It would come as no surprise that the Supreme Court of the State of Washington held that racism has no place in our legal system. Indeed, who would argue otherwise? But like most platitudinous proclamations, the devil is in the details, and the details of a very ordinary trial make that very clear and deeply problematic.

In this case, Janelle Henderson, a Black woman, and Alicia Thompson, a white woman, were involved in a motor vehicle collision. Thompson admitted fault for the collision but made no offer to compensate Henderson for her injuries. Henderson claimed that her preexisting condition was seriously exacerbated by the collision and sued for damages.

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Picture a group of people who believe that they know right from wrong taking books from a library and throwing them onto a bonfire to burn them. There will still be plenty of volumes remaining when they’re done, as the books can be found in libraries and private hands elsewhere, but the ones within their reach are burned. They have not, and cannot, eradicate the offending book from the face of the earth, but they have burned books.

Is this not book burning? Obviously it is, and the fact that this performative act of condemnation didn’t result in the books’ total destruction doesn’t make the act of burning books any less a book burning. Perhaps they’re right, that the books are bad, evil even, and conveys ideas that are horrible and, at least in their minds, should not exist. Perhaps it’s not so much the ideas in the books, but the author who is so despised that his books should never see daylight. Does this make book burning any better? Continue reading →

The images of men in body armor, armed and masked in parking lots watching Maricopa County, Arizona drop boxes is pretty hard to stomach. Could there be any conduct more designed to intimidate voters dropping off ballots than masked men with guns? Yet District of Arizona Judge Michael Liburdi refused to issue an injunction.

In his 14-page ruling, Judge Michael T. Liburdi found that while “many voters are legitimately alarmed by the observers filming” at ballot boxes in Maricopa County, there was no proof that the group, Clean Elections USA, had encouraged acts of violence or posted personal or identifying information online. Continue reading →

It’s almost Halloween! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, a night where the ghouls, ghosts, and things that go bump in the night get a chance to party. I’m in a giving mood, so today’s Friday Funny contains tips to enhance your 2022 Halloween experience.

1) First, disregard any “news” article warning parents of adults slipping fentanyl-laced candy to kids on Halloween. That stuff is expensive, adults pay good money for it, and odds are if they’ve got it they’re not sharing. Especially not with kids. Continue reading →

The New York Times op-ed by Tom Cotton had two major flaws. First, it was written by Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who is despised by the left as a right-wing fascist, Second, it argued for bringing in the military to thwart ongoing riots since it appeared that local government was unwilling to take action.

Some elites have excused this orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic, calling it an understandable response to the wrongful death of George Floyd. Those excuses are built on a revolting moral equivalence of rioters and looters to peaceful, law-abiding protesters. A majority who seek to protest peacefully shouldn’t be confused with bands of miscreants.

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In an otherwise thoughtful opinion by Judge Ricardo Martinez in the Western District of Washington, the court addressed an Everett city ordinance designed to prohibit “bikini barista bars,” a thing that I didn’t know existed until today, and to establish a dress code for “quick service facilities.”

Plaintiffs Jovanna Edge and others are or were employed by “bikini barista stands.” Plaintiffs challenge the constitutionality of two ordinances enacted by the City of Everett, Ordinance No. 3559-17 (the “Lewd Conduct Ordinance”) and Ordinance No. 3560-17 (the “Dress Code Ordinance”). The Lewd Conduct Ordinance expanded the definition of a lewd act to include an exposure of “more than one-half of the part of the female breast located below the top of the areola,” “the genitals, anus, bottom one-half of the anal cleft, or any portion of the areola or nipple of the female breast” and created the new crime of Facilitating Lewd Conduct. Continue reading →

It would be 25 years, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote.

The court validated affirmative action in a foundational decision, Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), which involved the University of Michigan Law School. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, writing for the court, emphasized racial diversity’s importance in elite academic environments.

Nevertheless, she also stated that “race-conscious admissions policies must be limited in time.” Toward the opinion’s end, she noted that 25 years had elapsed since Justice Lewis Powell provided the decisive fifth vote to uphold affirmative action in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke in 1978. Then, in Grutter’s most arresting feature, she concluded, “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.”

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For the past few months, criminal law reform activists have been losing their minds over the fact that crime has become a huge issue in the midterm elections for three reasons.

First, while violent crime rates have increased over some of the lowest crime years in decades, they remain far lower than they were in the bad old days of the 1990’s crack epidemic.

Second, violent crime rates are no higher in blue states than red, and in most cases, they are substantially higher in red states like Oklahoma than blue like New York and California. Continue reading →

About a decade ago, one of the huge issues in law was that there are huge underserved communities who needed legal help but were unable to afford a lawyer. Whether they couldn’t afford legal counsel or simply preferred to spend their scarce resources elsewhere was one issue, but the fact remained that we’ve built a society of legal landmines that few non-lawyers can traverse safely.

And unless you’re lucky enough to have a lawyer on retainer or one in the family, people are left to their own devices. As experience has shown, the internet isn’t a substitute for sound legal advice, and too often people believe they “know” the law to their enormous detriment. No, filing a UCC 1-308 does not protect you from being sued and cops do not have to give you Miranda warnings or your case gets dismissed. Continue reading →

There have been numerous studies reflecting problems within the medical profession, from racist beliefs that black people have a higher pain threshold than white people to sexist assumptions that women complaining of physical maladies are suffering instead from psychological issues. And there is an undeniable history of physicians engaged in experimentation involving black people like the Tuskegee syphilis study which lasted until 1972, well within memory of many of us alive today.

The medical profession has not always done itself proud in its treatment of minorities and women, and has much to consider about how a profession putatively dedicated to healing could be so blindly harmful. Continue reading →