Nelson Rockefeller thought he figured out the secret code. Everybody knew that drugs were bad, evil, destructive, but nobody knew how to stop them. They had been seen as a social and public health issue, but that failed to stem the tide, so Rocky chose to address them as a law enforcement problem, one to be dealt with harshly.

The rationale made complete sense: make the punishment for drugs so harsh, so Draconian, that no one would risk such ridiculous penalties, either to make a few bucks or to get his next fix. The only flaw in the theory was that it failed miserably. It turned out that neither drug dealers or addicts saw it as Rocky did, as law enforcement did, and so it changed nothing.

The Rockefeller Drug laws were enacted in 1973. Not only does the drug problem remain, but we’ve endured several iterations of it since. The current flavor is the opioid epidemic, and much like the crack epidemic, people are dying. Cue the syllogism, as something must be done. Continue reading →

Knowing little more about Sarah Lawrence College politics prof Samuel Abrams beyond his self-description as a “conservative-leaning” academic and visiting professor at the American Enterprise Institute, his op-ed in the New York Times was almost certain to evoke outrage on campus. It’s not that it was inflammatory. It wasn’t.

It’s that he questioned the orthodoxy by asking why his small, private, prestigious liberal arts college assumed there was no possible ideas worthy of consideration beyond the fringes of progressivism.

As a conservative-leaning professor who has long promoted a diversity of viewpoints among my (very liberal) faculty colleagues and in my classes, I was taken aback by the college’s sponsorship of such a politically lopsided event. The email also piqued my interest in what sorts of other nonacademic events were being organized by the school’s administrative staff members. Continue reading →

The reason the word Google has changed from a noun to a verb isn’t accidental. Before Google, there was a slew of search engines, almost all gone and forgotten now. Infoseek was, perhaps, its biggest competition, but Google blew it away as a search engine, and more importantly, as a business. As much as search engines were critical for using the World Wide Web, they had no means of monetizing their product. Google figured it out and crushed the competition.

It didn’t happen because of diversity. Nobody knew or cared whether they met a quota of women or minorities. The tech made it happen. The geeks made the tech happen. And the geeks were, in the light of the moment, unsavory in their actions.

But at the time, that wasn’t a national obsession and nobody cared. Or more to the point, the geeks were building a world the rest of us didn’t quite understand, and could never build on our own because we lacked their mad skillz, but definitely enjoyed and wanted. It was a brave new world, unseemly though it may have been behind the Silicon curtain. Continue reading →

For years, one of my pro bono activities was serving as a small claims court arbitrator in Manhattan civil court. It was, to be frank, illuminating. While the breadth of claims was, well, breathtaking, there were certain claims that were exceptionally common. The “bad haircut” cases, the “security deposit refund” cases and the nastiest of all, the “neighbor” cases.

It’s good to know neighbors aren’t just awful in New York City, but in Ontario, Canada, as well.

In what is perhaps the piece de resistance of the claim, the Plaintiffs allege that the Defendants – again focusing primarily on Ms. Taerk – sometimes stand in their own driveway or elsewhere on their property and look at the Plaintiffs’ house. One of the video exhibits shows Ms. Taerk doing just that, casting her gaze from her own property across the street and resting her eyes on the Plaintiffs’ abode for a full 25 seconds. There is no denying that Ms. Taerk is guilty as charged. The camera doesn’t lie.

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No one can reasonably dispute that vocabulary is an important part of a child’s education. So what’s wrong with creating a bit of synergy on a vocabulary test?

The mother of a St. Augustine High School student said she’s concerned about the political wording of a question on a vocabulary exam her son took Monday.

Reanna Parham and her son Logan said the question was part of an advanced English exam, and Logan said many in the class were talking about the way it was worded.

“Advanced,” indeed. Continue reading →

At the moment, roadblocks to voting are on the front burner, under the assumption that if the Democrats can just create a new voting block of ex-cons, they will adopt progressive ideals of getting whatever makes their life better for free and vote their team. Whether that’s true remains to be seen, but nonetheless, they aren’t wrong to fight for the franchise for people who have served their sentence. They should be entitled to their right to vote, no matter who they vote for.

But then there’s the fee issue, where restoration of voting rights is contingent on ex-cons paying their debt to society not only by time in prison, but in actual dollars. Regardless of the moment’s trendy concern for the sake of voting rights, the burden of prison debt will remain a massive problem for people who we want and expect to come out of prison and lead law-abiding productive lives.

While many Americans would claim to believe in second chances, this country’s felony laws frequently block people from full participation in our society after they’ve served time by denying them the right to vote. Those who have completed their sentences are all too often prevented from casting ballots simply because they have unpaid court fines and fees.

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Professor Garrett Epps sought to school me in political correctness, after I twitted that it wasn’t just a matter of “decency, manners and common sense.”

Translation: asking people not to be rude to you oppresses them.

Was that a better characterization of political correctness than mine? After all, don’t people have the right to tell someone that they don’t care for their “rude” words? Of course they do, but the problem is that it’s not about “asking,” or even “rudeness.” Ali Kingston, the student bar president at George Washington law school learned this the hard way. Continue reading →

How many thousands, tens of thousands, of young people have endured the pleasure of a TSA worker touching the parts of their body that would put anyone else in prison, or at least expel them from college? So what if the TSA has never thwarted a terrorist. Isn’t the bodily integrity of air travelers a small price to pay for the solace of safety for the fearful?

But at least the fellow-travelers are there and aware of the TSA’s advances. What about parents whose children are snatched by another group of well-intended protectors, only to be whisked away for a routine examination of their vagina and rectum. Not because of any particular concern that the child has been sexually abused, but just because . . . to not digitally inspect a child’s “most intimate parts” would mean the government didn’t do all they could, everything possible, to protect the child. By some random person’s finger spreading their labia.

The Ninth Circuit in Mann v. County of San Diego held that doing this violated the parents’ Fourteenth Amendment right and the children’s Fourth Amendment rights. The scenario began with another well-intended requirement, mandatory reporting. Continue reading →

Andy Rubin is the guy who invented Android software, which may not mean a whole lot to you but likely meant a great deal to Google, because money. And so when he left, it was with warm words of thanks and a more substantive show of appreciation.

Google gave Andy Rubin, the creator of Android mobile software, a hero’s farewell when he left the company in October 2014.

“I want to wish Andy all the best with what’s next,” Larry Page, Google’s chief executive then, said in a public statement. “With Android he created something truly remarkable — with a billion-plus happy users.”

And, according to the Times, a golden handshake. Continue reading →

The demand by the Wisconsin Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is for an apology, and there is little question that Circuit Judge David Borowski, if he had any shame at all, should do so. Then again, if he had the proper temperament for being a judge, he wouldn’t be in the situation where he owed an apology.

It began with a urine test by Marcus Wilborn.

Marcus Wilborn, 32, was charged in August with homicide by negligent operation of a motor vehicle for a June 2017 two-car crash near North 30th Street and West Lisbon Avenue. He struck another driver broadside an the intersection. Wilborn’s blood showed an alcohol level of 0.11 and a significant presence of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

He had been free on a $50,000 signature bond since August. One of his conditions of release is maintaining absolute sobriety.

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