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Defendant Michael Lakes

In March of 2009 several Lexington churches reported burglaries. The pastor of one church reported that he approached a suspicious individual inside the building who had asked about landscaping work and then ran off. Members of another church who were attending a “lock in” reported spotting an individual in the parking lot and finding several of the vehicles open with personal property scattered throughout the area. Another church, where an office had been broken into and several items including guitars and checkbooks had been stolen, was equipped with a video surveillance system. Investigators reviewed the security footage and identified the suspect as Michael Lakes, age 32.

The images from the security video were released to the public. Police were able to match the vehicle Lakes was driving to the burglaries, and recovered the stolen guitars as well. In June of 2009 Lakes was spotted driving a stolen car near St. Joseph Hospital on Harrodsburg Road. He was arrested, read his Miranda rights, and questioned about the church burglaries. Lakes admitted to some of the burglaries but stated he could not remember the others. Police found stolen credit cards in his possession at the time of the arrest and further investigation revealed that Lakes had used them at area merchants to buy items including gift cards, video games, and cigarettes.

Criminal records show that Lakes has 19 previous convictions including felonies for Receiving Stolen Property, Wanton Endangerment, Escape, and Theft. Corrections records show that he was released from custody in December of 2008 and was on parole at the time of the offenses. In July of 2010, Lakes pled guilty to Burglary, Fraudulent Use of a Credit Card, Receiving Stolen Property, and Persistent Felony Offender (PFO) and was sentenced to 12 years in the penitentiary. Since his current crimes are all Class D felonies, Lakes will be eligible for parole after serving 20% of his sentence, which means he will meet with the parole board again after serving just under three years.

Excerpted from an article written by Michael Rushford
THE FALSE PROMISE AND LETHAL CONSEQUENCES OF RELEASING INMATES

By Michael Rushford

In 2007 the Chief Judge of the Federal 9th Circuit appointed a three-judge panel to decide if the California prison conditions violated the constitutional rights of inmates. That “panel” recently declared that the California prison system must be reduced by roughly 27% over the next two years. That translates to 43,000 presently incarcerate inmates.

Both the “panel” and the California Legislature suggest the following as ways to meet the objective:  the release 43,000 prisons in two years.

1) Expand “good time” credits inmates earn to shorten their sentences by participating in education and rehabilitation programs, and 
2) Authorize state officials to utilize evaluation tools to determine which inmates are “low risk” of committing violent crimes and eligible for early release to community based counseling and treatment programs.

Both the “panel” and the California Legislature suggest that inmate releases can be accomplished without increasing the crime rate. They further concluded that if some of the corrections funds saved by releasing inmates are used to fund local rehabilitation programs, public safety will be improved.

California’s history of reducing the number of felons sent to prison reveals that the safety of the public was the big loser.

In the 1960’s, California initiated policies to reduce the number of felons sent to prison and provide incentives to local governments for rehabilitation programs. The purpose of these policies was to reserve incarceration for only violent offenders and divert “lower risk” felons to alternatives that would help transform them into law-abiding citizens.

The plan to keep convicted felons out of prison worked.
But the plan to rehabilitate them failed miserably and at great expense to the public’s safety.

Between 1966 and 1980, those policies began to unravel. The violent crime rate more than doubled, and the murder rate nearly quadrupled. Several hundred thousand Californians became victims of crimes – including rape, robbery, assault and murder.

It took another ten years of consistently increasing the rate of convicted felons going to prison to begin a dramatic decline in violent crime in California that has continued through 2008.

Are “Non-Violent Property Offenders” really “low-risk?”

The new California experiment notes that only “low-risk” inmates will be selected for release. These are inmates who have committed one or more “non-violent” felonies such as burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft.

The real issue is the ability to identify “low-risk” offenders.

A United States Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) report, released in 2002, tracked the three-year recidivism of 91,061 “non-violent property” offenders who were released across America in 1994.

21.9 % of those property offenders released were re-arrested for violent crimes, including:

These figures suggest that these “non-violent property” offenders, who would apparently qualify for early release under the proposed California plan are, instead, likely to cause a significant increase in violent crime.

Conclusion

The California plan apparently would re-institute the policies adopted in the 1960’s which resulted in the dramatic increases in all types of crime.

Local governments will be responsible for the law enforcement cost of investigating new crimes committed by released inmates, along with the costs of their re-arrest and prosecution. The costs of  incarceration of released inmates who commit violent crimes is inevitable.

However, the highest price will be paid by the people of California, who will suffer injury, property loss, and death at the hands of known criminals turned loose by legislators to save money.

Re-learning the clear lessons of the past will come at a very high price indeed.

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            “It is not the critic who counts…..”
            “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena…..”
                                                                        Theodore Roosevelt

We had no idea that our e-mail newsletter, “A Message from Ray the D.A – The Sharp Eye,” had such a large audience at the Lexington Herald-Leader. They featured our e-mail newsletter in a recent editorial.

We  don’t know whether their mention of our newsletter was responsible or not, but the day they mentioned it we had the largest number of visitors to our web-site  in its history, www.lexingtonprosecutor.com.

That’s not the only Herald-Leader contribution to our website and newsletter. Their attempt at photo-editorializing (see previous story on photo-editorializing) provided both our website and newsletter with the just photo we wanted. Of course we asked their permission to use it and they happily agreed, provided of course, that we give them full credit.

So . . . thanks Herald-Leader for all you have done to promote our website and newsletter.

Isn’t it great when we journalists work together?

Defendant Anthony Pemberton

In May of 2009, Lexington Police responded to several burglary complaints in upscale Lexington neighborhoods. Victims reported that their homes were broken into at night while they slept. Only items from the first floor of the houses were taken, and included things such as televisions, laptops, cell phones, purses and money. Detectives got a lead in the cases when fingerprints collected at one of the crime scenes matched those of Anthony Pemberton. Further investigation revealed that Pemberton sold tools and jewelry stolen from the victims to local pawnshops shortly after the burglaries.

Pemberton was on parole at the time of the offenses, so police accompanied his parole officer to his residence and found a flat screen TV and a cell phone stolen in the burglaries. When Pemberton was arrested, the wallet in his possession was found to also belong to one of the burglary victims. Cigarette butts recovered at two of the crime scenes were tested and found to match a DNA sample taken from Pemberton.

Criminal records show that Pemberton is 27 years of age, and was released from prison less than 3 months before his arrest. He has 28 prior convictions, including 6 felony convictions for Burglary and several others for Theft, Receiving Stolen Property, and Escape. Pemberton pled guilty to several counts of Burglary and Persistent Felony Offender and was sentenced to fifteen years in the penitentiary. Restitution for the property loss and damage to the victims was set at $5,000.

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By Intern Whitney Mobley

Today the interns got to participate in one of the most exciting field trips to date – a trip to the Police Firing Range. The Police Firing Range is located off of Parker’s Mill Road in Lexington, Kentucky. The range is surrounded by beautiful farm land which is protected from the spraying bullets by a rock wall enclosure. Upon arrival, some were able to watch the Kentucky State Police finish up their mandatory training at the range. Watching trained professionals accurately shoot their targets only increased the anticipation felt by the interns.

Interns Katie Bouvier, Alex Garcia, Whitney Mobley and Tara Hester pose with weapons from the firing range.

Before actually being able to participate, we first had to go over the basics of firearm safety and learn about the particular weapons we would be shooting. Aaron Adams, the Director of the range, acted as our instructor for the evening. When handling a firearm there are four basic rules: 1) always treat the weapon as if it were loaded, 2) point the weapon in a safe direction, 3) always keep the your finger aligned with the weapon and off the trigger until you are ready and 4) make sure that you have a target in sight and that the surrounding area is clear.

Police officers in Kentucky usually use four types of weapons while on duty. The 40 caliber Glock handgun is used most often by police with the 9 mm handgun falling closely behind. Officers also use 12 mm shotguns and M16s when needed. Once we learned how to correctly handle the firearms and the basic rules of safety, the interns were given an opportunity to handle each of the weapons individually.

The interns started out with the smaller 9mm and .40 caliber handguns. Targets were set up at the end of the range and two training officers helped us use the firearms. The officers demonstrated the correct stance, how to hold the firearm and how to aim at the target. Once we were correctly positioned, we were each given the opportunity to fire a couple of rounds.

After the small handguns, the interns moved onto handling the 12 gauge shotgun. We shot both buckshot and slugs from the weapon. The shotgun was much heavier than the handguns and much more difficult to maneuver. The recoil of the shotgun after firing also caught some of the interns off guard, including myself. After one or two shots, most of us had handed the shotgun off to the next awaiting intern.

The final weapon we were able to use was the M16. These weapons are the civilian version of the military assault rifle, the difference between the two being that the assault rifle has a “burst” setting which makes it capable of shooting off multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger. M16’s are used by police mainly in SWAT team settings. Although these firearms were still difficult to handle, they seemed lighter than the shotgun and the recoil was not as bad after firing.

After we were finished shooting all four weapons, the interns were able to gather up their target and shell casings to take home. Overall, the experience was very exciting, informative and hands on. Most of the interns had never shot a weapon so it gave us an opportunity to step outside of our comfort zone and handle these firearms.