by Kent Scheidegger · May 25, 2023 7:19 am
The U.S. Supreme Court has been issuing opinions only on Thursdays this month, with only orders lists on Mondays. That is a departure from past practice. The court issued three opinions today. It was a good day for landowners and homeowners, but no criminal cases. One law-enforcement-related civil case was decided, but the issue was purely one of civil procedure. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · May 24, 2023 1:05 pm
Last Friday, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson appointed Gabriel Gore as Circuit Attorney for St. Louis, replacing Kimberly Gardner, who resigned abruptly. Mr. Gore is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney, although his recent experience is in private practice. The announcement is here. Eric Heffernan and Katie Kull have this story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · May 22, 2023 7:06 am
The U.S Supreme Court issued a regular Monday order’s list today. No new cases were taken up for full briefing and argument. One civil case was summarily reversed.
We were disappointed that the court declined to take up the case of South Carolina murderer Quincy Allen, No. 22-490. CJLF had filed a friend of the court brief supporting the state’s petition. The case seemed to us to be a good vehicle for reconsidering a particularly egregious old precedent in which the court grafted a constitutional limit on to the Eighth Amendment because a majority of the justices thought it was a good idea, not because it has any basis whatever in the text or history of the Constitution. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · May 15, 2023 3:50 pm
No criminal statute has taken up more of the U.S. Supreme Court’s time in recent decades than the Armed Career Criminal Act. As the name implies, sentencing under the act depends heavily on the extent of the defendant’s criminal career. The chronic headache comes from the fact that each jurisdiction defines crimes differently, and federal defendants prosecuted under the ACCA typically have multiple prior convictions in state court. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · May 8, 2023 11:45 am
On April 28, the California Court of Appeal for the Third District upheld the state’s ban on assault weapons. The Metropolitan News-Enterprise has this story. The same court had previously upheld the predecessor statute, and the new opinion held that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year in New York State Rifle & Piston Assn., Inc. v. Bruen did not change the outcome of this issue. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · May 5, 2023 3:42 pm
The Public Safety Committees of both houses of the California Legislature have long been known as graveyards. Strong criminal justice bills are buried there. A bill regarding human trafficking, SB 14, emerged from the Senate Public Safety Committee last week, but the extent to which it had to be watered down to survive is an appalling commentary on the present state of the California Legislature.
The base offense is defined in section 236.1(a) of the Cal. Penal Code. “A person who deprives or violates the personal liberty of another with the intent to obtain forced labor or services, is guilty of human trafficking ….” In other words, we are talking about actual slavery in the twenty-first century. Who could possibly be against throwing the book at present-day slavers? Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · May 4, 2023 2:16 pm
Shopping Closures Map from SF Chronicle
A huge but common mistake in public policy is to consider only the direct effects of a policy and ignore the indirect effects. Crime harms the direct victims most, but ultimately the indirect effects corrode the structure of society.
San Francisco’s once-famous shopping scene is imploding, and crime is a major reason why.
In the latest blow to downtown, Nordstrom, an upscale anchor store in the Westfield San Francisco Centre, will depart at the end of its lease. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · May 2, 2023 10:28 am
Gallup has released its latest poll asking the open-ended question, “What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?” Lydia Saad of Gallup has this report. Government leadership and economic issues continue to top the list, but the sharpest changes from the previous poll were in the numbers naming crime or guns as the top issue. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Apr 28, 2023 12:48 pm
Say “violent criminal” and most people will picture a man, for the obvious and valid reason that the rate of violent crime is much higher for men than women. But there are violent women as well. Today the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report, Recidivism of Females Released from State Prison, 2012–2017. The press release is here. Using a five-year follow-up period, the recidivism rate for violent women was somewhat lower than the corresponding rate for violent men, but still high — 55% versus 66% for men. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Apr 20, 2023 1:41 pm
From an op-ed in the WSJ:
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal bureaucracy with a vast jurisdiction, is testing a novel approach to crime and punishment. In a lawsuit against Townstone Financial, a small Chicago-area nonbank mortgage firm, the CFPB is signaling that it may attempt to punish anyone who complains about neighborhood crime.
The article is by John Berlau and Stone Washington of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The essence of the CFPB complaint is that candid speech about high crime areas discourages people from those areas from applying for mortgage loans, with a disparate impact by race. Continue reading . . .
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