MISDEMEANORS AND HIGH CRIMES

1. MISDEMEANORS AND HIGH CRIMES Chapter 33 The American Nation, 12e Mark C.Carnes John A. Garraty

2. THE ELECTION OF 1988 • Republicans nominated Vice President George H.W. Bush • Democrats nominated Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis • Tarnished by furlough program and Willie Horton • Bush won 54% of the vote • 426 to 112 electoral votes

3. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT • Responding to widespread calls for a crackdown on crime, elected officials hired more police, passed tougher laws and built additional prisons • Shift toward capital punishment • During 1960s only a handful of criminals were executed • 1972: Supreme Court ruled in Furman decision that jury-imposed capital punishment was racially biased and thus unconstitutional • Many states favored capital punishment statutes which then took decision out of hands of juries • Supreme Court upheld these laws and capital punishment, on hold since 1967, resumed in 1976 • Since then nearly 1000 convicts have been executed

4. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT • State legislatures imposed tougher sentences and made it more difficult for prisoners to obtain parole • 1973: New York passed laws that mandated harsh sentences for repeat drug offenders • 1977: California replaced its parole system with mandatory sentencing, which denied convicts the prospect of early release • Ten other states adopted similar systems • Nationwide, the proportion of convicts serving long, mandatory sentences increased sharply • From 1984 to 1995, more inmates died of suicide than in fights with other inmates

5. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT • Nation’s prison population increased • 1973: federal and state prisons held about 10,000 convicts • 1990: number of prisoners exceeded 750,000 • 2004: 2 million • Required construction of a 1000-bed prison every week • 1995: states spent more on prisons than on higher education • Human Rights Watch reported the United States incarcerated more people than any country in the world except, perhaps, Communist China, which does not disclose that information

6. “CRACK” AND URBAN GANGS • Several factors intensified the problem of violent crime, especially in the inner cities • Shift in drug use from marijuana in the 1960s to cocaine • Cocaine was more powerful and addictive but more expensive so few people could afford it • During the 1980s growers of coca leaves in Peru and Bolivia greatly expanded production • Drug traffickers in Colombia devised sophisticated systems to transport cocaine to U.S. • Price of cocaine dropped from $120 an ounce in 1981 to $50 in 1988

7. “CRACK” AND URBAN GANGS • Even more important was proliferation of a cocaine-based compound called “crack” because it crackled when smoked • Sold in $10 vials • Gave an intense spasm of pleasure • Lucrative crack trade led to bitter turf wars in the inner cities • “drive-by shooting” entered the language • Survey of Los Angeles County in the 1990s found that more than 150,000 young people belonged to 1000 gangs • In 1985, before crack, there were 147 murders in Washington, D.C. but in 1991 there were 482 • Black on black murder became an important cause of death for young men in their 20s • By 2005, 20% of African American men in their 20s were in prison, or on probation, or on parole

8. GEORGE H.W. BUSH AS PRESIDENT • In 1989, Bush named a “drug czar” to coordinate various bureaucracies, increased federal funding of local police, and spent $2.5 billion to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the nation • Had little overall effect • Opposed gun control and abortion and called for a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning

9. THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM IN EASTERN EUROPE • Reforms instituted by Gorbachev in Soviet Union led to demands from Eastern European satellites for similar liberalization • Gorbachev announced Soviet Union would not use force to keep communist governments in power in these nations • Swiftly the people of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, East Germany and the Baltics did away with the repressive regimes • Changes were peaceful except in Romania where the former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was executed • Soviet-style communism had been discredited, Warsaw Pact no longer existed and Cold War was over

11. THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM IN EASTERN EUROPE • Bush expressed moral support for new governments and provided modest financial support in some instances • June 1990: Bush and Gorbachev signed agreements reducing American and Russian stockpiles of long-range nuclear missiles by 30% and eliminating chemical weapons • 1989: Bush sent troops to Panama to overthrow General Manuel Noriega who refused to yield power when his figurehead presidential candidate lost the election • Noriega was under indictment in U.S. for drug trafficking • After temporarily taking refuge in the Vatican embassy, he surrendered and was taken to the U.S. where he was tried, convicted and imprisoned

12. THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM IN EASTERN EUROPE • Latin Americans were concerned about U.S. action in Panama and by fact that more Panamanian civilians were killed and wounded than armed supporters of Noriega • Summer 1991: civil war broke out in Yugoslavia as Croatia and Slovenia sought independence from the Serbian-dominated central government • Soon became religious war pitting Serb and Croatian Christians against Bosnian Muslims • In Soviet Union, Gorbachev responded to demands for more local control of affairs by backing a draft treaty that would increase local autonomy and further privatize the Soviet economy • In August, before treaty ratification, hard line communists attempted a coup • Boris Yeltsin, the anticommunist president of the Russian Republic, defied the rebels and roused the people of Moscow • The coup collapsed, the Communist party was disbanded and the Soviet Union was replaced by a federation of states, led by Yeltsin

13. THE WAR IN THE PERSIAN GULF • Despite earlier aid to him, few in administration were fond of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein • For years had been crushing the Kurds, an ethnic minority in northern Iraq that sought independence • 1989: after Kurds assisted an Iranian advance, Saddam used chemical weapons on them, killing over 5000 civilians • U.S. lodged a protest • 1988: after Iran-Iraq War ended in stalemate, Saddam intensified war on Kurds

15. THE WAR IN THE PERSIAN GULF • August 1990: Iraq invaded Kuwait hoping to add its oil reserves to those of Iraq thereby controlling about 25% of world total • Soldiers overran Kuwait swiftly and carried off everything not nailed down • Saddam annexed Kuwait and troops massed on the border with Saudi Arabia • Saudis and Kuwaitis turned to U.S. and the UN for help • UN applied trade sanctions • The U.S.—along with Great Britain, France, Italy, Egypt and Syria, at the invitation of Saudi Arabia, moved troops to Saudi bases

16. THE WAR IN THE PERSIAN GULF • By November, Bush had increased the American troops in the area from 180,000 to 500,000 • Late November, UN authorized the use of force if Saddam did not withdraw from Kuwait by 15 January 1991 • Congress voted to use force • 17 January, Americans unleashed massive air attack which lasted for a month and reduced much of Iraq to rubble • Iraqis fired a few missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia and set the Kuwaiti oil wells on fire

17. THE WAR IN THE PERSIAN GULF • 23 February: Bush issued an ultimatum to pull out of Kuwait or face invasion • When Saddam ignored the deadline, more than 200,000 UN troops attacked in Desert Storm • Between 24 and 27 February they retook Kuwait, killing tens of thousands of Iraqis and capturing even more • Bush then stopped the attack and Saddam agreed to UN terms • Reparations to Kuwait • UN inspectors to determine whether Iraq was developing atomic and biological weapons • “No-fly” zones over Kurdish territory and other strategic areas

18. THE WAR IN THE PERSIAN GULF • Polls showed 90% of Americans approved Bush’s handling of war and overall performance as chief executive • Bush and others expected Saddam to be driven from power • When Kurds in north and pro-Iranian Muslims in south tried, Saddam used the remnants of the army to crush them • Refused repeatedly to carry out terms of UN agreement, particularly by hindering arms inspection

19. THE DEFICIT WORSENS • War only worsened deficit • Congress refused to close local military bases or cut funding for favored defense contractors • Also nearly impossible to reduce nonmilitary expenditures, especially Medicare and Social Security • Deficit for 1992 hit $290 billion • Bush, who had promised “no new taxes,” was forced to raise the top tax rate from 28% to 31% and levy higher taxes on gasoline, liquor, expensive automobiles and other luxuries

20. LOOTING THE SAVINGS AND LOANS • Another drain on the federal treasury resulted from demise of hundreds of federally insured savings and loan (S&L) institutions. • Traditionally played an important role in nearly every community by providing home mortgages • 1980s: Congress permitted S&Ls to enter the more lucrative but riskier business of commercial loans and stock investments • Attracted swarm of aggressive investors who acquired S&Ls and invested company assets in high yield junk bonds and real estate deals • Often failed to generate steady income and, worse, were often worthless • October 1987: the stock market crashed and hundreds of S&Ls were plunged into bankruptcy

21. LOOTING THE SAVINGS AND LOANS • In 1988 Michael Milken was indicted on 98 charges of fraud, stock manipulation, and insider trading • Pled guilty, agreed to pay $1.3 billion in compensation, and went to jail • His investment firm filed for bankruptcy • Junk bond market collapsed • Still more S&Ls went under and the government—the taxpayers—were forced to cover their losses because they were federally insured • $5 billion reserve fund was quickly exhausted • 1991: Congress allocated $70 billion to close the failing S&Ls, liquidate their assets and pay off depositors (may have cost taxpayers as much as $500 billion) • Justice Department charged nearly 1000 people

22. WHITEWATER AND THE CLINTONS • William (Bill) Clinton was caught in the S&L difficulties • 1977: Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham, joined with James McDougal, a banker, to secure a loan to build vacation homes in the Ozarks • The development, named Whitewater, became insolvent • McDougal covered the debts with a loan from a S&L he had acquired • 1989: the S&L failed, costing the federal government $60 million to reimburse depositors • 1992: Federal investigators claimed the Clintons had been “potential” beneficiaries of McDougal’s illegal activities

23. WHITEWATER AND THE CLINTONS • The scandal emerged when Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, was campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination • Soon overshadowed by news that Clinton had engaged in an extramarital affair of several years with Gennifer Flowers • Clinton’s standing in the polls plummeted and he and his wife made an appearance on 60 Minutes to appeal to the American people for understanding • He finished second in New Hampshire, won the Democratic nomination and named Albert Gore, senator from Tennessee, as his running mate

24. THE ELECTION OF 1992 • Bush expected to be easily renominated but encountered stiff opposition within Republican party • Patrick Buchanan, outspoken conservative • Ross Perot, billionaire Texan, then announced he would run as an independent • Declared both major parties were out of touch with “the people” • Promised to spend $100 million of his own money on his campaign • Platform had both liberal and conservative planks

25. THE ELECTION OF 1992 • Polls showed Perot was popular in states Bush had been counting on and it seemed possible there might not be anyone with enough electoral votes to win • Bush was renominated by the Republican convention • Clinton accused Bush of failing to deal with the lingering economic recession and promised to undertake public works projects, to encourage private investment and to improve the nation’s education and health insurance systems • 44 million people voted for Clinton, 38 million for Bush and 20 million for Perot • Clinton won with 370 electoral votes to Bush’s 168

26. A NEW START: CLINTON • Reasons for Clinton’s success • Intention to change health insurance and welfare systems and bring budget deficit under control • Solid knowledge of public issues and appearance of mastery and control • Willingness to reconcile differences • Had promised to end ban on gays and lesbians in the military but settled for policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” after the Joint Chiefs and a number of influential members of Congress objected

27. A NEW START: CLINTON • July 1993: Clinton appointed Ruth Bader Ginsberg to the Supreme Court • Ginsberg was known to believe abortion to be constitutional • Clinton also indicated he would veto any bill limiting abortion rights • Reversed important Bush policies by signing a revived family leave bill into law and authorizing the use of fetal tissue for research purposes • Wanted to reduce the deficit by $500 billion over 5 years, half by spending cuts and half by new taxes • Since a number of Democrats refused to cooperate and the Republicans were firmly against it, Clinton was forced to accept changes • Effort to reform health care never came up with a viable plan to take to Congress • Whitewater scandal created public pressure which forced Attorney General Janet Reno to appoint a special prosecutor, Kenneth Starr, a Republican lawyer

28. EMERGENCE OF THE REPUBLICAN MAJORITY • Paula Corbin Jones, a State of Arkansas employee, charged that Clinton, while governor had asked her to engage in oral sex • Clinton’s attorney denied the accusation and sought to have the case dismissed on the grounds that a president could not be sued while in office but the case continued • Republicans in 1994, led by congressman Newt Gingrich of Georgia, offered voters an ambitious program to stimulate the economy by reducing both the federal debt and the federal income tax • Would turn many of the function of the federal government over to the states or to private enterprise • Federally administered welfare programs were to be replaced by block grants to the states • Many environmental protection measures were to be repealed • Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress and tried to pass their “contract with America” in the 1995 budget which Clinton vetoed, leading to an impasse • The government shut down all but essential services, for a time

29. THE ELECTION OF 1996 • Public blamed Congress, and especially Gingrich, for the shutdown and the president’s approval rating rose • Upturn during and after 1991 benefited Clinton • By 1996, unemployment was below 6% and inflation below 3% • Dow Jones industrial stock average soared above 6000 (triple the average in 1987) • Bob Dole from Kansas got the Republican nomination • Clinton won with 379 to 159 electoral votes but the Republicans retained control of both houses of Congress

30. A RACIAL DIVIDE • 1990s saw the arrest of former football star O.J. Simpson for the murder of his estranged wife and a man, both of whom were white • After a tempestuous nine month trial, Simpson was acquitted • To many whites, Simpson was another violent black male • To many blacks, he was another wrongly accused black male • 85% of blacks but only 34% of whites agreed with the not guilty verdict

31. A RACIAL DIVIDE • 1992 Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall observed that educated Americans of each race appeared to have “given up on integration” • After the Simpson trial, Louis Farrakhan, leader of the separatist Nation of Islam, called on African Americans to express their solidarity by participating in a “Million Man March” on Washington, D.C. • 16 October 1995: the demonstration attracted 500,000 marchers

32. A RACIAL DIVIDE • Persistence of inequality was one reason for the new separatism • 1972: Incomes of black families were one-third less than those of white families • 1992: The statistic was virtually unchanged • The leading sectors of the economy—technology and information services—placed a premium on education • Math and reading scores of 17-year-old African American students rose relative to those of white students in the 1980s • But black test scores after 1988 fell sharply

33. A RACIAL DIVIDE • Significant casualty of the changing tone of race relations was “affirmative action” which gave minorities preference in hiring and college admission • Initially justified on the grounds that the legacy of slavery and the persistence of racism put blacks at an unfair disadvantage in finding jobs or gaining admission to college • Affirmative action programs spread in the 1970s and 1980s • July 1995: Regents of the University of California ordered an end to affirmative action • Led to protests throughout system • Following year California voters approved Proposition 209, abolished racial and gender preferences in all government hiring and education • U.S Supreme Court let the law stand and other state passed similar laws

34. A RACIAL DIVIDE • Opinion polls indicated that attitudes about race were becoming more complicated and ambivalent • By an overwhelming majority, whites endorsed the gains of the civil rights movement • In 1964, only 1 in 5 whites lived near a black neighborhood • By 1994, 3 in 5 whites did • In a 1968 Gallup poll, only 17% of whites and 48% of blacks approved of interracial marriages • By 1994, the figure was 45% of whites and 68% of blacks • Many observed that even when blacks and whites attended the same schools, learned the same songs, rooted for the same teams, they often attended different classrooms, sat at separate tables in the cafeteria and cheered from voluntarily segregated sections of the bleachers

35. VIOLENCE AND POPULAR CULTURE • Many people were concerned about the violence in popular culture • The most violent film of the 1930s, Public Enemy, and the 1974 vigilante fantasy Death Wish had body counts that topped out at 8 • Three movies of the late 1980s—Robocop, Die Hard, Rambo III—each had a death tally of 60 or more, nearly one every two minutes • Trend culminated in the unimaginably violent Natural Born Killers (1994) • TV networks crammed violent shows into prime time • 1991: survey found that by the age of 18, the average viewer had witnessed some 40,000 murders on TV

36. VIOLENCE AND POPULAR CULTURE • 1981 Music Television (MTV) was launched featuring pop song videos • Within three years, 24 million watched every day • Michael Jackson’s Thriller transformed the genre as pop music acquired a harder beat and more explicit lyrics • 1988 American Academy of Pediatrics expressed concern that the average teen-ager spent more than two hours a day watching rock videos, over half of which featured violence and three-fourths of which contained sexually suggestive material

37. VIOLENCE AND POPULAR CULTURE • “Rap” emerged from the ghetto and spread by means of radio, cassettes and CDs • Consisted of unpredictably metered lyrics set against an exaggeratedly heavy downbeat • Rap performers conveyed, in words and gestures, an attitude of defiant, raw rage against whatever challenged their sense of manhood • Appeal of rap spread beyond black audiences and led to white rappers like Eminem, whose lyrics reveled in being offensive and whose contempt knew no bounds

38. VIOLENCE AND POPULAR CULTURE • Violation of social norms had long been part of adolescence • Most consumers of pop violence in the 1990s and early years of the 2000s, had little difficulty distinguishing between cultural fantasies and everyday life • But for those who had grown up in the ghettos, the culture of violence seemed to legitimate the meanness of everyday life • Moreover, violence and criminality were becoming so much a part of popular culture that some adolescents retreated to wholly imaginative worlds conjured by movies, video and computer games, TV and pop music

39. VIOLENCE AND POPULAR CULTURE A few went so far as to act out destructive fantasies • 1 October 1997: A 16-year-old boy stabbed his mother, shot and killed two students and wounded seven others at his high school in Pearl, Mississippi • Over the next 18 months a spate of similar shootings in West Paducah, Kentucky; Jonesboro, Arkansas; and Springfield, Oregon, left 5 dead and 23 wounded • 20 April 1999: Two teenagers went on a rampage with automatic weapons at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killing 12 students and a teacher and wounding 30 others before killing themselves • Turned out to be a replay of a 1995 movie Basketball Diaries • A month after the Columbine shooting, a 15-year-old shot six students at a high school in Conyers, Georgia

40. CLINTON IMPEACHED • January 1998: a judge ordered Clinton to testify in the lawsuit Paula Corbin Jones had filed against him • To strengthen her case, Jones sought to show Clinton had a history of womanizing and so she subpoenaed a former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky • Clinton and Lewinsky both denied an affair, which Clinton restated to TV cameras after the information was leaked • Hillary Clinton denounced the charges as part of a right wing conspiracy • Lewinsky had been confiding in Linda Tripp, a former White House employee, and Tripp had secretly taped some 20 hours of their conversations • She turned these tapes over to special prosecutor Kenneth Starr

41. CLINTON IMPEACHED • In the Tripp tapes, Lewinsky provided intimate details of sexual encounters with Clinton, making it appear Clinton and Lewinsky had lied under oath • Starr threatened to indict Lewinsky for perjury • In return for immunity, she repudiated her earlier testimony and admitted engaging in sexual relations with the president and being encouraged by him and his aides to provide false testimony • When called to testify before the Starr grand jury in August, Clinton admitted to “inappropriate intimate contact” but stated he had not had sex according to his definition • More legalisms followed

42. CLINTON IMPEACHED • Clinton’s testimony infuriated Starr who made public Lewinsky’s humiliatingly detailed testimony and announced that Clinton’s deceptive testimony warranted consideration by the House of Representatives for impeachment • Throughout this, opinion polls suggested two in three Americans approved of Clinton’s performance as president • Most Americans blamed the scandal on the intrusive Starr as much as on Clinton • In the November election, Republicans nearly lost their majority in the House

43. CLINTON IMPEACHED • Republican leaders in the House impeached Clinton on the grounds that he had committed perjury and had obstructed justice by inducing Lewinsky and others to give false testimony in the Jones case • The vote closely followed party lines • The impeachment trial began in January 1999 with Chief Justice William Rehnquist presiding • Republicans numbered 55, enough to control the proceedings but 12 short of the two-thirds needed to convict • Democrats, while publicly critical of Clinton’s behavior, maintained that his indiscretions did not constitute “high crimes and misdemeanors” as defined by the Constitution • Article accusing Clinton of perjury was defeated 55 to 45; the obstruction of justice charge was defeated with a vote of 50 to 50

44. CLINTON’S LEGACY • One reason Clinton survived was the health of the economy • Until the final months, the Clinton years coincided with the longest economic boom in the nation’s history • Clinton deserves much of the credit—by reducing the federal deficit, interest rates came down, spurring investment and economic growth • By August 1998, unemployment had fallen to 4.8%, the lowest level since the 1960s • Inflation was a minor 1%, the lowest since the 1950s • In 1998, the federal government had its first surplus since 1969 • In the 2000 fiscal year, the surplus hit $237 billion

45. CLINTON’S LEGACY • Clinton also promoted the globalization of the economy • Successfully promoted the North American Free Trade Agreement to reduce tariff barriers • Congress approved in 1993 • During the last half of the 1990s, the U.S. led all industrial nations in the rate of growth of its real gross national product • New global economy harmed many • Union leaders complained that their members could not compete against convict or sweatshop labor in foreign countries • Others complained the emphasis on worldwide economic growth was generating an environmental calamity • International protests against the World Trade Organization culminated in the disruption of the 2000 meeting in Seattle, when thousands of protestors went on a rampage

46. CLINTON’S LEGACY Clinton’s record in foreign affairs was mixed • 1993: failed to assemble an international force to prevent “ethnic cleansing” by Serbian troops against Muslims in Bosnia • Same year a U.S. initiative in Somalia, an African nation wracked by civil war and famine, ended in failure when a Somali warlord ambushed and killed 15 American commandos • 1999: Clinton proposed a NATO effort to prevent Yugoslavian General Slobodan Milosevic from crushing the predominantly Muslim province of Kosovo, which was attempting to secede • After several months of intense NATO bombing of Serbia, Milosevic withdrew from Kosovo • Within a year, he was forced from office and into prison, awaiting trial for war crimes before a UN tribunal

47. THE ECONOMIC BOOM AND THE INTERNET • Significant part of the prosperity of the 1990s came from new technologies such as cellular phones and genetic engineering, but especially from the development of the Internet • Developed in the 1970s by U.S. military and academic institutions to coordinate research, the Internet lacked a common language • Early 1990s, Tim Berners-Lee, a British physicist working at a research institute in Switzerland, devised software that became the “grammar” of the Internet • With this language, the Internet became the World Wide Web (WWW) • The number of websites increased exponentially

48. THE ECONOMIC BOOM AND THE INTERNET • In 1995, Bill Gates’s Microsoft entered the picture with its Windows operating system, which made the computer easy to use • It competed with Netscape by creating a web browser—Microsoft Internet Explorer—and embedded it in its software in the Windows 95 bundle • Netscape and other service providers protested that Microsoft was threatening to monopolize Internet access

49. THE ECONOMIC BOOM AND THE INTERNET • In 1995, Jeff Bezos’s Internet company designed to sell books, Amazon.com, made its first sale • Within six years its annual sales approached $3 billion and its stock soared • Bezos became one of the richest men in the nation • Others thought they could do the same with products fro pet food to pornography • Many start up companies consisted of little more than the hopes of the founders • “Venture capitalists” poured billions into emerging “dot-coms”

50. THE ECONOMIC BOOM AND THE INTERNET • In 1999, some 200 Internet companies “went public,” selling shares in the major stock exchanges • Raised $20 billion easily • NASDAQ, the exchange which specialized in tech companies, had its index more than double between October 1999 and March 2000 • Prices of dot-com stocks kept climbing though few companies generated profits and some lacked revenue all together • Spring 2000: A selling wave hit tech stocks and spilled over to other companies • Stock prices plummeted with the NASDAQ loosing nearly half its value in six months • In all, some $2 trillion in stocks and stock funds disappeared