by Bill Otis · Oct 13, 2021 3:11 pm
The Supreme Court today heard argument in one of the most prominent death penalty cases of the last few decades, that of Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber. News reports from the Washington Post and CNN — neither outlet being friendly to capital punishment — suggest that the Court will reverse the First Circuit and re-instate Tsarnaev’s thoroughly earned death sentence.
by Bill Otis · Sep 28, 2021 6:34 am
When Vox and NYU, of all places, finally see that policing is the solution and not the problem, you know that our violent crime epidemic has gone over the cliff.
From this article in Vox:
Last year, the US’s murder rate spiked by almost 30 percent. So far in 2021, murders are up nearly 10 percent in major cities. The 2020 increase alone is the largest percentage increase ever recorded in America — and a reversal from overall declines in murder rates since the 1990s.
American policymakers now want answers on this surge. One approach has good evidence behind it: the police.
There is solid evidence that more police officers and certain policing strategies reduce crime and violence. In a recent survey of criminal justice experts, a majority said increasing police budgets would improve public safety. The evidence is especially strong for strategies that home in on very specific problems, individuals, or groups that are causing a lot of crime or violence — approaches that would require restructuring how many police departments work today.
I don’t agree with everything in the article — far from it — but it’s instructive that our national murder crisis has come to this point. At some stage, reality does intrude, even in the citadels of liberalism.
by Bill Otis · Sep 24, 2021 4:44 pm
You don’t need to look far to see the foreseeably gruesome results of criminal justice “reform” policies. Among the favorites for “reformers” are an end to cash bail, probation instead of jail, and revocation hearings, if any, that are understanding for “technical” violations.
All three policies were at work in the latest child murder in Prince George’s County, Maryland, just across the Potomac River from where I live.
by Bill Otis · Sep 16, 2021 4:06 pm
…..except when they don’t. One particularly dreadful case of a “progressive” prosecutor, Steven Descano, betraying a crime victim is the one set out below, in which Descano agreed to a sweetheart deal with a fellow who, over several years when the victim was in grade school, sodomized her again and again.
The Washington Post, not exactly a friend of stern law enforcement, has the story. The perversion of justice in this case is so bad that the girl’s family has retained an attorney to fight the plea deal before the sentencing judge. (Full disclosure: I’m a resident of Descano’s district, Fairfax County, Virginia, and contributed to the campaign of his election opponent, former AUSA Jonathan Fahey).
by Bill Otis · Sep 11, 2021 3:47 pm
No comment needed, or possible.
by Bill Otis · Sep 8, 2021 4:07 pm
That’s one of the most important questions any sensible person would ask in considering whether criminals are sentenced too harshly, or (relatedly) whether their existing sentences should be shortened by mass clemency or other expedients such as First Step Act re-sentencing. After all, we should be guided by “facts” and “data,” not emotion, right? Emotion is, after all, the province of revenge-driven right-wing kooks, while reliance on criminal justice “data” is the specialty of the more tempered among us.
Well OK then, let’s look at the data. What do they tell us?
In brief, they tell us that, in overwhelming numbers, after they’re released, criminals get back in the crime business. Most of them return fast, and over time, close to all of them return to harming us, our property, and our right to live in peace and safety.
by Bill Otis · Aug 26, 2021 11:41 am
Congratulations to Mike and Kent for their work that paid off today in a unanimous California Supreme Court ruling rejecting an audacious, broad-brush challenge to the state’s death penalty.
The CJLF press release starts:
In a unanimous decision announced today, the California Supreme Court rejected a double-murderer’s claim that the state has misapplied its death penalty law since it was enacted 42 years ago, invalidating every death sentence handed down since 1978.
Specifically, Donte Lamont McDaniel argued that the law required sentencing juries to find each aggravating factor of a murder true beyond a reasonable doubt and find that a death sentence is appropriate beyond a reasonable doubt, but that no court has ever complied with those requirements.
by Bill Otis · Jul 13, 2021 2:22 pm
For years, the Left’s complacency about crime has tried to disguise itself by claiming that it’s really the norm of mature thinking, and that the problem is the “fear” and “hysteria” of those of us who think complacency is a foolhardy and dishonest response.
As has become undeniably evident in recent months, however, even well disguised complacency isn’t going to work anymore. The country is headed into its second year of an unprecedented surge in murder (and yes, the correct word is “murder,” not “gun violence”). The question is whether this will come to a head in the mid-term elections now less than 16 months away.
by Bill Otis · Jul 2, 2021 8:12 pm
Attorney General Merrick Garland yesterday announced that he is suspending use of the federal death penalty:
“The Department of Justice must ensure that everyone in the federal criminal justice system is not only afforded the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States, but is also treated fairly and humanely,” said Attorney General Garland. “That obligation has special force in capital cases.”
What to make of this announcement, and of its timing?
by Bill Otis · Jul 2, 2021 1:12 pm
The Washington Post, ever tooting the horn for President Biden and his pet project of more gun control, nonetheless apparently sees itself as forced to cover some of the uncomfortable truths about surging violent crime, what the public wants to do about it, and what the President says he wants to do about it. (What he’s actually done, so far as on-the-ground results show, is nothing).
The Post’s headline is, “Concern over crime is growing — but Americans don’t just want more police, Post-ABC poll shows.”
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