Monthly Archive: January 2022

A Martin Luther King Day Reminder on Genuine Humanity

by · Jan 17, 2022 2:44 pm

First a question:  If Martin Luther King were alive today, would he be more likely to agree with the anthem that black lives matter, or with the view that all lives matter?

I don’t think it’s a close question.  The whole point of the civil rights movement was equality.  And in the days of Dr. King, no one thought “equality” meant “equality of outcomes”  —  which is what the gossamer word “equity” is trying to put over on us today (albeit typically in the disguise of intentionally opaque academic gibberish).  “Equality” meant equal standing before the law, and an equal chance at success and living a peaceful life.

Is that what black people are getting now, in the era of progressive prosecutors and criminal justice reform?

Continue reading . . .

Is the Ferguson Effect Real?

by · Jan 17, 2022 2:32 pm

There is hypothesis that a pullback in policing activity following high-profile arrest incidents and subsequent protests and riots causes an increase in crime. This has been dubbed the “Ferguson Effect,” after the location of one particularly high-profile incident.

But is it real? Charles Fain Lehman has this article in the City Journal reviewing two recent studies. Continue reading . . .

SCOTUS Takes Up Three Crime-Related Cases

by · Jan 17, 2022 1:45 pm

At its conference last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court took up three cases related to crime and law enforcement. One raises the question of whether a police officer’s failure to give Miranda warnings creates a civil liability, in addition to making the confession inadmissible in a criminal case. A second involves a challenge to a state’s method of execution, offering an alternative not authorized by state law. A third involves proceedings in federal district court to develop evidence for a habeas corpus petition without regard to whether the evidence could even be considered in deciding the case. Continue reading . . .

Early Test for New Virginia Gov. on Sentencing Reform

by · Jan 17, 2022 11:17 am

Virginia’s new Governor, Glen Youngkin, was sworn in Saturday and immediately announced eleven executive orders to fulfill promises he made during his campaign last year.  One of them was to terminate the members of the criminal-coddling state Parole Board.  Youngkin also appointed former U.S. Attorney Richard Cullen as Counselor to the Governor.  Cullen was Vice-Chairman on a 1994 commission under Governor Richard Allen which recommended the elimination of parole and tougher sentencing.  Governor Youngkin’s commitment to reducing crime will face an early test from two bills introduced in Virginia’s divided legislature last week.  Hans Bader of Liberty Unyielding  reports that HB 906 and SB 378 would create the “second look” law, giving judges the authority to cut a violent criminal’s sentence by 10 to 15 years, even for life-sentenced murderers.

Continue reading . . .

What Larry Krasner, Philly’s “Progressive Prosecutor,” Owns

by · Jan 15, 2022 1:04 pm

Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner is not a stranger to followers of the blog.  He’s a “progressive prosecutor,” in the mold of the State’s Attorney a hundred miles south in Baltimore, the recently indicted Marilyn Mosby.  A Facebook friend of mine, Matt Rosenberg, author of “What Next Chicago?:  Notes of a Pissed Off Native Son,”  writes an on-the-ground account of what it’s like, especially for black people, living (for as long as they can) in Larry Krasner’s Philadelphia.  I want to pass it along without comment, none being needed.

Continue reading . . .

Leading Progressive Prosecutor Federally Indicted for Lying and Cheating

by · Jan 13, 2022 6:38 pm

Baltimore is a disaster area for its grotesque number of murders.  Almost all the victims are black.  The police force, at one time at least marginally effective, has been cowed ever since the Freddie Gray indictments.  In that case from 2015, the State’s Attorney charged six police officers with a variety of offenses stemming from the death, in police custody, of Mr. Gray, a small-time (though repeat) drug dealer.  The state obtained exactly zero convictions on any of the counts against any of the officers, but the damage to desperately needed robust policing was done.

The State’s Attorney responsible for that debacle of a prosecution and the consequent cratering of police morale is Marilyn Mosby.  I blogged about Mosby’s startling incompetence and leftist political grandstanding many times (too many to go back and retrieve right now).

Today Ms. Mosby was indicted by the Biden Justice Department for lying and cheating in order to get her hands on moola sufficient to finance  —  ready now?  —  a fancy rental property in Florida.

For those of you still wondering about the true mindset of “prosecutors” who favor the interests of hoodlums over those of ordinary citizens, welcome to the window into the deeper-than-you-thought embrace of criminality that this case gives us.  It shouldn’t come as a surprise. Continue reading . . .

Federal Agency Wants Quotas for Juvenile Offenders

by · Jan 13, 2022 12:11 pm

For decades liberal and progressive politicians in Washington have funded numerous “studies” on racial profiling and then forced consent decrees on big city police departments to address the disproportionate arrest and prosecution of black and Hispanic criminal offenders.  The purpose of these activities has been to advance the narrative that the American criminal justice system is racially biased, targeting black and brown populations either by having them murdered by racists police officers, or by railroading them into long prison sentences for non-violent offenses while white folks who commit the same offenses get probation.  One of the ways the federal government tries to resolve this systemic racism is through its grant-making policies.  A recent example comes from the Federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, which operates under the authority of Attorney General Merrick Garland.  The agency recently announced a new approach which conditions federal grants to state juvenile justice systems on the elimination of disparities between black and brown juveniles arrested and prosecuted for crimes and non-Hispanic white juveniles.  Attorney Hans Bader discusses this apparent return to government-enforced quotas in this piece in Liberty Unyielding.

Continue reading . . .

The January 6 Show Was a Flop

by · Jan 10, 2022 2:31 pm

“The disappointment was palpable. As the one-year anniversary of the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot approached, the Department of Homeland Security had warned state and local law enforcement officials that ‘domestic violent extremists’ could strike again. Security forces were on guard and many people were on edge, reported the New York Times. Yet, as a CNN anchor morosely observed during the network’s saturation coverage of the anniversary celebration: `There’s been no violence at the Capitol today.’ “

So begins Manhattan Institute scholar Heather MacDonald’s City Journal piece discussing the remarkable show of hypocrisy laid out in wall to wall national coverage of last year’s January 6 “insurrection” by evil Trump supporters. “The media’s Capitol riot anniversary celebration, however, was choreographed to underscore the fictional claim that white supremacy is the biggest impediment to civil order in the U.S. today,” MacDonald says. Continue reading . . .

What Constitutes a Serious Crime in Los Angeles County?

by · Jan 6, 2022 1:51 pm

Last Sunday, (January 2) a woman and her 13-year-old daughter were driving through an intersection in the the LA County town of Norwalk when a speeding car ran a red light and T-boned their car.  Both died from their injuries.  CBS Los Angeles reports that the driver of the speeding car, 26-year-old Brittany Lopez, was driving without a license.  Investigators believe that Lopez was under the influence of drugs and alcohol.  She was arrested on charges of vehicular manslaughter which can be charged as a  felony.  Running a red light through a crowded intersection at high speed resulting in death can be charged as gross vehicular manslaughter, a violent felony.  Depending on the toxicology report, Lopez could have faced charges of “gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated,” which carries a possible sentence of 15-years in prison.  But before the toxicology report was available, Lopez was released from jail after the district attorney’s office refused to file charges against her for any crime.   In Sacramento, Bakersfield or San Diego, this woman would be sitting in jail awaiting trial. In George Gascón’s Los Angeles she is, likely as not, driving around in another car, probably drunk.  And Gascón tells us that his policies are restoring justice and have made LA safer.

Manhattan’s New Woke DA

by · Jan 5, 2022 1:03 pm

Instead of announcing his plans to deal with a New York City crime spike in virtually every major crime category, newly sworn in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has handed down a list of crimes that he won’t prosecute.  Andrew Mark Miller of Fox News reports that Bragg’s plan for “decriminalization / non-prosecution” forbids holding offenders for drug possession, subway turnstile jumping, fighting with cops (resisting arrest), trespassing and prostitution accountable.  He also will not seek prison or jail sentences for any crime other than homicide or violent felonies stating that “reserving incarceration for matters involving significant harm will make us safer.”  Departing slightly from his wokemate, LA District Attorney George Gascon, Bragg vows to never seek a maximum prison sentence, even for multiple murderers, of longer than 20 years and will never seek a sentence of life without parole.  The more sympathetic Gascon will not seek a maximum sentence for any criminal of more than 15 years.

Continue reading . . .