Author: Bill Otis

Should Cities Use Mounted Police?

by · Jun 13, 2021 2:39 pm

The police have long since become the favorite punching bag of BLM, Antifa and, of course, liberal mayors and “progressive” DA’s.  The complaint is that cops are “overmilitarized,” insufficiently accountable, and too ready to use force, among other things.  I have not yet heard specifically an attack on the idea of mounted police, but you don’t have to be a genius to know it’s coming:  The use of horseback policing is too intimidating and too likely to panic the ubiquitous “mostly peaceful” protester.

On the other hand, a sufficiently amiable stallion might be able to get this dour opinion turned around.

Continue reading . . .

“Building Trust” in the Police through Non-Enforcement Is Also Baloney

by · Jun 9, 2021 6:55 pm

In my last entry, I noted that the routine, caustic phrase pasted on the United States by “criminal justice reformers”  —  “incarceration nation”  —  is hogwash.  Ninety-nine and a-half percent of the population is not incarcerated, and the fraction of one percent who are generally did quite a bit to earn it.

I now want to address another whooper told by the reformers:  That the police can “build trust” in the community by taking a more relaxed attitude toward crime, and generally by “de-escalating” enforcement.  This argument is all the rage in faculty lounges in Palo Alto, New Haven, Cambridge, etc.  But, as the Baltimore Sun tells us, it’s anything but the rage with the actual communities that have been the unwilling experimental rats of dumbed-down policing.

Continue reading . . .

The “Incarceration Nation” Narrative Is Pure Baloney

by · Jun 8, 2021 1:18 pm

One of the most unfortunate features of the national discussion about criminal justice is that the vocabulary in which it’s conducted has been hijacked and tortured beyond recognition by the “reform” forces.  How many of their articles start out by blasting the United States as “incarceration nation” and then go on to heap yet more scorn on America, the “carcereal state”?  You can’t look through “reform” literature for five minutes without getting beaten over the head with this stuff.

Only one problem.  It’s bunk.

Continue reading . . .

Pew Research Has Big News on the Death Penalty

by · Jun 3, 2021 12:14 pm

Here are the opening paragraphs of this story, reported by the NYT:

For the first time in almost half a century, support for the death penalty has dipped below 50 percent in the United States.

Just 49 percent of Americans say they support capital punishment, according to a Pew Research Center poll … That represents a seven-point decline in about a year and a half. Support peaked at 80 percent in 1994.

The death penalty has had majority support among Americans for 45 years. The last time support was as low as it now stands was in 1971.

Not good news for the folks on my side of the issue.  But wait, there’s a catch.

Continue reading . . .

Will the Violent Crime Surge Spark Electoral Pushback?

by · May 27, 2021 12:16 pm

Rich Lowry writing in Politico thinks so.  His piece is titled, “Democrats Ignore the Crime Spike at Their Own Peril.”

On the anniversary of the death of George Floyd, dozens of gunshots rang out in the middle of the day at George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, forcing reporters and bystanders to duck and cover.

The symbolism was unmistakable—the yearlong bout of protest and activism after Floyd’s killing has coincided with a surge of urban crime that has made gunplay dismayingly common.

Will the electorate react in next year’s elections?

Continue reading . . .

The Lethal and Racist Dishonesty of the Defense Bar

by · May 13, 2021 8:41 pm

In the post immediately preceding this one, Amber Westbrook wrote of “Another Violent Felon Released from Prison Early to Commit More Crimes.”  The piece I bring you now is in the same vein but much worse.  It’s from the pro-criminal justice “reform” Washington Post.  Its title is, “Released early after a murder conviction, D.C. man is charged in new homicide.”  It’s yet another story of dishonest lawyers, both white, one an advocate and one a judge, who worked hand-in-hand to secure the early release of a violent thug in the prime of his criminal life.  The released convict, Darrell Moore, went on to commit another murder a scant nine months later, by shooting his victim six times in the chest.  The evidence suggests that the victim was black, as Moore’s first victim was.

What we have here is the nauseating combination of the poisons that have been taking over our criminal justice system  —  strutting elitist attitudes and shameless lying masquerading as compassion.  But it’s not compassion.  It’s the opposite.  It starts with self-congratulatory virtue-signalling by elite-type lawyers (the great majority of whom are, as in this case, white).  The next step is pro bono representation of a violent hooligan to obtain early release, thus to shortcut his supposed accountability for an earlier brutal crime.  It proceeds by patently false representations about his New Life and Now Peaceable Character.  The final chapter is another black man in the morgue.  The white lawyers who made it all possible have  —  you guessed it  —  no comment.

Continue reading . . .

The Death Penalty Is Dying…….Oh…….Wait………………

by · May 12, 2021 8:48 pm

For years, we’ve been told that “the death penalty is dying.”  And it’s true that, as the murder rate fell by more than 50% over a generation (1990-2014), support for death sentences likewise fell substantially (although not as much, from 80% in the mid-Nineties to 55% today (still a bigger share of popular support than Joe Biden got)).  The number of executions also substantially fell, but is hardly disappearing, since over the last five years, we’ve averaged one execution every 17 days (see this bar graph).

So it’s just not true that the death penalty is dying.  It became less frequent as the need for it became less frequent, sure.  This is news?  But the reason for its persistence is no big mystery.  It’s not that America is a primitive, vindictive country.  It’s not that we are callous or sadistic.  It’s that there continue to be gruesome, atrocious murders for which a jail sentence, no matter what its length, would not strike a normal person as fitting the crime.  The most recent example comes from a county and state that were crucial in President Trump’s defeat.

Continue reading . . .

Is Larry Krasner in Trouble in Philadelphia?

by · May 12, 2021 12:02 pm

Larry Krasner is a long-time, ideologically far Left defense attorney who, with the help of oodles of Soros money and a one-party jurisdiction, got himself elected District Attorney of Philadelphia.  The city (like many other one-party big cities) has since seen a surge in murder and other violent crime.  The victims are disproportionately black (although Krasner campaigned on improving the operation of the criminal justice system for minorities  —  raising the question whether getting murdered more often counts as an “improvement”).

Just as in other now-bloodsoaked cities with “progressive” DA’s (Los Angeles and San Francisco come most readily to mind), there has been pushback in Philadelphia.  Krasner is facing a primary challenge from a former deputy DA in his own office.  The challenge recently received a major, and perhaps decisive, boost.

Continue reading . . .

The Redundant Federal Charges Against Derek Chauvin

by · May 9, 2021 8:48 pm

Last week, the Justice Department indicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the same conduct  —  the killing of George Floyd  — for which a Minnesota state jury convicted him of murder.  Contrary to the wailing of a goodly portion of the defense bar, such a successive prosecution by a different sovereign is permitted by the Constitution, as SCOTUS reaffirmed in its 7-2 opinion two years ago in Gamble v. United States.    But that does not end the inquiry:  Although the prosecution is permitted, is it wise?  Is it fair?  Does it serve a distinct federal interest sufficient to be worth the cost and risks?

I have considerable doubts about all those things, as explained below.  But I want to say one thing by way of preface.  This should not become yet another “oh-the-government-is-so-bad” festival.  The trouble here started with Chauvin, not the government.  If he had shown more restraint, judgment and professional care, we wouldn’t be in this situation.  The best way to avoid having to deal with the outcroppings of criminal behavior is to avoid the behavior to begin with.  In Chauvin’s case, as in most, it’s just not that hard.

Continue reading . . .

When Execution Drugs Are in Short Supply…

by · May 6, 2021 2:32 pm

…alternative methods will be found.  Since, as the Court held in Glossip, “the death penalty is constitutional,” and since a majority of our citizens continue to support it, and since gruesome murders continue to be committed that warrant it, we will continue to administer it.  This is true despite false claims that “the death penalty is dying.”  Instead, over the last five years, we have had an average of one execution every 17 days, and, after years of decline (as the murder rate declined), support for capital punishment has held stable at 55% over that time.

The latest news is from South Carolina, which is bringing back firing squads.

Continue reading . . .