by Bill Otis · Jul 1, 2021 9:42 pm
Thirty years ago today, President George H. W. Bush, whom I had the honor of serving in White House Counsel’s Office, announced a step forward for America, for the law, an for an understanding of why courage matters. A high-tech lynching would not be enough to stop it. Continue reading . . .
by Bill Otis · Jun 24, 2021 1:47 pm
Pres. Biden was older when he took office than Ronald Reagan was when he left. It’s not exactly a secret that older people can have problems with forgetfulness. Pres. Biden seems to be having such a moment in his attempts, summarized here and here, to come up with an answer to the dramatic rise in violent crime (a rise that started under his predecessor last year but has continued full throttle during Biden’s tenure).
On the other hand, perhaps it’s not so much that Biden can’t remember how to deal with crime effectively — a project he helped advance as a senator 25 years ago — as it is that, given the radical leftward shift in the Democratic Party, he can’t afford to remember. Instead, he has to pretend that the Left’s reality-free narrative — a jazzed-up version of the failed soft-on-crime policies of the Sixties and Seventies — is the answer.
It isn’t. It’s pathetic. And it will cost lives, disproportionately — as is always the case with violent crime — black lives.
by Bill Otis · Jun 23, 2021 7:01 pm
Kent did a short introduction of today’s Fourth Amendment case, Lange v. California, and I await his more detailed analysis. In the meantime, I was discussing the case with a defense lawyer friend of mine, a very smart guy and a bit of a cynic. One of his pals said that the CNN summary of the case went, “The U.S. Supreme court ruled Wednesday that police cannot enter a home without a warrant when pursuing someone for a minor crime.” My buddy had a different view: “That’s a dead wrong description of an opinion that effectively says the police can do this [a warrantless entry in hot pursuit] 99% of the time and claim good faith the other 1%.”
For most practical purposes in future litigation, that strikes me as pretty much dead on.
by Bill Otis · Jun 23, 2021 12:07 pm
The George Floyd riots led some politicians, mostly in Leftist-dominated cities like Minneapolis, Portland and Seattle, to call for de-funding the police. For those not inclined to view the world through the prism of anti-Americanism, and who therefore knew where reducing police presence would lead, the resulting surge in violent crime was hardly a surprise. (It’s unfortunate that adults, or persons posing as adults, have to learn that where the police are stepped back, or not present at all, criminals will quickly get the picture and take advantage. But this seems to be where we are).
Still, that relentless enemy of the Leftist narrative — that is, reality — will have its way, generally sooner rather than later. It’s all nicely summarized in one flow chart.
by Bill Otis · Jun 22, 2021 11:45 am
Assuming that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse can break away from his all-white country club, the Senate Judiciary Committee should have full attendance today for its hearing about crack cocaine sentencing. As the Washington Post informs us, today’s hearing will center on the Biden Administration’s proposal to lower the cost of doing business for crack dealers by reducing their sentences and, as an extra bonus, making the reductions retroactive. This will assure earlier release for this particular cohort of drug traffickers, a large percentage of whom will recidivate within five years, according to Sentencing Commission figures. (The number is actually higher than Commission reports, first because yet more dealers recidivate after the five year window, and second because drug trafficking is a notoriously under-reported crime in any event).
Crack sentencing has been a hot topic for years, going back at least to the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, co-sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin and a man I’m proud to call a friend, then-Senator and later Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Back then, that self-same Washington Post had some sound observations on crack sentencing, observations Congress would do well to heed today.
by Bill Otis · Jun 21, 2021 2:28 pm
SL&P has this post bemoaning that so much lying goes on during, and to prop up, the negotiation and tendering of bargained-for guilty pleas. The gist of the post — you will not be shocked to hear — is that the system is rigged against blameless defendants, who then, with the cynically weary but perforce assistance of their lawyers, lie repeatedly by admitting to crimes they did not commit.
I litigated criminal cases in federal court for a quarter of a century. There is indeed a considerable amount of lying that goes on. But it’s not defendants’ admitting to stuff they didn’t do. It’s defendants’ denying stuff they most certainly did do. Anyone who actually does criminal litigation will admit this if approached in a rare moment of candor.
Still, let’s assume arguendo that innocent defendants, with their lawyers’ connivance, do falsely inculpate themselves by lying during plea bargaining in order, they calculate, to evade the otherwise looming draconian consequences of a rigged system. Let me suggest a simple six-word remedy: Quit lying and tell the truth.
by Bill Otis · Jun 21, 2021 12:01 pm
Two days after the first national celebration of Juneteenth, you probably thought we were past the time when United States senators, particularly on the Judiciary Committee charged with helping to guarantee civil rights, would be members of fancy all-white clubs. Indeed, until just now, I wasn’t aware that all-while clubs still existed.
Time to wake up. Meet Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, former US Attorney for Rhode Island and now Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights.
by Bill Otis · Jun 16, 2021 12:07 am
This country has been having a seemingly endless debate about drugs. Although there are gradations in between, there seem to be two mostly opposing camps, to wit, those who would treat drugs as a law enforcement problem, and those who would treat them as a public health problem.
I spent four years as Counselor to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Drugs are both a law enforcement and a public health problem, and we aren’t going to solve it either by dismissing law enforcement as mere latter day Puritanism, nor by dismissing the opportunity for treatment as mere mush-minded coddling. But what’s getting overlooked is that no part of the system can be the foundation for a solution. The foundation for overcoming drugs, as with so much else, is the individual’s understanding that he is responsible for his life and behavior, and his determination to own that responsibility every minute of every day. This post is about the story of one young lady, Ginny Burton, who resurrected her life with the indispensable help of law enforcement, incarceration, and coming to terms with her failings — and then, wonderfully, her potential.
by Bill Otis · Jun 15, 2021 7:44 am
Yesterday, I wrote that the stench of politics had taken hold at the Justice Department when, at the last minute, it decided to deep-six a brief supporting the sound analysis of the Eleventh Circuit in a crack cocaine sentencing case and argue instead that the overall “intent” of two leniency-oriented statutes, the Fair Sentencing Act and the First Step Act, should displace their plain text. A unanimous SCOTUS made short work of DOJ’s lame appeal to duck the words Congress chose in favor of a more Oprah Winfrey-like approach. The only conceivable reason for the Department’s unprincipled, embarrassing and (fortunately) futile action was politics — specifically, that pro-drug and pro-criminal elements in the President’s political base simply wanted what they wanted. That DOJ at its highest levels would so easily be chased away from a sober approach to its legal obligations is alarming.
I’m happy to report that, today, we saw a different face.
by Bill Otis · Jun 14, 2021 8:37 pm
Remember all the stuff we were hearing during the Presidential campaign about how we needed to make a change in order to get politics out of the Justice Department? It was all a joke — on us. Ed Whelan has the story today of what would surely be a scandal if Bill Barr tried it, and is a scandal today, squarely on the plate of Merrick Garland — a man I’m sure knows better.
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED