At Vox, German Lopez proffers what he calls the “radical” notion of capping all prison sentences at 20 years.

It’s time for a radical idea that could really begin to reverse mass incarceration: capping all prison sentences at no more than 20 years. It may sound like an extreme, even dangerous, proposal, but there’s good reason to believe it would help reduce the prison population without making America any less safe.

To the extent it might sound dangerous, that’s the by-product of the past 50 years of tough-on-crime appeal to our emotions, that bad things, horrible crimes, were happening and threatened our lives, our safety, our loved ones. The fix was to lock them away, for longer, then longer, then longer still. Continue reading →

[Ed. Note: As noted in the comments, this post is flawed in that Winthrop House is an undergrad dorm, and as far as the available information shows, this protest is by undergraduate students, not law students.]

Students at Harvard Law School have gained a bad reputation. Too social justice warrior, not enough lawyer. But when one of their prawfs announced he was taking on an outside gig as part of the Harvey Weinstein legal team following Ben Brafman’s falling out, what did he expect to happen?

Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood film producer who has been accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women, has hired Harvard Law School professor and Winthrop House Faculty Dean Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. to represent him in his Manhattan sexual abuse case.

Sullivan — who heads the Law School’s Criminal Justice Institute — will serve on Weinstein’s legal team with lawyers Jose Baez and Pamela Mackey.

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Detroit had money problems, but it came out of bankruptcy. It was called a “rebirth.” That didn’t help the fund with which to pay the judgments for the people wrongfully convicted, wrongfully imprisoned. It’s effectively broke.

“The current balance in the fund is so low that a single case or two could deplete it,” Rossman-McKinney said. “We cannot and should not lead people to believe they will be compensated for their wrongful incarceration if we are unwilling to appropriate the necessary funds.”

Michigan Department of Treasury spokesman Ron Leix said last week the exoneration fund contained about $1.6 million — or $400,000 less than the $2 million it owes just one wrongfully convicted murderer, Richard Phillips. Phillips spent 46 years in prison before his case was overturned, making him the longest-serving wrongfully convicted inmate in U.S. history, according to the Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan.

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Female students at Towson University are in fear for their safety, but the Towson cops are on the case.

The Baltimore Sun reports that a woman in her mid-50s has been visiting the campus of Towson University in Maryland pestering female students. The mom reportedly approaches her victims, shows them a photo of her eligible son and asks if they are interested in dating him.

That’s right. Victims. This was flagrantly non-consensual, this predator forcing an image in the unwitting faces of survivors. And who poses this threat to their safety? Continue reading →

It was alleged to have happened in 1999, which just happens to be 20 years ago. Meredith Watson’s attorney wrote a statement alleging two rapes, one by an unnamed Duke basketball player, the other by now-Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax. According to the lawyer’s statement, they happened at Duke University. They happened 20 years ago.

But Watson graduated from Duke long ago. Other than being the site of these two-decade old allegations, Duke has nothing to do with this, but that’s not going to stop it from pretending it’s relevant.

Duke’s interest in an allegation from 1999 goes well beyond sports. The university and its administrators had reporting obligations under both Title IX and the Clery Act. These are federal laws designed to prevent and deter sexual harassment, violence and discrimination on college campuses. While potential civil liability and government fines under these laws have likely passed due to the impracticality of enforcement two decades later and the expiration of relevant statutes of limitation, the university will nonetheless want to self-assess its compliance.

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There’s a possibility that a group of Assistant United States Attorneys plan to hop on their chopped hogs and take to the road, their rep ties flapping in the wind. And should they do so while wearing the colors of the Mongols Motorcycle Club, the enforcement of trademark against them might raise a hoary issue.

In 2008, the government filed RICO, or racketeering, charges against certain members of the Mongols Motorcycle Club. In the process, the Justice Department also sought forfeiture of the club’s trademark in its logo, a distinctive design that combined words and images to signify membership in the group.

After members were indicted, the Justice Department obtained a pretrial order authorizing confiscation of items bearing the Mongols’ logo.

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There is a certain amusement about the “free the nipple” movement, as women challenge the criminalization of baring their breasts in public. A victory was scored in Colorado. The New Hampshire Supreme Court has just handed the nipple a defeat. The law at issue expressly criminalized the public display of female breasts.

Callanan testified that Pierro was arrested for violating Laconia City Ordinance § 180-2 (the ordinance), which states, in relevant part, that “it shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly or intentionally, in a public place: . . . [a]ppear in a state of nudity.” “Nudity” is defined as “[t]he showing of the human male or female genitals, pubic area or buttocks with less than a fully opaque covering, or the showing of the female breast with less than a fully opaque covering of any part of the nipple.” Laconia, N.H., Code of Ordinances ch. 180, art. I, § 180-4 (1998).

Unequal protection? The court wasn’t biting. Continue reading →

The following is a guest post, at my “request,” from Guy Hamilton-Smith.

Michigan’s Attorney General has entered the cultural and legal conflagration of how we reckon with sexual violence in our society with a remarkable (and compelling) argument: Michigan’s sex offender registries are not effective at stopping sexual violence.

It’s a remarkable argument. Safety and accountability have been the ostensible watchwords in our ongoing collective discussion of sexual violence, but strong (and understandable) emotion has tended to override those concerns and diverted discourse into negative-feedback loops of ever more brutal consequences for anyone who would even be perceived to stand in the way of that punitive impulse. Just ask Aaron Perksy. Continue reading →

Each story has its own variations, each of which give rise to significant issues of their own, but share a few primary things in common. They involve men who were not alleged to have committed any crime, provided you’re not of the misguided view that failure to comply with the unlawful demands of police for identification is close enough. And they were caught on video.*

The first comes from Broward County, where Deputy James Cady demands that Allen Floyd, holding his child, show identification.

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Decades ago, my parents sold my childhood home in New Jersey. Between contract and closing, they held a garage sale to shed their burden of packing their history, and mine. There were many things on the front lawn I wanted to keep, but Dr. SJ and I were just starting out in our lives as grown-ups, and had no place to put them. She was adamant that I had to let it go.

I’ve had regrets. I regretted not taking my father’s World War II uniforms, for example. HIs field jacket. His Eisenhower jacket. His boots and caps. And then there were the fish plates. My great grandmother, Grandma Oliner, left them to my mother, a complete set of antique fish plates. Each plate bore the painted image of a different fish. It’s not that I cared or knew much about fish. I was not a big fish guy, whether to catch them or eat them. But the plates were magnificent.

Yet, Dr. SJ insisted that we leave them behind, to be bought by any random person with loose change in their pocket. After all, where we would put them? What would we do with them?  Continue reading →