Monthly Archive: December 2021
by Michael Rushford · Dec 29, 2021 2:29 pm
After roughly two years of record-setting homicide rates in many large U.S. cities, progressive politicians and prosecutors are still denying that this is a crises. As Hans Bader notes in Liberty Unyielding, days after progressive Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner told reporters there was not crisis in his city “Democratic Congressman May Gay Scanlon was carjacked in broad daylight in Philadelphia’s FDR Park….Philadelphia’s murder record was broken in the same week that Indianapolis, Columbus, and Louisville exceeded their records for murders.”
Continue reading . . .
by Bill Otis · Dec 28, 2021 2:36 pm
Chief Justice John Roberts is the most popular of 11 national leaders the Gallup poll asked about, with a 60% approval rating. (By contrast, at the bottom of the heap were five politicians, each with a rating below 45%. In order: VP Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell).
Why is that germane to a criminal law blog? Because Roberts, despite occasional loud complaints by conservatives and praise by liberals, has been a pretty reliable vote in favor of law enforcement and the death penalty in particular.
Continue reading . . .
by Michael Rushford · Dec 27, 2021 11:21 am
An article in the Washington Examiner: Homeless and clueless in Oakland and elsewhere in America criticizing the approach to the problem by liberal politicians in Democrat-controlled cities and states would be unsurprising if the author were Heather MacDonald or Larry Elder. It is surprising when ultra-liberal former Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris pairs up with Mary L.G. Theroux of the conservative Independent Institute to write “The bright side of the bay, as Oakland is known, has followed the same failed game plan as most other cities. And that’s why the homeless crisis persists. Unfortunately the Biden administration plans to continue subsidizing the losing strategy.” For most of his long political life Harris has been advancing the liberal, bureaucratic, big government policies that have helped create today’s homeless crisis. He is now confronting the endlessly repeated claims of Democrats in California and nationally that the root cause of homelessness is a shortage of affordable housing. “The change began in 2013 when the Obama administration shifted the focus of federal homelessness funding from programs that provide services to the homeless to their speedy placement into housing. The approach had the opposite effect from what was intended.”
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by Kent Scheidegger · Dec 24, 2021 10:38 am
The U.S. Supreme Court has been criticized for its “shadow docket” — summary orders that grant or vacate stays or preliminary injunctions without oral argument and often without an opinion of the Court. Although these orders are preliminary matters, they often control events for an extended time. Sometimes they determine the outcome as a practical matter, such as denying a stay of execution in a capital case.
In a change from the usual practice, the Court will hold oral argument on Friday, January 7, in two sets of applications requesting stays in matters involving Covid mandates. Continue reading . . .
by Michael Rushford · Dec 21, 2021 2:22 pm
Doubling down on policies guaranteed to increase crime, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón announced yesterday that he is expanding a program which protects juvenile offenders from prosecution. Scott Schwebke of the LA Daily News reports that the the expanded REDY program will allow juveniles facing charges for robbery, burglary, arson, sexual battery and assault to be diverted to a “restorative justice” program and avoid prosecution. The Executive Director of Centinela Youth Services, which will manage the program, told reporters that studies have shown that juveniles participating in her program are 50-70% less likely to be rearrested. She presented no link to any study so we’ll just have to take her word for it.
Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Dec 20, 2021 4:04 pm
In recent years, CJLF has been involved in a number of civil cases, some of which involve administrative law.* In administrative law, there is generally a requirement to exhaust administrative remedies before turning to the courts. There are also requirements in various laws for hearings and public comment before adopting certain measures.
Is a party who does not comment on a proposal forever banned from filing a lawsuit challenging its legality? We have been hit with that argument a couple of times. For one particular kind of hearing/comment law, the California Supreme Court has said no. The case of Hill RHF Housing Partners, L.P. v. City of Los Angeles, S263734 involves business improvement districts. “The opportunity to comment on a proposed BID does not involve the sort of ‘clearly defined machinery for the submission, evaluation and resolution of complaints by aggrieved parties’ [citation] that has allowed us to infer an exhaustion requirement in other contexts.” I think that is correct. Continue reading . . .
by CJLF Staff · Dec 20, 2021 10:56 am
Guest post by David Boyd
A company has a potential liability that they want off their books. An ethically questionable law firm has the solution. Initiate a class action lawsuit against the company, settle the case quickly with a hefty fee for the lawyers and little to nothing for the class. It does not have to be outright collusion; maybe they just each have incentives, but the incentives are entirely aligned with each other so that they are not on the opposite sides. They are not adversaries in the legal sense, and the true victims get left behind.
Something remarkably similar is going on in criminal justice here in California. Long final death sentences are being undone through the same kind of collusion of interests. Anti-death penalty forces and state funded lawyers have a responsibility to represent their death penalty clients. Progressive prosecutors like George Gascón do not believe in the death penalty, despite the fact that the voters of the State of California recently, twice (2012 and 2016), reaffirmed their desire for the ultimate sanction. Gascón does not have the power of the Governor to commute a death sentence, so what is he doing? He invites a lawsuit. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Dec 17, 2021 2:52 pm
Two pandemics swept through America last year and lasted into this year. One, of course, was the virus that causes Covid-19. The other was the Wokevid virus.
Symptoms of Wokevid include (1) believing oneself to be “woke” while actually oblivious to reality and unable to speak correct English; and (2) bizarre delusional beliefs that defy logic, evidence, and common sense. These delusions include beliefs that reduced police presence and minimal punishment of criminals will somehow reduce crime instead of increasing it.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed showed unmistakable symptoms of Wokevid infection last year when she cut $120 million from law enforcement budgets. See this story from KGO. However, this speech Wednesday demonstrates a seemingly complete recovery. Continue reading . . .
by Michael Rushford · Dec 17, 2021 10:42 am
In a sharp reversal from their 2020 commitment to defund their “racist” police departments, liberal mayors across the country have discovered unprecedented increases in crime in their cities and are announcing their intent to increase police funding and get tough on criminals. Last year, riding the national wave of Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests over the supposedly racially-motivated death of a black criminal named George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer, liberal politicians demanded that police budgets be sharply cut, and that departments end proactive policing especially in high-crime urban neighborhoods. The Sun Times reports that last year Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot allowed over 600 officers to be cut from the Chicago PD. Now after two years of record breaking homicides in her city, she proposes adding $189 million to the police budget. Responding to the BLM demand, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced plans to cut $120 million from the police department budget last summer. The New York Post now reports she has reversed course, making an emergency request for more funding of the SFPD. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf has also reversed course and is now against the cuts to police that she supported last year. Even Speaker Nancy Pelosi is acknowledging an “absolutely outrageous” crime spike she did not acknowledge last week, last month or last year.
Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · Dec 15, 2021 11:34 am
The ABC News / Ipsos poll finds that a strong majority of Americans disapprove of President Biden’s handling of crime, 36-61.
But does the President have much to do with crime, really? Isn’t it mostly a state and local matter? Well, it’s complicated. Continue reading . . .
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