The Long List from the Long Conference

by · Oct 4, 2021 7:57 am

The U.S. Supreme Court opened its October 2021 Term today, the First Monday in October. As usual, it released an orders list from last week’s conference containing many denials of certiorari, a number of “vacate and remand” orders for lower courts to reconsider judgments based on decisions from last term, a few individual opinions regarding denial of certiorari, and no grants for full briefing and argument. The latter were in the short list issued last Thursday.

Among the notable denials is Deck v. Blair, No. 20-8333, denying review of the Eighth Circuit’s reinstatement of the death sentence of Carman Deck for the 1996 murder of an elderly couple, James and Zelma Long. Deck had to be sentenced to death three times in this case because of erroneous decisions by the Supreme Court itself, one in Deck’s own initial case and another that caused his second sentence to be overturned in state court. CJLF filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Long family in the Eighth Circuit. The State of Missouri may now proceed with long-overdue justice, absent any extraordinary interventions by the courts. Continue reading . . .

After a While, the Evidence Is Too Much To Ignore

by · Sep 28, 2021 6:34 am

When Vox and NYU, of all places, finally see that policing is the solution and not the problem, you know that our violent crime epidemic has gone over the cliff.

From this article in Vox:

Last year, the US’s murder rate spiked by almost 30 percent. So far in 2021, murders are up nearly 10 percent in major cities. The 2020 increase alone is the largest percentage increase ever recorded in America — and a reversal from overall declines in murder rates since the 1990s.

American policymakers now want answers on this surge. One approach has good evidence behind it: the police.

There is solid evidence that more police officers and certain policing strategies reduce crime and violence. In a recent survey of criminal justice experts, a majority said increasing police budgets would improve public safety. The evidence is especially strong for strategies that home in on very specific problems, individuals, or groups that are causing a lot of crime or violence — approaches that would require restructuring how many police departments work today.

I don’t agree with everything in the article  —  far from it  —  but it’s instructive that our national murder crisis has come to this point.  At some stage, reality does intrude, even in the citadels of liberalism.

Continue reading . . .

Public Order is Gone in California

by · Sep 27, 2021 12:38 pm

A Canadian woman visiting Los Angeles got a first hand look at the everyday violence happening in the nation’s largest “woke” city earlier this month.  Carl Samson of NextShark reports that Jennifer Chen was sitting alone waiting for a friend in her car in a parking lot near Beverly Hills at 4:25 p.m. on September 15,  when a middle aged white man walked up and slugged her in the face while saying “f***ing Asians.”   Chen chased him down and when confronted, he denied hitting her.  Parking lot video had captured the incident but under current California law the assault is misdemeanor battery, carrying little of no consequences.   Down the road a couple of miles, CBS News reports that a neighborhood in the beachside community of Venice has become home to a large homeless encampment where drug addicts, gunshots, screaming and threats of violence have become common.

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Lenient Release Policies Get an Eight Year-Old Killed

by · Sep 24, 2021 4:44 pm

You don’t need to look far to see the foreseeably gruesome results of criminal justice “reform” policies.  Among the favorites for “reformers” are an end to cash bail, probation instead of jail, and revocation hearings, if any, that are understanding for “technical” violations.

All three policies were at work in the latest child murder in Prince George’s County, Maryland, just across the Potomac River from where I live.

Continue reading . . .

Bad Policies, Not Racism or Covid-19, Are Causing the Spike in Murder

by · Sep 24, 2021 12:59 pm

A good example of the mainstream media narrative regarding the unprecedented surge in homicides, which started last year and has continued unabated this year, is this June article from the Washington Post which reported that racist police,  inequality and the economic and social impact of the pandemic are the root causes.   “Experts have attributed the increase to a variety of new and long-standing issues—-including entrenched inequality, soaring gun ownership, and fraying relations between police and the communities they serve—all intensified during the coronavirus pandemic and widespread uprising for racial justice.”  It’s guns and racism that’s causing all those murders folks.  Virginia lawyer Hans Bader has this piece in Liberty Unyielding debunking this claptrap.

Continue reading . . .

Rebutting the “Root Cause” Myth

by · Sep 22, 2021 2:09 pm

Two recent articles deal with one of the most persistent myths in justice policy: the “root cause” obsession. Large numbers of people are haunted by the vision of Victor Hugo’s fictional character Jean Valjean, who went to prison for stealing bread to feed his sister’s starving children. If only we provided a better social safety net, the myth goes, crime would disappear. Whatever validity it may have had in mid-nineteenth century France, stealing for the necessities of life has virtually nothing to do with crime in the post-World War II United States.

This “poverty is the root cause of crime” vision was, to a large extent, how LBJ sold America on the Great Society, and it was a cataclysmic  failure. Yet the myth weirdly persists and in the last few years has even grown stronger. Jason Riley has this column in the WSJ today titled The Destructive Legacy of the Great Society: Government subsidies for antisocial behavior stalled decades worth of black progress. Charles Fain Lehman has this article in the Summer edition of City Journal titled, Contra “Root Causes”: What the work of James Q. Wilson can teach us about the fight over criminal justice today. Continue reading . . .

Gascon Punishes Deputies for Following His Policy

by · Sep 20, 2021 12:10 pm

Two deputies district attorneys (DDAs) in the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office have been punished for following a parole policy announced last December by newly elected District Attorney George Gascon.  The reason;  following his policy to allow the release of a serial rapist would have made Gascon look bad.  Shortly after his election last fall, Gascon issued a group of “Special Directives” that prosecutors in his office were required to follow.  Directive 20-14 states; “This Office’s default policy is that we will not attend parole hearings and will support in writing the grant of parole for a person who has already served their mandatory minimum period of incarceration…However, if the CDCR (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) has determined in their Comprehensive Risk Assessment that a person represents a “high” risk of recidivism, the DDA may, in their letter, take a neutral position on the grant of parole.”   There are no exceptions for violent criminals, including murderers and rapists, in the written policy.

Continue reading . . .

Seattle Attorney Wins Primary, Vows to Abolish Office

by · Sep 17, 2021 1:21 pm

Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, a Democratic abolitionist favoring eliminating the police, and an adamant supporter of groups such as Antifa, has won the primary to be on the ballot for election to the Seattle City Attorney’s Office. If elected, Thomas-Kennedy, will “single-handedly become the greatest threat to Seattle” says Seattle-based talk show host, Jason Rantz.

Continue reading . . .