by Kent Scheidegger · Aug 13, 2023 10:07 am
The WSJ has this article, with the above title, by Jim Carlton and Katherine Bindley. The article begins:
Local leaders are trying anything they can to keep San Francisco’s struggling downtown core afloat, including paying retired, unarmed police to keep an eye out for trouble.
In many cases, though, “local leaders” are the problem, not the people who are going to find the solution. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Jul 30, 2023 4:02 pm
The Oakland, CA chapter of the NAACP issued a statement Thursday titled End Oakland’s Public Safety Crisis.
Oakland residents are sick and tired of our intolerable public safety crisis that overwhelmingly impacts minority communities. Murders, shootings, violent armed robberies, home invasions, car break-ins, sideshows, and highway shootouts have become a pervasive fixture of life in Oakland. We call on all elected leaders to unite and declare a state of emergency and bring together massive resources to address our public safety crisis.
African Americans are disproportionately hit the hardest by crime in East Oakland and other parts of the city. But residents from all parts of the city report that they do not feel safe. Women are targeted by young mobs and viciously beaten and robbed in downtown and uptown neighborhoods. Asians are assaulted in Chinatown. Street vendors are robbed in Fruitvale. News crews have their cameras stolen while they report on crime. PG&E workers are robbed and now require private security when they are out working. Everyone is in danger.
Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals. If there are no consequences for committing crime in Oakland, crime will continue to soar.
For far, far too long there has been a widespread delusion that being soft on crime is somehow “pro-civil rights” and, conversely, that those of us calling for effective law enforcement and proportionate punishment for serious crimes are somehow “anti-civil rights.” It is a breath of fresh air to see a chapter of this venerable organization recognizing that the opposite is closer to the truth. The paragraphs above read very much like statements that CJLF has made over the years. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Jul 27, 2023 11:31 am
Zack Smith and Charles Stimson have a book out with the above title. Barry Latzer has this review at National Review. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Jul 13, 2023 10:59 am
(7/14 — see update at end of post)
Two months ago, I reported that a bill to make human trafficking a “serious felony” in California, and thus apply the state’s recidivism laws to people who commit it, was watered down in the Senate Public Safety Committee to apply only to trafficking of minors. A majority of that committee apparently believes that actual slavery of adults in the 21st century is not serious enough to apply the same laws that apply to robbery and home burglary.
Well, that wasn’t watered down enough for the Democrats on the Assembly Public Safety Committee, Katy Grimes reports in the California Globe. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Jul 7, 2023 11:18 am
Do the usual explanations of statistics, and especially regression analysis, make your eyes glaze over? If so, join the very large club. Help is here from the Manhattan Institute. George Borjas has this article in the City Journal giving a nontechnical description of the use of regression in claims of discrimination, its difficulties, and why different experts can find different results from the same raw data.
The article discusses claims that Harvard discriminated against Asian applicants, the subject of a recent Supreme Court decision. The same principles apply to discrimination claims in criminal cases, including McCleskey v. Kemp (1987) and states with misguided and misnamed Racial Justice Acts. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Jun 30, 2023 4:39 pm
Did Contra Costa County* District Attorney Diana Becton “take a dive” when her office was accused of discriminatory charging practices? Ron Matthias, retired Senior Asst. AG, has this op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News.
Thanks to the Contra Costa district attorney’s puzzling refusal to adequately defend her office against bogus allegations of racially discriminatory charging practices, the county’s most dangerous gang-banging murderers will avoid the punishment they deserve.
Diana Becton’s anemic response to both the charge of bias and a subsequent court ruling sustaining it will leave informed observers with the nagging suspicion that she’s happy with the result. She could use the ruling as a convenient excuse for never again seeking appropriate charges against hardcore gang members and for dropping charges against some who already have been convicted.
Under California law, a gang-inspired murderer can see his sentence “enhanced” by 10 additional years, and in the case of an especially egregious murder, the gang connection could support a “special circumstance” subjecting him to a no-parole life sentence or even the death penalty. In either instance, the connection must be charged and proved.
by Kent Scheidegger · Jun 30, 2023 11:17 am
The Right Message, Wrong Messenger Award for today goes to the owner of several San Francisco retail businesses, who said this:
My biggest gripe right now in San Francisco has been, frankly, we’re not enforcing existing laws … we’re not prosecuting the law breakers. Judges, DAs, the whole panoply — I want to see people held accountable for breaking the law.
Notice that the California Governor is missing from the list. So why is this person the wrong messenger? Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Jun 29, 2023 3:34 pm
On Tuesday, I noted the danger that the Supreme Court’s opinion in Counterman v. Colorado might be interpreted to require that speech must be classifiable as a “true threat” in all stalking cases before a prosecution can go forward. Taylor Lorenz has this article in the WaPo with the above title reporting that the effects are being felt already. See below.
I can understand how the Court went forward with the threats analysis in light of the fact that that was how the decision being reviewed justified the prosecution, and that was how both parties presented it. The Court does not normally rule on issues raised only by amici curiae, although it does occasionally.
But there is no excuse for not stating explicitly that the Court was not holding or implying that all stalking cases based solely on communications must pass muster as “true threats” rather than the “time, place, or manner” doctrine. That question should have been expressly left for another day. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Jun 28, 2023 3:01 pm
A post earlier today described the case of the “pillowcase rapist” and his arrest for a new violent crime at the age of 71, following release after only half his sentence. Further research has determined that this appalling result comes from an old, misguided law that has since been fixed, not the current misguided policy. Even so, the case illustrates the folly of the current policies. It is yet one more example of the maxim that those who cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Jun 27, 2023 4:05 pm
This morning the U.S. Supreme Court decided the stalking/threats case of Counterman v. Colorado, No. 22-138. The decision is a mixed bag for the ability of government to protect people from threats and for its ability to protect people from stalking. To punish speech on the basis that it is a threat, the Court held that, at a minimum, “The State must show that the defendant consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence. The State need not prove any more demanding form of subjective intent to threaten another.”
As to stalking by speech (or other communication) the need to invoke the “true threats” doctrine under the First Amendment at all is unclear. Continue reading . . .
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