Black lives matter. It’s a subset of all lives matter, but it’s worthy of being separated from the greater statement because of two things.

1. Police shoot and kill black men in significant disproportion to their percentage of the population.
2. Police shoot and kill innocent/unarmed black men in significant disproportion to their percentage of the population.

These are separate things, and separate problems. But as too often happens, most people fail to appreciate the nature of the problems and conflate them with a simplistic myth that’s not at all accurate. This has been made clear in the belief that prisons are full of only black and Hispanic men, while white guys walk free. Again, the problem is disproportion, not that white men aren’t arrested, convicted and imprisoned. They are, just not nearly as disproportionately as black men. Continue reading →

Following the complaint charging former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin with a dubious count of murder in the third degree, the state attorney general, Keith Ellison assumed control of the prosecution and a new complaint issued increasing the top count to Murder 2.

Why this was done is curious on two levels. The only difference in the net result upon conviction would be an increase the maximum sentence from 25 years to 40 years, which would seem to conflict with the cries to reform sentences and reduce mass incarceration. But more to the point, the primary distinction seems to be symbolic, that second degree murder feels more serious than third, and that would come closer to sating the demand for blood. Continue reading →

It’s not as if lawyers lack opportunity to use their skills, their license, to do whatever it is they believe to serve the public good. Heck, if any profession is well positioned to stand up for whatever their flavor of justice, it’s law. Which is why this accusation is so confounding.

Two lawyers were charged with taking part in a Molotov cocktail attack on a police patrol car over the weekend — a human rights lawyer and a Princeton-educated associate at a Manhattan law firm.

The attack during the Brooklyn protests left the dashboard of a blue-and-white police car charred after a night of violent clashes between protesters and police, a symbol of the chaos wrought over a weekend of sometimes peaceful and sometimes violent demonstrations. Continue reading →

An internet lifetime ago, I wrote that the dreaded Qualified Immunity was “a problem, but not the problem.” It’s since caught fire on social media as the cure for what ails police brutality, with every blue check pundit putting it at the top of the list of fixes that will end police violence, save the next George Floyd or Breonna Taylor, and make us run faster and jump higher.

So what? QI is bad law, should be eliminated and what’s the harm of using this moment in time to eliminate it, whether by legislation as offered by Rep. Justin Amash or by the Supreme Court as it may revisit the doctrine. Of course, few who have jumped on the Anti-QI bandwagon grasp that the Supreme Court doesn’t serve as representative body, to be petitioned for change or influenced by ratio on twitter. Continue reading →

It’s about as black as black letter law can be: The defense of property is not worth the taking of a human life. Except, of course, the Castle Doctrine, particularly the Texas version which makes the Procaccino flavor taste like it needs salt. To the extent morality comes into play in the law, however, the defense of your television doesn’t justify your taking a life.

Or does it?

Peaceful protests are happening, but so is looting. which as the AP Style Book now states, isn’t looting but rather “protesters breaking into stores and stealing what’s on the shelf.” Don’t blame me. I didn’t say so. Some argue that looting is not merely understandable, but justified by some bastardization of Martin Luther King’s “voice of the unheard” quote or historical injustices that will be historical injustices forever. Is that so? If not, what can be done about it? What should be done about it? Continue reading →

Ed. Note: Greg Prickett is former police officer and supervisor who went to law school, hung out a shingle, and now practices criminal defense and family law in Fort Worth, Texas. While he was a police officer, he was a police firearms instructor, and routinely taught armed tactics to other officers.

On Monday, June 1, 2020, Louisville Metro Police Chief Steve Conrad was fired by the mayor, Greg Fischer. While this sort of thing happens all the time, since most chiefs serve at the will of the mayor or the city manager, depending on the structure of city government, this was an unusual case.

First, the chief was fired because the last two officer-involved shootings, both of which resulted in the death of honest, hard-working, black citizens who were not violating the law, were not caught on body cam video.[1] Second, and no less important, was that Conrad was set to retire at the end of the month. Continue reading →

In a stunning unanimous decision, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals did three critical things in the first ruling following the issuance of the new Title IX regs. It rejected the single investigator model of sexual misconduct adjudication. It held that the promise of fairness by a private college, in this case Philadelphia’s University of Science, required due process in the form of a live hearing and cross-examination.

And most importantly, it rejected the argument that this was some sort of pseudo-educational act on the part of the school, and the courts should therefore defer to the school’s educational judgment. In so doing, the circuit panel said out loud that this was not comparable to a college adjudicating plagiarism, or some traditional educational function, but a school turning itself into a criminal tribunal imposing consequences that are “dire and permanent.” Continue reading →

Sheriff Christopher Swanson of Genesee County, Michigan, took off his riot helmet, put his baton on the ground, and walked with protesters.

Elsewhere, cops similarly recognized that they could be the problem or the solution. Continue reading →

After another night of peaceful protests and riots, violence and looting, two narratives emerge. One for the protests. Another for the riots and looting. To anyone who has paid attention over the past generation, the frustration reflected in the protests are neither surprising nor hard to understand, even though matters of race have consistently improved and opportunities present themselves now that weren’t available a decade ago.

That said, we remain far from a society offering equal opportunity and, more particularly directed toward the conduct of police toward blacks and Hispanics, the improvement has been slow and come at the expense of too many lives along the way.

Why the killing of George Floyd in particular was the impetus for protests is unclear. Maybe because it came on the heels of the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor? Maybe because people have been cooped up during lockdown and needed to get out? Continue reading →

Ed. Note: Greg Prickett is former police officer and supervisor who went to law school, hung out a shingle, and now practices criminal defense and family law in Fort Worth, Texas. While he was a police officer, he was a police firearms instructor, and routinely taught armed tactics to other officers.

Colin Kaepernick started a trend back in 2016 of taking a knee during the playing of the National Anthem in protest of police treatment of blacks and the lack of accountability when there are incidents of police brutality or misconduct. Many people spoke out about Kaepernick’s protest, saying that it went to far, and he paid a price for taking a stand. Continue reading →