by Amber Westbrook · 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.
by Bill Otis · 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 . . .
by Amber Westbrook · 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.
by Kent Scheidegger · Mar 22, 2021 6:45 am
The U.S. Supreme Court today took up the case of the Boston Marathon Bomber for full briefing and argument. See previous posts here and here. It is too late in the present term to hear argument of this case, so it will be heard in the term beginning next October.
The case is United States v. Tsarnaev, No. 16-443. Continue reading . . .
by Michael Rushford · 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.
by Michael Rushford · 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.
by Michael Rushford · Mar 18, 2021 11:31 am
New York City’s five police unions issued a statement this week citing the state’s bail reform law, which took effect in 2020, as the cause of last year’s 47% increase in murders and 100% increase in shootings. Rocco Parascandola of the New York Daily News has this story, quoting the head of the Police Benevolent Association, “Our cops on the street warned us that it was happening. We warned the politicians that this (bail reform) won’t work. Violence will rise. And it has.”
by Kent Scheidegger · Mar 17, 2021 2:46 pm
The Los Angeles District Attorney Office issued this release touting the “accomplishments” of George Gascón’s first quarter in office. Among them is “a 71 percent reduction in enhancements filed by the office when comparing a three-month span between December 2020 and February 2021 to the same period the prior year.”
Why is that an accomplishment? “Conservative estimates suggest the reduction equates to more than 8,000 years of unnecessary exposure and the three-month cost savings are projected to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.” (Emphasis added.)
How do we know that exposure was “unnecessary”? How do we know there is any net “savings” at all, rather than a net cost, when the full cost of the additional crimes that will be committed in the future are factored in? Continue reading . . .
by Michael Rushford · Mar 17, 2021 11:01 am
With homicides up 32% in Philadelphia so far this year, after a record-setting 499 people were murdered in 2020, many people including defense attorneys are questioning progressive District Attorney Larry Krasner’s reform policies, including his refusal to prosecute most property and drug criminals. Joseph Simonson of the Washington Examiner reports that the vast majority (86%) of homicide victims are black although blacks make up just 44% of the city’s population. Defense attorney Charles Peruto, who’s running to replace Krasner, said that due to his sweeping soft-on-crime reforms he and his colleagues “are down on their number of clients. This Krasner is killing us. It sounds funny….but it’s hurting the public.”
by Kent Scheidegger · Mar 17, 2021 10:47 am
The Supreme Court decided long ago that “a private citizen lacks a judicially cognizable interest in the prosecution or nonprosecution of another.” Linda R.S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614, 619 (1973). But can a victim of crime sue a district attorney on the ground that a long pattern of discriminatory nonprosecution was a contributing cause of the crime? An amicus brief by former Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski joined by former Attorney General and District Judge Michael Mukasey and former District Judge F.A. Little asks the Fifth Circuit to address that question en banc. Beneath it lies a tangled tale as thick as the undergrowth in Louisiana swamp country. Continue reading . . .
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED