Eliza Thornberry
Eliza Thornberry is a 21 year old single mother living in Salt Lake City Utah. 2 years ago her father was diagnosed with Stage IV Lung Cancer. Eliza had been relying on her father's financial support, but with her father’s diagnosis he has been unable to work. Because of her financial situation, she stole a 20$ pack of diapers from her local supermarket, and subsequently was convicted of a Class B misdemeanor for petty theft. She also received a speeding ticket. During her scheduled hearing time her father’s condition worsened, and he had to be hospitalized and she failed to appear in court for the speeding ticket. The court date was rescheduled, but timing was against her again. Her father entered his last stages of life on the day of the court hearing. She failed to appear again in order to be with her father. She was later able to appear and get her ticket cleared up, but the two failures to appear still went on her record. Now she is again in court for driving with an expired license which was discovered when she was pulled over for running a red light. As a result of her prior actions, the PSA algorithm has assigned her an NCA score of 5 and a FTA score of 5, which under Utah decision making frameworks for interpreting the PSA means that the recommendation is to put her on house arrest, be electrically monitored, and be drug tested.
Age at Current Arrest: 21
Current Offense is Violent: NO
Pending Charge at the Time of Offense: NO
Prior Misdemeanor Conviction: NO
Prior Felony Conviction: NO
Number of Prior Violent Convictions: 0
Number of Prior Failure to Appear Pretrial in Past Two Years: 2
Prior Failure to Appears (Older than Two Years): NO
Previously Sentenced to Incarceration: NO
New Criminal Arrest Score: 5
Failure to Appear Score: 5
Utah's Reccomended Release Conditions: Electronic Monitoring, Home Detention, and / or Drug Testing
Daria Morgendorffer
Daria Morgendorffer is a 25 year old woman from Murray Utah. 3 years ago she was convicted of Assault and Battery after a domestic violence dispute involving her and her ex-boyfriend, where he was left with multiple injuries. She was also arrested last year on a count of Aggravated Robbery with use of a weapon when she robbed a local gas station with a gun. Daria was also charged with a Class B misdemeanor for petty theft for stealing a TV from a store. Each time that Daria has been arrested she was able to show up to court and thus has no prior Failure to Appear incidents. Now Daria is in court for the same issue as Eliza, driving on an expired license. Although her criminal past is quite rocky and contains violent offenses, she has not incurred an New Violent Criminal Arrest (NVCA) flag from the PSA itself, but in Utah’s specifically implemented decision making frameworks, the NVCA flag is not interpreted in the decision making framework itself, leaving Daria with an NCA score of 4 and FTA score of 2. By the decision making framework this score recommends release under the conditions of two check-in phone calls per month.
Age at Current Arrest: 25
Current Offense is Violent: NO
Pending Charge at the Time of Offense: NO
Prior Misdemeanor Conviction: YES
Prior Felony Conviction: YES
Number of Prior Violent Convictions: 2
Number of Prior Failure to Appear Pretrial in Past Two Years: 0
Prior Failure to Appears (Older than Two Years): NO
Previously Sentenced to Incarceration: NO
New Criminal Arrest Score: 4
Failure to Appear Score: 2
Utah's Reccomended Release Conditions: Two Phone Contacts Per Month, Court Reminder Notification
Obviously these 2 stories detail a stark contrast on two opposite ends of the criminal offense spectrum. One is a story of a single mother dealing with financial and familial issues out of her control, and the other is a woman charged with aggravated robbery and assault and battery. This example shows how the PSA can generate results antithetical to common sense. Although our personal opinions tell us that surely the second person would be more dangerous and should garner more stringent release conditions, the PSA algorithm, used in conjunction with the standard decision making framework deployed in most counties in Utah, calculates a lower risk score for her. On the other hand, the person we would think is harmless and deserves a break, is recommended for ridiculous release conditions.
A judge would most likely overrule the algorithm to make an experience-informed decision regarding the release of the first individual, but the point remains that the algorithm itself is flawed with arbitrary cutoffs that increase a defendant’s risk score for seemingly no rational reason. In this case, if Eliza was 22 instead of 21, her NCA score would go down by a point, and if she was able to make her court appearances, her FTA score would drop 3 whole points. This would result in drastically reduced release conditions of two phone calls a month, equivalent to Daria, the defendant with a more serious criminal history.
New Criminal Arrest Score: 1
Failure to Appear Score: 1