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Blog and Media Roundup - Wednesday, February 14, 2018; News Roundup
Topic Started: Feb 14 2018, 05:35 AM (124 Views)
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Durham County assistant DA out of job after marijuana charge

By Virginia Bridges And Joe Johnson
vbridges@heraldsun.com
jjohnson@heraldun.com

February 13, 2018 04:36 PM

DURHAM

A Durham County assistant district attorney charged with marijuana possession is out of a job.

Ariston Cassandra Ann Bailey, 27, was charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana after a traffic stop in Hillsborough on Friday evening.

An Orange County deputy issued Bailey a citation for possession of a half ounce or less of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. The citation followed a traffic stop for a minor violation on Churton Street near the intersection of Mayo Street, according to an incident report.

“The driver was cited for a small amount of marijuana and paraphernalia and released,” an incident report stated. The report described the amount as two grams.

Bailey’s home address is in Hillsborough, according to the citation.

Bailey had worked for the Durham County District Attorney’s Office for about a year, according to her LinkedIn profile. She attended Campbell law school from 2012-15, it states.

Candy Clark, a spokeswoman for Durham County District Attorney Roger Echols, said Bailey is no longer employed by the DA’s office.

Bailey is the third person connected with Durham County law enforcement since Jan. 29 to face charges. Two Durham County deputies were charged with driving while impaired in the last two weeks.

Virginia Bridges: 919-829-8924, @virginiabridges

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/durham-county/article199908734.html#storylink=cpy
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https://www.chronicle.com/article/Michigan-State-s-Faculty/242540

Michigan State’s Faculty Senate Votes No Confidence in Embattled Trustees
By Sarah Brown February 13, 2018

The Faculty Senate at Michigan State University overwhelmingly approved a measure on Tuesday expressing no confidence in the Board of Trustees — yet another sign of the tensions that have continued to simmer on the campus since the recent sentencing hearings for Larry Nassar.

The faculty has no direct power to influence the trustees, so the vote was purely symbolic, but it’s a strong public statement. Sixty-one of the Faculty Senate’s 65 voting members backed the no-confidence vote.

The vote was called as a protest of the board’s decision to tap John Engler, a former Michigan governor, to serve as interim president. Engler replaced Lou Anna K. Simon, the longtime Michigan State leader who resigned last month as students, professors, and others criticized her handling of the Nassar scandal and her perceived lack of compassion toward his victims.

The Nassar Scandal and the Fall of Michigan State’s President

During a week of scathing, heart-rending testimony by the physician’s scores of victims, Lou Anna K. Simon’s once-strong support rapidly eroded. On the same day Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison, Simon resigned. Here’s how that stunning turn of events came about.

Many professors have said that the search for an interim leader should have taken at least a few weeks, if not a full semester, so faculty members and students could have a say in the process. Engler, a Republican, was officially chosen a week after Simon stepped down.

Faculty leaders met with the trustees before Engler was appointed but said their input was ignored. Faculty members have also decried Engler’s lack of academic-leadership experience and said the board should have picked someone with a background in handling issues related to sexual harassment and sexual violence.

About an hour of discussion preceded the Faculty Senate vote. Shawnee Vickery, a professor in the Eli Broad College of Business, said the vote should not have been about the board’s selection of Engler. It should have specifically called out the trustees for what she described as their failure to stop Nassar’s abuse, Vickery said.

Other speakers said they hoped the fallout from the Nassar scandal would inspire faculty members to take stronger stances and play a more active role as Michigan State enters a period of soul-searching. “We faculty have been silent for far too long,” said Andaluna Borcila, an associate professor of American studies.
Under Fire for Weeks

The faculty vote occurred three weeks after testimony by Nassar’s victims at a sentencing hearing drew national attention and heightened the spotlight on Michigan State’s potential role in enabling the sports doctor’s abuses.

Nassar is a former Michigan State sports doctor and team physician for USA Gymnastics who molested at least 265 young women and girls under the guise of giving them medical treatment. He was sentenced last month to 40 to 175 years in prison in one state court and 40 to 125 years in another, on top of a 60-year sentence he received after pleading guilty last year to federal child-pornography charges.

Since last month’s hearing, Simon and Mark Hollis, the athletic director, have left their posts. Students and faculty members have led protests. Multiple investigations have begun into what Michigan State officials knew about Nassar’s conduct and when they knew it.

On Friday university leaders began the process of stripping tenure from William Strampel, formerly dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine, where Nassar served as an associate professor until 2016.

Most trustees publicly backed Simon until she stepped down.
The trustees, who are elected in statewide votes, have been under fire for weeks. Joel Ferguson, vice chair of the board, provoked outrage on the second-to-last day of Nassar’s Ingham County sentencing hearing when he dismissed the scandal as “this Nassar thing.” Most trustees publicly backed Simon until she stepped down, despite growing calls for her to resign.

One trustee in particular has been outspoken in calling for change. Brian Mosallam demanded two weeks ago that Robert A. Noto, the university’s general counsel, leave his post. He also held a town-hall meeting this month with Michigan State students and others to discuss how the institution could improve its response to sexual violence.

Before Simon resigned, some faculty members had pushed for the faculty to take a no-confidence vote in her. But the multistep process didn’t progress quickly enough, and Simon stepped down before any action was taken.

In recent weeks, professors have expressed frustration that the process for taking a no-confidence vote is too burdensome. Before Tuesday’s vote, the academic-governance steering committee, which includes faculty and student leaders, first had to approve a survey of faculty members on whether to take a no-confidence vote.

Once the committee sent out a ballot and 87 percent of voting professors supported the measure, 10 more days passed before the no-confidence vote was taken.

Sarah Brown writes about a range of higher-education topics, including sexual assault, race on campus, and Greek life. Follow her on Twitter @Brown_e_Points, or email her at sarah.brown@chronicle.com.
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http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-recall-chemerinsky-20180213-story.html

Does recalling the judge who gave Brock Turner a light sentence for sexual assault imperil judicial independence?

By Robin Abcarian
Feb 13, 2018 | 4:00 AM

Last month, I dismissed as "hogwash" concerns that the recall of Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky could impair judicial independence.

This did not endear me to many attorneys, law professors and retired judges who reached out to accuse me of flippantly dismissing their sincerely held beliefs.

"No matter how outraged we may be, the last thing we need in California are judges who are intimidated by public opinion," wrote Steven Silva, a Times reader who experienced firsthand the difficulty of fair sentencing decisions when he worked for the presiding judge of the San Diego Juvenile Court.

Persky is the Santa Clara County judge who handed down a six-month sentence to Brock Turner, a Stanford student who was convicted of three felonies for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman next to a dumpster outside a campus party in 2015. Prosecutors had asked for six years in prison; instead, Persky followed the probation department's recommendation of six months, plus three years' probation.

Turner, who is appealing his convictions, will also be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Among my correspondents was Erwin Chemerinsky, who recently left his position as founding dean of UC Irvine's law school to become dean of Berkeley Law (formerly Boalt Hall). Last week, we sat down for a very civilized chat in the law school's coffee shop.

"I don't think concerns about judicial independence are 'hogwash,'" Chemerinsky told me. "Sentencing is one of the hardest things a judge has to do. Once a single ruling of a judge is the basis for a recall, that will send a message."

He added, "I want them to impose the sentence they think is best, not what they think is going to please voters the most."

I agree, of course. But judicial accountability is baked into the California legal system. Judges, who are appointed by the governor, face retention votes every six years.

"Otto Kaus, who served for a long time on the California Supreme Court, always said that judicial elections are like having a crocodile in your bathtub," Chemerinsky said. "You never forget it's there."

Though accountability may not be as hallowed a concept as judicial independence, the state Constitution also allows voters to recall a judge, a completely different and far more onerous process than a regularly scheduled retention vote. It does not spell out or limit the reason for a recall, so it's not strictly correct to argue, as many legal professionals do, that judges should be removed only for personal misconduct.

I told Chemerinsky I often sit out the judicial portion of my ballot, because I have no time or inclination to research a judge's rulings or temperament. "I do that, too," he said. "Occasionally, I will have former students or people I know on the ballot. It's a system that works so poorly because the electoral system assumes we know who we are voting for, and that doesn't work for judges."

It's a flawed system, but it's the one we've got.

Last week, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted to place the Persky recall on the June 5 ballot. Whatever your feelings about Persky, who has tried unsuccessfully to block the recall on technical grounds, this is a historic moment.

Regardless of the vote result, Chemerinsky said, he believes the recall campaign has already had an impact on judges, perhaps even subliminally. Judges, after all, don't usually have to worry about being criticized for handing down sentences that are too harsh.

"The presumption up until now has been if you disagree with a judge's ruling, you appeal it," he said. "Now we are sending a message: If your sentence is too light, you face a recall."

Successful judge recalls are vanishingly rare in California. If Persky is booted off the bench in June, it will be only the third successful judicial recall in state history.

The last one occurred in 1932.

But the very first one, which took place in 1913, bears interesting similarities to the recall campaign against Persky.

In 1911, California voters made two consequential decisions. They amended the Constitution to give women the vote, and they passed a measure allowing judges to be recalled.

Two years later, newly enfranchised, women launched a recall against a San Francisco judge, Charles Weller, who had reduced the bail of a businessman charged with trying to assault two 17-year-old girls.

According to Stanford historian Estelle Freedman, the bail was so low that the man skipped town. After that, wrote Freedman in a 2016 New York Times essay, the Women's Political League accused the judge of "extending undue and unreasonable leniency to persons charged with the commission of heinous and vicious offenses."

Weller became the first judge in California history to be recalled. He was not accused of personal misconduct. His sin? Failing to take sexual assault against women seriously enough, and giving the alleged assailant the benefit of the doubt.

If the Legislature and the people did not believe that this was a proper use of the power of judicial recall, well, they have had more than 100 years to change it.

robin.abcarian@latimes.com

Twitter: @AbcarianLAT
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