Monthly Archive: July 2020

Early Release Keeps the Morgue Busy

by · Jul 16, 2020 10:49 pm

“Sentencing reform” is the intentionally opaque phrase given to abbreviated sentences and early release handed out to felons, often repeat drug pushers.  The mantra is that “sentencing reform” restores families and returns renewed and productive men to the community.

That might be right every now and again.  Certainly it’s all the reformers are willing to talk about.  But a steadfast refusal to look at the costs of early release is as dishonest as it is dangerous.  Hence this story from the New York Daily News:  “Three men — longtime partners in crime — charged with gunning down dad in front of his young daughter in Bronx drive-by.”

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Lying and Other Hijinks About the Death Penalty

by · Jul 16, 2020 3:43 pm

Relatively unnoticed among her several frenetic attempts to come to the aid of a child killer was Judge Tanya Chutkan’s order (wiped away by the Supreme Court last night) to stay the Purkey execution because the drug to be used had not been approved by the FDA as “safe” and effective, and had not been prescribed by a physician.  Kent analysed this attempt here, but there is more that usefully could be said.

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Race Huckstering Goes Stark Raving Mad

by · Jul 16, 2020 12:40 pm

In my view, criminal law properly conceived has nothing to do with race and everything to do with behavior.  When I was a federal prosecutor (as an appellate lawyer), I typically did not know and did not care to know the defendant’s or the victim’s race.  The only thing that mattered was that they were human beings entitled to fair-minded and sober application of the law.

But then, I’m decidedly un-woke.  Trying to write on a criminal law blog without discussing race has become, in the moment, a hopeless enterprise.  Thus it’s not because I prefer it, but because it’s been shoved in all our faces, that I feel constrained to point out that the concern (some might say obsession) with race has now officially gone nuts.

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Berkeley to Eliminate Traffic Cops

by · Jul 16, 2020 10:45 am

After hours of emotional testimony, city leaders in Berkeley, (pronounced Berserkley), voted to replace police with unarmed civilians for traffic stops to curtail racial profiling.  Janie Har of the Associated Press reports that a separate civilian-run department would be created by the city to enforce parking and traffic laws as part of the effort to cut the Police Department budget in half.

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Killer Executed After Supreme Court Vacates Three Stays

by · Jul 16, 2020 8:02 am

AP reports:

Wesley Ira Purkey was put to death at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Purkey had been convicted of kidnapping and killing a 16-year-old girl, Jennifer Long, before dismembering, burning and dumping her body in a septic pond. He also was convicted in a state court in Kansas after using a claw hammer to kill an 80-year-old woman who had polio.

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Supreme Court Clears the Way to Execute Child Killer Purkey

by · Jul 16, 2020 1:14 am

The Court’s order dissolving Judge Chutkan’s attempt once more to frustrate justice with infinite delay is here.   Kent correctly predicted several hours ago that Chutkan was “plow[ing] right into reversal number three.”

I’m not especially an optimist, but there may be reason to hope that the Supreme Court is starting to show long overdue impatience with what Justice Alito correctly called abolitionists’ “guerilla war against the death penalty.”  Endless last-minute stunts, newly discovered brain lesions, sudden devotion to religion  —  all the usual maneuvers out of the game-the-system playbook might have worn out their welcome.

And thank you to President Trump and Leader McConnell for Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh, both essential votes in the majority.  The Court’s four more liberal members again dissented.

DC Judge Stays Federal Executions Yet Again

by · Jul 15, 2020 1:30 pm

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, twice reversed for halting federal executions, has halted them yet again. Her 18 page opinion finds a probability of success on one claim, based on the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and she concludes without analysis of any depth that the public interest in having this claim litigated outweighs the interest of justice in carrying out very long overdue sentences for heinous crimes.

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New Light Shed on the “School to Prison Pipeline”

by · Jul 15, 2020 11:19 am

The “school-to-prison pipeline” is a favorite phrase of sentencing reform advocates.  It’s meant to imply that the real problem with thieves, drug pushers and con artists, etc., is not the choices they make, but the callous and woeful treatment society gives them  as school kids.  Because society is to blame, it’s unjust to punish the individual  — indeed, it’s no longer that the criminal owes a debt to society; it’s that society owes a debt to him!  We see this theme in dozens if not hundreds of academic proposals to water down (or, better, eliminate) punishment in favor of social programs to cater to those who, in that wonderfully opaque phrase, “interact with the criminal justice system.”

In a sense, there may indeed be a “school-to-prison pipeline,” but the way it operates is not exactly what we’ve been led to believe.  It might have more to do with what sort of “education” is going on in the classroom.  The Los Angeles teachers’ union seems to want to help us understand.

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Jeff Sessions, an Appreciation

by · Jul 15, 2020 6:03 am

Former Attorney General and US Senator Jeff Sessions yesterday lost his bid to return to the Senate when he was defeated in the Alabama Republican primary.  In my view, Sessions was one of the very best members of Congress in standing up for sober criminal justice policies.  He did this for most of his public life, starting in 1975 when he became an Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama.  In 1981, President Reagan appointed him to be US Attorney; in 1994, he was elected Attorney General of Alabama, and two years later, he handily won a Senate seat.  He served in the Senate until President Trump appointed him Attorney General in February 2017.  He resigned, at the President’s insistence, 20 months later.

Although Sessions’ contributions to sound criminal justice policy were substantial to say the least, they are not, in my view, the reason for which his public service should best be remembered.

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