No way you'd want the leader of the United States (a sovereign nation), responsible for defending it in a world where the second strike can be too late, to have the ability to strike first. And nobody in the U.N. would act in a manner contrary to world interest, choosing to first the interests of their sovereign nations. Chirac est un ver.
You know, maybe there's a reason for this like, ummm, I don't know, perhaps draconian mandatory sentences which consistently over-sentence and allow prosecutors to abuse the system.
Of course he's not. First, unless something really major happens the next candidate from his party will be defeated. Second, even he doesn't have enough money to buy election to that office.
Ah, law school finals - it takes me back to the halcyon days of finals at W&L Law. Located in the hamlet of Lexington, Virginia, where The General is buried, battle flags just might outnumber people, and the War of Northern Aggression is still seriously remembered as the War of Northern Aggression, Lexington, which makes New Haven look like a booming metropolis, Lexington where I remember thinking, "I eschewed application at Ivy League schools and turned down Vanderbilt for this?" Lexington where a student from NY City asked me in the first week of class if the locals know the War is over and that The General lost (heresy only a Yankee could speak)? Lexington where . . .
O.K. I was ranting a little bit. My main memory of finals is that just as Fall finals began the buzzards would start flying circles around the school (I'm not kidding here). They would keep circling until some time after we all left for Summer break. Then they would re-appear just before finals the next Fall. I always wondered how the Professors arranged it.
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I've been following the Georgia flag broohaha for a while now. This is partly because I read Southern Appeal at least every other day. Mostly it's because my roomate from law school is from Atlanta (as he puts it "the city-state of Atlanta which just happens to share a physical presence with Georgia"). As a Kentucky boy transplanted to Virginia, I fell obligated to put my two cents in (don't ask me why).
For those of you who haven't been following this matter, (A) Georgia had a flag which had the State seal on the left third and the Confederate bars on the right until 1956.
(B) Then, in reaction to the federal supreme court forcing integration of schools, the Legislature took the bars off and replaced them with the Confederate battle flag.
Any realistic analysis of the replacement has to take into account that the battle flag was long ago appropriated by the Klan and those of its ilk. The replacement was definitely a statement (and not "heritage").
Then the dance began and after a lot of manuevering the Legislature finally adopted the Confederate national flag:
Actually it adopted this flag:
The only differences are the inclusion of the Georgia seal and "In God we Trust. The Stars on the Confederate national flag increased as new States joined until there were 13 as on the Georgia flag.
Up till the last moment it appeared as though the Confederate battle flag would still be on the State citizen referendum but at the last moment that was snatched away. Nobody on either side is happy but it looks like a compromise which might work.
In the end, I think the citizens of Georgia have been very, very poorly treated. They should be given the choice but their government does not trust democracy and therefore will never allow them to choose.
Of course it could be worse; the Legislature could have chosen this Georgian flag:
I think this is a mistake. Citizen oversight keeps a police force honest and avoids problems in the police department. Without citizen oversight the only people who watch the police are themselves. This leads to one of two problems. (1) The police stick together with supervisors not ever finding that an officer is negligent. (2) The supervisors do their job and go after officers who step over the line causing all sorts of disharmony.
Citizen oversight does not solve all the problems. Police will still close ranks and the people appointed to these commitees are not usually those who will hold the police to a very strict standard. Still, it is better than everything being done behind closed doors at the police building.
I like the part at the end about Wallens Ridge no longer being a super-max. I suspect that this was done because Virginia keeps leasing space in it to other States and those States keep sending people who shouldn't go into a super-max. Gotta wonder though if people are really being treated any differently since the change in classification. I suspect little has actually changed.
Since he hasn't been able to get PATRIOT II passed so that he can take our citizenship away Ashcroft has been forced to concentarate on illegal aliens. He has opined that judges under his auspices can refuse illegal aliens bond for no reason. I really don't have a problem with such detentions but if we hold all the illegals we are going to fill all our jails and prisons in a very short time.
I figure this was probably done on a procedural basis and it is probably correct but it has the troubling aspect of appearing to give a wink and nod to improper behavior on the enforcement side.
A police officer commits 20 felonies and only gets 1 year in jail (all suspended as long as she doesn't get in trouble for 5 years). Apparently, she and her partner were creating fake records for fake work so that they could get extra pay. Her partner pled guilty to 399 felonies. He got 20 years; I think that's about .05 years per felony.
Racial fight which ended in death by mob assault; appropriately enough in Virginia this falls under the anti-lynching statutes. No hate crime charges tough; it looks like the guy who died was the one doing the racial instigating.
If the IRS is dumb enough to pay reparations in the amount of $500,000 to the lady maybe I can get them to pay me. I am of German heritage (as are about 30% of Americans) and in the last century those of German heritage were forced to give up their culture, language (which used to be much as Spanish is now), and had to fight two wars against the land whence they came. And I should be due some money for the anti-Catholic repressions of the Know-Nothings, the passage of the Blaine Amendments, the under-representation of Catholics in the body-politic (only one president for a 30% portion of the citizenry in 200+ years).
What is it about officers who work in places called Suffolk? Whether it is in Virginia or in New York some officers seem to abuse their power to get an advantage over the fairer sex.
Three seperate papers from wildly different locales writing to condemn the 21 day rule:
Hampton Roads: Anecdotal story of someone who everyone, including the complaining detective, thinks is innocent but who cannot go back to court because he is outside the 21 day period.
Charlottesville: Making the argument as to why actual innocence should be a reason to be allowed back into court and explaining why the rule might die in commission.
"Virginia's General Assembly took up the task of reforming the state's notoriously restrictive 21-day rule last session - and passed legislation to extend the deadline on new evidence of innocence to 90 days. Big deal.
On Day 91, then, even a 'videotape of someone else committing the crime,' as Richmond lawyer Steve Benjamin puts it, would provide no grounds for the courts to consider whether the people of Virginia might possibly have made a mistake."
We often hear the reasons for bringing back parole and eliminating mandatory sentencing: cost, cost, costs, people may change, costs, costs, &cetera.
Here's the case for the other side. Of course it's anecdotal, providing no comparison of the number who actually return to society successfully as opposed to the number who re-offend in such a horrible manner. Still, it's some food for thought.
Have to agree with this (although not the attack on the Republican party). Insurance for doctors is getting expensive and companies are pulling coverage but it ain't only the doctors' insurance where you see trouble.
I haven't seen huge malpractice suits or settlements against lawyers recently but still the former Bar reccomended company has gone belly up and the current Bar reccomended company just got downgraded by stock advisers because it had to take cost cutting measures. Are evil trial lawyers at fault here too?
Why zero tolerance rules in our schools are just plain stupid. I have had more than one client call me when they found out their kid (let's be honest here and say son; these rules are meant to repress male behavior) had transgressed in some minor way. Thankfully, I have found that local principals use common sense in these matters and ignore the required expulsion when kids do something like leaving a butterknife in the bed of their truck after a weekend spent moving things from one apartment to another. They ignore the rule.
This fad will pass someday and common sense will rule once again. It strikes me much as the last anti-male fad when schools were trying to make all the male kids sit down and be quiet by diagnosing them all with ADHD and doping them up. It got so bad that the family doctor felt that he had to warn my parents not to let school officials put my (much) younger brother on ritalin when he entered the first grade. I think that parents and doctors have reacted enough to that fad so we don't see the problem as much anymore.
When will these Euros learn that you just have to write people off, build a gazillion prisons, and write tougher and tougher sentencing into the law in order to satisfy the electorate that they are being tough on crime? Heck, they could just adopt Virginia's system.
The murder conviction was thrown out because (1) the trial judge didn't warn the jurors that the jail-house snitch was a known liar and (2) there was very little evidence otherwise. Heck, in Virginia we just call that "harmless error."
Last time something like this happened in Virginia was when a due-process claim was raised because Virginia pays so little for indigent representation - it didn't work.
Some legislators hid in the Amber Alert legislation new restrictions on federal judges. "Many prosecutors say they agree with the bill's goals." Of course they do. Sentencing guidelines switch control of the courtroom from the judge to the prosecutor. The judge used to decide what happened to you when you came into his courtroom. Now the prosecutor decides what happens to you because he decides what you are charged with and can mold the charges to whatever he chooses in order to get the number of years he desires.
2000+ years ago Hebrew and Roman law was manipulated in order to kill someone who was an irritant to the authorities. His "crime" was posted over his head as he died. The paper read "Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews" (INRI = Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum).
It's a little misleading when you figure that China killed (officially) 1,060 people while Iran lags far behind in second place (113) and the U.S. third (71). I'd like to see a list ranking executions per hundred citizens.
Malvo then said his lawyer told him not to talk to the police until the lawyer arrived.
According to detective Boyle, "it was explained to him that he was being charged in Virginia with new charges and that the police wanted to get some information about him. He said, 'OK.'" "
Malvo signs the rights notification paperwork with an "X" because he does not want to incriminate himself.
Malvo confesses.
Of course, none of the conversation wherein Malvo was convinced to talk was recorded. Only the confession was recorded. And gee, doesn't it sound an awful lot like the language from last year when the Va. Supreme Court said that "Can I speak to my lawyer? I can't even talk to lawyer before I make any kinds of comments or anything?" didn't assert your right to have a lawyer present during questioning? Commonwealth v. Redmond, 264 Va. 321, 568 S.E.2d 695 (2002).
The confession should be suppressed. It won't be, but it should.
These things always happen for the same reasons each and every time: "mishandled legal fees, limited access, poor legal advice and failure to file the proper court papers."
Mishandled legal fees: This could mean anything from spending money which should be held in escrow to not keeping your escrow paperwork done exactly in a manner the bar approves.
Limited Access: If you are doing trial work, visiting clients at jail, researching, doing paperwork, talking to prosecutors, talking to opposing attorneys, &cetera (in other words doing your job) then CLIENTS ARE GOING TO HAVE LIMITED ACCESS. This is especially true if you are in a major trial.
Poor Legal Advice: What you are always said to have given when your client loses.
Failure to File Proper Court Papers: Quite a few criminal defense attorneys I know do not file any paperwork. Why? Because most prosecutors basically ignore it. One prosecutor told me he never answers discovery unless the motion is taken in front of a judge and he is ordered to (he knows it is impossible to come to court and argue for discovery for every single case or even the majority of cases). The jurisdiction I primarily practice in rarely turns over anything except my clients' statements. And under Virginia law, filing discovery in Circuit Court requires you to tell the prosecution about elements of your defense.
Now, this guy was taking retained cases and civil matters so there may be something to his complaints. But until the Commonwealth decides that it will pay a decent amount to a court-appointed attorney I suspect that just about every one of us could be disbarred under the elements above (hopefully with the exception of the first).
Of course, any unconstitutional detention is wrong but if you are not willing to spend a couple hours - or even a night in jail - is your belief real or are you just doing something because that's what people in your crowd do (or your parents' or your professors' crowds)?
As a suspicious person, noting the history of anti-war protests past and present, I suspect that most of the protestors who were arrested were probably doing something wrong and do not foresee this case getting very far.
Another dumb law on the books which will be ignored until some prosecutor is absolutely desperate to arrest some client who hasn't really done anything proveable and the prosecutor gets creative.
As I've said before, I believe Egypt is the one country in the Middle East which has a solid chance at really moving forward. They are a long way toward it already. They have a semi-democratic state; they have a sense of being "Egyptian" rather than Sunni, Shia, Christian, Arab, or from some particular clan (and have a sense of pride about it). And now further evidence. Do you think anyone would even think to raise an anti-government sentiment in Syria, Saudia, Lybia, etc.? Much less an attack on the President?
This Tuesday at 2:20 a.m. I entered a post answering questions posted on Legal Ramblings (normally I would just cite my prior note so it could be gotten to by clicking but Blog*Spot has decided that function will not work on my blawg anymore - I've sent a note asking that this be fixed but for now you'll just have to scroll down).
In it I stated that the professor had used a red herring. This was probably too harsh; I think I was channeling back to my own days in school at W&L. So I went back and looked thru the case which the professor cited and a couple of other cases which use it as precedent. My impression - and I have not spent overly long studying this - is that the point of this case is to deny the imposition a strict liability repondeant superior standard for criminal law (which would eliminate any intent in a crime). This is a truly strange decision filled with all sorts of civil language. "Vicarious liability?" "Strict liability?" "Respondeat superior?" I would really like to know why the heck they were pursuing agency law in a criminal case. Personally, I think the whole case could have been - should have been - decided thru an analysis of whether due process would allow the boss to be held liable if he was not a principal or an accessory or a co-conspirator to the illegal act (showing no intent/knowledge). But there is probably something I do not know about in Minnesota law which precludes that analysis and required the one put forth.
The proposed criminal strict liability standard is radically different than a standard which holds you responsible when an act containing a reasonably foreseeable / predictable risk of an illegal occurrence bears fruit. The former standard would hold you responsible for trusting your child to your spouse while you are ill and having that spouse do something insane and evil to her which you would not reasonably expect, [U] State v. Ring, No. C4-01-1151 (Minn.App. 04/09/2002), or engaging in a legal act with a co-actor and having the co-actor engage in an illegal activity outside the scope of the planned legal action in concert. Minnesota v. Guminga, 395 N.W.2d 344 (Minn. 1986). The latter would hold you responsible for racing cars toward Dead Man's Curve or passing a pistol back and forth spinning the cylinder and pulling the trigger. In the end, if the law professor meant that you cannot lower the standard in a criminal case to that of tort strict liability I believe he was correct. It is such an obvious principle that I've never seen it argued in court or read any cases like this one. That doesn't mean they aren't out there, just that none of my cases have required me to research in that area. Legislatures and prosecutors will try any theory once (or more likely dozens or hundreds of times until an appeal court agrees to take an on-point case, decides it is properly preserved and before the court, and stops that line of reasoning).
All statutes must, at the very least, include an attempted act and an intent to do something which obviously has potentially illegal consequences.
Except, of course, in Virginia we do have some crimes where the prosecutor doesn't have to prove intent/knowledge (see the last post).
Although I disagree with Scalia, the Justice is not going out on a limb here. There are all sorts of laws in Virginia which rely on exactly that sort of logic; concealment, bad checks, larceny, and driving suspended spring immediately to mind. It will be interesting to see if this decision will effect the statutes on the books in Virginia outside of the cross-burning statutue.
I've always thought that the presumptions concerning knowledge and intent were unconstitutional burden shifters (they were a little shocking when I came out of law school filled with ideals) but I've never had a case wherein I could raise the constitutional issue.
An inconvenient jail visit. What else is new? This kind of stuff happens all the time when you visit jails. Get over it - learn to overschedule and bring work or reading materials.
Still, I do have to admit that two hours is a long wait. I've waited as long but it has always been pre-visit not post. The article leaves me wondering whether they might have been there during shift change or head count (or in a more extreme example a lock down).
So what happens if collective bargaining doesn't work? Do they picket the lawfirm? What good will that do if the firm's business is phone related (hard to drive customers away)?
WARNING: All answers strongly influenced by the fact that I practice in very conservative counties, in a very conservative Commonwealth, in the 4th Circuit.
(1) "[I]f I inflict a non-mortal wound on you, and you don't have to go to a doctor, but you go anyway and receive negligent care due to which you die [have I committed homicide]? Would this be governed by some sort of "reasonable person" standard: regardless of the necessity for medical care, if a reasonable person would go to a doctor, will medical malpractice not break the chain of causation?"
The theoretical answer here is that you have not committed homicide. You've probably guilty of Battery, Felony Battery, Attempted Murder, or Mayhem but not homicide. The pragmatic answer (at least in the courts wherein I practice) is that it had better be obvious that your action caused an injury which would not normally lead to death and is not the actual cause in this case: "Your Honor, Mr. Wu dislocating Mr. Jones' pinky did not cause the doctor to inject atropine into the heart of Mr. Jones when he fell asleep in the waiting room." Of course, cases are never actually that obvious. In most cases the prosecutor will probably charge some form of murder or at least manslaughter. Then arguments will proceed about intent, recklessness, and foreseeability.
(2) a. "[I]s all this stretching about causation due simply to statutory gaps?"
Yes. There is a real world dynamic which causes these stretches and eliminates "statutory gaps" no matter how clearly defined the law is. Anyone who practices for a period of time realizes there is a strong bias against the defendants in criminal proceedings. The trial judge is loathe to let someone who has participated in a perceived great wrong "get away with it." Therefore, unless the defense attorney can point to explicit, binding, same-State, appellate case authority - which neither the judge nor the prosecutor can distinguish on even the flimsiest of grounds - the judge will allow the prosecution's theory of the case to go forward (as long as it is remotely possible under the language of the statute). On appeal the appellate courts give a great amount of deference to the trial court's findings. They might give a nod to the rule of lenity or to the fact that they are supposed to decide certain constitutional issues de novo but they will bend over backward to uphold the trial court (because they don't want someone to "get away with it"). This is, of course, a very cynical view of how things work; unfortunately, I think it is realistic. The law will be bent to punish those who deserve punishment and thereafter precedent will be set so that the law doesn't mean what its plain language is; it means what the courts have decided it will mean.
b. "Can a state pass a law saying, "If you engage in drag racing or Russian roulette, you will be criminally liable for any and all deaths that result, even if you did not 'cause' the deaths by traditional criminal law or common law standards"? The professor at first said yes. Then he said there might be a problem due to State v. Guminga, 395 N.W.2d 344 (Minn. 1986), which held that criminal sanctions should not be given for vicarious liability. There might also be problems with mens rea and the doctrine of complicity (which we haven't covered yet)."
Yes. The language in it would have to be tightened up but it could be written into law; in fact, most States probably have a manslaughter statute which already covers such activity. Your professor's argument is a red herring. It reflects an error in perspective. Judges are myopic and generally could care less what another sovereignty has to say on a subject unless it is a question of first instance in a their State; even then they usually prefer closely related types of decisions from their sovereignty. This is particularly true in matters which are almost exclusively under State law such as criminal matters. Virginia courts care about precedent from Virginia courts, US constitutional decisions imposed by the federal supreme court, and perhaps 4th Circuit cases. A case from Minn. would probably carry as much weight as a case from the 9th Circuit does around here. All of which is to say, generalizing from a single State decision is faulty reasoning; your question would have to be answered according to the laws of each particular State.
Here's the rational for upholding the statute as I believe Virginia law would state it: "This statute only affects a defendant who acted in concert with a decedent in a reckless activity which had as a very forseeable consequence death. By participating in the activity a defendant is at the very least a principal in the second degree and shares entirely the responsibility for a decedent's untimely demise."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ God Bless our Troops. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have to agree with this guy's assertion that it is bothersome when magistrates file charges when citizens come in and make accusations without further evidence. Of course, I am suspicious that he has had a number of charges filed (smoke, fire) because he only asserted his right to throw people out of where they are living.
And the assertion that the system is set up so that lawyers can enrich themselves is laughable. I usually see two groups of people filing charges with magistrates. One is store owners who do things so as to invite crime so often that officers have told them they are on their own (one of our local stores would cash a $1,000 check written to Sadam Hussein and signed by Ariel Sharon). The other is people who have claims which the officers don't want to come to court for (such as a fight the officer did not see wherein no one was harmed) so they get sent to the magistrate themselves. Defendants in these cases are almost all court appointed and anyone who knows anything about Virginia's court appointed system knows that it is darn near impossible to get rich getting appointed in these sorts of cases.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ God Bless our Troops. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CNN and NYTimes discuss the fedgov supreme court's decision upholding cross burning statutes but find that the presumed prima facie evidence is unconstitutional. I'll have to look further into this. It could have all sorts of implications to the numerous Virginia statutes which hide an assumption of guilt behind a prima facie "presumption."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ God Bless our Troops. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More fun and games in Richmond. The entire city government will eventually turn on itself and leave one giant glowing pile of rubble (it's not far from there now).
Proof (in the same article) that the British judicial system is less civilized than ours:
"The judges also ruled that Alexander Benedetto, a 37-year-old New York publisher, had been properly acquitted of murder. They set aside an order by the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal that Benedetto should be tried again on the charge."
I thought about faking some sympathy here but as a guy who went into incredible debt to go to a "top 20" law school and then had to start his own law practice and is still struggling just trying to get his head above water . . .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ God Bless our Troops. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A law firm represents a judge for years without taking a fee. Then it tries cases in front of him. And when the other party finds out the judge refuses to recuse himself. But at least the Mississippi Supreme Court stopped the silliness.
Of course, he did give money to a Moslem charity which the government believes to have terrorist ties. This places him square in the path of one of the Justice Department's new tactics. "Part of the appeal for prosecutors is that they do not have to prove that the defendants actually supported terrorist attacks, only that they helped a group tied to terrorism." Funny, I don't remember this statute being used to prosecute people who donated to Sinn Fein.
"Louisiana's incarceration rate is 800 per 100,000 residents. The rate for the South is 526 per 100,000 -- higher than that of 63 percent of countries in the world, according to the report generated for the group by the Justice Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. The West is a distant second at 408 per 100,000."
Hazing laws are just wrong. They are created and enforced against a particular group. No matter how much people will try to tell you these laws reach everyone when's the last time you saw them enforced against someone other than a fraternity or sorority? (yes, I know it happens once in a blue moon)
Two questions:
Why don't we just cover these sort of cases with assault & battery charges?
If hazing is allowed at military schools (i.e. VMI) because it is a positive good why is it an evil elsewhere?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ God Bless our Troops. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I listened to the Michigan racial preference cases last night (from C-Span). I was working on prepping a jury trial at the time so I'm sure I missed some minutiae but three strong themes stick out in my mind:
(1) Ginsberg scored some powerful points at the beginning of the argument when she committed "hijack by amicus" (from Slate; see last entry). The anti-preference attornies appeared totally unprepared to discuss the military brief and the implications for the military (figure the odds - there were only amici briefs filed by every organization under the sun). I did not hear what I consider to be a satisfactory answer from anyone. Perhaps it was misplaced because the military academies don't fall under the 14th Amendment like Michigan but it was a powerful moment.
(2) When Justices tried to get a number for "critical mass" the pro-preference attorney fired back but never answered the question. There is obviously an absolute minimum number at which critical mass must be presumed to occur. To state otherwise is disengenuous.
(3) When Justices put forth the question, "if the problem is that not enough minority students qualify under the standards you've set, why don't you lower the standards for everyone until there are enough qualified minorities?" the pro-preference attorney blustered but never actually answered satisfactorily. Points were scored; the question is whether this is the type of solution which might bring O'Connor to the anti-preference side.
(4) Collaterally, the information came out that Boalt Hall has raised the number of minority admissions back to the level where they were prior to the abolition of the use of race as a factor in California. My question is whether this has been done honestly and the admissions are all held to the same standard or whether Boalt is redlining (proxy of location in place of race).
In any event, from the questioning alone I see three solid anti-pref votes (Scalia, Rhenquist, Thomas), one probable anti-pref vote (Kennedy), two likely but not ones I'd bet on (O'Connor & Stevens). I foresee and opinion written by O'Connor or Stevens for a fractured court. Hopefully Stevens will write it because it will waffle less and be an intelligently written decision. But politically it will probably make more sense to assign the opinion to O'Connor to keep her onboard.
SOJ is a silly idea. What are they going to do test my knowledge of all the possible means by which a person can be convicted of grand larceny? True/False - stealing a mixed breed dog from its abusive owner is a felony in Virginia? The abilities which matter most are research and oral argument. Damn near impossible to test research abilities: computers, books, service subscriptions - what quailifies? What do you test? And if you start grading in-court performance you will run into politics so fast it will be amazing. Let me be as vague as I can be here - my experience is that in some jurisdictions you are a good lawyer if you belong to certain firms - no matter how well you actually perform in court. Competency has nothing to do with being a "good lawyer," favored by the court and bar**. Anyone who practices in these jurisdictions for a period of time sees this.
I do like the increased compensation idea (and this article is correct in the payments allowed). Virginia is just pitiful in this. At a CLE I attended the Chief Justice of Virginia's Supreme Court justified the rates because, even though we complain, he has never seen a court-appointed lawyer in front of his court not strive to do his best. Which, of course, misses the point because the place where the harm is done is when the lawyer in General District Court or Circuit Court has to balance 60 ongoing cases and cannot do adequate, individualized discovery or argue matters in courtroom motions or do sufficient pre-trial investigation or . . . or . . . or . . .
** To be fair these places usually also have a few "very good lawyers" who are both politically well connected and good at their profession.
As a criminal defense attorney this worries me. As a citizen it scares the crud out of me. Taking away the ability of the citizenry to have some sort of oversight - independent of government agents (whether they be judicial or law enforcement) - is dangerous and will eventually lead to abuse. We eschew dual use now but someone will get away with it (if reviewed at all the excuse will be good faith). Then it will (slowly) become a standard procedure available to law enforcement.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ God Bless our Troops. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It is unconstitutional to make a law ex post facto (after the fact). California and a number of States have extended statute of limitations so that they can reach really bad criminals after the limitation had run. The other States all struck the extensions down in the State courts. California's didn't.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ God Bless our Troops. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gasp! Shock! The NY Times is editorializing and it's actually doing it ON THE OP-ED PAGE. The NYTimes is slipping; it should have worked all this into an article on the front page.
Oh, by the way, it it's pro reverse discrimination. (I know - you're stunned)
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In case anyone out there needs this warning: This ain't legal advice. Everything in the blog is off the cuff and no one goes back and reads all the cases and statutes before blogging. The law may have changed; cases misread and misunderstood two years ago can still lead to a clinging misperception. Courts probably don't even operate as described herein. In fact - just in case someone is stoned enough to start quoting this blawg as authority to a judge - It is hereby stated that everything in this blog is pure fiction.
