Having exhausted every show that seemed remotely interesting, Dr. SJ and I decided to watch a shonda called “Bridgerton.” It wasn’t entirely beyond the pale, as a British costume melodrama set in the early 19th Century. I loved Downton Abbey for its insight into life among the British aristocracy and those who served it.

Had I been alive then, I would have been a stablehand at best if I survived to adulthood, making me appreciate all the more that I have Georgian sterling on my formal dinner table. God bless America, the land of opportunity. But I digress. Continue reading →

The comparisons abounded, the insurrection in Washington and the riots last summer. Wasn’t the level of violence and destruction far worse when Kenosha burned? Why were militarized and armored police standing on the Lincoln Memorial when there were barely a handful of cops protecting the Capitol? Why did cops readily fire OS gas, rubber bullets and flashbangs at crowds of mostly peaceful protesters in Portland while they stood aside open doors leading to the Rotunda?

The comparisons still abound, as arrests of some of the more prominently identifiable rioters are made at home in distant states rather than at the scene after being clubbed down, kettled into dead ends or seized en masse as part of the amorphous mob of people whose foremost crime was presence at the scene? Continue reading →

If you can’t manage to pull off an interview with Gayle King, who did not attend the Mike Wallace Masters Class on how rip a target to shreds, you should seriously reconsider whether law is your calling. But that comes at the end of a series of very unfortunate choices, reflected by Miya Ponsetto’s decision to have her moment under the lights.

The 22-year-old woman caught on camera allegedly physically attacking a 14-year-old Black teen and falsely accusing him of stealing her phone was arrested in California.

In an exclusive interview, Miya Ponsetto and her lawyer spoke with @GayleKing hours before she was arrested. pic.twitter.com/ezaGkcWZ8j

— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) January 8, 2021

The backstory is fairly clear. Ponsetto falsely accused a black 14-year-old of stealing her iPhone, screamed at him and tackled him as he tried to get away from this crazed 22-year-old. Whether her belief, what rational people would call a baseless assumption, that he stole her phone was based on his race, his age or something else is unclear. What is absolutely clear is that her interview, even under the withering questioning of Gayle King, was a fiasco. Continue reading →

As resignations come in, with less than two weeks left until regime change, from cabinet secretaries to social secretaries, the former director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund queried when Trump judges would resign.

Which of Trump’s 234 judicial appointees will resign, saying they can’t forever be linked to Trump? Anyone? Nope, didn’t think so. https://t.co/UnuVaIQXZb

— Leslie Proll (@LeslieProll) January 9, 2021

There are some confirmed Trump judges who, to be blunt, have no business on the bench. Too inexperienced to be entrusted to try their first case, they’re federal judges instead. It’s not merely goofy, but dangerously so. People lives and fortunes are in their unwashed hands, and being called “your honor” is no way to learn the basics of your craft. Continue reading →

This always struck me as too obvious to need saying, but then, I’m clearly very wrong about that and not only does it need saying, but needs saying in the clearest possible terms: You’re full of shit.

“My highest priority is sustaining and amplifying our commitment to racial justice. PSU is Oregon’s most diverse university and our actions must honor and harness the power of that diversity,” Percy added. Continue reading →

By the time I first went down to Houston to speak with the Harris County Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, I was soured on criminal bar associations. I saw the ones I was involved with go from strength to weakness to pomposity, having run dry of lawyers with gravitas and reaching to find their next president, next board member. They start out fearless, with a clear vision of what they exist to do, and eventually become an organization that largely exists only to provide a line on a website and plan the next awards dinner.

Criminal defense lawyers were never really cut out for groups. We were feral cats, in a constant state of disagreement about pretty much everything, unherdable. But when I went to speak in Houston, the Harris County Criminal Defense Lawyers Association impressed the crap out of me. Not only did its numbers reflect a level of cooperation and enlightened self-interest that had long since been lost in New York, but there was a strong thread winding through this group of skill, dedication, focus. Continue reading →

It’s one thing to be attacked from the outside, from those who want to destroy us. It’s one thing to engage in horrific rioting and looting in the streets, destroying people’s homes, businesses and lives. It’s one thing to make terrible decisions which, at the moment, seemed to some to be in the national interest. We are not a nation without flaws that have resulted in terrible consequences for a great many people.

But January 6, 2021, was different. The person who holds the office of President of the United States incited a relatively small group of his deluded believers by perpetuating lies, stoking fears and inflaming hatred, to attack the Capitol of the United States as Congress was in session to perform its constitutional duties. Continue reading →

Michael Graveley, the Kenosha County district attorney, announced that he will not prosecute Officer Rusten Sheskey for the shooting of Jacob Blake. For those familiar with the facts and circumstances of the shooting, this comes as no surprise. There was a tragic shooting. There was no crime.

The media, however, did not fairly recite the facts of what happened, that he resisted arrest, refused to drop his knife as ordered, refused to comply with lawful commands and then opened and entered his car as police officers, with guns pointed, unaware of whether this person who they had reason to believe had engaged in violence before could have a weapon. Continue reading →

Thomas Edsall provides a fair survey of academic challenges to the current understanding of the First Amendment. Two points stand out, the first being that the internet has given rise to a structural change in society where crazies and fools were once isolated, but now have the ability to find each other, link arms and create a cohort of like-minded people.

People were always crazy, but they couldn’t find each other, they couldn’t talk and disperse their craziness. Now we are confronting a new phenomenon and we have to think about how we regulate that in a way which is compatible with people’s freedom to form public opinion.

Continue reading →

My old pal, the Texas Tornado, has forsaken his exemplary blawg, Defending People, in favor of his occasional substack, which is an odd way to start a year whose word is “write.” But blawgs are old, long, boring and take effort to read. Is there really any interest in reading something longer than a twit?

Mark Bennett was obviously way ahead of me, as reflected by the fact that I’m writing this blawg post and he has a substack, which I do not. Then again, I’m older than he is and still feel the need to write thoughts down at some length. But Mark is kind enough to have me on the list of recipients of his substack, so I still get to enjoy and learn from him. This morning, he struck a nerve with me when he wrote about the Harris County Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. Continue reading →