There is no explanation for why the name Donna M. Small came up as a perp. Somebody must have given it up, but who, why, on what basis, remains a mystery. And that she was indicted along with a mass of others has legal, if not factual, significance, since an indictment theoretically means that a grand jury heard evidence and decided that there was probable cause to believe that Small committed a crime.

But when the offense relates to a mass of people, the reality is that it’s not a grand jury focused on one individual, but a mass offense and random names they’re told by cops. There were pictures, video, and somebody said one of them was identified as Small. So Small was indicted.

Donna M. Small was arrested last year on charges she dealt cocaine to a police informant. Continue reading →

He was days away from receiving his Ph.D. in physics, his thesis having been successfully defended. His family was traveling from his native India to beautiful Ithaca, New York, to be there for the ceremony. And why shouldn’t they, as this was a huge achievement and a glorious day for Yogesh Patil and his family? Except there was a more important value at stake for Cornell University than Patil’s degree.

The complaint was lodged by a former physics Ph.D. student who previously accused Patil’s advisor Prof. Mukund Vengalattore, physics, of sexual assault.

Was Patil accused of some sexual misconduct as well? Hardly.

LA* is not accusing Patil of sexual misconduct himself; instead, she is alleging that he retaliated against her for making a “good faith” sexual misconduct report – presumably against Vengalattore – according to Title IX documents reviewed by The Sun.

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When you present it as an “indisputably true context,” how can it be disputed?

It’s not that Eric Schneiderman (the now-former New York attorney general accused of abuse by multiple women) pushed me over the edge. My edge has been crossed for a long time, before President Trump, before Harvey Weinstein, before “mansplaining” and “incels.” Before live-streaming sexual assaults and red pill men’s groups and rape camps as a tool of war and the deadening banality of male prerogative.

If that fails to be either indisputable or contextual, then the only possible answer is you just don’t get it and you are the guy whom Suzanna Danuta Walters, a professor of sociology and director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Northeastern University, loves to hate. Continue reading →

That the name, American Civil Liberties Union, remains is merely a branding ploy for the new grassroots advocacy organization focused on the progressive side of populism. In fairness, it’s not as if they tried to hide their turn to People Power, having been quite open about it in the hope of enticing support and money from its new base.

But while the shift happens, what of their litigation wing? Now flush with cash since the election of Trump and the buckets of money donated after his Muslim Ban, they’re taking cases, many of which are consistent with civil liberties, serve the goals traditionally attributed to the ACLU and, frankly, doing a fine job of it?

Somebody leaked an internal memo to former ACLU board member Wendy Kaminer, ironically marked at the top, in all caps, “CONFIDENTIAL ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT,” which reveals their new perspective on litigation. Continue reading →

At The Atlantic, Jesse Singal wrote about the unspoken side of the transgender issue. There has been significant “growth” in the issue, but there are some unpleasant “why” questions involved.

The current era of gender-identity awareness has undoubtedly made life easier for many young people who feel constricted by the sometimes-oppressive nature of gender expectations. A rich new language has taken root, granting kids who might have felt alone or excluded the words they need to describe their experiences. And the advent of the internet has allowed teenagers, even ones in parts of the country where acceptance of gender nonconformity continues to come far too slowly, to find others like them.

But when it comes to the question of physical interventions, this era has also brought fraught new challenges to many parents. Where is the line between not “feeling like” a girl because society makes it difficult to be a girl and needing hormones to alleviate dysphoria that otherwise won’t go away? How can parents tell? How can they help their children gain access to the support and medical help they might need, while also keeping in mind that adolescence is, by definition, a time of fevered identity exploration?

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A persuasive argument not only makes the points in its favor, but acknowledges and addresses the points against it. ACLU lawyer Ría Tabacco Mar, who “represents L.G.B.T. people facing discrimination,” neglected to do the latter in her op-ed addressing the Supreme Court’s refusal to stop the execution of Charles Rhines.

On Monday, the Supreme Court announced it would not stop South Dakota from killing a man who may have been sentenced to death because he is gay.

Some of the jurors who imposed the death penalty on Charles Rhines, who was convicted of murder, have said they thought the alternative — a life sentence served in a men’s prison — was something he would enjoy as a gay man.

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A flack sent me a pitch yesterday that caught my eye. Very few do. Most are complete nonsense, often trying to pawn off someone to quote for a subject whose thought no one would otherwise care about. Delete.

But this pitch interested me, so I responded to the flack to send me an advance copy of the “open letter” that would come out in the media today. “Thanks! Will do!!!” was the reply.

Then . . . nothing. After writing two posts this morning, I replied to the “will do” email that I received nothing and he blew the pitch. This is what I received in reply: Continue reading →

It’s nothing new, though whenever a non-lawyer writer discovers prosecutorial misconduct, they’re sure it’s an epiphany. And for criminal defense lawyers, it’s always nice to put the issue of prosecutors playing “hide the Brady” on the table for others to see, whether just to remind them or, if we get really lucky, motivate people to give a damn.

Jordan Smith has a post at The Intercept revisiting the problem of Brady concealment, putatively stemming from testimony at a hearing before the Texas lege.

She told the committee that while cases involving prosecutorial misconduct have “dominated discussions about the integrity of our criminal justice system in recent years,” she was “pleased to report that those cases have become less prevalent.” She’d done the research and found that over the last 12 months, the Court of Criminal Appeals had only granted relief four times based on a claim that prosecutors had committed misconduct by withholding evidence.

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It started with a question by Radley Balko about the accuracy of claims that “catch & release” put children in the hands of abusers. Like Radley, I was skeptical of the claims, but also considered what would happen when the sad story of some child enslaved came out. Much as it was unlikely this would be a huge problem, it was quite likely that it would happen, even if only to a few. How many is a few here? Beats me.

But since it only takes an anecdote for a deep dive into inductive reasoning to confirm the unwavering bias that this is all because we are suddenly horrified and exhausted, would we be capable as a nation of accepting an imperfect solution, or would we just ping pong between hatred for one policy or hatred for another, because there was no option but to assign blame?

Would people be tolerant of “catch & release” for children of immigrants even if a few were killed, enslaved or put into porn? Not a lot, just a few. Imperfect but better than cages?

— Scott Greenfield (@ScottGreenfield) June 18, 2018

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Trying as hard as I could, it was still difficult to make sense of this:

As for social justice, it’s a wonderful thing. But remember that people have very different versions of what social justice looks like.

Many people in this room probably have a vision of social justice that includes less inequality, less racism, less Islamophobia, less homophobia, less transphobia, and better lives for indigenous people. But if you are a Trump supporter, social justice might also include, say, fewer refugees, and less affirmative action.

In life, you have to be careful what you wish for. If you decide that social justice trumps the rule of law, you may be horrified to see how that principle is applied by those whose views you find to be regressive.

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