by Kent Scheidegger · Oct 5, 2020 9:17 am
Today is the First Monday in October, the first day of the new term for the U.S. Supreme Court. As usual, the new cases the Court has taken up in its opening conference were announced last week, see this post, and today’s orders list contains a very long list of cases turned down. Along with shooting down the Stairway to SCOTUS suit against Led Zeppelin, there are a few other items of interest from the orders list. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Oct 2, 2020 4:15 pm
The criminal justice system takes too long and costs too much. That is why the much-criticized practice of plea bargaining is a necessary evil. That is why actually carrying out the just, deserved sentences for the very worst murderers is the exception and not the rule.
So what did California Governor Gavin Newsom do Wednesday? He signed a bill to make the problem worse, layering a large, expensive, and time-consuming new burden on the already staggering system. The pretense for AB 2542 (now Chapter 317, Statutes of 2020) is redressing racial discrimination, but it will not do any good along those lines, while it will do much harm. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Oct 2, 2020 1:11 pm
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by Kent Scheidegger · Oct 2, 2020 8:31 am
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a short orders list this morning with cases it decided to take up at its conference Tuesday. They are all civil cases. Amy Howe summarizes them on her blog. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Sep 30, 2020 1:12 pm
Last night’s presidential debate was a disappointment, to put it mildly. It could have done much more to illuminate the differences between the candidates on policy. Instead we got much boorish behavior, much evasion of questions and issues, and much less illumination than we should have gotten.
For what it’s worth, here are a few notes. A transcript is available at the Daily Mail. Video is available at C-SPAN. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Sep 29, 2020 2:10 pm
The nomination of Seventh Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court has focused new attention on a 1998 law review article she co-authored with John Garvey, Catholic Judges in Capital Cases. This article is unlikely to be a roadblock to her confirmation, but it does raise a question that needs to be answered.
Right out of the gate, we should note what Professor Garvey, the senior author of the article, wrote in the WaPo last week. “It would hardly be reasonable to hold Barrett responsible for everything we said back then, when she was still a law student and the junior partner in the endeavor.” Quite right. Even as an indication of her views at the time, the junior partner does not typically decide the positions that will be taken. Further, one’s views on issues may change with time and experience. That was 22 years ago, and a lot of water has passed under her bridge since then. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Sep 28, 2020 5:07 pm
The FBI has released its annual final report on crime for last year, Crime in the United States, 2019. Nationwide, the rates per 100,000 population decreased 1% for violent crime and 4.5% for property crime. This data set does not include crimes not reported to or otherwise known to the police. As we have discussed on this blog previously, the change of many crimes from felonies to misdemeanors is likely to decrease reporting as the police are less likely to take any worthwhile action.
As noted last year and in multiple previous years, California has not fully shared in the national crime decline in property crime since it started its decarceration project. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Sep 24, 2020 7:21 am
Mob action is often premised on falsehoods. The most notorious in recent years was the “Hands Up” lie in the Ferguson, Missouri matter. See this post. Now we have the facts in the death of Breonna Taylor, and once again the mob has been calling for the prosecution of the wrong people. Today’s Profile in Courage award goes to Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Sep 22, 2020 3:02 pm
The confirmation process for Supreme Court Justices has gone far downhill over the years, beginning with the dirty attack on Judge Robert Bork in 1987. Anyone nominated to the high court can expect to be smeared. Now we seem to have gone a step further, where simply being on the “short list” brings out the smear-mongers.
Eleventh Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa is on the short list. As far as I can determine from reading her opinions over the last two days, she appears to be a solid, mainstream jurist. She is under attack for not recusing herself from a case involving Florida’s felon re-enfranchising law. There is nothing to this attack. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Sep 18, 2020 5:17 pm
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died today at the age of 87. Nina Totenberg has this report at NPR. Justice Ginsburg often disagreed with CJLF’s positions and had a different philosophy of the proper way to interpret the Constitution. Even so, we respected the fact that she had a principled approach to judging, not merely voting for the argument that produced the result favored by those of a given ideology. Continue reading . . .
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