When the Supreme Court considers what it hears this week in United States v. Texas – the Republican lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s immigration initiatives – the justices should start by getting the basic facts right, which is something that both the administration’s political opponents and lower court judges have scrupulously failed to do. While… Read more »
Law and Justice
On the Crime Bill, Liberals are Eating Their Own
The 1994 crime bill is back at the center of the Democratic presidential debate. This is largely, if not solely, the result of Black Lives Matter protesters interrupting a speech last week by the man who signed it, Bill Clinton, and Clinton’s vigorous and detailed attempt to address their shouted complaints. Fact-checking sites are now… Read more »
Think and Act Locally When It Comes to Criminal Justice
I’m glad to see this coverage in the New York Times today acknowledging that the federal government isn’t the main event when it comes to mass incarceration, an idea to which I have long subscribed. I’ve actually been planning a longer post about this, focusing on the ways in which criminal legal scholarship is disproportionately… Read more »
The Constitution as a Code of Honor
It would probably delight the late Justice Antonin Scalia to know that the fight over his successor was generating constitutional controversy. Indeed, like many controversies that Justice Scalia fueled, this one concerns not only the implications of particular clauses, but the very nature of constitutional law. In nominating Judge Merrick B. Garland to succeed Justice… Read more »
Hilary Bricken on Investing in Cannabis
Hilary Bricken heads the cannabis law group at at Harris Moure, PLLC and will lead the panel on “investing in cannabis” at the NYU Cannabis Science & Policy Summit two weeks from now. She has some good advice both for firms in the cannabis business seeking investors and for potential investors about the risks the firms need… Read more »
Making The Moral Case Against Solitary Confinement
PALO ALTO – Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik argued in court last week that his detention in solitary confinement violates the European Convention on Human Rights. Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in prison for killing 77 people in a politically motivated bomb attack and shooting rampage in 2011. Norway takes a relatively gentle… Read more »
Marijuana Legalization and Racial Disparities: Not So Simple After All
How many times have you heard that making pot illegal was “The New Jim Crow”, producing by design massive racial disparities in drug arrests? As is so often the case in drug policy, the data are unkind to theory. About 18 months ago, Dr. Mike Males published a report showing that legalizing/decriminalizing marijuana had if… Read more »
Adoptive gay parents win another Supreme Court victory (mostly)
On March 7th, the Alabama Supreme Court was dealt yet another blow in its crusade to strip gays and lesbians of their relationship and familial rights. This time, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legal status of a nonbiological mother, known in court documents as V.L., who was embroiled in a heated custody battle with… Read more »
The Stunning Facts on Crime and Imprisonment Everyone Is Ignoring
Young-age crime, gun violence, school dropout, and other ills are declining while the imprisonment rates among middle-aged whites are rising.
Community Policing and Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities
Pardon this rather prosaic post on an important subject. Increasing numbers of police officers and others in criminal justice have gotten the memo that the field must do a better job addressing individuals in mental health crisis. Men and women living with intellectual and developmental disabilities sometimes experience behavioral behavioral crises that bring them into… Read more »
