Author: Kent Scheidegger

Suppressing Inconvenient Truths

by · Oct 14, 2020 10:23 am

For anyone who digs a little to find the facts, the truth about the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri is not hard to find. The case was investigated by the Civil Rights Division of the Obama Administration’s Department of Justice. That was a group whose bias ran against the police, not in favor of them. Even so, they concluded that the evidence showed that the “hands up” story was a lie. Michael Brown was shot when he attacked Officer Wilson for no good reason. See this post from last year.

But most people don’t read government reports. The truth will only be widely known when it is disseminated in mass media. The good news is that there is a movie, written and narrated by Shelby Steele and directed by his son Eli, scheduled for release on Amazon. The bad news is that Amazon has placed the movie on “content review.” Jason Riley has this column in the WSJ on the controversy. Continue reading . . .

The Eighth Amendment and Statutes of Limitations

by · Oct 13, 2020 3:46 pm

What do statutes of limitations and the constitutional ban on “cruel and unusual punishments” have to do with each other? The logical answer is “nothing.” But the law follows strange paths, and the two issues crossed in today’s Supreme Court argument on the statute of limitations for rape in the military justice system. Continue reading . . .

A Quiet Morning at SCOTUS

by · Oct 13, 2020 9:13 am

The U.S. Supreme Court released an orders list this morning, taking up one set of consolidated civil cases. No criminal cases were taken up. No action was taken on a widely anticipated case regarding the Confrontation Clause and testimony on DNA test results, Chavis v. Delaware, No. 20-317. That case will likely be considered in another conference soon. Continue reading . . .

Comments Are Now Open

by · Oct 8, 2020 10:15 am

A number of people have asked me to turn comments back on for the blog. We have made the necessary tweaks to the software and are now able to accept comments again. Commenters will need to register first, and there is a link on the login page for that. A link to the comment policy is at the bottom of the sidebar. Continue reading . . .

California v. National Crime Trends

by · Oct 6, 2020 4:02 pm

Here is an update of the post two years ago comparing California’s crime rates with those of the country as a whole.

The trend remains as I noted it then. Since California began its reckless drive to reduce prison populations regardless of the consequences, it has not shared in the property crime drop to the same extent as the rest of the country. For violent crime, the 2015-2016 increase was much larger, and it has not receded to the same degree as the rest of the country. Continue reading . . .

U.S. Supreme Court Opens New Term

by · 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 . . .