The use of non-lawyer local justices in upstate New York has long been fertile ground for ridicule and outrage. Between astounding incompetent, rampant corruption and ethical violations, it’s enough to make your head explode, Then again, the groundlings argue that this is justice closest to the people, rather than that elitist stuff they puff in real courts where judges have to be, you know, lawyers.

ProPublica notes that it’s no different in South Carolina.

These courtrooms, the busiest in the state, dispose of hundreds of thousands of misdemeanor criminal cases and civil disputes each year.

They are overseen by political appointees, selected through a process that often places connections over qualifications. It’s a system that’s unlike any other in the country, and one that has provided fertile ground for incompetence, corruption and other abuse.

Continue reading →

It was a tragedy, and ought to remind us that there are bad people out there who do bad things, horrible things, to others. In the chorus about ending mass incarceration, it’s often lost that not everyone in prison is a victim of society. Some are there because they’re dangerous people who harm others without remorse, and some dangerous people may well be victims of the many ills of the system, but are still dangerous people.

Ruth George is dead because she was allegedly sexually assaulted and choked to death by Donald Thurman, who was out on parole from a 2016 robbery conviction.

His court-appointed attorney, public defender Valerie Panozzo, said in court Tuesday that he struggled with mental health issues and homelessness.

Continue reading →

Thank you for your support, your thoughts and your taking your valuable time to read SJ. As tradition dictates, I offer you the annual playing of Alice’s Restaurant. Happy Thanksgiving.

As has become his wont, with the approval of his employer, Charles Blow feels compelled to provide readers with their daily dose of our awfulness so that this Thanksgiving, no one will be without a heaping helping of misery on their plate.

When I was a child, Thanksgiving was simple. It was about turkey and dressing, love and laughter, a time for the family to gather around a feast and be thankful for the year that had passed and be hopeful for the year to come.

In school, the story we learned was simple, too: Pilgrims and Native Americans came together to give thanks.

Same with me. It was a wonderful secular holiday, celebrating love, family and brotherhood. It was the moment to reflect on the bounty we enjoyed and to do something too rarely done. Give thanks. Continue reading →

It was Thanksgiving in Mud Lick, Alabama, and Sheriff Roy Templeton was getting uneasy. Arlene was setting odd place cards at the dining room table. Sheriff Roy’s read as follows:

ROY TEMPLETON. PRONOUNS HE/HIM/HIS

“Arlene, what in the name of Bear Bryant are these wastes of card stock doing at my damn dinner table?” the Sheriff asked.

“It was your niece Cindy’s idea, honey. She says it respects peoples’ dignity to do stuff like this, and we don’t want Roy Junior thinking his family’s disrespectful, do we?” Continue reading →

As has become a holiday tradition at the New York Times, they’ve included their annual “how to talk to your angry uncle” op-ed, featuring the Angry Uncle chatbot. It’s fun for a few minutes, but the upshot quickly becomes clear: to avoid unpleasantness, say nothing unpleasant.

The “try this” suggestion is: Continue reading →

There’s little new in the New York Times’ lament over the reaction to the new breed of progressive prosecutors. Neither legislators nor judges are taking particularly well to their assertion that they were elected to provide their brand of “justice” to an unjust system and subject to no constraints.

Laws? Feh. Judges? Meh. They were elected to be free to do as they please, subject to no limits but the cries of the righteous.

These Prosecutors Promised Change. Their Power Is Being Stripped Away.

As a new crop of district attorneys takes a different approach to criminal justice, some are seeing their authority removed and their actions blocked in court.

Continue reading →

Sir Tim (as opposed to Al Gore) invented the world wide web,* and he’s not entirely pleased with how his baby has been treated.

I had hoped that 30 years from its creation, we would be using the web foremost for the purpose of serving humanity. Projects like Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap and the world of open source software are the kinds of constructive tools that I hoped would flow from the web.

It was supposed to provide us with the entirety of human knowledge at our fingertips, plus the ability to hang around with our new friends from distant places, where we could hug and share and become one. Continue reading →

As a tenured professor at the Kelly School of Business at Indiana University, Eric Rasmusen has the cred to give some gravitas to his words. And words they were.

As many of you may be aware Professor Eric Rasmusen, a member of the Kelley School faculty, tweeted a link and quoted from an article entitled, “Are Women Destroying Academia?  Probably,” written by Lance Welton. This article suggests women academics and most women students are harmful to the academy.  Unfortunately, the views espoused in this article and endorsed by this professor on the matter of gender diversity reflect similar views expressed in his private Twitter account.

Moreover, he holds similarly reprehensible views regarding other areas of diversity.  The professor demonstrates a lack of tolerance and respect for women as well as for racial diversity and diversity in sexual orientation.  The leadership of the Kelley School stands united in condemning the bias and disrespect displayed by this professor; we find his sexist, racist, and homophobic views abhorrent.

Continue reading →

I have a very real problem with grandchildren. I don’t have any. I want some. Hell, I want one, but I have none. I joke that my kids have failed me by not providing me with the grandchildren I want, but it’s not a very funny joke, and my kids don’t find it funny at all. Apparently, I’m not alone.

Fertility rates have been dropping precipitously around the world for decades — in middle-income countries, in some low-income countries, but perhaps most markedly, in rich ones.

Fulfilling my desire to be a grandfather isn’t really much of a reason for my kids to have children, despite all I’ve done for them, but the list of reasons given for this decline in fertility rates in all demographics emits the unpleasant odor of excuses. Continue reading →