Baltimore’s Disastrous Experiment with De-Policing

by · May 7, 2021 9:52 am

Stephen J.K. Walters writes in the City Journal:

A decade ago, Baltimoreans became lab rats in a fateful experiment: their elected officials decided to treat the city’s long-running crime problem with many fewer cops. In effect, Baltimore began to defund its police and engage in de-policing long before those terms gained popular currency.

This experiment has been an abject failure. Since 2011, nearly 3,000 Baltimoreans have been murdered—one of every 200 city residents over that period. The annual homicide rate has climbed from 31 per 100,000 residents to 56—ten times the national rate. And 93 percent of the homicide victims of known race over this period were black.

Walters traces the history, which ironically includes an attempt to emulate the “Broken Windows” approach to policing that James Q. Wilson and George Kelling proposed in their famous 1982 Atlantic article. The approach had worked very well in New York, back when New Yorkers knew how to elect good mayors.

The problem, Walters says, is that Baltimore’s attempt was pathetically bad. Continue reading . . .

When Execution Drugs Are in Short Supply…

by · May 6, 2021 2:32 pm

…alternative methods will be found.  Since, as the Court held in Glossip, “the death penalty is constitutional,” and since a majority of our citizens continue to support it, and since gruesome murders continue to be committed that warrant it, we will continue to administer it.  This is true despite false claims that “the death penalty is dying.”  Instead, over the last five years, we have had an average of one execution every 17 days, and, after years of decline (as the murder rate declined), support for capital punishment has held stable at 55% over that time.

The latest news is from South Carolina, which is bringing back firing squads.

Continue reading . . .

Dumping a Dishonest Precedent Less Than Honestly — Part II

by · May 6, 2021 10:09 am

In Jones v. Mississippi, decided April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court held that in cases where a juvenile is facing life without parole (LWOP) for murder, all that is needed to comply with its 2012 precedent in Miller v. Alabama is for the sentencing court to have discretion to choose a lower sentence and consider the defendant’s youth in making the choice.

That would have been fairly straightforward based on Miller itself. The complications arose from the 2016 decision in Montgomery v. Louisiana, making Miller retroactive so as to require resentencing for a 1963 murder. The problem, as explained at length in the previous post, is that Montgomery contradicted Miller in order to achieve that result, and Montgomery even contradicted itself, making statements that cannot be reconciled.

In Jones, the majority opinion joined by five Justices and the dissent joined by three have many sharp points of disagreement, but they agree on one thing. Both maintain the fiction that Montgomery is consistent with Miller. As a result, neither opinion’s analysis can possibly be completely correct, and neither is. Continue reading . . .

Presiding Over Slaughter in Chicago

by · May 5, 2021 11:10 am

During 2020,  774 mostly black people in Chicago were murdered, a 50% increase compared to 2019.  Shootings were up by over 52% with 3,237 shot.   Those numbers should have raised questions among voters about reelecting progressive States Attorney Kim Foxx, who, according to the Chicago Tribune, dropped charges against over 25,000 felons in 2019 and ran on the promise not to prosecute so-called low level criminals like drug dealers and thieves.   But with $2 million from George Soros, as reported in the Sun Times,  Foxx won reelection last November by over 180,000 votes.  Apparently the voters are willing to tolerate more crime because they like her politically correct anti-police and pro Black Lives Matter messaging.

Continue reading . . .

Older Women Stabbed at SF Bus Stop in Broad Daylight

by · May 5, 2021 9:00 am

A man attacked two older women waiting for a bus on Market Street in the heart of San Francisco in broad daylight and then casually walked away. One was in her 60s and one was in her 80s. Both are out of surgery and in the ICU as of this writing. A suspect has been arrested, described only as a San Francisco man in his 50s.

Kate Larson has this report for KGO. A witness who works at a nearby flower stand said, “I feel like we do need more officers patrolling.” The member of the Board of Supervisors who represents the district said, “We have to hold people accountable who are committing crimes like this, we have to have police in areas where people need to be safe and have them more visible.”

In other words, everything the “woke” crowd is saying is wrong, and we need an about-face in criminal justice policy. We need it right now. Continue reading . . .

CA Supreme Court Overturns Quadruple Murderer’s Death Sentence

by · May 4, 2021 2:57 pm

In a unanimous ruling yesterday, the California Supreme Court overturned the death sentence handed down 23 years ago for a woman convicted of killing her four young daughters and attempting to kill her 14-year-old son.  The Mercury News reports that Nikolet Amber Nieves’ boyfriend had recently left her pregnant,  which she aborted a week before setting fire to her home killing her four daughters and nearly killing her son by two previous marriages.   The girls, ranging in age from 5 to 12, died from smoke inhalation. In a note to one of her ex-husbands she wrote, “Now you don’t have to support any of us.”  A defense expert testified that he believed she had taken enough drugs to be unaware of what she was doing when she set the fire, but she did manage to call 911 to report it.  The jury did not buy it.

Continue reading . . .

Taxpayer Funded Heroin Injection Sites in California?

by · May 3, 2021 11:46 am

Politico has this story on the proposal for California to provide on-site medical care for individuals injecting illicit drugs, including, but not limited to heroin. The goal of SB 57 (Wiener, D San Francisco) is also to obtain immunity from federal enforcement for the professionals running the program and the drug-users. The most recent proposal awaiting legislative approval is for the California  cities of San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles to open and run these injection sites for five years to “test” the model. 

Continue reading . . .

California to Release over 70,000 Inmates

by · May 3, 2021 10:30 am

The Associated Press has this story on the early release of thousands of inmates; “California is giving 76,000 inmates, including violent and repeat felons, the opportunity to leave prison earlier…” This is result of a promise made by Governor Newsom to decrease prison populations throughout the state of California and close prisons.  Thanks to Proposition 57 (adopted in 2016) state prison inmates, even those convicted of violent crimes, receive “good time” credits to reduce their sentences by up to 50%.  Last year approximately 21,000 inmates in California were released from prison. There will be a total of 3 prison closures in California by next year.

Continue reading . . .

SCOTUS Orders Monday

by · May 3, 2021 8:20 am

The U.S. Supreme Court released its regular Monday orders list today. Not surprisingly, there were several wake-of-Jones orders in cases that had been on hold for that decision. Oklahoma v. Johnson, No. 19-250, and United States v. Briones, No. 19-720, were sent back for reconsideration. These were cases where the lower court decided in an under-18 murderer’s favor based on a broad interpretation of Montgomery v. Louisiana. Cases where the lower court ruled against the defendant based on a narrow interpretation of Montgomery were simply denied, including Newton v. Indiana, No. 17-1511, and Garcia v. North Dakota, No. 19-399. Continue reading . . .