Category: USDoJ

Death Penalty Sought for UnitedHealth Killer

by · Apr 1, 2025 2:41 pm

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has decided to seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangione. The press release says:

“Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America. After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.” Continue reading . . .

Bondi Nomination Moves Forward

by · Feb 3, 2025 5:21 pm

The U.S. Senate voted this evening to break the filibuster on the nomination of Pamela Bondi to be U.S. Attorney General. The vote was 52-46. Senators Graham and Fetterman did not vote. It is not clear whether they were present. Ms. Bondi should be confirmed when the substantive vote is taken.

Update: Pamela Bondi was confirmed as Attorney General on February 4 by a 54-46 vote.

Executive Order on Death Penalty

by · Jan 21, 2025 9:44 am

Among the torrent of executive orders issuing from the White House is one titled “Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety.”

One of its provisions directs the Attorney General to assert federal jurisdiction and seek the death penalty “for every federal capital crime involving: (i) The murder of a law-enforcement officer; or (ii) A capital crime committed by an alien illegally present in this country.” We shall see how that works in actual practice.

Also included is a directive to help states obtain execution drugs and to get DOJ off its tush with certifying states under the comatose Chapter 154 fast track program.

Along with the latter, the illegal poison pill inserted by the Obama Administration on its way out the door needs to be repealed.
Continue reading . . .

A Problematic Attorney General Nomination

by · Nov 14, 2024 9:17 am

President-elect Trump has nominated Rep. Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General of the United States. If he had intentionally set out to choose the Republican with the least chance of being confirmed, he could hardly have done better.

With a 53-47 Senate and his Vice-President having a tie-breaking vote, the 47 Democrats plus 4 Republicans can block a nominee. Mr. Gaetz is a disruptive, divisive figure, widely despised among his former colleagues in the House Republican Caucus. Can he attract unanimous support, or anything close to it, among Republicans in the upper chamber? That seems unlikely. An appeal to party loyalty and unity in support of a man who is the epitome of the exact opposite does not seem to be a winning argument. Continue reading . . .

2021 national crime rates are a mystery as FBI transitions to a new data system

by · Oct 21, 2022 7:29 am

Earlier this month, the FBI released the national-level crime statistics for 2021. According to that data, violent crime, particularly murder, remained a major issue in the United States. Crime remained relatively consistent from 2020 to 2021 with no statistically significant changes between years, though violent crime was still elevated compared to 2019 levels. From 2020 to 2021, national levels of violent crime decreased slightly (-1.0%), largely driven by decreases in robbery (-8.9%). Murders, however, increased (+4.3%). The data is available for download via the Crime Data Explorer, or it can be accessed using a new tool called the Law Enforcement Agency Reported Crime Analysis Tool (LEARCAT). But the data this year may be lower quality than years past, limiting our ability to draw inferences about national-level crime rates.

Policymakers and researchers rely on these data to understand state and national crime trends, but that may be more challenging this year. Unfortunately, the FBI’s plan to modernize its reporting of crime data has not gone according to plan, so it’s hard know how accurate these 2021 estimates are. The new system has advantages over the old system, but it is much more cumbersome and time-consuming to use, which has negatively impacted law enforcement agencies’ willingness to submit their data. And because of these low participation rates, there are huge gaps in nationwide crime statistics for 2021.

Continue reading . . .

BJS releases 2021 victimization statistics

by · Sep 20, 2022 1:16 pm

The Bureau of Justice Statistics recently released information on 2021 victimization rates derived from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). There were no statistically significant changes in violent victimization or property victimization rates from 2020 to 2021. However, the violent victimization rate increased in urban areas, from 19.4 to 24.5 per 1,000. The percentage of violent victimizations reported to police increased (+6%), as did the percentage of violent crime victims who sought assistance from victim service providers (+3%). The percentage of property victimizations reported to police decreased (-2%), which was mostly due to a decrease in reporting for “other theft” (-3%). This post outlines the major findings from the report, while more detailed information can be found via the NCVS’ interactive data dashboard.

Continue reading . . .

Intimidating Justices and Their Children at Home Is Illegal as Well as Disgusting

by · May 11, 2022 3:45 pm

After the unprecedented leak of a draft of a possible SCOTUS decision on the case overruling Roe v. Wade, pro-abortion activists have decided it would be a good idea to flock en masse outside the neighborhood homes of the Justices to make sure they know that, if the “wrong” decision were handed come late June, they would, in Chuck Schmer’s words, “pay the price.”

Gathering in menacing mobs at the homes of Justices has been defended by exactly those people who, for four years, were loudly aghast at the “breaking of norms.”  But as it turns out, the mob activity is not merely disgusting but illegal  —  or at least such is the view of that right-wing rag, the Washington Post.  Its article is quoted in part below.

Continue reading . . .

National Crime Victimization Survey re-design shows improvements over previous iterations

by · Mar 10, 2022 10:51 am

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) maintains a research program known as the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) that measures and tracks nonfatal victimizations in the United States. The NCVS is an official source of crime data and the primary source of unreported crime. It collects detailed information on the frequency and nature of several offenses, including: rape, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, larceny, burglary, trespassing, motor vehicle theft, and other types of household theft.

Recently, BJS has undertaken several efforts to increase the efficiency, reliability, and utility of the NCVS. First was a revamp in the urbanicity measure used to classify areas as rural, suburban, or urban. Second, the NCVS also began collecting subnational estimates to help make data more precise. Third, the NCVS survey was completely re-designed to help improve validity of the estimates. Based on recently released reports, it appears that the revised version of the NCVS shows clear improvements over the previous version. In this post, I will discuss these improvements (and why they matter) in more detail.

Continue reading . . .