Our last open thread is full. Here's a new one, all topics welcome. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Friday Night Open Thread
↧
↧
Hiring The Nielsen Group was well worth the investment
“This past summer I was facing a theft charge for petty shoplifting. I understood that the penalty would be a fine only. Overall, I was not worried about the fine amount, but the prospect of having a criminal charge on my record. A conviction would have been devastating. I feel that I might have been […] The post Hiring The Nielsen Group was well worth the investment appeared first on The Nielsen Group.
↧
"Would a new crime of “willful refusal to comply with a decryption order” be the best answer to the device decryption puzzle?"
Orin Kerr has this post at The Volokh Conspiracy addressing the FBI's concerns about new technology. In part: I think Comey is wrong that the Fifth Amendment is a “likely” barrier in the cell phone context, because in most of...
↧
Former NM Gov and GOP Prez candidate Gary Johnson urges marijuana research to respond to Ebola
As this local article highlights, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson is not completely backing off his recent (and self-serving?) suggestion that marijuana could help in the treatment of Ebola. Here are the details: Former Gov. Gary Johnson caught a few headlines – and at least a little flack –...<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MarijuanaLaw/~4/hmgdqjCMVzA" height="1" width="1"/>
↧
What the Ebola Appointment Tells Us About the Next AG
President Obama yesterday named DC lawyer Ron Klain as the Ebola "czar." I know Mr. Klain only very slightly, from when I was moving out of the White House at the end of the GHWB administration and he was helping the Clinton administration move in. I found him intelligent, thoroughly pleasant and a gentleman. Our contacts were slight and fleeting, and I haven't seen him in more than 20 years. The WSJ has an editorial today about the Klain appointment. Its title is, "Ebola Political Contagion," and it begins:President Obama bowed to the growing Ebola political furor on Friday and named a so-called Ebola czar, though maybe the better label is apparatchik. His man isn't a military general, despite the troops in West Africa, or even someone with so much as nominal expertise in disasters or infectious disease. He's the political operative Ron Klain. President Obama is selling the new…
↧
↧
Randy Ankeney suit that could release thousands headed to Supreme Court
Westword Randy Ankeney was once a rising star in the Colorado Republican party, only to become a pariah after being found guilty of numerous sex crimes. However, he now has the opportunity to impact the state in a completely different way. A complaint he brought about alleged prisoner-release violations by the Colorado Department of Corrections is headed to the state supreme court, and if
↧
Watching The Watchers
Recent events in Ferguson, Missouri have drawn a great deal of attention to the issue of police brutality. One idea to address the problem involves equipping all police officers on patrol with body-worn cameras, which people apparently call BWCs. It is beyond me how people are even debating this. Study after study suggests that cops behave better when they wear BWCs. Compared to cops who wear BWCs, cops who do not wear BWCs are involved in many more use-of-force incidents and receive far more complaints. When two jurisdictions right here in Arizona, Mesa and Phoenix, had some of their officers wear BWCs, things were no different. In Mesa, there were 40 percent fewer total complaints and 75 percent fewer use of force complaints for officers with cameras. In Phoenix, one officer was fired after someone filed a complaint. The department reviewed footage from the incident along with video from prior shifts and found repeated instances of verbal abuse, profanity, and threats…
↧
Canadian Pilot Arrested for Conspiracy to Smuggle Drugs Into John Wayne Airport
A Canadian pilot and his passenger were arrested October 10, 2014 for allegedly trying to smuggle $2 million in ecstasy into John Wayne Airport. Giles Lapointe, 61 and Krista Boseley, 30 are in federal custody on charges of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance. Lapointe, the pilot was approached by Orange County Sheriff detectives after receiving information that the plane was attempting to smuggle drugs or cash into Orange County. Lapointe allowed officers to search his belongings and plane where they found a large sum of cash and 50,000 ecstasy pills and 90 pounds of ecstasy powder. Laponte and Bosely are scheduled to appear Friday for a preliminary hearing.
↧
Why Houston won't get the private prison museum it deserves
Okay, they almost got me. I couldn't tell for sure just from reading it if this Free Press Houston story was satire. Editors confirmed that it is. Lucky I checked before writing something, a reliable reader sent it to Grits thinking it was legit.The last few paragraphs seemed too out there to be true, but somehow the world seemed just possibly weird enough to contemplate the viability of the story of a plain speaking, fascist School-of-the-Americas reject deported from America's first private prison facility in Houston in the 1980s who becomes inspired by Corrections Corporation of America, launches a chain of private detention facilities serving death squads and torturers in El Salvador, then returns to America to buy the converted motel where he was earlier imprisoned and turn it into a private prison museum that lionizes T. Don Hutto.What makes it fine satire is that it could be true: The world is just nuts enough to allow for it. Alas, not this time. Good…
↧
↧
Kerik v. Tacopina: Not With A Bang . . .
It's been awhile but there's a few updates on the Bernie Kerik-Joe Tacopina brouhaha. As a person who always enjoys a good legal slugfest and who has no connection to any of the players, I must profess my disappointment with how things are going. As of today, it looks like the federal litigation will end up dismissed or settled, depriving us of live testimony about some serious allegations of misconduct. There's a new state court case underway as well, but it doesn't look like much. Oh well.United States District Judge John Koeltl hear oral argument the other day on the parties' motion practice stemming from Tacopina's bid to have Kerik's suit dismissed on various grounds. The most obvious and difficult hurdle for Kerik has always been how plainly untimely his suit appeared. According to the Daily News, that was a serious problem for Judge Koeltl as well. As for Kerik's claims that Tacopina more recently slandered him, the judge was…
↧
In Which We Are Being Lied To
[via The White House.] I’ll take the last point—which may be literally true—first: “Ebola is not spread through casual contact with someone who has no symptoms of the disease.” Per the CDC, “Initial signs and symptoms are nonspecific and may include fever, chills, myalgias, and malaise. … The most common signs and symptoms reported from West Africa during the current outbreak from symptom-onset to the time the case was detected include: fever (87%), fatigue (76%), vomiting (68%), diarrhea (66%), and loss of appetite (65%).” So as long as everyone you have casual contact with does not have a fever, feel chilled, have muscle aches, have diarrhea or vomiting, or feel worn out or not hungry, you’re probably okay. But those symptoms are nonspecific, which means that people who don’t obviously have Ebola (have you ever had fever, fatigue, vomiting, diarrhea, and loss of appetite without having Ebola Zaire?) may be…
↧
With DAG James Cole also stepping down, new appointments will remark DOJ
↧
Justice versus Law
As readers may recall, I am a fan of Richard Kopf's blog, Hercules and the Umpire. While I may sometimes disagree with him, he is a smart and thoughtful sitting United States District Judge who is willing to share his views on a variety of interesting topics. An advocate of transparency, he is one of the few judges who speaks his mind, a trait sorely lacking amongst the judicial branch of government.He has recently revisited the question of doing justice versus doing law. Where some see the role of the judiciary as being the former, Kopf plainly believes it is the latter. Interestingly, he sees his inability to fully grasp the notion of doing justice to his lack of religious faith, whereas true believers are determined to do justice in all their endeavors. (He also comments favorably on Christopher Hitchens, which is a definite plus, although Hitchens took some harsh positions with which I strongly disagreed. No, not his attack on Mother Teresa, I sort of enjoyed that…
↧
↧
In Which Math is Still Hard
I’ve written here several times, under the category “math is hard,” about Americans’ innumeracy with regard to risk and danger. I have a theory: Americans overestimate the danger (risk times harm) of things that they are willing to do something about (terrorism!), and underestimate the danger of things that they are not willing to do something about (obesity!). The government, meanwhile, has an interest in overstating the danger of things that it is profitable for corporations to do something about (terrorism!) and understating the danger of things that it is unprofitable for corporations to do something about (obesity!). There are 8,000+—about 2^13—Ebola Zaire cases; that number is doubling monthly. There are 2^33 people on earth, give or take. That’s 33 months from one case to everybody being infected, at the current rate. We’ve used up thirteen of those months; we have twenty months left. Of course the current rate of infection…
↧
The Legalization Lobby Parodies Itself
Those preferring to see more widespread use of pot are, naturally, for legalizing it, thus removing one of the barriers to broad consumption.In the course of their campaign (upon which CJLF takes no position), they have claimed that pot affirmatively makes you healthier. Indeed, it's something of a wonder drug!Thus I guess this was bound to happen, but I still feel like I should pass it along: "Smoking Marijuana Can Protect You From Ebola."I swear I am not making this up.
↧
Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192 (8)...cont
When this provision was renumbered from subdivision seven to Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192 (6) in 1988, the statutory language remained largely the same. However, the bulk of the enabling language was incorporated into the body of the statute — providing that the subdivision would only be applicable to convictions occurring after 29 November 1985 (L 1988, ch 47, § 18). The primary difference in the statutory language was the omission of the term "out-of-state." The subdivision was again renumbered to Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192 (8) (L 1990, ch 173, § 62), where it appears today. As noted above, the 2006 amendments ended the practice of treating all prior out-of-state criminal convictions as mere traffic infractions under New York law. Rather, for purposes of determining penalties, a prior out-of-state conviction is now treated as a conviction of the equivalent conduct under New York law. In addition, the amendment again moved the date…
↧
SEARCHES & SEIZURES, LIBERTY VS. SECURITY
SEARCHES & SEIZURES, LIBERTY VS. SECURITY Posted by Edmund R. Folsom October 18, 2014 A few loosely related matters caught my attention in the news yesterday. One was a piece by Charles Krauthammer, in which he criticized President Obama for once declaring that a choice between liberty and security is a false choice. Krauthammer states: “On the contrary. It is the eternal dilemma of every free society.” The other bits are examples of that dilemma, demonstrated in ways large and small. There was an op ed piece about the Heien v. North Carolina case, recently argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. Then there was a story about the FBI’s complaints about technology companies encrypting smartphone and operating system data. And there was a story about a search conducted by the Biddeford P.D. and Maine Drug Enforcement Agency, of lockers and cars at Biddeford High School and the Biddeford…
↧
↧
SCOTUS Denies Stay of Texas Voter ID
Consistently with its recent pattern of not making major election changes close to the election, noted here, the U.S. Supreme Court has denied the application to lift the Fifth Circuit's stay of an injunction against that state's voter ID law. In other words, the ID law will be in effect for the coming election.The vote was apparently 6-3, with Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissenting.
↧
"Eric Holder's Piddling Change to Appeal Waivers"
Bill Otis has this post at Crime & Consequences: The Attorney General has directed that appeal waivers in plea agreements should no longer require that defendants waive the right to raise ineffective assistance of counsel claims. The story is covered...
↧
1977 robbery of the Ridgewood Savings Bank...cont
The test for duplicity of a count of an indictment has been stated to be whether the defendant could be convicted of either one of the crimes charged therein if the District Attorney elects to waive the other. In discussing the problems presented by a duplicitous indictment, stated the following: "One vice of duplicity is that a general verdict for a criminal defendant on that count does not reveal whether the jury found him not guilty of one crime or not guilty of both. Conceivably this could prejudice the defendant in protecting himself against double jeopardy. Another vice of duplicity is that a general verdict of guilty does not disclose whether the jury found the defendant guilty of one crime or of both. Conceivably, this could prejudice the defendant in sentencing and in obtaining appellate review. A third vice of duplicity is that it may prejudice the criminal defendant with respect to evidentiary rulings during the trial, since evidence admissible on one offense…
↧
