Author: Bill Otis

Breyer to Retire, Part lll

by · Jan 30, 2022 9:21 pm

President Biden has made it clear that he will restrict his pool of Supreme Court candidates to black women only, thus excluding almost 95% of the population from the get-go.  How this yields the most qualified possible nominee has yet to be explained; perhaps commenters can give me a clue.  I’m assuming here, of course, that Supreme Court qualifications are things like fidelity to the Constitution, legal scholarship, broad experience, fair mindedness and self discipline.  What a candidate looks like is decidedly not a qualification for the Court, or probably much of anything beyond making your way in Hollywood.

But enough of what I think.  What do the American people think?  ABC News polled the question.

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Breyer to Retire, Part ll

by · Jan 26, 2022 11:27 am

Mike has noted the news being reported this morning that Justice Stephen Breyer will retire at the end of the Court’s current Term.  It’s true, as Mike observes, that this will give our aging President the chance to solidify the liberal wing on the Court with someone 30 or 40 years younger than Breyer.  But there are two other features about today’s news worth noting.

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Stores Adjust to “No Shoplifting Prosecutions” Policy of Progressive DA’s

by · Jan 25, 2022 6:51 pm

As “progressive prosecutors” have taken over in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore and many other one-party cities, merchants have had to adjust to the reality that their shelves can be and have been cleaned out by shoplifters and nothing is going to  be done about it.  The facts that retail theft is still a crime defined by the legislative branch, and in the aggregate causes very substantial economic losses, just don’t register (or don’t count).  There is also the fact that it’s driving businesses out of already “under-served” (and almost always minority) neighborhoods, but that too doesn’t count.  When the businesses take flight, they leave behind now-unemployed workers and a typically disadvantaged customer base with a skimpy and shrinking  selection of alternatives.

Then of course there’s the fact that the indulgence of rampant stealing is the calling card of  —  how shall I say this?  —  devolving standards of decency that mark the decline of a corrupted society.  But I wouldn’t want to be so old-fashioned as to bemoan stealing simply because it’s dishonest and corrosive to the basics of civic life.  Instead, being a capitalist, I want to highlight how stores have adjusted to the new reality.

A picture is, as they say, worth…………………………

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Wherein the New York Times Joins My Analysis of the Surge in Murder

by · Jan 18, 2022 12:58 pm

Yesterday, I wrote an entry that focused on the explosion in murder in this country over the last two years, an explosion that has grossly disproportionately harmed black people.  I thought this a particularly noteworthy subject on Martin Luther King Day.  Now, a matter of hours later, the New York Times, of all things, features a discussion of the same subject that in some ways seems like a slightly different draft of my piece.

It is, to say the least, unusual that the NYT and I see any significant issue in crime the same way, but at my age, I’ll take what I can get.  The Times’ view of the causes of the spike is largely misguided, in my view, but its description of the problem is spot-on, and belies the dismissive attitude of many in the criminal justice “reform” movement.

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George Gascon’s Los Angeles: Welcome to the Third World

by · Jan 17, 2022 6:19 pm

Progressive prosecutors are making a name for themselves.  In the dreamworld of legal academia, it’s all wonderful.  In the actual world normal people inhabit, it’s something different.  In Kim Foxx’s Chicago, it’s murder galore, especially of black people (whom she falsely claims to want to protect).  Much the same in Larry Krasner’s Philadelphia.  In Marilyn Mosby’s Baltimore, the bloodshed is now compounded by an almost comical (by contrast) federal indictment for rampant dishonesty.  In George Gascon’s Los Angeles, a picture is worth a thousand words.

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A Martin Luther King Day Reminder on Genuine Humanity

by · Jan 17, 2022 2:44 pm

First a question:  If Martin Luther King were alive today, would he be more likely to agree with the anthem that black lives matter, or with the view that all lives matter?

I don’t think it’s a close question.  The whole point of the civil rights movement was equality.  And in the days of Dr. King, no one thought “equality” meant “equality of outcomes”  —  which is what the gossamer word “equity” is trying to put over on us today (albeit typically in the disguise of intentionally opaque academic gibberish).  “Equality” meant equal standing before the law, and an equal chance at success and living a peaceful life.

Is that what black people are getting now, in the era of progressive prosecutors and criminal justice reform?

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What Larry Krasner, Philly’s “Progressive Prosecutor,” Owns

by · Jan 15, 2022 1:04 pm

Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner is not a stranger to followers of the blog.  He’s a “progressive prosecutor,” in the mold of the State’s Attorney a hundred miles south in Baltimore, the recently indicted Marilyn Mosby.  A Facebook friend of mine, Matt Rosenberg, author of “What Next Chicago?:  Notes of a Pissed Off Native Son,”  writes an on-the-ground account of what it’s like, especially for black people, living (for as long as they can) in Larry Krasner’s Philadelphia.  I want to pass it along without comment, none being needed.

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Leading Progressive Prosecutor Federally Indicted for Lying and Cheating

by · Jan 13, 2022 6:38 pm

Baltimore is a disaster area for its grotesque number of murders.  Almost all the victims are black.  The police force, at one time at least marginally effective, has been cowed ever since the Freddie Gray indictments.  In that case from 2015, the State’s Attorney charged six police officers with a variety of offenses stemming from the death, in police custody, of Mr. Gray, a small-time (though repeat) drug dealer.  The state obtained exactly zero convictions on any of the counts against any of the officers, but the damage to desperately needed robust policing was done.

The State’s Attorney responsible for that debacle of a prosecution and the consequent cratering of police morale is Marilyn Mosby.  I blogged about Mosby’s startling incompetence and leftist political grandstanding many times (too many to go back and retrieve right now).

Today Ms. Mosby was indicted by the Biden Justice Department for lying and cheating in order to get her hands on moola sufficient to finance  —  ready now?  —  a fancy rental property in Florida.

For those of you still wondering about the true mindset of “prosecutors” who favor the interests of hoodlums over those of ordinary citizens, welcome to the window into the deeper-than-you-thought embrace of criminality that this case gives us.  It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Continue reading . . .

John Roberts, a Popular Leader

by · Dec 28, 2021 2:36 pm

Chief Justice John Roberts is the most popular of 11 national leaders the Gallup poll asked about, with a 60% approval rating.  (By contrast, at the bottom of the heap were five politicians, each with a rating below 45%.  In order:  VP Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell).

Why is that germane to a criminal law blog?  Because Roberts, despite occasional loud complaints by conservatives and praise by liberals, has been a pretty reliable vote in favor of law enforcement and the death penalty in particular.

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