by Kent Scheidegger · Oct 2, 2023 8:08 am
The U.S. Supreme Court began its new session this morning. The Court issued an orders list from the Long Conference. As expected, no new cases were taken up.
Only one case is on the docket for argument today. The Court grapples with Congress’s sloppy drafting in the case of Pulsifer v. United States, No. 22-340. Two civil cases are on the docket for tomorrow and Wednesday. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Sep 29, 2023 8:11 am
This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a short orders list taking up twelve cases, two of them criminal, for briefing and argument in the new term. The term begins Monday. Glossip v. Oklahoma, No. 22-7466, in which CJLF co-authored an amicus brief on behalf of the victim’s family and the Oklahoma DA’s Association, is not on the list.
The list is part 1 of the results of the “long conference” last Tuesday. If the Court follows its usual pattern, part 2 will be a long list of denials on Monday. Not all of the cases considered at the conference will be on either list, though. Some will be “relisted” for a second look at a later conference.
Here are the criminal cases taken up: Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Sep 20, 2023 8:21 pm
For several years now, it has seemed like the California Legislature had written the soft-on-crime advocates a blank check. It was passing one bill after another to reduce the consequences to criminals of committing crimes across the spectrum from relatively minor ones to the very worst. Legislators seemed to be competing among themselves to see who could put the most thugs back on the street.
This year, the folks who call themselves “progressive”* are lamenting that so many of their cherished bills failed to pass. Bob Egelko has this article in the San Francisco Chronicle. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Aug 31, 2023 3:44 pm
One would not think that defining “violent crime” is all that difficult. Yet in both federal law and California law, there are definitions of “violent” that are excessively narrow, excluding crimes that everyone with sense would consider violent. Dan Walters has this column at CalMatters, titled “California law treats some violent crimes as nonviolent, letting offenders off the hook.” He has an extended quote from this column by Emily Hoeven at the SF Chronicle (behind a paywall).
From Walters’ column:
Hoeven noted that earlier this year, the Assembly’s (perhaps misnamed) Public Safety Committee rejected a Republican bill to classify domestic violence as a violent crime, thereby making it easier to keep offenders behind bars.
This outrageous situation results from a 2016 ballot measure, sponsored principally by then-Gov. Jerry Brown and passed by voters, that purported to give those who commit nonviolent crimes chances to earn their way out of prison.
However, it was deceptive. Proposition 57’s indirect definition of a nonviolent crime was that it did not appear on a specific Penal Code list of 23 violent crimes.
That list only referred to particularly heinous crimes and omitted many offenses that ordinary folks would consider violent, including some forms of rape and domestic violence. The result is that those who commit some unspeakable crimes, including battering one’s spouse, are given kid gloves treatment in the penal system.
How did the definition get so screwed up? The problem in California is, in substantial part, the result of lazy drafting. (The federal problem is a topic for another post.) Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Aug 30, 2023 4:35 pm
Steve Smith of Pacific Research Institute has this post on a bill that is exceptionally bad even by the California Legislature’s low standards. The bill would make a large number of murderers sentenced to life without possibility for parole eligible for parole. Smith notes:
SB 94 is based on the simplistic and poorly researched premise that, based on arrest statistics alone, criminals age out of crime. The bill’s author, Senator Dave Cortese, argues that “research overwhelmingly shows that people age out of violent crime….”
Both [Sen. Cortese’s] press release and the study [it cites] suffer from a glaring omission. Neither make the connection between age and the crimes for which the offender was sentenced. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Aug 29, 2023 10:58 am
Ron Matthias has this op-ed in the California Globe with the above title. The subtitle is If it were up to Newsom, the public would learn nothing more about those prisoners and their claimed rehabilitation. Here is the first paragraph:
Gov. Gavin Newsom is big on demanding transparency and accountability from others, such as school officials and social media companies. But from himself, not so much—and especially not when it comes to using his clemency powers to engineer the future release of recidivist criminals, including some who’ve been convicted of murders so heinous they’re not even eligible for parole. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Aug 25, 2023 10:51 am
Finding the best way to respond to mental health crises is a continuing search. One thing we can be sure of is that proposals under the “defund the police” banner are bad ideas. See Michael Rushford’s post yesterday. We need more police, not fewer, regardless of what we do about mental health calls. Beyond that, alternatives need to be well thought out and adequately funded and supported. Too often, they are not. Scott Calvert and Julie Wernau have this report in the WSJ, titled “‘No Hose, No Gun’: Police Alternatives for Mental-Health Crises Fall Short: New units designed to avoid violent and often deadly encounters lack both funding and institutional support.”
Dispatchers at the 911 center in Mesa, Ariz., have three levers to pull: fire/medical, police or mental health. The last one is a relatively new addition, adopted by dozens of police departments around the country and aimed at avoiding violent and often deadly confrontations between police officers and the mentally ill.
“No hose, no gun,” said Mayor John Giles. “Just somebody with a clipboard and an argyle sweater who wants to ask how your day is going.”
Now there’s a disaster waiting to happen, if the person is so far gone as to be a danger to himself or others. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Aug 24, 2023 10:28 am
“The City of Brotherly Love has a new reputation as one of the emptiest office districts in America, sparking a debate over what’s keeping Philadelphia workers at home,” Katie Mogg reports in the WSJ.
Philadelphia, like many U.S. cities, has gone full throttle on efforts to lure people back into downtown areas. But the combination of the office-worker exodus, taxes and crime has resulted in more empty office space on the market today than during the 2008 recession, theorize researchers, Philadelphia employees and real-estate professionals.
by Kent Scheidegger · Aug 22, 2023 11:55 am
Syndicated columnist Thomas Elias has this column with the above title on the consequences of California’s sentence-reducing ballot propositions of the previous decade, Proposition 47 of 2014 and Proposition 57 of 2016.
Here’s a reality that needs to soak into the consciousness of California lawmakers, the governor and voters who put them in office: This state needs far better analysis and vetting of new laws if it’s to avoid negative unintended consequences.
And when we get solid analysis and reliable predictions of some consequences, we need to pay heed, not ignore reality.
These facts of life are perhaps best illustrated by the 2014 Proposition 47, which ended felony status for thefts and burglaries involving less than $950 worth of goods and reduced some other felonies, like stealing a gun, to misdemeanors.
One unintended consequence has been closure of some stores, notably Walgreen’s and Whole Foods outlets that suffered constant shoplifting and no penalties for thieves caught red-handed. That’s an inconvenience making life more complex from San Francisco to San Diego.
by Kent Scheidegger · Aug 16, 2023 10:30 am
Gump’s is a high-end San Francisco store with a history stretching back to the Civil War. Last weekend the store’s owner denounced the city’s present misgovernance in a scathing full-page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle. The letter denounced “a litany of destructive San Francisco strategies, including allowing the homeless to occupy our sidewalks, to openly distribute and use illegal drugs, to harass the public and to defile the city’s streets.”
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