Author: Kent Scheidegger

A Mixed Bag in the Stalking/Threats Case

by · 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 . . .

Calls for Audit of Cal. Prison Credits

by · Jun 23, 2023 3:19 pm

California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been handing out sentence reduction credits like Halloween candy. However, Julie Watts of Sacramento’s CBS-13 reports:

For more than a year, CBS Sacramento has been working to answer the question: “Are prison reform laws in California leading to more rehabilitation and fewer felons reoffending after release?” Unfortunately, we still don’t know because, as we’ve learned, the state isn’t analyzing, or won’t release, crucial data.

In an interview with CBS-13, the chairman of the California Assembly Public Safety Committee said he would submit a state audit request to get the data that CDCR won’t even give the Legislature, and he will include the station’s unanswered questions.

The Placer County District Attorney is joining the call for an audit, the Sierra Sun reports: Continue reading . . .

The Co-Defendant Confession Conundrum

by · Jun 23, 2023 2:53 pm

Criminal defendants are constitutionally entitled to confront the witnesses against them, a right that places a limit on the admission of out-of-court statements in addition to the general, exception-riddled rule of evidence against hearsay. But witnesses, for this purpose, do not include the defendant himself. So what do we do in a joint trial when a statement of one defendant incriminates them both? The Supreme Court sallied forth “once more unto the breach, dear friends” today in Samia v. United States, No. 22-196. Here is the holding from the syllabus:

Held: The Confrontation Clause was not violated by the admission of a nontestifying codefendant’s confession that did not directly inculpate the defendant and was subject to a proper limiting instruction. Continue reading . . .

Supreme Court Narrows and Upholds Illegal Immigration Encouragement Law

by · Jun 23, 2023 8:00 am

The U.S. Supreme Court today decided United States v. Hansen, No. 22-179. The first paragraph of Justice Barrett’s opinion for the Court summarizes the decision well:

A federal law prohibits “encourag[ing] or induc[ing]” illegal immigration. 8 U. S. C. §1324(a)(1)(A)(iv). After concluding that this statute criminalizes immigration advocacy and other protected speech, the Ninth Circuit held it unconstitutionally overbroad under the First Amendment. That was error. Properly interpreted, this provision forbids only the intentional solicitation or facilitation of certain unlawful acts. It does not “prohibi[t] a substantial amount of protected speech”—let alone enough to justify throwing out the law’s “plainly legitimate sweep.” United States v. Williams, 553 U. S. 285, 292 (2008). We reverse. Continue reading . . .

Major Victory for Finality of Judgments

by · Jun 22, 2023 8:25 am

Today the U.S. Supreme Court issued a major decision on the finality of judgments in Jones v. Hendrix, No. 21-857. The Court rejected an attempt by the petitioner to do “an end-run around AEDPA,” i.e., the limits on collateral review of convictions enacted by Congress in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

Even more important, the Court has finally rejected the notion that the Suspension Clause of the Constitution requires collateral review of final judgments by courts of general jurisdiction. That clause is limited to the scope of habeas corpus understood at the time, which did not include such review. Congress may authorize such review, of course, but it is fully capable of imposing such limits as deems to be good policy.

We will have more to say on this important decision later.

CJLF’s brief in this case is available here.

Obstruction of Justice and Deportation

by · Jun 22, 2023 7:24 am

The U.S. Supreme Court this morning decided the “crimigration” case of Pugin v. Garland, No. 22-23. Among the many crimes that aliens can be deported for committing are offenses “relating to the obstruction of justice.” Does that term require that an investigation be pending, or can it include dissuading a witness from even reporting a crime?

The Fourth and Ninth Circuits went opposite ways on this question, and the Supreme Court took up both cases to resolve it. Continue reading . . .

California leniency kills 5 young women in Minnesota

by · Jun 21, 2023 11:18 am

Present California policy shaves large amounts of time off prison sentences, even for violent crimes. We are fighting these policies because of the danger they present to law-abiding Californians. But crime knows no boundaries, and these policies also endanger people in other states, as was tragically demonstrated last Friday according to this report in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune by Paul Walsh

Derrick John Thompson, 27, of Brooklyn Park, remains jailed Tuesday with charges pending on suspicion of murder in connection with the crash late Friday after he sped off an Interstate 35W exit ramp in his full-size Cadillac Escalade SUV and struck a car going through an E. Lake Street intersection….

Killed in the crash were Sabiriin Ali, 17, of Bloomington; Sahra Gesaade, 20, of Brooklyn Center; Salma Abdikadir, 20, of St. Louis Park; Sagal Hersi, 19, of Minneapolis; and Siham Adam, 19, of Minneapolis.

The crash occurred three years after Thompson was sentenced to eight years in California prison, the story reports. How is that possible? Continue reading . . .