Whenever criminal defense lawyers talk about the constitutional rights of defendants, someone will respond by telling us we would feel very differently if it was our child who was harmed. And they are absolutely right, but irrelevant. I would do anything, sacrifice anything, for the sake of my children. What parent wouldn’t? But that’s because they’re my children. Policy must concern itself with what’s best for society, not what’s best for my children.

I can’t blame any parent for putting the welfare of his child above the welfare of society. I also can’t blame any public official for putting the welfare of society above the welfare of a child. This is a brutal thing to say, and I fully appreciate why any parent currently dealing with the harm faced by his child to reject it, to be outraged by it, but it nonetheless has to be said. Continue reading →

Over the past few weeks, we’ve come to learn a few things about our friends. A shocking number of dear friends, people we like and respect, people with good jobs and the degrees given by good universities, are likely to vote for Trump. Or to be more specific, are likely to vote against Kamala Harris.

It’s not that they don’t find Trump personally repugnant. They do. It’s that they fear what’s become of a nation where young people march for terrorists, obsess over race and gender and hate their nation. They do not believe that Harris will avoid pandering to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and see the few generic policies she’s announced, the $25,000 tax credit for first time home buyers, forgiving student loan debt and taxing unrealized gains, for example, as positive proof that she lacks the fortitude to say no to the demands of the left. Continue reading →

Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho wanted to meet Barack Obama, but as a foreign national, could not buy his way to a meeting through campaign contributions. So he used Rapper Pras Michel of the Fugees as his conduit, feeding Michel money to contribute to Obama. Things did not turn out as well as hoped.

On April 26, 2023, a jury convicted Defendant Prakazrel Michel (“Michel”) of ten (10) counts related to his conduct in three (3) schemes involving conduit contributions, witness tampering, and foreign lobbying. Before the Court is Michel’s  Motion for New Trial (“Motion” or “Mot.”). Michel moves under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure (“Rule”) 33(a) for a new trial, arguing that a myriad of errors undermine the jury’s verdict.

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Skagway is a small mining town. It’s one of the few areas in Alaska reachable by land from the United States. And it’s extremely small.

How small is Skagway? As a bus driver told me, Skagway is four blocks wide and 23 blocks deep. There’s exactly one bank, one ATM, post office, one building hosting both the fire and police departments, post box and skateboard park. There’s also one school for all grade levels. Continue reading →

One of the things that has been pretty darn impressive about the candidacy of Kamala Harris is how she’s avoided making her sex or gender an issue. Granted, there are plenty of others to do it for her, not the least of whom is the orange guy claiming she magically became black one day, but Harris can’t be blamed for what others say or do. Still, John McWhorter raises a very interesting point that I hadn’t considered, and McWhorter is likely one of the very few people in media who could pull it off.

‘Joy’ Is a Euphemism for a Word No One Wants to Say Out Loud

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If it’s legal to smoke weed, and it’s a fundamental constitutional right to keep and bear arms, how is it possible the two combined are illegal per se? The Fifth Circuit in U.S. v. Connelly holds that they’re not, at least sometimes.

Paola Connelly is a non-violent, marijuana smoking gunowner. El Paso police came to her house in response to a “shots fired” call. When they arrived, they saw John, Paola’s husband, standing at their neighbor’s door firing a shotgun. After arresting him, they spoke with Paola, who indicated that she would at times smoke marijuana as a sleep aid and for anxiety. A sweep revealed that the Connellys’ home contained drug paraphernalia and several firearms, including firearms owned by Paola. There was no indication that Paola was intoxicated at the time.

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Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act protects concerted activities “for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection” in the workplace. If you squint hard enough and aren’t a slavish opponent of chaos theory, an argument could be mustered that pretty much any concerted activity by employees is protected under Section 7. After all, everything relates to everything else if you try hard enough.

Except going to Black Lives Matter demonstrations. And stunningly, this conclusion comes from both an NLRB administrative law judge and the National Labor Relations Board itself, which has rarely found any conduct by employees unprotected. Continue reading →

If you’re a computer user of a certain age, you will remember when you had many choices from which to choose your default search engine. From Infoseek to Ask Jeeves, Lycos to Alta Vista, and even one with the silly name Yahoo!. They had two things in common. They weren’t very good at searching the interwebs and their business model had no path to profitability. Then came Google.

Google is by far the dominant player in the field. It’s not that there aren’t other options, like Bing or Duck, Duck, Go, but it’s not even close. And that makes many people, particularly the government, sad. Continue reading →

In the heady days of February, 2016, in the empowered City of Seattle, two police officers shot and killed a 47-year-old black man named Che Taylor. The shooting was found to be justified by police and an inquest jury, and no charges were filed. It was, nonetheless, controversial.

The two officers were conducting an undercover operation in search of another man when Taylor arrived in a car, according to police and testimony at an inquest hearing into Taylor’s death.

Spaulding and Miller said they recognized the 47-year-old Taylor as a known felon and career criminal with convictions for rape and robbery. As a felon, he was barred from having a gun, but Miller told Spaulding he had seen a handgun in a holster on Taylor’s hip when Taylor exited the car.

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It was unseemly that UCLA had to be enjoined from permitting the exclusion of Jewish students on its campus. It was even more unseemly that UCLA appealed the temporary injunction. Were they fighting for the right to exclude Jews? Someone apparently decided that “unseemly” wasn’t the best tact, and so UCLA voluntarily dismissed its appeal. Smart move.

Its lawyers just filed a notice of voluntary dismissal, and UCLA announced this to employees, with a link to FAQs “to help employees understand how to carry out their responsibilities consistent with the requirements of the preliminary injunction.”

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