Monthly Archive: March 2021

CA Senate Rejects Bill Cracking Down on Fentanyl Dealers

by · Mar 24, 2021 11:38 am

Yesterday Senator Melissa Melendez presented Senate Bill 350 to the California Senate Public Safety Committee in hopes it would be met with support. However, that was not the case for the majority of democrats on the committee. As defined in the article written yesterday by Katy Grimes of the California Globe, “[This bill] would require a court to issue an advisory to individuals convicted of selling or distributing controlled substances, to serve as a warning that if their action result in another person’s death, they could be charged with murder.” The goal of this bill in California is to address the high rise in Fentanyl-related deaths by holding the drug dealers accountable to the same degree the People v. Watson holds a drunk driver responsible under ‘implied malice’ (see last week’s blog post for more detail). 

Continue reading . . .

Deported Child Rapists Caught at Border

by · Mar 24, 2021 11:16 am

The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol reports that two Honduran nationals with prior convictions for sexually assaulting children in the U.S. have been caught trying to reenter the country.  Jose Moreno was apprehended with a group of eight trying to cross the border near Mission, Texas last Friday.  Moreno had been deported after serving nine years for raping a child in New York in 2007.   A day earlier Jonathan Rosales-Rivera was caught crossing the Texas border.  Rivera was deported after being convicted of second-degree sexual assault on a child in Wisconsin.  With the current surge at the southern border, which has forced agents from patrolling the border and apprehending illegals to processing and servicing the thousands who are now turning themselves in, some are estimating that more than half of those crossing the southern border are not being caught or identified.   How many are convicted criminals like Moreno and Rivera?

USCA9 Upholds Hawai’i Gun Law

by · Mar 24, 2021 10:46 am

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today rejected a challenge to Hawai’i “open carry” law in a 7-4 decision. Judge Bybee writes for the court majority, “After careful review of the history of early English and American regulation of carrying arms openly in the public square, we conclude that Hawai‘i’s restrictions on the open carrying of firearms reflect longstanding prohibitions and that the conduct they regulate is therefore outside the historical scope of the Second Amendment.” Continue reading . . .

The Legalization of Marijuana and Its Link to Psychosis

by · Mar 24, 2021 5:11 am

A growing body of scientific studies suggest that marijuana use increases the risk of developing psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia.  There is an ongoing debate among scientists regarding the exact nature of the risk, including whether the risk is largely confined to those who are already genetically predisposed to these illnesses.  But many scientists have raised the concern whether legalization of marijuana might lead to increases in these illnesses.

Which leads me to the current issue of JAMA Psychiatry, with the viewpoint article Balancing the Public Health Costs of Psychosis vs Mass Incarceration With the Legalization of Cannabis.  In essence, the article argues that marijuana prohibition is a unique risk factor for the development of psychotic illness.  How so, you may ask?   Let’s take a look.

First the authors make the observation that legalization of marijuana is a trend among the states.  They then make the very reasonable claim that marijuana use is associated with an increased risk of psychotic illness.  Then the authors state:

The US has the world’s highest incarceration rate, at 655 per 100 000 adults (followed by El Salvador at 590 per 100 000) and the world’s largest total prison population, at 2 121 600 (followed by China at 1 700 000), according to the World Prison Brief database. The criminalization of cannabis is a significant contributor with approximately 8 million cannabis-related arrests between 2001 and 2010, most owing to possession. Cannabis possession accounts for 36.8% of all drug use arrests in the US according to 2018 US Federal Bureau of Investigation data.

So, as written, the reader is to believe that many marijuana users are languishing in jail for mere possession.  If we dig into the some of the latest DOJ data, however, we learn that about 14% of the state prison population are serving time for drug offenses — and that includes both possession and distribution offenses.   To be sure, it is a nontrivial number of citizens, but anyone who works in the trenches knows that personal possession of small amounts of marijuana does not lead to a lengthy (if any) prison sentence.

Which matters as the authors then state:

Although psychosis is not the only form of psychological distress that may result from incarceration, it is worth considering the consequences of incarceration as a potential trauma or stressor that may contribute to the onset or exacerbation of psychosis given that psychosis risk is a primary argument raised against the legalization of cannabis.

Continue reading . . .

Misconceptions About Mass Shootings in the U.S.

by · Mar 23, 2021 3:29 pm

The manner in which the media reports on mass shootings leads the viewers to believe these rare instances are much more common than they are. Additionally, there is a false narrative floating around that more strict gun control legislation and more rigorous screening processes at gun stores would solve the issue. An article published in The Trace today addresses this misreporting. 

Continue reading . . .

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 . . .

Portland Economy Suffers at the Hands of Violent Protesters

by · Mar 22, 2021 11:58 am

In an article this morning by Ian Lovett of the Wall Street Journal, the months of protests that often led to riots and violence in Downtown Portland are now hindering the recovery of the economy. Lovett points out, “The violence downtown has become a persistent roadblock in Portland’s attempts to reopen and revive its economy as vaccinations spread, Covid-19 cases fall, and business restrictions are loosened.” Many small businesses have been forced to close their doors for months, while others have had to close them permanently due to the riots that began last June. 

Continue reading . . .

Gascón’s Science

by · Mar 19, 2021 9:41 am

CJLF Legal Director Kent Scheidegger was interviewed yesterday (3/18) on the Los Angeles drive-time talk leader KFI’s John & Ken Show.  The subject: the so-called science DA George Gascón cites to support his soft-on-criminals policies.  The interview is during hour three of the podcast at this link.

Brutal Murderer’s Death Sentence Upheld

by · Mar 18, 2021 3:33 pm

Oklahoma’s highest criminal court has upheld the conviction and death sentence of a man who beheaded one woman and injured another in September of 2014.  The Associated Press reports that the court rejected murderer Alton Nolen’s not guilty by reason of insanity claim.  Abby Uhlheiser of the Washington Post reports that of Nolen, an habitual felon who converted to Islam while in prison,  had been suspended from his job at a food processing plant and sought revenge later that day.   That afternoon Nolan entered the company’s administrative office armed with a large serrated knife, and approached 54-year-old Coleen Hufford from behind.  In front of witnesses Nolen beheaded the woman and then attacked another female employee before a company security officer shot Nolen, stopping the attack.

Continue reading . . .