It’s bad enough that police put on blinders when they first decide who “did it” and then direct all their energy to proving it, such that they fail to consider other evidence, other possible perpetrators. It’s even worse when they use interrogation techniques designed solely to coerce a confession, even if completely false, rather than accurate of voluntary. But what Fontana, California, detectives did to Tony Perez Jr. was even worse.

Within hours after Thomas Perez Jr. called police to report his father missing, he found himself in a tiny interrogation room confronted by Fontana detectives determined to extract a confession that he killed his dad. Continue reading →

I had no idea what to make of Justice Sam Alito’s upside down flag, although his putting that on his wife when he lives in the house and the flag is as much his as hers, was very poor form. But now a second flag, the Appeal to Heaven?

According to the New York Times, the flag can now be seen as “a symbol of support [1] for former President Donald J. Trump, [2] for a religious strand of the ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign and [3] for a push to remake American government in Christian terms.” A bit of a hodgepodge to be sure. Did Mr. or Mrs. Alito choose to fly this flag to “stop the steal” nearly three years after the election? That seems a stretch. Again, there is no actual evidence of this, but countless news stories, and politicians, will accept this insinuation as obvious.

Aside from these flags reflecting exceptionally poor and conflicted judgment by Alito, who should have remained above such symbolism in order to maintain the appearance of impartiality and the integrity of the Supreme Court, what does this mean? What should be done about it? Is this much ado about nothing or time for Alito to recuse himself? Continue reading →

Ed. Note: Chris Halkides has been kind enough to try to make us lawyers smarter by dumbing down science enough that we have a small chance of understanding how it’s being used to wrongfully convict and, in some cases, execute defendants. Chris graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Ph.D. in biochemistry, and teaches biochemistry, organic chemistry, and forensic chemistry at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.

In 2009, Brandon Woodruff was convicted of murdering his parents Norma and Dennis in their new home in Royse City, Texas in 2005.  His parents were both shot and stabbed multiple times in what might have been a personal cause homicide. The prosecution hypothesized that Brandon killed them over tensions arising from his being gay having poor grades in college, and possibly from his overspending and appearing in a couple of adult films. There was no evidence for an argument; there is evidence that the police and the jury were anti-gay. It was repeatedly stated at his trial,  “If he could lie about being gay, he could lie about killing his parents.” Continue reading →

Sorry for not posting yesterday, and there will be no post today either. I had a procedure yesterday and I’m not up to writing yet. Hopefully, I’ll be back in action in a day or two.

For all the former prosecutors on the payroll at MSNBC, the one thing that goes wholly unmentioned is that the “hush money” case against Trump for falsifying business records is a misdemeanor unless it’s in furtherance of another crime.

But dreadful isn’t a synonym for criminal, and nothing about the terrible facts of the case has eased my legal concerns. From the beginning, it has been obvious that the facts of the case are damning, but the law is cloudy. The reason is simple: To secure a felony conviction, the prosecutor has to prove that Trump falsified business records with an “intent to defraud that included an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”

Continue reading →

David French reflects on the Axios report that neither President Biden nor his senior advisors believe the polls that say he’s got campaign issues. After all, how could someone as worthy as Biden lose to someone as unworthy as Trump?

I thought of 2012 when I read in an Axios report this week that “President Biden doesn’t believe his bad poll numbers, and neither do many of his closest advisers.” That belief isn’t absurd on its face. After all, polling is difficult, and there have been a number of recent polling misses.

After describing at length a handful of banal experiences for a concept that doesn’t really require much explication, David puts the pedal to the metal. Continue reading →

A two-day “festival” was held earlier this month in the bowels of hipsterville called “Dissident Dialogues.” It had been my plan to attend for a day, and I requested an agenda so I could decide this day to attend. I was told it would be forthcoming. It never was, so I never went. Fortunately, Cathy Young did and wrote a brilliant post about the good and the bad wrapped up in the current iteration of dissidence.

IN AN AGE OF POLITICAL POLARIZATION and tribalism, “heterodoxy” has become an increasingly popular concept for the tribeless, denoting people and ideas that defy traditional left/right descriptions. The Heterodox Academy, cofounded by renowned psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt in 2015 in reaction to progressive groupthink in academia, is the most prominent example; but the label is also embraced by what Radley Balko identified as the “new genre of heterodox punditry”—as found in publications like Quillette, UnHerd, and the Free Press. Amid competing and stultifying orthodoxies, the concept of heterodoxy can feel like a refreshing alternative.

Continue reading →

The obvious failings of public sector unionism aside, the union representing graduate students and staff at the University of California, a local of the United Auto Workers because the Teamsters were too busy that day, has authorized a strike.

Not for pay. Not for benefits. For “free speech.”

The union, U.A.W. 4811, represents about 48,000 graduate students and other academic workers at 10 University of California system campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Its members, incensed over the university system’s handling of campus protests, pushed their union to address grievances extending beyond the bread-and-butter issues of collective bargaining to concerns over protesting and speaking out in their workplace.

Continue reading →

In 2015, Cy Vance made a decision. His office, the New York County District Attorney’s office, would not prosecute Harvey Weinstein for the sexual assault of Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, despite their being a recording of Weinstein admitting his conduct.  Perhaps David Boies, who contributed $10,000 to Cy’s re-election campaign when he was running unopposed, had something to do with it. Perhaps not.

But now, Cy has seen the light. Continue reading →

The commencement speaker at Duke University was none other than New York Jewish comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Whether his speech was particularly good or funny is beside the point. That students walked out of graduation as he was introduced, however, became headline news.

At Reason, Billy Binion argues that it shouldn’t have been. Continue reading →