A random lawprof twitted about how the video of AUSA Sarah Fabian, arguing before the Ninth Circuit, proves how critical it is that oral arguments be shown to the public. And the public was, indeed, outraged by the snippet of the argument that went viral.

Ironically, the caption below the video states, “Soap and beds are not essential for detained migrant children says Trump lawyer.” Except Fabian isn’t a “Trump lawyer” at all, but a career assistant who worked for the Department of Justice since 2011, and the case isn’t about Trump, but the 1985 Flores Agreement. Continue reading →

I’m going to admit it from the outset: I admire Tiffany Cabán because she’s got guts. She’s running for District Attorney of Queens, and it takes courage to do so in general, and exceptional courage to do so given Cabán’s circumstances.

She’s got minimal legal experience, having been admitted to practice in 2013 and working as a line public defender since then. She’s never supervised anyone, never run a shop, never had to deal with the politics of running a big city district attorney’s office. She’s never prosecuted anyone for anything. And still, she’s running. Cabán has moxie coming out her ears, and that deserves some serious kudos. There aren’t many people who would expose themselves to the rigors of a campaign given her exceptional dearth of qualifications. Continue reading →

Quite a few people sent me the story of Seth Harp in the Intercept.

I SHOULD HAVE kept my mouth shut about the guacamole; that made things worse for me. Otherwise, what I’m about to describe could happen to any American who travels internationally. It happened 33,295 times last year.

My work as a journalist has taken me to many foreign countries, including frequent trips to Mexico. On May 13, I was returning to the U.S. from Mexico City when, passing through immigration at the Austin airport, I was pulled out of line for “secondary screening,” a quasi-custodial law enforcement process that takes place in the Homeland Security zone of the airport.

What happened to Harp was, his misguided snarky responses aside, quite outrageous, with a Customs and Border Patrol agent named Moncivias pulling him aside for “secondary screening.” It went downhill from there. Continue reading →

The set-up was there for anyone who cared to see it.

Paul J. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman who is serving a federal prison sentence, had been expected to be transferred to the notorious Rikers Island jail complex this month to await trial on a separate state case.

Been “expected”? Says who?

Paul J. Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman who is serving a federal prison sentence, is expected to be transferred within the next few weeks to the Rikers Island jail complex in New York City, where he will most likely be held in isolation while facing state fraud charges, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Continue reading →

When Second Circuit Judge Denny Chin was profiled by the New York Times, one phrase stood out to me: “Rule and roll.” I got it then. I still get it now. A decision has to be made. It’s not just because that’s a judge’s job, but because the wheels of “justice” must keep turning or the system cranks to a halt, to no one’s benefit. And yet, there is a callousness to the phrase, that a person’s life, his family’s life, can be devastated and the judge just rules and rolls.

Right? Wrong? Either way, it’s done and they move on to destroy more lives. Work, work, work.

A pair of Kevins raised a different mechanism to be applied to sentences.

We have both worked with people who have taken extraordinary steps to rehabilitate themselves in prison. One of us is a former federal judge who resigned, in large part, because he could no longer stand to impose the excessive and unjust prison terms Congress mandates in so many cases. The other is a former prisoner and the leader of a national organization that works with thousands of families directly impacted by harsh federal and state sentencing laws.

Continue reading →

The snarky commentary by Carol Roth had a bite:

Actual assault: good
Mean words: bad

Millions of words have been murdered in the effort to explain why words are hateful, words hurt worse than any punch, any bullet. Words are violence. But who could have seen the alternative, that an actual physical assault isn’t violence? Continue reading →

Ed. Note: Greg Prickett is former police officer and supervisor who went to law school, hung out a shingle, and now practices criminal defense and family law in Fort Worth, Texas. While he was a police officer, he was a police firearms instructor, and routinely taught armed tactics to other officers.

Alabama Governor, Kay Ivey, just signed legislation that will allow a megachurch to form its own police force. The Briarwood Presbyterian Church of Birmingham is a predominantly white church. Birmingham, Alabama is an overwhelmingly African-American community.[i] The police force would work under the guidance of the pastor of the church, and there would be no public accountability, other than to complain to the pastor. According to Pew Research, 17 nations have some form of religious police. The United States, thanks to Alabama, just joined that list. This is an incredibly bad idea.

First, as a private entity there is no right for the public to obtain or inspect records. If you want the police bodycam from an incident, in most states you can fill out a request and obtain a copy after jumping through whatever hoops the State requires. You can’t do that with a police force that is owned and operated by a private entity. Continue reading →

For generations, “bleeding heart” liberals fought for a colorblind society, where every person would be afforded equal opportunity to achieve as much success and happiness as she could. Now, we learn, this was racist all along, as there can be no such thing as a colorblind society, and more pointedly, the society created by the majority came at the expense of the minority.

The only way to correct this normalization of white supremacism was to put the minority in control. A good ally will shut up, apologize for being awful and either hand over the keys or do as they’re told. When it comes to prosecutorial charging, however, colorblindness is making a comeback.

George Gascón, the [San Francisco] district attorney, has acknowledged that a disproportionate number of African-Americans are prosecuted in the city, which led him to ask a troubling question: To what extent does bias affect the work of prosecutors? Continue reading →

Michigan Lawprof Nicholas Bagley raises the alarm that, based upon the Supreme Court’s decision in Gundy v. United States, Justice Elena Kagan might be right that “most of Government is unconstitutional.” Whether that’s correct or hyperbole, is that a bad thing?

In Gundy v. United States, which concerned the constitutionality of a law requiring the registration of sex offenders, four of the more conservative justices endorsed a controversial legal theory according to which Congress lacks the power to delegate broad powers to agencies like the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Heath and Human Services.

The “controversial legal theory” is called the “nondelegation doctrine,” which limits Congress’ authority to enact a law with a general concept and hand it off the bureaucrats to make it happen. Continue reading →

You loved him at Fault Lines. You appreciated him here. And now he’s broken free of the chains of bondage to join the ranks of big pundits pontificating to the passionately unwashed. Andrew Fleischman got the call and went for it.

The Supreme Court Just Showed a Way Forward on Criminal Justice Reform

in doing so, the quality of Slate’s legal writing just improved immeasurably. Andrew’s got no ax to grind that compels him to twist, if not outright fabricate, the holding of the Supreme Court in Rehaif v. United States to fit an agenda, because it would be a shame if any reader walked away without being told what they’re to think. Continue reading →