It wasn’t too long ago that calls to eliminate the crime of felony murder were loud and strident. After all, why, but why, should some kid who only meant to steal go to prison for life when it was his partner who pulled the trigger and killed the shopowner? He didn’t do it. He didn’t know his partner would do it. He just wanted to steal. He never wanted anyone to die. Is this justice?

While the specific parameters of the rule vary between jurisdictions, the general idea is that if a death results from the conduct of committing a felony, everyone involved is guilty of murder for the death. Usually, there is a requirement that it be reasonably foreseeable, at least to accomplices or co-conspirators if not the actual killer, but that’s more a matter of coming up with a good explanation for chaos theory connections than reality. Continue reading →

From the vacatur of the convictions of the Central Park 5 to the numerous prisoners whose convictions are being vacated after spending decades in prison, the headlines are that these individuals are “exonerated.” Is that the right word to use? Does exoneration convey the correct meaning?

According to Merriam-Webster, exoneration means

1. to relieve of a responsibility, obligation, or hardship
2. to clear from accusation or blame

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It’s understandable that many will cheer the outcome of the trial against the neo-Nazis and white supremacists stemming out of the “Unite The Right” march in Charlottesville, culminating in James Fields running down and killing counterprotestor Heather Heyer, 32. Fields is in prison, serving life, for his crimes, as he should be, so he won’t be contributing much to the $25 million verdict.

The cheers are for the ordinary reasons, that these were bad dudes who believed bad things and acted upon them to harm good people. And so the jury’s verdict, that they should be liable for the damage the march caused is a good verdict. Continue reading →

The timing could not have been worse. It was 2017. The sixth season of House of Cards was being filmed. Harvey Weinstein’s conduct made powerful Hollywood men a primary target of the MeToo movement. And Kevin Spacey was the host of the Oscars. It was more than Anthony Rapp could take, and so out it came.

In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Rapp is publicly alleging for the first time that in 1986, Spacey befriended Rapp while they both performed on Broadway shows, invited Rapp over to his apartment for a party, and, at the end of the night, picked Rapp up, placed him on his bed, and climbed on top of him, making a sexual advance. According to public records, Spacey was 26. Rapp was 14.

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Ordinarily, my “advice” for Thanksgiving dinner is to never eat anything bigger than your head. No one listens to me, naturally, even though it’s good advice. But a friend sent me an email with more concrete advice from a group called the Center for Legal Inclusiveness, which says it is dedicated to advancing diversity in the legal profession.

Well, I’m all for diversity in the legal profession. Who isn’t? There should be prosecutors and defense lawyers, plaintiffs’ and defendants’ lawyers. There should be people of all colors and genders, religions and perspectives. Diversity is glorious. If someone wants to be a lawyer and has the chops to cut it, why not? So I read the note from the CEO Sara Scott. Continue reading →

In the Washington Post, Georgetown Prawf Paul Butler makes the obvious observation that having a substantial pool of money to fund a criminal defense beats the crap out of not.

Don’t believe the hype that Rittenhouse, who was prosecuted for homicide after shooting three people at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wis., in August 2020 was acquitted because self-defense cases are tough for prosecutors to win. More than 90 percent of people who are prosecuted for any crime, including homicide, plead guilty. The few who dare to go to trial usually lose — including in murder cases.

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I’ve burned through quite a few desk chairs over the years. In the office, I tended toward leather high backs or the sort one would find on a bench, but at home, I went for the more contemporary models. You know, the ones that claimed to be ergonomic so my ergs would be happy? But being cheap frugal, I tended to buy the disposable ones from mini-mall office supply stores.

Last Christmas, the kids decided that I should have a better quality desk chair, so they got me a Herman Miller chair. Now, I didn’t know much about Herman, but I was reliably assured by Dr. SJ that this was a good chair, not the cheap crap upon which my butt usually resided, and would bring my ergs great relief. Continue reading →

It had been generally clear over the years that the audience for Eugene Volokh’s conspirators were lawyers and law profs. Maybe that’s changed, or maybe that was never really the case, as non-lawyers with an interest in legal content read there as they do here, even if the posts are generally directed toward those with a functional knowledge of law.

That was why it was it was so shocking to read this paragraph in Eugene’s explanation of why Rittenhouse could be sued civilly for negligence. Continue reading →

There are times when it’s good that this is a law blog, so I need neither Gertrude nor explain the obvious. A jury found a defendant not guilty based upon the evidence presented and the law. Juries don’t send messages. Juries determine whether the prosecution proved the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. What others make of it, from whether they agree with the verdict to what the verdict “means” to anyone else has nothing to do with the duty of jurors. Their job is to reach a verdict (or not), and they did their job.

From politicians to pundits, academics to “civil rights” organizations, the cry is that the verdict sends a message to white supremacist vigilantes to take their AR-15s to hot zones, brandish them openly where they are likely to inflame already outraged people causing a reaction born of fear, and then fire at will and kill, whether black people or white allies. Is it necessary to offer a thousand examples of this message? Not this time. It’s ubiquitous. Continue reading →

Dear SHG:

Greetings from an undisclosed location in Southeast Asia!

I think you got a little confused when I emailed you last about me taking time off from the Friday Funny. I didn’t say anything about “finding inner peace.” That part of the email actually said “striving for synergy.” It’s okay, I misread things sometimes too.

Anyway, I’m overseas right now with an NGO helping repatriate legless Uzbekistani pig farmers. It’s a bigger problem than you’d think! Continue reading →