As has been reported on this blog and in many other places, crime across the cities of this country has been on a tear the last two years the likes of which we have not seen for decades. After a generation of keeping our nerve and getting tough under Bill Clinton and George Bush, we decided that the real problem is thuggish police and overcrowded prisons. So we started down the road of policing consent decrees and retroactively lowered sentences.Liking the results?But wait, it gets worse. Lots worse. With a hat tip to Sentencing Law and Policy, I repeat its entry today about the staggering degree to which crime never gets reported at all (and therefore never winds up in our quickly worsening crime statistics):John Gramlich writing for the Pew Reseach Center has this new data brief reviewing basic data on crime reporting and resolution. The piece is headlined "Most violent and property crimes in the U.S. go unsolved," and here is how…
Crime is Vastly Under-Reported, so The Problem is Worse Than You Think
↧
↧
Police outrageous conduct — An elusive defense for criminal defendants
Do we as a society want to tolerate police engaging in oral sex and sexual intercourse with prostitutes in order to nab them, smoking crack with addicts to arrest them, and busting heads of rival gangs to arrest members of gangs to which the police pretend to belong? Do not hold your breath for courts to thwart such outrageous police conduct. An example of outrageous police conduct (where the defendant did not allege outrageous conduct) is in Bakran v. Virginia, 57 Va.App. 197 (2010), where in the course of nabbing a john, an undercover officer posing as a prostitute agreed to his request to touch her clothed breast and for her to touch his groin. Minnesota’s Court of Appeals, for one, has put some teeth into the outrageous conduct doctrine, finding strong roots in such a case as Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165(1952), which applied the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process clause to reverse a drug conviction due to the conscious…
↧
CA9: States court’s rationale for rejecting 4A claim subject to “unreasonable application” clause of § 2254(d)(1) on habeas
On federal habeas, the state court’s determination that defense counsel was reasonable in not filing a motion to suppress was subject to the “unreasonable application” clause of § 2254(d)(1). The state court’s denials were not an unreasonable application of the … Continue reading →
↧
CA8: Adding search condition to supervised release after serving 26 years didn’t violate ex post facto clause
Defendant served about 26 years of a 30½ year sentence, and, after release, a search condition was added, and it did not violate the ex post facto clause. United States v. Winston, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 3685 (8th Cir. March … Continue reading →
↧
News Roundup
As the New York Times reports, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument this week in Packingham v. North Carolina, a case that presents the question of whether prohibiting sex offenders from accessing social networking websites, as North Carolina does with G.S. 14-202.5, violates the First Amendment. If you’re not up to speed on Packingham, check out Jamie’s 2013 post discussing the North Carolina Court of Appeals decision holding G.S. 14-202.5 facially unconstitutional, and then check out Jeff’s 2015 News Roundup entry explaining the North Carolina Supreme Court’s subsequent reversal of the lower appellate court. A transcript of the oral argument is available here and a SCOTUSblog argument analysis, suggesting that the Justices were skeptical of the constitutionality of the law, is available here. Keep reading for more news. New Trial for Arnold O. Jones. WRAL reports that former superior court judge Arnold O. Jones…
↧
↧
NI PINOCHO LO HARÍA MEJOR
http://larepublica.pe/politica/853203-secretario-de-proinversion-creo-que-juan-monroy-se-ha-confundido-de-informe Secretario de ProInversion: "Creo que Juan Monroy se ha confundido de informe" He extraído el siguiente párrfo: "Él sabe como abogado si lo que dice es verdad sabria que ha cometido una simulacion. El de acuerdo a lo que el explica, es que yo pongo el 4. Ese informe lo hace cualquier estudiante de derecho en media hora", añadió Villegas. Declarar lo que usted acaba de leer es suficiente para abrir proceso al señor Villegas. ¿Qué pretende este sujeto con tal declaración? Veamos: La primera conclusión de que él y todos los abogados a los que alude en sus declaraciones están involucrados en la firma de un contrato que, por lo menos debió suspenderse. En consecuencia deben ser denunciados por el delito de Cohecho propio. La segunda intenta…
↧
Property and the Rule of Law
Paul Gowder, Equal Law in an Unequal World, 99 Iowa L. Rev. 1021 (2014). Robin West Paul Gowder’s article Equal Law in an Unequal World is an exceptionally fine piece of scholarship, and a terrific addition to the growing philosophical and jurisprudential literature on the Rule of Law. It sets out to accomplish several tasks—and largely succeeds. The first and major goal of the piece is to introduce a novel conception of the Rule of Law that is grounded in the widely accepted norm that law must be general. This is a familiar understanding of the meaning of the “Rule of Law,” but Gowder gives it distinctively unfamiliar—but ultimately quite compelling—content. Any law, Gowder argues, drawing on an emergent moral-philosophical literature elucidating related concepts, to be “general” and therefore compatible with the Rule of Law, must be backed by public reasons that can be rationally understood by all citizens, but most…
↧
DIARIES OF A MAD PRESIDENT'S AIDES
Steve BannonDear Diary...Being President a presidential aide is awesome.Dinner last night with Sergey Kislyak Russian Ambassador. All is going according to plan. The leaks are working. Sessions will be gone by March. So will Spicer and Kushner. Then it will be just me and Don...like it should be and like I always wanted. We can run this thing together. I write- he speaks-Fox reports- we rule.Quick meeting with legal counsel. Lincoln suspended right of habeas corpus and first amendment- no reason we can't suspend elections in 2020. Just for ten years or so. Then all my plans will be in cement.Stephen MillerDear Diary...The White House and DC have kept me pretty busy, but I did finish Heinrich Himmler's auto-biography. People keep giving it to me, saying the book reminded them of me. Puzzling. But anyway, I've gotten fantastic reviews from the boss about my statements about presidential power. The power of the president is supreme and will not be…
↧
"The Return of the Firing Squad"
↧
↧
NJ strip search for $6.50 traffic ticket violates state statute
New Jersey by statute prohibits strip searches except for a crime. Defendant was arrested for an outstanding $6.50 traffic ticket and strip searched. The state can’t bootstrap this arrest into a search incident. State v. Evans, 2017 N.J. Super. LEXIS … Continue reading →
↧
AG Sessions Most Un-Excellent Day
Like a punching bag, Attorney General Jeff Sessions took hit after hit yesterday, ultimately holding a press conference to announce he would recuse himself from any FBI investigation into Russia's alleged attempts to influence the election.... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
↧
The Executive Order on WOTUS
On February 28, 2017, the White House issued the Executive Order requiring a review of the “Waters of the United States” rule. The policy reasons, as set out in the EO, were to “ensure that the Nation's navigable waters are kept free from pollution, while at the same time promoting economic growth, minimizing regulatory uncertainty, and showing due regard for the roles of the Congress and the States under the Constitution.” The EO directs the USEPA and the Corps of Engineers to, among other things, review the current WOTUS rule “for consistency” with the policy reasons set forth in the EO and to include a review of “all orders, rules, regulations, guidelines, or policies implementing or enforcing” the WOTUS rule. The EO also seeming directs the agencies to “publish for notice and comment a proposed rule rescinding or revising the rule . . ..” The EO finally directs that the agencies propose…
↧
Owner of Axis Benefit Administrators is Sentenced to 46 Months in Federal Prison for Healthcare Fraud
On Wednesday in Portland, Oregon a U.S. District Judge sentenced Darren Bottinelli to 46 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release for healthcare fraud. Bottinelli was also order to pay $3,093,918 in restitution to his victims. The purpose of his company was to put money into trust accounts for employees of his clients, who could then draw upon those monies for eligible health expenditures. Darren Bottinelli was the sole shareholder, officer, and director of Axis, based in Portland, Oregon. His company administered employee health reimbursement and flexible spending accounts for client employers nationwide. Some of his clients included Goodwill Industries, Job squad, Cascade Christian Services, VersAbility Resources, and Vets Securing America; which employed veterans, mentally and physically disabled adults, other vulnerable individuals, as well as government contractors and other companies who hire hourly and minimum wage contract workers. Continue…
↧
↧
GW Bush is Welcomed Back
When GW Bush left office, it was "Good Riddance." We might as well have kicked him to the curb and tossed him his clothes through his White House bedroom window. Who would have believed he's now making the rounds, with humor, and being... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
↧
Forcing Parents to Pick Up Kids' Jail Costs
The Washington Post has an interesting article about state laws that force parents to pay the cost of jail when their kids get incarcerated. In PA, parents have to pay even if the kid is acquitted. The lawyer, Steven Kaplan — who according... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
↧
A WIN FOR THE CONSTITUTION AND THE POWER TO DREAM
Judge Milton Hirsch granted a habeas petition today, striking down the cowardly Miami-Dade policy of letting the federal government bully the county and the dade county jail into holding people in jail, although their case is over, while the feds decide if they want to deport them.Seems like the feds have a point... "bad hombres" and all that running wild.But there's this little, tiny, insy-winsy thing called the Tenth Amendment. And here is what Judge Hirsch had to say about that:"No doubt the limitations imposed by the tenth amendment, like so many limitations imposed by the Constitution, are a source of frustration to those who dream of wielding power in unprecedented ways or to unprecedented degrees. But America was not made for those who dream of power. America was made for those with the power to dream."Here is the entire order for President Bannon Trump to peruse. He could ask the attorney general to take a gander, but he is otherwise occupado…
↧
What might marijuana law look like if we <em>really</em> treated marijuana like a medicine?
The question in the title of this post is the question being raised by a student presentation in in my Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform seminar next week. The student addressing this issue has assembled the following background reading: 1. Press article: "11 key findings from one of the most...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MarijuanaLaw/~4/LqAxE4WqSME" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
↧
↧
The University of Alaska Student, the Laptop and the False Police Report
This post examines a recent opinion from the Alaska Court of Appeals: Kim v. State, 2017 WL 727128. The court begins the opinion by explaining thatYoung Jae Kim was convicted of third-degree theft for stealing a computer from the University of Alaska and then making a false report to the police officer who was investigating the missing computer. Kim told the officer that someone had stolen the computer from him while he was in the university library.Kim v. State, supra.The Court of Appeals went on to explain how, and why, the prosecution arose:Kim was a student at the University of Alaska Anchorage. In March 2010, he checked out a laptop computer from the university on a long-term student loan. Two years later, Kim reported that this laptop had been stolen from him on June 15, 2012 when he briefly left the laptop unattended in the university library.Using a monitoring program, the university was able…
↧
//blawgsearch75.rssing.com/chan-6519914/article23319-live.html
US v. Vazquez-Hernandez, No. 15-10009 (3-3-17)(Sessions, D.J., w/Gould & Berzon). The 9th finds plain error in a jury instruction, and then enters a judgment of acquittal for attempted illegal entry.The defendant makes a living washing car windows at the Mariposa POE in Nogales. He has had prior illegal entries, but for the past several years, morning, noon, and night, day after day, he plies his trade as the cars line up. The configuration of the POE is such that Border Patrol allows such tradespeople, including those selling wares, to enter into a pre-inspection area, which is US territory. As the 9th observes, there are hundreds of cameras and many armed agents.Periodically, the Border Patrol sweeps the area, and clears out the people, who flee back to Mexico. In this particular sweep, he was nabbed. In this instance, according to the vigilant Border Patrol, the defendant had been looking longingly to the US, seemed unusually attentive, and had appeared…
↧
California Lawmakers Seek to Create Drugged Driving Task Force
With the legalization of recreational marijuana in California, lawmakers are pushing efforts to pass new legislation regarding marijuana, particularly when it comes driving after marijuana use. Tom Lackey (R-Palmdale), who is no stranger to introducing anti-DUI laws in California, has introduced a bill that would create a drugged driving taskforce under the supervision of the Commissioner of the California Highway Patrol. “The bill, AB-6, is a reasonable approach forward to address our fight against drugged driving,” Lackey told the Los Angeles Times. “The urgency of this should be very clear to all of us.” The bill, which was proposed by the California Police Chiefs Association and introduced by Lackey, if approved, would add a completely new section to the current California Vehicle Code. The Legislative Counsel’s Digest for the bill says the following: “This bill would require the commissioner to appoint, and serve as the chair of, a…
↧
More Pages to Explore .....
