She may have been United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017, filling prisons with the righteousness of a champion for justice, but she caught a new gig after being dismissed in the regime change as MSNBC commentator. Barbara McQuade managed to adapt to her new persona by finding new hated people to condemn in place of the ones she spent her career convicting.

Some people steal money with guns. Other people steal money with lies. In a court of law, they’re all crooks. But not all crooks are treated the same by the justice system, a fact Elizabeth Holmes may be counting on when it comes to her sentencing.

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Musings of such a juror have been floated for many year, mostly from those who believe in jury nullification. They would pretend to be normies, perfectly ordinary folks who could, and would, be fair to all, to get on a jury. And then, boom, blow up deliberations with their activist belief in whatever purpose they served. Anti-cop? Anti-racism? Anti-government? And who could stop them? There they would be, having snuck past the gatekeeper by feigning fairness during voir dire and occupying the jury room.

What a glorious revolution it would be! After all, who can challenge the decision of a jury to acquit the guilty in defiance of bad laws, dishonest cops, an oppressive system? And of course it would never be used wrongly, as an affirmative bludgeon to assure the conviction of people hated, or crime reviled, lest someone despised walk free? Continue reading →

One of the defining characteristics of American democracy was that every four or eight years, we had a bloodless coup. A person, the most powerful person in the world, packed their bags and left the White House so another could take up residence. Maybe this happened with good tidings. Maybe there was bitterness. But either way, it happened without an attempt to prevent it, with at least the veneer of dignity.

It was an appalling vision, bodies storming the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. It was the culmination of months of preparation for failure, the sowing of a lie well in advance. It was part of a broader scheme that skirted the outer edges of law and reason closely enough to create the appearance of faux legitimacy to those who needed to believe but lacked the  knowledge or capacity to understand. Continue reading →

He took office on January 1. Alvin Bragg was elected District Attorney of New York County, taking the office once occupied by Frank Hogan and Robert Morgenthau, and most recently by Cy Vance, who decided to walk away. It is, by legend and history, perhaps the best district attorney’s office in the nation. And Bragg was elected to “fix” it.

Two days after he took office, Bragg issued a memorandum.

This memo sets out charging, bail, plea, and sentencing policies that will advance both goals [safety and fairness]. Data, and my personal experiences, show that reserving incarceration for matters involving significant harm will make us safer.

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I was sitting at the bar on 168th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue with my old buddy, Bobby. Bobby was a few years older than me, a suave Dominican guy who could salsa dance all night long. He pointed out a woman in the bar that he felt was very attractive, and made some sounds that Dominican guys occasionally make in her direction to let her know. Bobby then gave me the nudge as if seeking my confirmation.

I didn’t find her to be as “hot” as Bobby did. She had a pretty face, but she was fat. Not obese, but chubby. I told Bobby that I preferred thinner women, to which he explained the virtues of women who were more bass than treble. Continue reading →

One of the goofiest things about legal scholarship is that it’s published in student-run journals. Law students pass judgment on law profs’ articles, which would be remarkably funny but for the fact that getting published is the lifeblood of academia, particularly for pre-tenured academics who need to prove their mettle before they settle in for a life of turtlenecks, leather arm patches and sherry, provided they are never left alone in a room with a student of the opposite sexual orientation. But I digress.

Emory Law Journal invited Larry Alexander of the University of San Diego law school to write an article. He accepted. And you’ll never guess what happened. Continue reading →

To be frank, it came as little surprise that the New York State health department decided to be so flagrant in its rationing of Covid drugs.

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Since the pandemic broke in March, 2020, we’ve tried to patronize small independent restaurants to help them to survive. As a small business owner, I appreciate what they were facing. And as someone fortunate enough to be able to order out, I’ve tried to spread the wealth, if you will. Some survived. Many didn’t. I could only try to help, as did many other people, including giving overly-generous tips. And people were generally appreciative of having people still ordering, buying, tipping.

But there is a problem I’ve watched develop long before anyone heard of Covid 19. While restaurant chefs have become celebrities, most minor but a few major, restaurants have lost the concept of service. This isn’t to say that servers are unpleasant or unaccommodating. Just that they have no clue what they’re doing or how fine dining should be done. Continue reading →

In his Year End Report on the Federal Judiciary, Chief Judge John Roberts argued against the efforts in Congress to enact laws to control a “separate and coequal branch” of government. While the public and academics argue about term limits and court-packing, Roberts addressed what, to outsiders, may seem relatively uncontroversial controls that Congress wants to impose.

[M]uch of the chief justice’s report was focused on thwarting less contentious efforts by Congress to address financial conflicts and workplace misconduct in the judicial system. Both issues are the subject of proposed legislation that has drawn bipartisan support.

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When I turned 50, I wrote a post about wanting a new mountain to climb. It wasn’t that what I was doing wasn’t important or that I no longer found it fulfilling, but that we need new challenges to overcome to feel alive. But then, I was only 50, a mere boy.

At 60, the feeling was a bit different. Not just the new daily pains when I awoke, or the realization that my body couldn’t do the things the 30-year-old who still resided in my head told me to do, but that I had crossed over the peak and was now on the downhill side of the mountain. It all went far too quickly, and each year, each day, whizzed by at blinding speed. It made me realize that no day should be taken for granted, not so much because it may be my last but because it would be an utter waste not to make it count, not to enjoy it to the fullest. After all, I only had another 20 or 30 good years left. Continue reading →