Pressure by progressive lawmakers, particularly in blue cities, to restrict police traffic stops as a means for addressing racial discrimination has been quite effective. Traffic stops nationally dropped significantly during the 2020 Covid 19 lockdowns, and have stayed down in the post-pandemic years, especially in democrat run cities including Philadelphia, Memphis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Phoenix and Seattle. Emily Badger and Ben Blatt of the New York Times report that the reduction in traffic enforcement spread nationally after the widely publicized 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The writers attribute the decline in stops to two sources, changes in department policy and decisions by officers on the street.

Continue reading . . .

ACA 8, a constitutional amendment placed on the November 5 ballot would abolish a California requirement that criminals sent to state prison or county jail do some kind of work while serving their time. Katy Grimes of the California Globe writes that a majority of the state legislature and Governor Newsom consider the work requirement to be slavery. The measure is called the End of Slavery in California Act. It was among the package of bills introduced by the Legislative Black Caucus as reparations for the descendants of American slaves. Two problems with this are; that there were no slaves in California, a state that never recognized slavery. The other is that the requirement for prison inmates to work is part of their punishment for committing crimes. People are not born as prison inmates. They have to earn that status by robbing, stealing, raping or murdering innocent people.

Continue reading . . .

As the Democrat National Convention approaches, the words of its newly elected Mayor Brandon Johnson, “Chicago is a world-class city that looks like America and demonstrates the values of the Democratic Party,” will be tested by a grim reality.  As noted by Manhattan Institute scholar Heather MacDonald in today’s Wall Street Journal, progressive policies supported by Mayor Johnson and his predecessor Lori Lightfoot have turned the windy city into an open-air slaughterhouse. The Chicago approach to crime, which includes labeling police as racists, refusing to punish property and drug crimes, and undercharging most violent offenders, has been duplicated in other big democrat-controlled cities such as Los Angeles, Washington, DC, San Francisco and Oakland. All have suffered from dramatically increased crime and violence since the 2020 George Floyd Riots.

Continue reading . . .

A Soros-bankrolled public defender elected in 2023 to the top prosecutor position for Hennepin County Minnesota, which includes Minneapolis, is taking fire for her soft-on-crime policies.  Michael Goldberg of the Associated Press reports that County Attorney Mary Moriarty’s decisions to seek rehabilitation rather than prison time, even for murderers, has caused even her former supporters to say that she has gone too far and “not abided by the goals of that office, which are safety and justice.”   Moriarty, who received over $500,000 from Soros, ran on the  promise to reform the criminal justice system, abandoning punishment and focusing on the root causes of crime. That approach has caused a reported 150 seasoned county prosecutors, investigators and support staff to quit their jobs since her election. “People are afraid to talk. The morale is horrible,” said one former prosecutor.

Continue reading . . .

A Utah man who slashed his ex-girlfriend’s mother to death in 1998 is asking the state parole board to commute his death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Colleen Slevin and Matthew Brown of the Associated Press report that after decades of failed appeals, Taberon Dave Honie is seeking mercy for a crime that still traumatizes the state’s close-knit Native American community. At a hearing last Tuesday, relatives of 49-year-old Claudia Benn asked the parole board to uphold his death sentence for brutally murdering a “pillar of her family and community—a tribal council member, substance abuse counselor and caregiver for her children and grandchildren.”  Update:  Honie was executed without incident at 12:25 AM Thursday morning.

Continue reading . . .

If the current elected prosecutor decides that a sentence obtained by a predecessor in a criminal case is not a good one (even if authorized by law and legally imposed), can he just move for a reduced sentence? Is the judge obligated to comply?

Ron Matthias, California Senior Assistant Attorney General (Ret.) has this op-ed in the Silicon Valley Voice denouncing Santa Clara District Attorney Jeff Rosen’s motions to reduce all of the death sentences coming from that county (San Jose and vicinity). Continue reading . . .

Recently released data reported to the public indicate that since January, crime in Oakland, CA has declined by 33%.  As reported by Rachel Swan and Dan Kopf of the San Francisco Chronicle,  Governor Gavin Newsom cited that data as proof that his dispatch of CHP officers and prosecutors from the Attorney General’s office to crack down on Oakland crime has paid off.  The problem is, according to the Chronicle, those numbers are inaccurate. Law enforcement officials told reporters that there is a significant backlog of crimes reported which need to be verified.  As a result, the initial numbers, which are reported weekly, can be much lower that the actual number of crimes.

Continue reading . . .