crimes he committed in December 2019 and January 2020.
His victim in these crimes was the mother of at least two of his children.
Judge Howard F. Knisely, now retired, sentenced Shackelford to a total of five years of probation and ordered him to register as a sex offender under Pennsylvania’s Megan’s Law.
Why such a seemingly light sentence for such serious crimes?
The woman told police she had been sexually assaulted repeatedly by Shackelford. She had been punched and choked in an assault that resulted in her needing stitches. According to court records, Shackelford violated a protection from abuse order and threatened the woman with a handgun he could not legally possess because of an earlier felony conviction (for robbery).
These crimes were whittled down by the plea agreement to misdemeanors. In addition to being sentenced to probation, Shackelford was listed as a Tier 1 offender on the Megan’s Law registry.
Tier 1 offenders are generally deemed to be low-risk — unlikely to commit another sexual offense.
If only that had proven to be true.
Earlier this month, police said Shackelford confessed to raping and strangling to death 12-year-old Elaina Smith, the daughter of the victim of his previous offenses.
Elaina’s father, Dwayne Smith, described his daughter in a video as “the most perfect girl I could ever ask for” — a loving and bright girl who already knew she wanted to go to Millersville University and eventually become a veterinarian.
She was described by her aunt, Sheriece Smith, as a “beautiful, caring, intelligent” child who “made everyone better for knowing and loving her.”
Now, this child — who was clearly so full of love, light and promise — has been lost forever to everyone who loved her. The loss is gutting and unfathomable.
Elaina’s former step-grandfather David Rowley described her as “a bundle of joy.” He planned to attend her funeral but would stay away from any trial of Shackelford.
“I’ll get thrown out,” Rowley told LNP ‘ LancasterOnline. “I’m gonna yell at the judge, ‘Why did your system let this registered sex offender out on our streets? You are not protecting our people!’ ”
Taking one’s anger out on a judge isn’t the answer. But we understand that anger.
Shackelford’s Tier 1 registration on the state’s sex offender registry was a minor consequence. Pennsylvania law does not even prohibit a parent from leaving a child unsupervised with a Tier 1 offender.
Judge Knisely had directed that Shackelford be assessed by the state Sexual Offenders Assessment Board to determine whether he met the legal definition of sexually violent predator. The board clearly decided he did not.
Rowley told LNP ‘ LancasterOnline that Shackelford had come across as “very polite, friendly. … I had no idea the monster that he was. … And that’s the scary thing about these kinds of people. They know how to fit into our society.”
That’s the thing about sex offenders and domestic abusers. They don’t present as monsters — it would be easier if they did. “These kinds of people” are all kinds of people (though overwhelmingly male). Which is why they need to be judged by their actual conduct and sentenced accordingly.
Linda Crockett is the director of Safe Communities, a nonprofit working to end child sexual abuse. She was appalled by the sentence given to Shackelford after his 2021 plea agreement.
“I think it serves as an example of how our criminal justice system fails victims of sexual and domestic violence,” Crockett noted in an email. “Attempted strangulation or choking are high-risk indicators that an abusive partner may become lethal, and sexual assault is a violent crime. The sentence he received was no deterrent to future violent behavior.”
She is right.
Unfortunately, as the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network reports, the vast majority of sexual assault perpetrators do not go to prison. Out of every 1,000 sexual assaults, only 310 are reported to police and only 50 reports result in arrests. Only 28 result in felony convictions.
Negotiating a plea agreement may be seen as a way of protecting a victim from reliving trauma during a trial. But is justice really served by such agreements, when research shows that offenders who accept plea deals are likely to get lighter sentences?
In an excerpt published in Ms. magazine of her book “Punishment Without Trial: Why Plea Bargaining is a Bad Deal,” author Carissa Byrne Hessick noted that “favorable plea deals that sidestep terrible facts — especially when it comes to crimes involving sexual abuse — are the rule, not the exception, in the criminal justice system.”
Hessick is a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law. In her research, Hessick found that cases involving sex crimes “had been pleaded down to far less serious charges, oftentimes having nothing to do with sex.”
In Shackelford’s case, sexual assault (a felony) was amended to indecent assault. Strangulation (a felony) was amended to terroristic threats. Aggravated assault (a felony) was amended to simple assault. The felony gun possession charge was amended to a misdemeanor version. And several other serious charges were dropped.
As Crockett pointed out, sexual assault is a violent crime. The victim and offender knowing each other, even intimately, doesn’t change that reality. It ought to result in hefty consequences.
We implore Lancaster County President Judge David Ashworth and District Attorney Heather Adams to consider how justice is served in sexual assault and domestic violence cases here. We understand that these cases can be complicated, especially when victims are reluctant to cooperate. But perhaps that reluctance may wane if victims feel confident that their cases will be handled with the sensitivity and gravity they deserve.
Elaina Smith was the alleged victim of a man whose punishment in 2021 did not fit his crimes. He’s facing far more serious charges now, but it’s too late to save Elaina.
24-hour sexual assault hotline: 717-392-7273
Report suspected child abuse to ChildLine: 1-800-932-0313
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. February 20, 2023
Editorial: Shapiro’s bold call on death penalty right on point.
Gov. Josh Shapiro Thursday boldly called on legislators to abolish Pennsylvania’s costly, ineffective and immoral death penalty. In urging legislators to act, an unprecedented move, Mr. Shapiro showed some sorely needed leadership from the governor’s office.
Unless Mr. Shapiro engages the legislature, the death-penalty statute will endure. He needs to take the lead in persuading the Democrat-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate to approve bills that would repeal it. Former Gov. Tom Wolf refused to do that.
In making his statement a month after his inauguration, Mr. Shapiro signaled that getting state government out of the business of killing people will be a priority. He appears willing to spend some political capital on a fundamentally moral issue. That’s encouraging, but to succeed, Mr. Shapiro will have to lobby legislators and address the issue in public, perhaps the biggest test yet of his political skills and acumen.
Mr. Shapiro has a model to guide him: Former Gov. Ralph Northam led the fight to abolish the death penalty in Virginia. In 2021, it became the first Southern state, and the 23rd in the nation, to abolish the death penalty.
Opposing the death penalty still carries some political risks, but they’re not overwhelming. Since 2009, seven states have abolished the death penalty.
In remarks at Mosaic Community Church in Philadelphia, Mr. Shapiro, a former death-penalty supporter, said abolishing it was morally right. He cited the possibility of irrevocable mistakes. Since 1973, at least 185 prisoners on death row, including 10 from Pennsylvania, have been exonerated.
Pennsylvania’s death row, with about 100 prisoners, is one of the nation’s largest. More than half of the prisoners are Black, in a state in which African Americans make up only 12% of the population.
Other than exacting revenge, a notion with no place in a modern criminal justice system, there are no rational arguments for the death penalty.
No evidence shows it deters crime, and the death penalty is extremely costly. Even with the moratorium on executions, prosecutors continue to try to convict people under the statute.
Most capital convictions are overturned on appeal for mandatory life sentences. Since 1976, Pennsylvania has sentenced more than 400 prisoners to death, resulting in only three executions.
Securing death penalty convictions and defending them on appeal have cost the state about $1 billion since 1976, reported former Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale. For even the most ardent death-penalty supporter, spending $1 billion for three executions is, to put it crudely, a poor return-on-investment.
Pennsylvania has not executed a prisoner since 1999. As a death-penalty state, however, it retains a shameful moral stain.
The moratorium on executions that started in 2015 will continue under Mr. Shapiro, who will sign no execution warrants.
For Mr. Shapiro, the work has only begun. Still, he should be applauded for taking a small but significant step toward removing this barbaric practice permanently from Pennsylvania.
Scranton Times-Tribune. February 20, 2023
Editorial: Regulate ‘skill’ games; fix lobby law
Under the 2004 state law that authorized casino gambling, almost everything about the gambling enterprise is supposed to be subject to public disclosure. Now, it’s obvious Pennsylvania’s grossly inadequate lobbying disclosure law works against that mandated transparency.
The news organization Spotlight PA has reported that, weeks after a state Gaming Commission member and counsel met privately with two lobbyists for the Parx Casino, the board changed its position on a matter crucial to the casino industry.
Before the meeting, the board had been neutral on allowing unregulated, untaxed electronic “skill games” in bars, gas stations, convenience stores and so on. A few weeks after the meeting, the commission joined the casino industry in contending that the skill games are not allowed by state law.
That is the position that the commission should have taken without prodding from lobbyists, before as many as 70,000 of the machines (all of the state’s casinos have a combined 22,000 slot machines) went online across the state. Given that the state government’s primary interest in legal gambling is collecting its share of the vigorish — $2.12 billion of the $5.21 billion that gamblers lost to casinos during the fiscal year that ended June 30 — it’s bizarre that the commission would give a pass to any form of gambling.
Lack of regulation not only precludes tax revenue from “skill game” devices, but fails to protect consumers. Casinos, for example, are required to ensure that slot machines return 85% of the money bet as “payouts.” And casinos must enforce age restrictions and more to comply with their licenses.
Ideally, ongoing litigation will find that the devices are indeed illegal.
But in any case, the Legislature should recognize the need to improve lobbying disclosure. Current law requires only broad disclosures about money spent, and does not require lobbyists to identify the legislators or executive branch officials with whom they meet, or to identify the specific subjects under discussion.
Lawmakers should require more specific disclosures so Pennsylvanians won’t have to guess about the provenance of policy decisions.
Wilkes-Barre Citizens’ Voice. February 18, 2023
Editorial: Use charter reform for fair funding.
Given that the state House has not met in six weeks and has not even adopted rules for the new session, lawmakers are very far from tackling the fair school funding required by the state constitution, as recently determined by the Commonwealth Court decision.
Beyond that, the Legislature has a lousy track record of complying with court orders regarding the state government’s constitutional compliance. In 1996, for example, the state Supreme Court found that the state government was responsible for funding the constitutionally mandated Unified Court System; 27 years later, counties still primarily fund the courts.
So advocates of fairly distributed state funding for education, who were buoyed by the Commonwealth Court decision, should temper their enthusiasm.
But when the House reconvenes Tuesday, it will have an opportunity to get a start on fairer school funding by attending to another aspect of public education finance that long has been in need of reform.
The state government does not directly fund public charter schools. Rather, each district pays tuition to charters for each child within its borders who attends a charter, online or in person. The tuition is based on the district’s own cost-per-student, rather than the charter’s actual costs. The result is a bonanza for many charter schools, which typically have costs far lower than the tuition payments, enabling them to pay for advertising and to maintain massive reserves.
Sen. Judy Schwank, a Berks County Democrat, plans to reintroduce a bill that would allow public school districts not to pay tuition to online charter schools if they offer comparable online courses of their own.
That approach makes sense, especially since student performance at online charter schools is no better than that of their conventional public school peers. And it would provide millions more dollars for public school districts without raising taxes, particularly for hard-pressed urban districts where costs-per-student, thus charter tuition payments, are highest.
But even if that initiative fails, reforming charter funding to pay those schools based on their actual costs still would be a major step to help struggling districts inch closer to adequate funding.
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