When former career public defender Mary Moriarty was elected as Hennepin County district attorney, a choice was made. After all, elections have consequences, whether for better or worse. And Moriarty did what she was elected to do.

Starting Monday, prosecutors in Hennepin County will be required to consider race when offering plea deals, according to a new policy from County Attorney Mary Moriarty.

Had this policy been that black defendants were to be treated more harshly than white defendants, a storm of outrage would have rightly arose. After all, it would be fundamentally wrong, not to mention unconstitutional, for black people to be treated worse because of their race. But, of course, that’s not what Moriarty meant. Continue reading →

Remember the Pentagon Papers? Too long ago? What about the second Signalgate, the chaos in the Defense Department, the unsecured internet connection in Hegseth’s office so he can let his wife, brother and lawyer know about military operations? The Trump administration won’t let that sort of embarrassment happen to them anymore, if Trump criminal defense lawyer Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has anything to say about it.

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No, unlike presidents and sometimes federal agents, judges are not above the law. And few would raise an eyebrow if a judge was arrested for a slew of offenses, from taking bribes to put children in prison to taking bribes to keep adults out. But the arrest of a state judge, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan, for obstructing ICE, DEA and FBI agents from the warrantless* and permissionless** arrest of an alien raises the stakes in a war on federalism.

According to the complaint, Dugan confronted members of the arrest team while “visibly upset and had a confrontational, angry demeanor.” She told the group members they needed a judicial warrant, not an administrative one, and directed them to report to Chief Judge Carl Ashley’s office.

While this was going on, the bailiff informed the arrest team — which included ICE, FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency officials — that Dugan had expedited Flores-Ruiz’s case. Witnesses told federal authorities that she then “forcefully motioned” for the defendant and his attorney to exit through a side door near the jury box that leads to a private hallway and then to the public area outside the courtroom.

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Sheriff Roy Templeton tucked Junior into bed.

“Tell me a story, dad? And can it be about animals and not one of those times where you make up a story about when Deputy Tyrone handles Animal Control?”

After thinking the request over, this was what the Sheriff told: Continue reading →

It may be that Trump forgot, but it’s far more likely that he never knew or never cared about the policy that became a foundation for international stability for the past 80 years. It’s not as if such things matter much to Trump when he’s got outcomes to accomplish to create the appearance of success, no matter what the cost.

Threats to run for a third term notwithstanding, Mr. Trump is a lame-duck president, which makes him more prone to take rash actions on the international stage. As his own threats to take over Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal suggest, he is sympathetic to the idea of big countries taking over smaller ones, and he is behaving far more erratically in the realm of foreign affairs than he did in his first term. That he might become the first American president to confer legitimacy on the annexation of another country’s territory is a real, and terrifying, possibility.

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Yet another Executive Order was signed by President Trump, this time declaring the death of disparate impact liability.

A bedrock principle of the United States is that all citizens are treated equally under the law. This principle guarantees equality of opportunity, not equal outcomes.  It promises that people are treated as individuals, not components of a particular race or group.  It encourages meritocracy and a colorblind society, not race- or sex-based favoritism.  Adherence to this principle is essential to creating opportunity, encouraging achievement, and sustaining the American Dream.

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It’s unclear whether the concept of due process is that difficult that non-lawyers, or perhaps just those disinterested, fail to grasp its significance, or people are just making up nonsense because it’s, well, inconvenient.

If you skipped the “due process” when you came into the country, you should be afforded no “due process” on your way out.

This view has gained some steam, even though it’s completely nonsensical. Due process has nothing to do with coming into the country and no one who understands the concept would twit something so absurd unless their point was to confuse and mislead the simpletons. Who would do such a thing? Why would any patriotic, Constitution-loving  American do such a thing? Continue reading →

If Interim and nominee for United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin’s bizarre overreach by sending a letter to Georgetown Law School was worthy of a Cleveland Brown’s response, at least Georgetown was within his district. His latest missive, however, not only shares the same bizarre overreach, but no longer reflects any grasp of American geography. This time, he sent a letter to a medical journal in Illinois.

Ed Martin, the Interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia, has sent out a letter to a rather obscure medical journal, “Chest” – a journal published in Illinois by the American College of Chest Physicians and focused on pulmonary and sleep-related medical research[*].  The letter, dated 4/14/2025, was first reported on the website “Medpage Today,” and was, apparently, one of at least three that Martin sent out to different medical journals.

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There are some reasons why people have lost faith in the competence of physicians. They don’t have all the answers. They can often be smug and dismissive toward patients. Medical malpractice has been a far greater problem than docs care to admit, with medical errors costing about 250,000 patients their lives per year according to a Johns Hopkins study. Then there’s the internet, where anybody can google their diagnosis and treatment with neither the benefit of a medical education nor the experience of treating ailments.

That occasionally ends with doctors being told by patients and their families that they want to be treated in a way that conflicts with the doctors’ advice. What’s a doc to do? Continue reading →

When shots rang out at the Galleria Mall in Birmingham, Alabama, two things happened at pretty much the same time. Two police officers went toward the sound of gunfire, and one Good Samaritan drew his legally carried handgun and went toward the sound of gunfire to help. That was the last thing the Good Samaritan, EJ Bradford, did.

On Thanksgiving night in 2018, David Alexander—a policeman with the City of Hoover—was on foot patrol with his partner in the Galleria Mall in Birmingham, Alabama. During a suspected active shooting situation, and within seconds after gunshots had been fired in the Mall, Officer Alexander saw Emantic “E.J.” Fitzgerald Bradford moving towards two men (who appeared to be shooting victims) with a gun in his hand and at his side. Without issuing a verbal warning, Officer Alexander shot and killed Mr. Bradford when he was about ten feet away from the two men. It turns out that Mr. Bradford was legally authorized to carry his gun pursuant to a permit issued under Alabama law and was going towards the sound of the shots in an attempt to provide assistance.

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