Lying Lawyers are Inexcusable Liars

Over at VC, Ilya Somin has an excellent post about Biden’s “parole in place” policy. which should be about as uncontroversial from a policy perspective as any presidential act could be.

Today, President Biden  announced a policy granting “parole in place” to undocumented immigrant spouses of US citizens who have been in the US for at least 10 years, and meet some other criteria. Those eligible can apply for parole status. If they get it, they will then have a three-year period during which they will have work permits and can apply for “green card” permanent residency (that status will eventually also enable them to apply for citizenship). Currently spouses of US citizens are already eligible to apply for green cards. But if they entered the US illegally, they are required to meet onerous conditions, such as first leaving the United States, and staying away for up to ten years. About 500,000 people could potentially benefit from the program.

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Tuesday Talk*: When None Of The Above Is Not An Option

While many people who find Trump so personally repugnant that they could never vote for him under any circumstances, that doesn’t mean that they’re enthralled with the alternative. There is a debate coming up, during which we may learn that neither candidate is fit for office, even if Joe Biden isn’t as bad as Trump. Then what?

I posed the question on the twitters and the responses were . . . interesting.

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The Bleeding of Social Media

For a while now, Jon Haidt has been arguing that social media plays a significant role in the spike in anxiety and depression in teens. While it hasn’t received universal approval, it also hasn’t received much condemnation. There just aren’t a great many people who want to argue that social media in excess is good for anyone, particularly when it comes to kids using their smartphones to access social media during school.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has come up with a solution: Put a surgeon general’s warning on social media. Continue reading →

Remembering Dads

My father died in 2019. Dr. SJ’s father passed last November. Neither of us has a dad to send a card to, make breakfast for or give a gift to. The days of doing that are behind us now, but we don’t forget.

Mothers were the ones who nurtured us, fed us, wiped our tears and kissed our boo boos. Dads? They were the ones who would be stern when they got home. Things were a bit different back when Dr. SJ and I were young.

Dads were the ones who fixed things that broke and were too busy mowing the lawn to play catch. When we misbehaved, they were the ones mom told us we should wait for when they came home. We didn’t really appreciate dads as children. But we grew up and realized how important they were in our lives. Continue reading →

A Single Function Of The Trigger

Not being a gun guy, it’s unclear to me what purpose a bump stock serves other than to allow someone to shoot a lot of bullets very quickly by using the rifle’s recoil to do the trigger pulling work. They are useful to people with disability, or so I’m told, though I’m not sure why and it doesn’t really matter. And after what happened in Vegas, I can well appreciate why bump stocks can present a horrific menace that should no more exist than machine guns in civilian hands.

Your mileage may vary, but I just can’t see any reason to allow the sale of bump stocks, other than to prepare for battle with…someone. Continue reading →

Seaton: The Tale of Deputy Dennis

It may be hard for some SJ readers to believe, but there are good cops out there. While we often hear of those officers who process every encounter into a beating, shooting or tasing, there are many who actually take into account the considerations of the community and act accordingly.

One of my favorites was Deputy Dennis,* a Sheriff’s deputy I interacted with almost daily in my hometown during my first few years of practice.

Small town law is a strange bird. You’re expected to follow the “adversarial system” that pits the State against the individual, but there’s often times when you’re waiting on the DA to hear out your case or plea deal and you have nothing else to do but jaw with the cops or other lawyers in the room. Deputy Dennis was one of the fun ones to shoot the breeze with. If you wanted a good story, he was the first person to ask. Continue reading →

For $9,500, Who Wouldn’t?

Cold cases are cold, and the failure to close old, cold cases is often used to condemn law enforcement with good reason. After all, cops are brilliant on TV shows, capable of using a combination of intuition and magic to figure out whodunnit. But that’s not working in Florida, so the attorney general, Ashley Moody, has come up with an alternative plan when CSI fails her.

Attorney General Ashley Moody, with the Florida Association of Crime Stoppers, Florida Sheriffs Association and Florida Department of Corrections, at the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office today announced the launch of Cold Case Cards. Each playing card features a photograph and information about an unsolved homicide or missing-person case. More than 5,000 decks will be distributed to Florida jails and prisons to generate new leads and insights from inmates to help solve longstanding criminal investigations.

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But Isn’t It The Roberts Court?

In contrast to the kerfuffle over Justice Sam Alito’s answers to Lauren Windsor, Chief Justice John Roberts said all the right things.

Ms. Windsor pressed the chief justice about religion, saying, “I believe that the founders were godly, like were Christians, and I think that we live in a Christian nation and that our Supreme Court should be guiding us in that path.”

Chief Justice Roberts quickly answered, “I don’t know if that’s true.”

He added: “I don’t know that we live in a Christian nation. I know a lot of Jewish and Muslim friends who would say maybe not, and it’s not our job to do that.”

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Tuesday Talk*: Did Justice Alito Confess To Perfidy?

It’s normal for a justice or two to show up at a black tie affair of the Supreme Court Historical Society, so Justice Sam Alito’s presence, along with C,J. Roberts, was nothing out of the ordinary. But a progressive activist, Lauren Windsor, seized upon the opportunity to engage the justice by pretending to be a religious conservative. She recorded the discussion.

“One side or the other is going to win,” Justice Alito told the woman, Lauren Windsor, at an exclusive gala at the Supreme Court. “There can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised.” Continue reading →