Category: Politics

Using Prosecutorial Discretion to Negate Law

by · Jun 28, 2021 1:55 pm

In a City Journal article former District Attorney Thomas Hogan notes that progressive DAs are abusing their discretion to set countywide policies to prevent the enforcement of laws enacted to discourage and punish crime.

Baltimore is not prosecuting shoplifting or drug-possession crimes. Despite recent violent protests and occupations, St. Louis is not pursuing cases for looting and rioting, while Portland isn’t pursuing charges for trespassing. Philadelphia won’t allow prostitution charges. San Francisco is not prosecuting indecent exposure offenses. Chicago declines arrests for thefts of less than $1,000.

Continue reading . . .

California’s Crime Rates Reflect Dangerous State Policies

by · Jun 25, 2021 1:53 pm

Katy Grimes of the California Globe has this story discussing what is making California’s cities more dangerous with recent data on crime rates.  Grimes mentions a few of the propositions that have impacted crime over the last decade. 

Proposition 47 largely decriminalized theft and drug crimes by reducing those crimes and a number of other “non-violent” felonies to misdemeanors; Prop. 57 allows early release for “non-violent offenders,” including rape by intoxication of an unconscious person, human trafficking involving a sex act with minors, arson causing great bodily harm, drive-by shooting, assault with a deadly weapon, and hostage taking. 

However, there is one bill that was not highlighted.  AB 109 signed by Governor Jerry Brown in 2011 which allowed for the release approximately 30,000 felons from state prison with most going on probation rather than parole. This bill removed the option of prison sentences for crimes such as auto theft, drug felonies and domestic violence and replaced it with county jail time or rehabilitation services. 

Continue reading . . .

Homicide Rates Climb, Citizens Told it is the New Normal

by · Jun 23, 2021 3:24 pm

The Washington Post has this story addressing the steep increase in homicides across the country in the last year. 

“It’s going to get worse,” Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson (D) said.

As the homicide rate climbed through a year of pandemic-imposed shutdowns and civil unrest, officials held firm to their belief that the rise was driven by that exceptional set of circumstances. As life returned to normal, the theory went, the killings would slow.

But even as coronavirus restrictions have been lifted and protests have quieted in recent months, the violence has not subsided. Indeed, it has continued to grow. And now, local leaders are grappling with a possibility they had long feared: that a decades-long era of declining murder rates in America’s cities may be over, and that the increased killings may be here to stay.

Continue reading . . .

Some Sound Advice on Crack Sentencing

by · 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.

Continue reading . . .

The Marathon Bomber Briefs

by · Jun 18, 2021 10:38 am

We put the finishing touches on CJLF’s friend-of-the-court brief in the Marathon Bomber case yesterday. Links will be available to the PDF version here and on our main website Monday after it is filed.

As Bill noted Tuesday, the Government followed through with a brief on the merits seeking reinstatement of the death sentence despite the present Administration’s anti-death-penalty stance. It does appear that the political types stepped back and let the pros do their job. They produced a brief up to the high standards of the Solicitor General’s Office–thoroughly researched and well-written. Continue reading . . .

The Stench of Politics at DOJ

by · 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.

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 . . .

LA DA Recall Signature Drive Kicks Off

by · May 27, 2021 10:01 am

The signature drive to recall Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón kicked off yesterday, Wendy Burch reports for KTLA 5. Among the initial signers were County Sheriff Alex Villanueva and former DA Steve Cooley.

The primary push behind the drive, though, is from victims of crime and the families of victims who have seen the current DA dole out shocking leniency to people have committed horrible crimes.

Among them is Desiree Andrade. Last December, just one week after Gascón’s infamous special directives, the special circumstance allegations were dismissed against the killers who beat and stabbed her son, stomped on his head, and threw him off a cliff. Bill Melugin of Fox 11 had this report at the time. The lack of the special circumstance charge not only precludes the death penalty, but it also precludes a sentence of life without parole, meaning the killers will eventually be eligible for parole. 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 . . .

Taxpayer Funded Heroin Injection Sites in California?

by · May 3, 2021 11:46 am

Politico has this story on the proposal for California to provide on-site medical care for individuals injecting illicit drugs, including, but not limited to heroin. The goal of SB 57 (Wiener, D San Francisco) is also to obtain immunity from federal enforcement for the professionals running the program and the drug-users. The most recent proposal awaiting legislative approval is for the California  cities of San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles to open and run these injection sites for five years to “test” the model. 

Continue reading . . .