The charge was providing material support for terrorism, which means two things: first, that the defendant is subject to presumptive detention. Second, it’s terrorism, which changes everything. As everyone knows, inter arma enim silent legēs, and there’s a war on terror. All the newspapers say so.

But not even the word “terror” keeps its sting forever, and Colorado Senior District Court Judge John Kane finally hit the wall.

A federal judge in Denver on Friday ordered the release of an Uzbekistan terror suspect held for 5½ years without trial on charges he provided material support to the Islamic Jihad Union.

Charges are still pending against Jamshid Muhtorov, and he will remain at the GEO Aurora Detention Center, 3130 N. Oakland St. in Aurora, until a release hearing Monday in which Senior U.S. District Judge John Kane will determine conditions of his release.

There will be a hearing, and conditions for release will be set by Judge Kane. What they will be, and whether they’re doable*, presents an interesting question. What if the government seeks a condition that’s too onerous or impossible to achieve? Does Muhtorov then stay in jail? But that’s getting ahead of the case. The question remains how it’s possible that more than five years after arrest, a presumptively innocent person remains in jail at all. Continue reading →

Trickle down economics didn’t work the last time it was tried to boost America’s economic fortunes by cutting taxes for the rich and corporations, then waiting for that spare change to find its way into the pockets of working folks downstream. But trickle down poverty works better.

Dawn Nasewicz comes from a family of steelworkers, with jobs that once dominated the local economy. She found her niche in retail. She manages a store, Ooh La La, that sells prom dresses and embroidered jeans at a local mall. But just as the jobs making automobile springs and rail anchors disappeared, local retail jobs are now vanishing.

“I need my income,” said Ms. Nasewicz, who was told that her store will close as early as August. “I’m 53. I have no idea what I’m going to do.”

The problem isn’t complex. Unemployed customers are eventually forced to stop buying, particularly things that aren’t absolute necessities. So when the primary driver of a local economy folds or moves, it takes down the secondary economy as well. Forget Abe Maslow’s hierarchy; they need food on the table. Continue reading →

Much has been made of the acquittal of Jeronimo Yanez for the killing of Philando Castile, and lets not forget that this isn’t the first time that the batting average of prosecutors took a dive when it was a cop in the dock. Greg Prickett provides a short review.

University of Cincinnati Police Officer Ray Tensing just had his second trial for the murder of Samuel DeBose end in a hung jury. In Minnesota, Saint Anthony Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted for the killing of Philando Castile. In Wisconsin, Milwaukee Police Officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown was acquitted in the reckless homicide of Sylville Smith. Tulsa Police Officer Betty Jo Shelby was found not guilty of manslaughter. Hummelstown, Pennsylvania Police Officer Lisa Mearkle acquitted of murder. Cleveland Police Officer Michael Brelo, acquitted. North Charleston Police Officer Michael Slager, mistrial on state murder charge. I could go on and on.

Greg’s purpose isn’t to fuel another round of outrage, or to set the stage for more demands that the system confess to racism. Rather, he suggests that this may not be a bad thing.

When you have a police officer shoot and kill someone, it has been extremely rare that the officer is criminally charged, but that’s changing. It is believed that Yanez is the first Minnesota police officer that has faced trial for an on-duty shooting. Shelby was the first Tulsa officer prosecuted for an on-duty shooting. It’s rare, but things are changing, and that’s a good sign. As a society, we need to hold police officers accountable, and to do that, we put them in front of a jury, in front of our fellow citizens, who we entrust to do their duty and determine if the state has proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Continue reading →

Remember that tech train lawyers were told they had to hop on or it would pass them by? Well, it doesn’t stop in New Jersey anymore.

On June 21, 2017, the Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics, Committee on Attorney Advertising, and Committee on the Unauthorized Practice of Law issued a Joint Opinion (ACPE Opinion 732, CAA Opinion 44, UPL Opinion 54) stating that the legal service program operated by Avvo through its website is an impermissible lawyer referral service, in violation of Rules of Professional Conduct 7.2(c) and 7.3(d), and comprises improper fee sharing with a nonlawyer in violation of Rule of Professional Conduct 5.4(a). New Jersey lawyers may not participate in the Avvo legal service program.

The program specifically referred to is Avvo Advisor, its 15 minute consultations for $39.95, of which Avvo takes $10 as its advertising fee. New Jersey calls bullshit.

The first question asks whether lawyers who participate in these programs are engaged in impermissible fee sharing in violation of Rule of Professional Conduct 5.4(a) (“[a] lawyer shall not share legal fees with a nonlawyer”). The Committees find that the Avvo business model violates Rule of Professional Conduct 5.4(a). The participating lawyer receives the set price for the legal service provided, then pays a portion of that amount to Avvo. The label Avvo assigns to this payment (“marketing fee”) does not determine the purpose of the fee.

Continue reading →

Bret Stephens, the former Wall Street Journal pundit who was brought aboard the New York Times as its token lightning rod, has announced that he is quitting what he calls the “pornified” twitters.

Twitter is no different. Bigotry flourishes on Twitter, since it offers the bigot the benefits of anonymity along with instantaneous, uncensored self-publication. It’s the place where their political minds can be as foul as they want to be — without the expense or reputational risk of showing their face at a Richard Spencer rally.

Twitter doesn’t merely amplify ugliness. It erases nuance, coarsens thought, turns into a game of “Telephone” in which original meaning becomes hopelessly garbled with every successive re-tweet. It also facilitates a form of self-righteous digital bullying and mob-like behavior that can wreck people’s lives.

A disappointing grasp of the medium, for sure. It’s hard for even the most best among us to twit thoughtfully. Nuance requires effort, discipline. The lazy twitterer can blame twitter, but his failing is that he’s lazy. A good mechanic doesn’t blame his tools.

Stephens’ problem isn’t twitter, but people. They’re awful. They’re stupid. They’re mean, nasty, hateful and just plain awful. With some experience, one learns to shrug off the myriad awful twits, because there is neither an intelligence test nor a sanity test to purchase a keyboard. Continue reading →

First Shoot: It was a pedestrian puppycide, which is completely permissible if a cop utters the magic words that he feared the doggie might hurt him.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies killed a teenager Thursday morning while shooting at a pitbull they said was charging at them.

It’s another example of over-reliance on police response and too much deference to the actions they take. The Los Angeles County sheriff’s office said its policy is that officers are allowed to shoot at dogs if they “reasonably believe” they could be seriously injured or killed by the animal.

Police responded to a “loud party” call. Loud parties can be annoying to others, who are certainly entitled to their quiet enjoyment of their own home. But the call to cops for salvation implicates another truism, that every police interaction has the potential to end in death, no matter how trivial its initiation. Continue reading →

There was much to question and challenge about the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department’s handling of the mass roundup, the “kettling,” of protesters on Trump’s Inauguration Day. After all, distinguishing between those engaging in destruction and those merely present, or more importantly, present for protected purposes such as reporting on the protest, is the hard job police are paid to do.

And historically, the MPD has been pretty good at handling protests in a constitutionally protective manner, as even ThinkProgress concedes. But not this time.

When black-clad marchers began smashing windows in Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day, the city’s police force — reputedly the best in the country at upholding protesters’ rights during disruptive demonstrations — went nuclear.

Officers quickly deployed pepper spray, tear gas, and crowd-control grenades of various types. The Metropolitan Police Department opted to “kettle” everyone on the streets nearby the initial anarchist-driven property destruction, something it does not, by reputation, make a habit of doing during protests.

Whether these tactics were justified is one question. When violence erupts, the first course of action is to stop the violence and destruction. Whether this was the best tactic to do so is another matter. Not only were the kettled protesters charged with felonies, but the mass included some folks who didn’t take kindly to being treated like others who engaged in no destruction. Continue reading →

If the backstory is to be believed, Anthony Promvongsa sounds like a pretty tough guy, maybe even a gang member, who was bold enough to go after an off-duty cop with whom he had some prior beef.

According to the criminal complaint, Promvongsa tailgated and accelerated at the car of an off-duty police officer, Colby Palmersheim, who had “prior police contacts” with Promvongsa.

Palmersheim reported that he drove to the location of another off-duty police officer, Mark Riley, and said that he “believed Promvongsa was attempting to harm him.”

Promvongsa allegedly drove between the two off-duty officers’ cars at high speed before pulling back up to their cars and telling them that “he was going to go get his boys and come back to get them,” according to the complaint.

Who says such a thing to cops, especially in Worthington, Minnesota? Palmersheim called it in, and Agent Joe Joswiak of the Buffalo Ridge Drug Task Force responded. He came in hot; one very angry cop who was going to teach this guy a lesson about messing with his brother cops. Continue reading →

It might be considered a bit snarky to say that the Los Angeles Times published an op-ed by Laura Beth Nielsen in response to one by Ken White, but that may very well be the case. Newspapers try to present balance, both sides of the coin, which is generally a good thing, with one proviso: the other side of balance isn’t complete, utter, total nonsense.

There are good arguments to be made on either side of this issue. It’s unfortunate that the author of this op-ed is unfamiliar with any of them.

–SHG, Newsday, 1984

But what of Nielsen, Ken’s counterweight? Her opening sentence foreshadows the problem:

As  a sociologist and legal scholar, I struggle to explain the boundaries of free speech to undergraduates.

Continue reading →

Having written at great length about the operation of the law, Graham v. Connor, the Reasonably Scared Cop Rule, the dashcam video of the killing of Philando Castile does more in a few seconds to clarify its significance than a hundred posts here. Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez was acquitted for this killing. Whether it’s despite this video or because of it is a matter of perspective.

Beyond the video, there are many subsidiary issues, like the pretext stop for a brake light because Yanez claimed Castile looked like a suspect wanted for a crime. The post hoc rationalization that if Castile would smoke pot in front of a child, how little care would he have for Yanez’s life. But the question of how Yanez could do this, and why the jury found it acceptable, is a core legal question.

Rather than do it again, there are three very smart pieces that do an excellent job of deconstructing the scenario. The first is by Jacob Sullum at Reason. The second, David French at National Review. The third isn’t a post, but a twitstorm by @normative, Julian Sanchez. Continue reading →