There’s a difference between being smart, which I’ll define as having a broad range of knowledge and the capacity for rational thought, and intelligent in a particular subject, such as the person who is a brilliant physicist but can’t figure out how to change a tire. Both of them might have a college diploma, even a graduate degree or more, because smart people are more likely to obtain degrees.

It’s not the degree that makes them smart, although it might reflect their being better educated in a particular subject because they’ve studied it in depth. One of the constant arguments about lawyers is that a lot of us aren’t all that bright, which is true, though most of us have a functional knowledge of how law works. This is sufficiently specialized knowledge to distinguish lawyers from non-lawyers when it comes to legal matters. It’s not that non-lawyers aren’t just as smart, if not smarter, than lawyers, but they lack the foundation necessary to understand law. And since Congress does law, that knowledge can come in handy. Continue reading →

Understand that I am against the death penalty for a variety of reasons, none of which is to say that there aren’t bad people out there who are undeserving of sympathy. And, based upon my anecdotal experience, there are a lot more of them than most people realize. Still, Lisa Montgomery’s actions reached the level of reprehensibility that would, at least arguably, put her among the “worst of the worst.”

On Dec. 16, 2004, Ms. Montgomery drove to Skidmore, Mo., where she strangled a pregnant woman named Bobbie Jo Stinnett, then sliced open her belly and took the baby to the home she shared with her husband, Kevin, in Kansas. The baby survived.

Not exactly the sort of crime that can be chalked up to the usual warm and fuzzy “blame society” excuses. Or is it? Continue reading →

Ed. Note: Greg Prickett is a 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.

There are times when police officers overstep when using deadly force, and times when they do not—and body cameras have proved essential in determining the facts in those cases. On April 22, 2020, Daniel Hernandez caused a five-car accident in Los Angeles, and, according to a 911 call, was cutting himself with a knife. Continue reading →

I asked my son what he did last night, and he told me he had a “zoom date.”

“A what?” A “zoom date,” where he and a woman swiped in the same direction on some app, if that’s how it works, and they then have a “date.” On Zoom. Where they sit in their own homes and stare at a screen and attempt to make a connection. There was no shared food, no beverage, no smell, no taste and no feel. It sounded awful. No, it sounded ridiculously sanitary, as if no two human beings could possibly believe this was a good idea. Yet, this is the time of COVID, so real dates couldn’t happen and virtual was all they had left. Continue reading →

You don’t know it, but there is a stealthy movement for federal judges to get priority treatment for vaccination from COVID-19. I won’t go into detail how I know about the “we are special movement,” but I am not lying. It’s true and its pervasive. It goes all the way to the mother ship, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

“Great British Baking Show Judge” Prue Leith, aged 80, was among the first to get the magic vax in the UK.

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Who gets the COVID-19 vaccine before someone else is both an easy and difficult question. The first group on line are uncontroversial, healthcare workers in the trenches trying to save the lives of those suffering. But things quickly get fuzzy after that.

While federal officials have issued broad recommendations about who should be first in line—healthcare workers and residents of long-term facilities—individual states will be making the final decision of how to distribute the limited number of vaccines. At least 19 will consider measures of inequality, including poverty and race, in order to reach those who are worse off, according to a review of state plans filed with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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Happy Friday everyone. Let’s start the festivities by having a laugh at my expense.

Below is a photo of world class mentalist Peter Turner fooling me badly during an after hours zoom gathering of magicians.

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It’s been coming for a while. It’s why “Karen” happened, the white woman acting upon her fear, when that fear happens to involve a black person. Maybe the woman is wrong to be afraid, but maybe she’s not. After all, the narrative says that she is allowed to be afraid, for good reason or whatever reason, since women are historically oppressed, except when she’s afraid of someone whose identity trumps hers. It’s all so confusing, which explains why feminist scholar Susan Estrich gets it all so very, very wrong.

Having been run out of San Francisco, as liberal a place as you will find in America, George Gascon relocated to Los Angeles. Having failed to free everyone from prison in San Francisco, he is now trying to do even worse in Southern California.

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There are bad, and I mean truly bad, things that happen. As Judge Kopf put it, sometimes bad things happen to good people, and it can’t be helped. But this could have been helped. It never should have happened. It never should have been possible. Yet it was and it did.

It was before dawn on Nov. 27, 2001, and Termaine Joseph Hicks was at the wrong place at precisely the wrong time.

A woman had been pistol-whipped, dragged into an alleyway behind what was then St. Agnes Hospital in South Philadelphia, and raped — until the rapist was startled and fled the scene. Hicks heard her screams and rushed to help. But, seconds later, police officers arrived, took him for the rapist and shot him three times. Hicks survived, but was charged with the rape and sentenced to 12½ to 25 years in prison. Continue reading →

It was more than ten years ago that Dr. SJ’s parents moved from New York to North Carolina, or “North Cacalacca” as her father called it. He wasn’t really on board with the move, and found the accents of his new neighbors somewhat odd. Among the many reasons he struggled with his new digs was that he was one of those guys who really loved New York. And one of the things he loved, and missed, was this shop in Queens that made chorizo. He could live without edible bagels, but what he really missed was that chorizo.

For Christmas, Dr. SJ decided to send her father a big bundle of chorizos. She made the trek to Queens and came home with a huge bag. After taking a few out for us, we packed the rest up in ice, inside this really cool bag designed to keep things cold. This went into a United States Postal Service Priority Mail box, together with a tin of holiday cookies Dr. SJ made from a recipe handed down by her grandmother to her, and her alone. Everyone else loved them, but nobody else made them. Continue reading →