Monthly Archive: May 2023
by Kent Scheidegger · May 15, 2023 3:50 pm
No criminal statute has taken up more of the U.S. Supreme Court’s time in recent decades than the Armed Career Criminal Act. As the name implies, sentencing under the act depends heavily on the extent of the defendant’s criminal career. The chronic headache comes from the fact that each jurisdiction defines crimes differently, and federal defendants prosecuted under the ACCA typically have multiple prior convictions in state court. Continue reading . . .
by Michael Rushford · May 15, 2023 1:46 pm
Law enforcement groups are warning that cities across the country implementing policies to prohibit most traffic stops by police are going to result in a preventable increase in crime. The New York Times reports that cities including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Berkeley, Lansing, Mich, Brooklyn Center, Minn, and the State of Virginia have adopted such policies. The City of Los Angeles is also considering having unarmed civilians enforce “safety related traffic violations,” such as speeding according to the LA Times.
Continue reading . . .
by Michael Rushford · May 10, 2023 11:17 am
One of the most effective improvements to policing of the last fifty years has been the use of data to determine which neighborhoods are plagued with the most crime. In the mid 1990s, law enforcement agencies in many U.S. cities, including New York and Los Angeles, were able to dramatically cut crime rates by targeting high crime areas with more police patrols and specialized units focused on gangs and illegal firearms. Crime reporting and incident data has also helped focus government and private programs on the areas and populations most in need of services to improve their lives. In its blind pursuit of “social justice” the Biden administration has determined that data-based policing is racist. James Lynch of the Daily Caller reports that Department of Justice is proposing updating anti-discrimination guidelines which will prevent federal law enforcement from relying on crime statistics to catch criminals.
Continue reading . . .
by Michael Rushford · May 9, 2023 9:35 am
Kim Gardner, the progressive St. Louis Circuit Attorney whose campaign was bankrolled by uber-liberal billionaire George Soros announced that she would resign from office on June 1. Susan El Khoury and Lauren Trager of KMOV report that Gardner is facing removal from office by the State Attorney General for willfully neglecting the duties of her office. Gardner was first elected in 2016 as the city’s first black female Circuit Attorney, vowing to reform the office and restore social justice. The main elements of her reform agenda has been to decline to prosecute thousands of cases and fail to assign prosecutors to serious criminal cases set for trial. In April her office was held in contempt for failing to appear for the trial of a man accused of murder and another trial of a suspect charged with shooting an 11-year-old girl. Gardner’s refusal to revoke bail even for habitual offenders who repeatedly violate bail conditions without any consequences became a major issue for her opponents. In February Daniel Riley, who had violated bail at least 50 times while awaiting trial for armed robbery, rammed his car at high speed into 16-year-old Janae Edmondson and another car, pinning her between both vehicles. Riley was driving without a license. The girl, who was in town for a volleyball tournament, lost both legs due to the accident. The Attorney General says he will not wait for June 1 to remove Gardner from office.
by Kent Scheidegger · May 8, 2023 11:45 am
On April 28, the California Court of Appeal for the Third District upheld the state’s ban on assault weapons. The Metropolitan News-Enterprise has this story. The same court had previously upheld the predecessor statute, and the new opinion held that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year in New York State Rifle & Piston Assn., Inc. v. Bruen did not change the outcome of this issue. Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · May 5, 2023 3:42 pm
The Public Safety Committees of both houses of the California Legislature have long been known as graveyards. Strong criminal justice bills are buried there. A bill regarding human trafficking, SB 14, emerged from the Senate Public Safety Committee last week, but the extent to which it had to be watered down to survive is an appalling commentary on the present state of the California Legislature.
The base offense is defined in section 236.1(a) of the Cal. Penal Code. “A person who deprives or violates the personal liberty of another with the intent to obtain forced labor or services, is guilty of human trafficking ….” In other words, we are talking about actual slavery in the twenty-first century. Who could possibly be against throwing the book at present-day slavers? Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · May 4, 2023 2:16 pm
Shopping Closures Map from SF Chronicle
A huge but common mistake in public policy is to consider only the direct effects of a policy and ignore the indirect effects. Crime harms the direct victims most, but ultimately the indirect effects corrode the structure of society.
San Francisco’s once-famous shopping scene is imploding, and crime is a major reason why.
In the latest blow to downtown, Nordstrom, an upscale anchor store in the Westfield San Francisco Centre, will depart at the end of its lease. Continue reading . . .
by Michael Rushford · May 2, 2023 11:15 am
The mantra of death penalty opponents for all of my adult life has been Blackstone’s ratio: “better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.” But what if one of the guilty allowed to escape is a murderer? William Lee of the Chicago Tribune reports that last month the posterboy for compassionate release, Steven “Mustafa” Hawthorne, was arrested for the double murder of his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend. In 1984, Hawthorne was convicted of killing two people and sentenced to life-without-the-possibility-of parole (LWOP). Because he was 17-years-old at the time of the murders, Hawthorne was allowed to petition for re-sentencing after the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling in Miller v. Alabama. In 2017, based upon findings that he had been rehabilitated, Hawthorne was released from prison. As noted by Hans Bader in Liberty Unyielding, the sentencing reform group Families Against Mandatory Minimums, celebrated Hawthorne’s release noting that “there are too many people in Illinois serving long prison terms that don’t make communities safer. More of them need the same chance that Steven got.”
Continue reading . . .
by Kent Scheidegger · May 2, 2023 10:28 am
Gallup has released its latest poll asking the open-ended question, “What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?” Lydia Saad of Gallup has this report. Government leadership and economic issues continue to top the list, but the sharpest changes from the previous poll were in the numbers naming crime or guns as the top issue. Continue reading . . .
by Michael Rushford · May 1, 2023 1:13 pm
A campaign to recall progressive Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price has generated over 15,000 signatures toward a goal of 25,000 as reported by Rachel Schilke of the Washington Examiner. Price, who assumed office in January, has implemented multiple progressive policies aimed to reduce sentences and substitute “healing” and programs for jail or prison sentences. She has also fired 20 prosecutors and placed six others on administrative leave. She sparked a backlash in March when her office offered a plea bargain to give accused murderer Delonzo Logwood a 15-year sentence for killing three people in a murder-for-hire scheme. The judge in the case rejected the deal stating that Price provided no explanation for offering such a deal. In most other CA counties a triple-murderer could receive a death sentence or life-without-the-possibility-of-parole. Logwood’s trial begins this month.
Continue reading . . .
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