Author: Bill Otis

To Pack or Not to Pack? That Is the New Commission’s Question.

by · Apr 10, 2021 10:57 am

President Biden this week appointed a Commission to examine possible “structural changes” to the Supreme Court, which to most people means the prospect of adding seats, i.e., packing the Court.  This Vox article bemoans the makeup of the Commission as something of a Federalist Society dream.  The gist of its criticism is that, even though the Commission’s majority is liberal, there is a surprisingly large minority of right/libertarian sorts.  Thus the liberal majority isn’t big enough or radical enough to be as useful as Biden could and should have made it.

It’s the precise nature of the missed opportunity for usefulness that’s telling here.  What it tells us specifically is what sort of persuasion the Left views as desirable.

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Should a High Officer of the Justice Department Support Cop Killers?

by · Apr 9, 2021 9:25 pm

One might think the question answers itself.  On the other hand, when a major corporation openly urges its employees to be “less white,” we have entered a world where once obvious answers now seem as fraught as trying to do geometry while you’re on LSD.

President Biden’s nominee to be Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Ms. Kristen Clarke, is on record as carrying the flag for cop killers.  This was not while she was in high school or even college.  It was when she was holding forth at Columbia Law School.  Among others whose cause she championed was Mumia Abu-Jamal, who gunned down Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner 40 years ago and has yet to apologize.

This was not a problem for Ms. Clarke, and evidently is not one for President Biden either.  Paul Mirengoff of PowerLine has the story.

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A Second Chance……………To Do What? Part I

by · Apr 8, 2021 2:35 pm

Hey everyone!  It’s “Second Chance Month.”  President Biden has said so himself (see this piece at SL&P).  The President is a bit short on specifics, but assures us that, “During Second Chance Month, we lift up all those who, having made mistakes, are committed to rejoining society and making meaningful contributions.”

“Mistakes,” got that?  Fleecing grandma out of her life savings, selling smack to an addicted 16 year-old, raping a first grader  —  look people, don’t be so judgmental.  They’re just “mistakes.”

I’ll be saying more in future posts about the Happy Face, if fact-free, yammering about second chances.  For now, I just want to focus on the one question that cries out to be asked but never is:  A second chance to do what?

Today’s Washington Post, of all things, provides a glimpse of the answer.

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No City Is Bad Enough to Deserve Marilyn Mosby

by · Apr 6, 2021 1:25 pm

Marilyn Mosby is the State’s Attorney for Baltimore, known as “Charm City” less for its charm (which to be sure is there) than for its rampant violent crime.  Ms. Mosby is perhaps best known for her astonishingly incompetent prosecution in the Freddie Gray case, in which she indicted six police officers for their alleged role in the death, in police custody, of Gray, a small-time drug dealer.  While there was at least an arguable case for criminal liability for some of the officers involved, Ms. Mosby pulled off the amazing feat of failing to win a conviction on a single count against a single officer.

Undeterred, Ms. Mosby  —  who was a “progressive prosecutor” before progressive prosecutors were cool  —  has now launched a program to further corrode the already dicey daily life in Baltimore by, through prosecutorial fiat, de-criminalizing crime.  My friend Sean Kennedy, a visiting fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute, has details on the sad story, and the boatload of liberal deceit surrounding it.  With his permission, I repeat his abundantly researched piece below.

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Why the Surge in Violent Crime?

by · Apr 4, 2021 10:35 pm

Hat tip to Prof. Doug Berman for this post, “Detailing ‘perfect storm’ of factors that may account for increase in violent crime.”  As it notes:

Sixty-three of the 66 largest police jurisdictions saw increases in at least one category of violent crimes in 2020, which include homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, according to a report produced by the Major Cities Chiefs Association. Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Raleigh, North Carolina, did not report increases in any of the violent crime categories.

If Baltimore did not report any increases, that has to mean that whatever reporting mechanism Baltimore was using was stolen in the crime spree.

But I digress.  The obvious question is, what brought about the surge in violent crime?

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NYPD cop-killer is now helping reform the police in New York

by · Mar 29, 2021 8:38 pm

The title of this post is the headline of a mind-boggling story from New York.  The gist is in the first two paragraphs:

He fatally shot an NYPD cop execution-style decades ago in a Queens bar — and now Richard Rivera is helping reform police in upstate New York as part of a state-mandated plan launched by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The cop-killer — who murdered off-duty officer and father-of-four Robert Walsh in 1981 — sits on a panel for Ithaca and Tompkins County as part of its “Reimagining Public Safety Collaborative.’’

Continue reading . . .

Biden’s Imprudent Pledge to Nominate a Black Woman to SCOTUS

by · Mar 28, 2021 8:28 pm

President Biden has pledged to nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court if he gets an opening.  Using race and sex to select SCOTUS Justices strikes me as somewhere between imprudent and perverse.  What happened to the idea that the selection should be based on experience, knowledge of the law, temperament, discipline, and fidelity to the text of the Constitution?  What do your skin color and your body parts have to do with it?

The answer should be, nothing.  But because Biden is now immersed in identity politics, which is bad enough, he how wants to plunge us into identity law, which is even worse.  This is not to mention that his criteria would limit the nominee pool to six percent of the population, pre-emptively dismissing ninety-four percent.  Does that seem smart?

Fifth Circuit Judge James C. Ho has some thoughts.

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A Second Amendment Case Ready for Cert?

by · Mar 25, 2021 9:30 pm

Kent noted yesterday a split Ninth Circuit en banc decision that upholds Hawaii’s very strict gun control law.  The percolating Second Amendment question out in the country is whether and under what conditions a law-abiding citizen can legally carry a gun for self-defense outside his home.  The Hawaii case might very well prove to be grist for that mill, but there is another case in the pipeline that might get there first.  My friend Prof. Josh Blackman has the story.

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Why Did SCOTUS Take the Boston Marathon Bomber Case?

by · Mar 23, 2021 1:22 pm

As Kent reported yesterday the Supreme Court granted the government’s petition for cert in the Boston Marathon bomber case.  The questions presented are whether the trial court held a sufficiently extensive voir dire, and whether it erred by excluding evidence that the bomber’s older brother was allegedly involved in different crimes two years before the Boston Marathon murders.

I spent the first few years of my career at the Justice Department answering defendants’ petitions for cert.  The thing that immediately struck me about the government’s cert petition was that the questions presented went only to the application of reasonably settled law to the facts of an individual case.  That is generally a classic formulation of a reason that the Court will not grant review.  There is no broadly applicable area of law in need of elaboration, and no circuit split.

It could be that the case is sufficiently notorious that the Court thought it worthy of review simply standing on its own.  But that seems unlikely; the Court tends to use its scarce time to address contentious legal questions regardless of a case’s public notoriety.  So what’s going on? Continue reading . . .

Death Penalty Debate on C-SPAN Tomorrow

by · Mar 16, 2021 2:24 pm

The Federalist Society student chapter at the University of Virginia Law School will be hosting a one hour debate on the death penalty tomorrow, Wednesday the 17th, at 5 pm EDT.  I’m told it will be on C-SPAN.  Carol Steiker, the Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law and Special Advisor for Public Service at Harvard Law School will speak in opposition; I will speak in support.  I have debated Prof. Steiker before and have found her to be a thoughtful, amicable and candid advocate.