From the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, criminal reform activists screamed about what it meant for jails and prisons for obvious reasons. Not only do they lack the ability to take basic safety precautions available to people on the outside, but they exist under conditions particularly prone to spreading infection. But then, they’re prisoners. So while it was obvious that jails and prisons would be hit hard by COVID, the cries of activists never caught serious traction.

The same question, what to do about prisoners, is playing out again now that vaccines are expected to become available.

“There’s no way it’s going to go to prisoners before it goes to people who haven’t committed any crime,” Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, a Democrat, said this week.

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Sheriff Roy woke early on a cold morning. Pouring a cup of coffee and turning on the radio, he studied the pre-dawn view from his kitchen window.

According to the weather person on the radio, Mud Lick finally saw its first southern snow of the year overnight. That meant enough white stuff dusted the ground to where school officials called a two hour delay opening.

The Sheriff put on his uniform and helped Roy Junior get ready for school. Continue reading →

If your kid came home from college, where he was studying physics at not-insignificant expense, but didn’t learn quantum mechanics, you might be a bit miffed. But, your beloved child explains, he did learn to be more compassionate, to contextualize his privilege. Just no quantum mechanics. Is that a problem?

Two winning seasons, followed by four losing seasons, mark the end of my tenure at Saint Michael’s College and possibly my complex relationship with a profession that I did not fit into.

Those are the parting words of Josh Meyer, head basketball coach at St. Michael’s College in Vermont. His two winning seasons came with a team that his predecessor coached. His four losing seasons are all his. But then, winning wasn’t everything. Continue reading →

Neither Trump nor Biden are fans of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, albeit for very different reasons. The former because his twits are labeled as false, and his sycophants keep being tossed off social media for being too violent, crazy or absurdly false. The latter because platforms aren’t censoring enough hate speech and allowing white men to disagree with women of color.

But Trump upped the ante by announcing that he will veto the defense spending bill necessary to fund the military unless it includes the repeal of Section 230.

President Trump tweeted late Tuesday that he will veto the National Defense Authorization Act unless Congress repeals Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which critics say unfairly shields social media platforms from liability over items posted on their platforms. Continue reading →

On the fifth of January, a runoff election will be held in the State of Georgia. The assumption going in was that at least one, if not two, Republicans would prevail. After all, this is Georgia. Then came the right wing’s craziest voices, inexplicably loved for their willingness to give their careers, fortunes and perhaps even their lives for the cause.

Here's Lin Wood telling Georgia Republicans NOT to vote for Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue next month.

"They have not earned your vote. Don't you give it to them. Why would you go back and vote in another rigged election for god's sake! Fix it! You gotta fix it!" pic.twitter.com/Uvj1QIpqFL

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) December 2, 2020

Whether this will have an impact is unclear, but what is clear is that telling people not to vote, and not to vote for a party’s candidates, is generally not a good idea if they want to win. It may turn out to not have any impact, but if it draws enough voters away, it could affect the outcome. Continue reading →

There is probably no power of the Executive less constrained than the one set forth in Article II, Section 2.

[The President] shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

Is this power ripe for abuse? Absolutely. The president can use it to buy off the silence of co-conspirators, allies, campaign contributors, pals and pretty much anybody else. Of course, there is an inherent limit on the exercise of the power, as no one gets to use it without first being elected president. Vote well and the power doesn’t get overly abused. Vote poorly and, well, who knows? Continue reading →

An effort to parse the various assertions and statements, both legal and extra-legal, of Trump’s “Elite Strike Force Legal Team,” is not merely a fool’s errand, but one that grows by the day. Add in Trump-adjacent insanity, like Lin Wood’s call for martial law, and the task becomes nearly impossible. Yet, one of Trump’s lawyers, Joe diGenova, has stood out for saying something monumentally reprehensible.

Anybody who thinks the election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity. That guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot.

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Turk sent me over a warm and fuzzy note from New York State’s chief judge, Janet DiFiore, reminding lawyers that as bad as things are due to COVID, the courts still love us. Aww. Buried in Judge DiFiore’s message was a very curious tale about the first jury trial in Queens since the pandemic struck.

And if anyone had any doubt as to the critical importance of restoring functioning grand juries or petit juries, I would highlight the circumstances of the criminal jury trial concluded last week in Queens County. The defendant in that case was arrested in July 2018, more than two years ago. He has been held in custody since then, charged with two counts of burglary in the second degree, and criminal trespass as a misdemeanor. The case was scheduled to go to trial in March, but the arrival of the pandemic and the statewide stay-at-home order halted jury selection and led to a mistrial.

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It can be more like seeing the world through the eyes of a toddler than lawyer, the shock and surprise when a judge you vilified because she was appointed by the president you despise, the judge who was going to destroy all the good of the law and strip decent people of those emanations and penumbras that get in the way of enumerated rights. And then suddenly, without warning, they turn out to be . . . judges. Sometimes, they end up on the side with which you agree. Sometimes not. You know, like judges.

The newest Supreme Court justice, Amy Coney Barrett, is the latest in the trio of presumptively conclusively evil judges, and by definition will use their vote on the Nine to destroy the good law. This certainty gives rise to pre-emptive warnings about how a case may come before the Court because she is now the “deciding vote.” Adam Liptak explains that in one of the most controversial of all constitutional evils, allowing people with prior felony convictions to enjoy fundamental constitutional rights as if they were just like any other citizen. Continue reading →

The obvious problem with a great many studies is that they’re cited for a proposition by people who never read them. They become part of a myth of a study, such as the Lisak study persistently used to show that only 2-10% of rapes are false. It’s not remotely what the study says, and yet it’s become an article of faith, repeated constantly, believed without question. But that’s just one issue.

For people who care enough, as opposed to people who simply cite a study assuming its validity, there are numerous problems that arise, from a study conflating definitions or issues (such as a study about “rape” that includes in its definition the “ear rape” of hearing unwanted words) to the methodology of size, self-selection, payment or incentive. It’s as if I did a study of what everyone living at Casa de SJ thought about something. It might look as official as any other study, but it wouldn’t be of much value to anyone but us. Continue reading →