Effects of ‘Defunding’ Law Enforcement and Reducing Consequences for Crimes

by · May 19, 2021 11:32 am

The Wall Street Journal has this article by Jason Riley addressing a few early outcomes we are seeing as a result of lowering prosecution rates and defunding law enforcement in many large cities across the U.S. Riley points out the following:

In New York City, shooting and homicides rose by 97% and 44%, respectively, in 2020, and felony assaults are up by 25% this year. Yet seven of the eight candidates running in the Democratic primary for Manhattan district attorney have pledged to cut the police budget or prosecute fewer suspects—or some combination of the two. Baltimore began defunding law enforcement and turning a blind eye to criminal behavior a decade ago, and since then nearly 3,000 of its residents have been murdered. 

 

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The Pandemic Does Not Explain The Spike in Violent Crime

by · May 17, 2021 3:36 pm

For decades, anti-sentencing advocates have blamed poverty, economic conditions, demographics, racism, and firearms for increases in crime rather than on the criminals themselves and weak policies that enable criminal behavior.  After 2020, the pandemic has been added to the list.  As reported in Hans Bader’s article in Liberty Unyielding,  Professor John Pfaff, “America’s most famous advocate of cutting sentences for violent criminals,”  suggests that one reason for the unprecedented increase in shootings in New York City was the pandemic which upended the economy.   Professor Pfaff was responding to a recent article in Politico which noted that “gun violence escalates throughout the city (of New York) one year after anti-police protesters occupied the street.”

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Supreme Court Takes Up Capital Habeas Corpus Case

by · May 17, 2021 8:13 am

The U.S. Supreme Court this morning decided to take up for full briefing and argument the Arizona capital habeas corpus case of Shinn v. Ramirez, No. 20-1009.

The case involves the interaction between the Court’s “equitable exception” to the procedural default rule in Martinez v. Ryan and one of the lesser-known habeas reforms of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2). Continue reading . . .

Supreme Court Limits “Caretaking” Searches and Seizures in Home

by · May 17, 2021 7:58 am

The U.S. Supreme Court today decided Caniglia v. Strom, No. 20-157:

Decades ago, this Court held that a warrantless search of an impounded vehicle for an unsecured firearm did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U. S. 433 (1973). In reaching this conclusion, the Court observed that police officers who patrol the “public highways” are often called to discharge noncriminal “community care-taking functions,” such as responding to disabled vehicles or investigating accidents. Id., at 441. The question today is whether Cady’s acknowledgment of these “caretaking” duties creates a standalone doctrine that justifies warrantless searches and seizures in the home. It does not. Continue reading . . .

Ramos Not Retroactive; Second Teague Exception Is Dead

by · May 17, 2021 7:49 am

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Edwards v. Vannoy, No. 19-5807, that the rule it established last year that the Constitution requires that criminal case juries must be unanimous is not retroactive to overturn cases that were already final on appeal when Ramos v. Louisiana was decided.

The holding is correct beyond question if one correctly applies the Court’s precedents under Teague v. Lane. For the full details, see the series of posts I wrote after the oral argument:

A Teague Primer

Making an Easy Retroactivity Case Difficult: The Argument in Edwards v. Vannoy — Part I, Overruling Apodaca

Making an Easy Retroactivity Case Difficult: The Argument in Edwards v. Vannoy — Part II, Reasonable Minds Before Ramos

An Easy Retroactivity Case Made Difficult — Part III, Teague‘s Phantom Exception

Today, the ghostbusters have finally purged the phantom. The Court has finally taken the step that I have urged many times since Teague and admitted that the “second exception” for “watershed rules” is not merely comatose, it is dead. It has been dead for a long time, but the false promise required attorneys to brief it and courts to decide it in every habeas retroactivity case. Continue reading . . .

Maintenance

by · May 15, 2021 7:21 pm

Crime and Consequences Blog will be in maintenance for the rest of the weekend.

Comments posted during this time could be lost in transition. I suggest saving any posted comment in a plain text file on your own computer (such as Notepad on a Windows computer) so that it can easily be replaced if lost.

Update (5/17): Maintenance has been completed and the site appears to be fully operational. Please email ccadmin at the blog’s domain if you have any difficulties.

California District Attorneys Petition to Repeal Release of 76,000 Inmates

by · May 14, 2021 10:57 am

Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, joined by 40 other elected DAs,  submitted this petition to the Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to, “…repeal the temporary emergency regulations contained in the Minimum Security Credit and Inmate Credit Earning rule making action filed with the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) on April 8, 2021.”   The regulations give 76,000 criminals in state prisons eligibility for early release. 

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The Lethal and Racist Dishonesty of the Defense Bar

by · May 13, 2021 8:41 pm

In the post immediately preceding this one, Amber Westbrook wrote of “Another Violent Felon Released from Prison Early to Commit More Crimes.”  The piece I bring you now is in the same vein but much worse.  It’s from the pro-criminal justice “reform” Washington Post.  Its title is, “Released early after a murder conviction, D.C. man is charged in new homicide.”  It’s yet another story of dishonest lawyers, both white, one an advocate and one a judge, who worked hand-in-hand to secure the early release of a violent thug in the prime of his criminal life.  The released convict, Darrell Moore, went on to commit another murder a scant nine months later, by shooting his victim six times in the chest.  The evidence suggests that the victim was black, as Moore’s first victim was.

What we have here is the nauseating combination of the poisons that have been taking over our criminal justice system  —  strutting elitist attitudes and shameless lying masquerading as compassion.  But it’s not compassion.  It’s the opposite.  It starts with self-congratulatory virtue-signalling by elite-type lawyers (the great majority of whom are, as in this case, white).  The next step is pro bono representation of a violent hooligan to obtain early release, thus to shortcut his supposed accountability for an earlier brutal crime.  It proceeds by patently false representations about his New Life and Now Peaceable Character.  The final chapter is another black man in the morgue.  The white lawyers who made it all possible have  —  you guessed it  —  no comment.

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Another Violent Felon Released from Prison Early to Commit More Crimes

by · May 13, 2021 3:10 pm

The Sacramento Bee has this story on Alberto Quiroz, who was sentenced to ten years in state prison for the events in the 2017 death of CHP Officer Lucas Chellew who died as a result of injuries sustained in a high-speed chase with Quiroz through South Sacramento.  Quiroz had 5 previous failures to appear on unrelated charges and previous cases. He was arrested on May 5th for assaulting one of his family members with a semi-automatic weapon. So the question is, why was he released less than three and a half years into this sentence?? Below is the answer offered by corrections spokeswoman, Dana Simas. 

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