Author: Kent Scheidegger

No, misuse of ID info is not shoplifting

by · Mar 2, 2020 3:59 pm

California’s Proposition 47 created a new offense of shoplifting to deal with the overreach of charging people with burglary when they only walked in the open door of an open store to steal something, a crime which should have been charged as theft.

A creative defendant charged with misuse of personal information tried to get his crime reclassified as shoplifting, and a Court of Appeal panel actually bought that. Today, the California Supreme Court unanimously reversed.

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Supreme Math: 1791-1788=100

by · Mar 2, 2020 1:42 pm

In oral argument in the U.S. Supreme Court today, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said,

So that’s a vastly different question of whether the Suspension Clause –which predated the Due Process Clause by 100 years –the Suspension Clause, at the time, it was viewed as permitting anyone who had a legal claim to stay to file a habeas petition.

100 years?

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SCOTUS Orders Monday

by · Mar 2, 2020 9:01 am

Today the U.S. Supreme Court released an orders list from last Friday’s conference. The Court took a new case on Armed Career Criminal Act sentencing to replace the deceased James Walker’s case. It relisted for this coming Friday cases to replace the withdrawn D.C. Sniper, Jr. case on juvenile life-without-parole sentencing. Finally, the Court passed, for now, on the question of whether bump stocks can be banned administratively without amending the relevant statute.

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Additional Malvo Replacement Candidates

by · Feb 27, 2020 3:36 pm

Yesterday, I noted the case of Newton v. Indiana, No. 17-1511 as a possible replacement for the recently-dropped Malvo case on sentencing juvenile murderers to life-without-parole. I have since been made aware of four other cases also listed for tomorrow’s U.S. Supreme Court conference. Update: See end of post.

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Circuit Split on Sanctuary Cities and Byrne Grants

by · Feb 27, 2020 10:59 am

Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided in favor of the federal government in New York v. USDOJ, No. 19-267. The court upheld the authority of DoJ to withhold federal funds for state and local law enforcement in the Byrne Grant program from jurisdictions that refuse certain cooperation with enforcement of federal immigration law.

This decision creates a split of authority among the federal circuits, as the Seventh, Third, and Ninth Circuits have decided differently. Unless the full Second Circuit overrules the three-judge panel, the Supreme Court is likely to resolve the issue.

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Support for New Bail Law Plunges in NY

by · Feb 26, 2020 3:10 pm

Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg says, “Support for the new bail law – which took effect in January after passage as part of the budget last year – continues to plummet. In April, New Yorkers thought the new law would be good for the state by 17 points. Last month, voters said the new law is bad for the state by a margin of 12 points. Today, that margin for thinking the law is bad for New York has bulged to 26 points.”

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Next JLWOP Case on Conference List for Friday

by · Feb 26, 2020 2:25 pm

Well, that didn’t take long. On Monday the parties asked the U.S. Supreme Court to drop the now-moot juvenile life-without-parole (JLWOP) case of the D.C. Sniper, Jr., as noted in this post. I expected the Court to take up the case of Newton v. Indiana, No. 17-1511, presenting the same issue. Sure enough, after nearly a year on hold pending Malvo, the Newton case is suddenly on the conference list for this Friday.

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California Death Row Dispersal

by · Feb 25, 2020 4:37 pm

Earlier this month we noted the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s pilot program to disperse death-sentenced inmates away from death row. This authority was given to CDCR in Proposition 66 to defuse the abolition advocates’ argument that keeping them in San Quentin was much more expensive than it would cost to house the same murderers if they were not sentenced to death. CDCR now has an information page on its website further explaining the pilot program.

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