The demise of the jury trial has been a frequent subject of inquiry from within the profession to academics and think tanks. The most common solution is to ban plea bargaining, thus forcing defendants to go to trial and, hopefully, constraining prosecutors from charging as many defendants as they do now because of the physical and logistical limitations of trying cases, a highly speculative and dubious outcome.

This solution is, as I’ve argued here* and at Cato Institute, simplistic and foolish, ignoring the complex reasons why pleas have overwhelmed trials and putting every defendant to go to trial, despite having no defense, and being at risk of being sentenced to life plus cancer with no safety valve or alternative. Continue reading →

It’s happening in some backwater county in a state that doesn’t even have oceanfront property, so how important could it be?

The commission’s members include Cowboys for Trump co-founder Couy Griffin, who ascribes to unsubstantiated claims that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Griffin was convicted of illegally entering restricted U.S. Capitol grounds — though not the building — amid the riots on Jan. 6, 2021, and is scheduled for sentencing later this month. He acknowledged that the standoff over this primary could delay the outcome of local election races.

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As it happened, I caught Neal Katyal on MSNBC the other night where he tried out his “three audiences” theme to the most obedient audience possible. It didn’t work then, and it doesn’t work in his effort to manufacture an excuse for Attorney General Merrick Garland’s failure to do what he, channeling Larry Tribe, contends is unquestionable. Why has the Department of Justice not prosecuted Donald Trump?

Critics of the hearings who say they are too detailed and dry miss the multiple intended audiences. When I argue before the United States Supreme Court, there are several audiences. One is the nine justices. Another audience is the public — both in the courtroom and listeners online. And there’s a third audience: history.

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When I asked who Lizzo was, I was informed that she was “body positive” black woman singer whose hallmarks were “twerking” and calling people “bitches.” But even LIzzo has limits,apparently.

As a fat Black woman in America, I’ve had many hurtful words used against me so I overstand the power words can have (whether intentionally or in my case, unintentionally,)” she continued. “I’m proud to say there’s a new version of GRRRLS with a lyric change. This is the result of me listening and taking action. As an influential artist I’m dedicated to being part of the change I’ve been waiting to see in the world.

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The recall of Frisco district attorney Chesa Boudin has given rise to two opposing lessons. The first is that criminal law reform is dead, blamed as the cause of increasing crime and a growing public sense that society has become unsafe. The second is that the problem is messaging, as tough-on-crime advocates are proving successful in lying to the public to foster fears and a backlash against progressive prosecutors.

The reality is that neither of these is either accurate or useful in explaining complex problems. Crime is trending up again, after a lengthy unexplained drop from the really bad old days of the 1990s. It’s nowhere near what it was back then, but it’s also not remaining at its low levels or still falling. People not only know this from the media reports, but from their own observations and life. Denying it is not merely bizarre, but foolishly ineffective. Continue reading →

It wasn’t that long ago when a man couldn’t use the word “girls” without being conclusively deemed sexist. But that was then, and this is now. Michael Powell did something exceptionally risky for a New York Times reporter. He used the word “women.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, whose advocacy on reproductive rights is of more than a half-century vintage, recently tweeted its alarm about the precarious state of legal abortion: Continue reading →

A while back, Pamela Paul wrote about something that should be so fundamentally obvious as to require neither explanation nor justification. Actors act.

Adrian Lester, a British actor from Birmingham and the son of two immigrants from Jamaica, was nominated last week for a Tony Award for his performance in “The Lehman Trilogy” as Emanuel Lehman, one of the German-born Jewish founders of the fallen investment behemoth Lehman Brothers. Lester, like the other actors in the three-man play, takes on several parts, including female characters and at one point, a thumb-sucking toddler.

There has been no outcry about a British actor of African descent playing a German Jew . . . And why should there have been? It’s called acting.

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In the aftermath of the overwhelming recall vote of Frisco DA Chesa Boudin, progressive activists have argued vehemently that the voters were wrong. They bring up crime stats. They compare San Francisco with other cities and states where tough-on-crime prosecutors are in office and Republicans in control to show that the “explanations” are false, promoted by conservative media like the New York Times propagating lies and fear to mislead the public.

In other words, there is no lesson to be learned and this was just some outrageous manipulated distortion of public understanding by the hard right that proves nothing more than how evil the right is and how they merely need to work harder to thwart the evil right. Continue reading →

In 1996, SDNY Judge Harold Baer caused a shitstorm when he held that not only was it not suspicious when a black or Hispanic guy ran from, rather than complied with, a cop, but the only reasonable thing to do.

Running away from cops is what any reasonable black guy would do if he doesn’t want to kiss concrete that day.  Flight isn’t just what “guilty” people do, but what sane people do as well.

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Tonight, the House of Representatives January 6 Committee will go prime time in its effort to provide a compelling TV viewing experience. Why?

What is the Jan. 6 committee for? Committee members and Democratic operatives have been telling reporters what they hope to achieve with the hearings that begin Thursday evening. My Times colleagues Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater wrote an article with the headline, “Jan. 6 Hearings Give Democrats a Chance to Recast Midterm Message.” Democrats, they reported, are hoping to use the hearings to show midterm voters how thoroughly Republicans are to blame for what happened that day.

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