Results matching “first”

Juaquin Garcia Soto was drunk and high on methamphetamine when he kicked in Israel Ramirez's apartment door and stabbed him to death in front of his girlfriend and young son.  Soto was charged with first degree murder and first degree burglary.

In California, a murder conviction requires a finding of express or implied malice.  Express malice requires intent to kill "unlawfully," while implied does not.  California Penal Code section 29.4 permits evidence of voluntary intoxication on the issue of whether a defendant "harbored express malice."

At trial, Soto claimed "imperfect" self-defense, which is the actual, but unreasonable, belief that acting in self-defense was necessary.  A successful imperfect self-defense claim will result in voluntary manslaughter because "one who holds an honest but unreasonable belief in the necessity to defend against imminent peril to life or great bodily injury does not harbor malice and commits no greater offense than manslaughter."

I don't often agree with J. Anthony Kline, Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal for the First District.  But I do agree with this letter to the editor in The Recorder, a SF legal newspaper:

At the June election, four public defenders hope to unseat four judges of the San Francisco Superior Court, Andrew Cheng, Curtis Karnow, Cynthia Ming-mei Lee, and Jeffrey Ross. According to one of the challengers, "this was really a group decision."

More is at stake in this election than initially meets the eye; and it imposes special responsibilities on the legal community.

The most notable aspect of the challenge to these judges is the reason for it, which has nothing to do with either the quality of their work or the measure of their character. Although none of the judges is a Republican (all are Democrats), they were targeted for the stated reason that all were appointed by a Republican Governor. One of the challengers says that "this is not about politicizing the bench, not about judicial independence" but only about the fact that "a Schwarzenegger appointee doesn't reflect the values of our community, it's that simple."

It is not that simple; the statement is transparently ridiculous. The effort to defeat four of the most able, compassionate, and experienced judges in northern California simply because they were appointed by a Republican Governor in an overwhelmingly Democratic county is an unmitigated act of political opportunism.

Perhaps it is time (perhaps past time) to make selection of Superior Court judges the same as Court of Appeal judges -- appointment by the governor followed by yes/no retention elections.

Quin Hillyer has this article in the National Review:

Who will decide which laws are too vaguely worded to be constitutional? By that standard, the courts could invalidate a vast number of laws.

Some conservative analysts are unwisely praising Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch for joining the court's four committed liberals to keep a felonious immigrant from deportation.

These estimable analysts, including columnist George Will and the Wall Street Journal editorial board, give too much credit to Gorsuch's elegant concurring opinion, but far too little credit to the powerful dissenting opinions by Justice Clarence Thomas and the other three conservative (or sometime-conservative) justices.

I would note that Will is a libertarian, not a conservative, and the WSJ editorial board often leans that direction as well.

Double-Murderer to Be Executed:  A Fort Worth gang member who murdered a woman and her 5-year-old granddaughter in 2008, is scheduled for execution tonight.  Keri Blakinger of the Houston Chronicle reports that Erick Davila was denied clemency and a last minute review by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday.  In a petition to the 5th Circuit Davila's lawyers claimed, for the first time, that their client was heavily intoxicated on drugs and may have been temporarily insane when he opened fire on a child's birthday party killing the woman and child and injuring several others.  Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Davila's claim that his conviction should be overturned because his appellate attorney failed to present alleged errors made by his trial attorney.  CJLF introduced argument in that case to encourage the court's 5-4 decision, which noted that "Adopting petitioner's argument could flood the federal courts with defaulted claims of appellate ineffectiveness.  For one thing, every prisoner in the country could bring these claims."  Update:  The execution was carried out about 6:30 pm CT.  The AP story is here.  The Supreme Court order denying a stay and declining to take up the case is here.  There are no recorded dissents. 

Oklahoma State Senator Ervin Yen is an anesthesiologist.  According to his official bio:

After completing his residency in 1984, he began practicing as an anesthesiologist. Dr. Yen has worked as a cardiac anesthesiologist at Saint Anthony Hospital and Integris Baptist Medical Center for more than 20 years....He is a past president of the Oklahoma Society of Anesthesiologists and past Chief of the Anesthesiology section at St. Anthony Hospital.

So Senator Yen knows more about pain and its prevention than most legislators, most lawyers, and for that matter most doctors. 

Quinton Chandler has this article and audio report for NPR station KOSU.  The article begins with the usual blather.  "Officials say nitrogen will bring quick, painless deaths, but the research is slim -- and it has never been used in U.S. executions."  What kind of "research" does this refer to?  The effects of breathing pure nitrogen instead of air are well known.  It causes hypoxia.  The effects of hypoxia have been extensively researched, and there is extensive experience from aviation.  Research specifically on use in executions obviously can't be done, so the implication that we have to have such research before a new method can be tried is a Catch-22 constructed by death penalty opponents.  Similarly, the objection that a new method which promises to be better than existing methods has never been used before is nonsensical.  That's what makes it "new," folks.

Senator Yen was a co-sponsor of the bill that authorized nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution:

He says the inmates would die from "lack of oxygen," not exposure to nitrogen.

Yen says this is not the same as choking to death, during which the "blood level of carbon dioxide would go up drastically." That carbon dioxide buildup is the primary reason for discomfort, Yen said. "Like, anxiety, and you might start sweating, and your blood pressure might go up."

Yen says when a person breathes nitrogen, they're still exhaling carbon dioxide which means they won't feel the same painful carbon dioxide buildup. They'll go to sleep and if they don't get oxygen, they'll eventually die.

In Yen's medical opinion, nitrogen hypoxia would not be painful and it wouldn't fall under the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Peter Loftus reports for the WSJ:

An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration recommended the agency approve what could become the first prescription drug in the U.S. derived from the marijuana plant, as a treatment for people with rare forms of epilepsy.

*      *      *

The FDA is expected to decide by the end of June whether to approve the drug for sale. The agency isn't required to follow the advice of its advisory committees but usually does. GW Pharmaceuticals proposes to call the drug by the brand name Epidiolex.

Is removal of marijuana from Schedule I likely to happen this year?

Today the U.S. Supreme Court decided Sessions v. Dimaya, regarding deportation and the vague definition of "crime of violence."  Justice Kagan's opinion is mostly for a majority, and hence "the opinion of the Court," but Justice Gorsuch splits off in part.  The variations in the opinions are interesting here.

"[R]emoval is a virtual certainty for an alien found to have an aggravated felony conviction, no matter how long he has previously resided here," the opinion says.  I have noted on this blog more than once that the basic rule is a good one but the definition of "aggravated felony" is a mess requiring congressional attention.  Here is the essence of today's holding:

Three Terms ago, in Johnson v. United States, this Court held that part of a federal law's definition of "violent felony" was impermissibly vague. See 576 U.S. ___ (2015). The question in this case is whether a similarly worded clause in a statute's definition of "crime of violence" suffers from the same constitutional defect. Adhering to our analysis in Johnson, we hold that it does.

The statute in question is one item in the immigration law's long list of aggravated felonies, a cross-reference to the general definition of "crime of violence" in the federal criminal code, 18 U.S.C. § 16:

Several aspect of the law of federal habeas corpus require the federal court to examine the basis of an earlier state court decision.  Was it based on a procedural default rule, the merits, or both?  If on the merits, was it a reasonable application of Supreme Court precedent on the issues decided, and, if not, what to do about the issues left undecided?

And what does a federal court do when a state court renders an opinion explaining its reasons but later decisions of the same or a higher court simply summarily deny relief?

In Ylst v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797 (1991), a procedural default case, the high court announced the "look through" rule.  Although normally the last state court decision is where a federal court should look, if that decision is unexplained the federal court will look through it to the last explained decision.

Does the Ylst "look through" rule apply to the "deference" rule of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 as well?  Yes, the high court ruled today in Wilson v. Sellers.  That was the position both parties had taken earlier in the litigation, but the Eleventh Circuit had ruled to the contrary, and the Georgia Attorney General's Office changed its stance at the Supreme Court level.

Will this change the outcome of many cases? Justice Gorsuch, dissenting, does not seem to think so.

As today's News Scan notes, Uber has announced it will do annual background checks for its drivers.  That is a step in the right direction, but not a big enough step.

CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has a post on Uber's website titled "Getting serious about safety."

Since Uber got started nearly nine years ago, we have conducted criminal and driving record screenings on millions of people. While no background check is perfect, our process is thorough, fair, and relevant to the work at hand. However, we can do more to ensure drivers continue to meet our standards on an ongoing basis, long after they take their first trip. Moving forward we will increase due diligence to strengthen our screening process:

The two paragraphs that follow describe the annual checks and new offense notifications.  Okay, they are getting more serious about new offenses.  How about old ones?  Follow the link in the above paragraph and what do we find?

Nevada Murderer's Death Sentence Upheld:  On Monday, the Nevada Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of a truck driver who raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl in September 2006.  Geoff Dornan of the Nevada Appeal reports that the court unanimously rejected Tamir Hamilton's claim that, rather than an insanity defense, his team of lawyers should have presented evidence that his chronic drug use made him unable to form the intent required for first-degree murder.  Hamilton's DNA was among the evidence that convinced a jury that he had brutally raped, mutilated, and murdered Holly Quick, nearly severing her head.  He had priors for aggravated assault, the rape of a college student, and the rape of his former girlfriend.

Sheriffs Oppose Sanctuary State Law:  The National Sheriffs' Association has joined a federal lawsuit to overturn California laws which prohibit state law enforcement, private citizens, and businesses from cooperating with federal agencies to identify and deport illegal aliens.  Bob Egelko of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the group, which represents all 58 of California's elected county sheriffs, filed an amicus curiae brief attacking SB54, arguing that by concealing an alien's whereabouts from federal agents, the law "coerces local law enforcement to violate the federal anti-harboring statute."   CJLF has also filed an amicus curiae brief in United States v. California, arguing that by prohibiting private businesses from voluntarily cooperating with federal law enforcement SB54 violates the Constitution's Privileges or Immunities Clause.

In January, the California Court of Appeal in San Francisco issued a highly controversial decision on bail, and the Attorney General declined to seek Supreme Court review.  This was too much even for the District Attorney of San Francisco, Evan Sernoffsky reports for the SF Chronicle:

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón has asked the California Supreme Court to review a landmark lower-court ruling that prohibits authorities from holding criminal defendants in jail solely because they can't afford to pay bail to get out.

The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco issued the ruling in January, reshaping California's cash-bail system. State Attorney General Xavier Becerra decided in February not to appeal the decision, and courts around the state are scrambling to interpret what is required.

Gascón has been among the supporters of cash-bail reform, and said he recognizes inequity in the current system. But the appeals court ruling, he said, hampers the ability of prosecutors and the court system to protect the public.

Only a party to the action can petition for California Supreme Court review, but others can urge the court to take a case on its own motion.  The failure of executive officers to seek review of major decisions has been a huge problem in California for some years now.

100 CA Grow Houses Seized:  Federal agents have seized about 100 residential homes in the Sacramento area being used as illegal marijuana grow houses.  Angela Musallam of CBS Sacramento reports that agents found more than 60,000 pot plants in the homes and at least $100,000 in cash.  The homes are believed to be owned by a criminal enterprise in China which were using them grow marijuana later shipped all over the U.S., particularly to major East Coast cities.  U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott told reporters that the investigation into the grow houses is the largest of its kind in the nation.  Scott said that the Chinese cartel put up more than $6 million to buy the homes through straw purchasers.  85% of the purchases went through one realtor, who is currently under investigation.  No charges have yet been filed.

London Has More Murders Than New York:  For the first time in modern history, the month-to-month murder tally in London has surpassed that of New York City.  CBS News reports that with both cities having populations of roughly 6 million, 15 people were murdered in London in February compared to 14 in New York.  In March, London logged 22 murders while New York's tally was 21.  London's murder rate has grown by almost 40% over the past three years.  One difference is that most of the murders in London have been stabbings, while most in New York were shootings.  There have been 10 fatal stabbings in London in the last 19 days.  New York City has stringent gun control laws, including at least a three-month wait for authorization.  Perhaps London should implement tough knife control laws.

Update:  London's Mayor, Sadiq Khan announced yesterday that he is implementing strict knife control policies, including increased stop and frisk, to combat the epidemic of stabbings in his city.  

The Language Police do a lot of annoying things, but one of the most annoying is their habit of taking a term for a group of people that was once the preferred term, declaring it to be a slur, and castigating anyone who hasn't gotten the memo and continues to use it.

Justice Thurgood Marshall continued to use the word "Negro" in his opinions long after it was regarded as decidedly uncool, only switching to "Afro-American" near the end of his tenure.  He still used "Negro" when speaking to a group of reporters the day after his retirement.  To my knowledge, no one ever insinuated he was a racist for using a formerly preferred but now disparaged term, but other people have been targeted that way.

Among the numerous attacks made on Sentencing Commission nominee (and C&C blogger) Bill Otis is this one by Kimberly Yam of the Huffington Post.  Ms. Yam posts in a huff that Bill used the term "Oriental," which she says is a "derogatory term," in a comment in the thread discussed in this post.

Is it derogatory?  I first asked my very favorite person from the Far East, my wife, Lada.  She doesn't think there is anything derogatory about the term.  She prefers it to "Asian," a term she never liked.  And, Lada asks, who elected Ms. Yam to speak for all people of an entire racial group and decide what terms can be used?  She doesn't recall receiving a ballot.

Poll: Crime 2nd Highest U.S. Concern:  A just-released Gallup survey of top concerns in the U.S. ranked crime and violence as second highest concern, slightly under affordable health care.  78% of respondents said that their concerns about crime were either very high or a fair amount.  For most of the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, when crime rates were very high nationally, Gallup surveys consistently ranked public concern about crime among the top three highest concerns.  It remains to be seen if the high level of concern reported this year is related to the recent Parkland, Florida shootings or about the overall level of crime and violence nationally.  

At long last, a major polling organization has finally asked the American public the actual, central question of the death penalty debate in a national poll.

"Would you like to see the death penalty abolished nationwide, or not?"

Yes:  31%
No:   64%
Duh:   5%

You would think that would be the headline of the press release, right? 

Federal Judge Blocks LA Gang Injunctions:  Twenty-one years after the California Supreme Court upheld the use of public nuisance injunctions to clear street gangs from residential neighborhoods, a federal district judge has blocked them until she rules on a pending lawsuit by the ACLU which claims the injunctions are unconstitutional.  James Queally of the Los Angeles Times reports that Chief U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips is the first judge to block the injunctions since there were initiated in the late 1980s to prevent street gangs from claiming neighborhoods as their "turf", blocking streets, blasting music, breaking into cars and intimidating residents.  By declaring specified members of a gang a public nuisance and prohibiting them from congregating in a particular neighborhood, the injunctions gave police the authority to detain, question, search and arrest gang members.  The use of these injunctions had a dramatic impact on the quality of life in former gang-infested neighborhoods, reducing crime and restoring piece for those who lived in them.  In 1995, CJLF filed an amicus brief in Gallo v. Acuna, encouraging Cailfornia's highest court to reject an ACLU challenge to the use of an injunction to drive a gang out of the San Jose neighborhood of Rocksprings.  After the court upheld the injunction, the Los Angeles City Attorney began a successful effort to secure similar injunctions for many LA neighborhoods.  The city may appeal Judge Phillips' order.   

Long Knives Out For Sentencing Commission Pick:  The Marshall Project, a New York based nonprofit that campaigns for pro-defendant sentencing policy, is vigorously opposing the appointment of Georgetown Law Professor William Otis to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.  In a piece released yesterday, Justin George writes that "Otis' nomination......is regarded by critics as putting a fox in the henhouse."  Otis's support for mandatory minimums puts him at odds with "most researchers" who, while acknowledging that they have "played some role" in reducing crime, came at a high cost in dollars, damaged communities and racial inequity.   He leaves out the hundreds of thousands of fewer crime victims due to progressive sentencing over the last 20 years.  Among the largest beneficiaries were law abiding people of color.   

Scientific studies show that adolescent brains are in flux, still building themselves well into adulthood, right?  That certainly is the story we have heard over and over again.  And it is true that existing studies show that the fatty coating of neurons changes during childhood and adolescence (never mind that the relevance of that is unclear when it comes to ascriptions of legal or moral responsibility).  But what is scientific fact today may not be the fact of tomorrow. 

A new study in the journal Nature strongly suggests that the formation of new neurons does not occur in adulthood and probably ends in childhood:

New neurons continue to be generated in the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus of the adult mammalian hippocampus. This process has been linked to learning and memory, stress and exercise, and is thought to be altered in neurological disease. In humans, some studies have suggested that hundreds of new neurons are added to the adult dentate gyrus every day, whereas other studies find many fewer putative new neurons. Despite these discrepancies, it is generally believed that the adult human hippocampus continues to generate new neurons. Here we show that a defined population of progenitor cells does not coalesce in the subgranular zone during human fetal or postnatal development. We also find that the number of proliferating progenitors and young neurons in the dentate gyrus declines sharply during the first year of life and only a few isolated young neurons are observed by 7 and 13 years of age...

MO Court Denies Child KIller's Appeal:  In an unanimous decision announced last week the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the conviction and death sentence of Christopher Collings for the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl.  Wes Peery of KOLR 10 reports that the court, hearing the case on direct appeal, rejected Collings' claims of ineffective assistance counsel for failing to present more evidence of his heavy drinking, addiction to drugs and traumatic childhood.  The court held that defense counsel had fully investigated these issues and made strategic and reasonable decisions about how to present them to the jury.  The evidence included Collings' detailed confession about how he abducted the little girl while she slept alone in her home.  After raping her, Collings realized that she recognized him and strangled her to death, hiding the body in a cave.  Forensic evidence confirmed his guilt.    

MyNorthwest.com reports from Washington State,

SB 6052, which removes the death penalty as an option for aggravated first-degree murder cases and replaces it with life in prison without the possibility of parole, died in House committee on Monday.

Curiously, I can't find any mention of this in the Seattle Times or the Post-Intelligencer.

In Utah, Dennis Romboy reported for Deseret News last week on the failure of the death penalty repeal bill there.

Although it appears the threat has been turned back this year, these efforts have gotten farther than they should have.  The propaganda effort of the other side has been successful in convincing people who should know better of "facts" that just aren't so. 

I wish I had a dollar for every time I have heard the so-called "innocence list" cited as a list of people who have been proved not to have committed the murders, when we know it is chock full of murderers who got away with it.  Time and time again we hear it said that there is massive discrimination in capital sentencing against black defendants, when the other side's own studies have time and again failed to find evidence of that.  Over and over, we hear that the long, dragged-out, expensive appeals are necessary to prevent execution of innocent people when everyone actually involved in this business knows that most of the litigation is over issues with little or no bearing on actual guilt of the crime.  The number and length of reviews could be cut substantially by limiting repeated reviews of sentence-only issues, but there seems to be little leadership for such reforms.

It's the Lenin theory of truth.  Just repeat it enough times and it becomes the truth.

As all appellate lawyers know, the general rule is that an appellate court reviews a trial court's decisions on questions of fact deferentially, while questions of law are reviewed de novo (i.e., from scratch, we don't care what the trial judge thought).  What that means, as a practical matter, is that if you think the trial judge got a factual question wrong ("addressing questions of who did what, when or where, how or why," as the opinion noted in this post says), you usually still have to advise a paying client that he would be throwing good money after bad to appeal it.  If it's a question of "pure" law, such as what legal standard applies, you have a much better shot at it.

But what about "mixed questions of law and fact," making a fact-intense inquiry based a generally worded standard?  The answer is ... [drum roll] ... it depends.  This question used to come up quite a bit in habeas corpus cases until AEDPA* rescued us and applied a deferential standard across the board.  It still comes up in appeals.

One of the cases decided by the Supreme Court today is U.S. Bank v. Village at Lakeridge, No. 15-1509.  It's bankruptcy case.  Eyeballs roll.  Boring.  No need to read.  Right?

Not so fast.  On page 6 we find a citation to Thompson v. Keohane, 516 U. S. 99, 111 (1995), one of the last "mixed question" habeas corpus cases we did (and regrettably lost) before AEDPA.

The tug of war about the country's approach to crime in recent years can be boiled down to one question:  Should we preserve the get-tough policies of roughly the last generation  --  policies that have helped produce both much less crime and much  more incarceration  --  or have we gone overboard?

Pedestrian Deaths Up in Legal Pot States:  A just released study by the Governor's Highway Safety Association found an increase in pedestrian fatalities in states which have legalized recreational marijuana.  Neal E. Boudette of the New York Times reports that over the first six months of 2017, pedestrian deaths rose sharply in Alaska, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon,  Washington and DC, all of which have legalized marijuana since 2012.  Pedestrian deaths in the rest of the country declined.  "We are not making a definitive cause-and-effect link to marijuana," said the author of the study, "the data is a marker for concern."  Among the questions left unanswered is whether this increase is linked to pot intoxicated drivers, pedestrians or both.  Nearly 6,000 pedestrians died in accidents over 2016.   

For most cases reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the procedure is to litigate the case to a final judgment in the lower courts and then petition for what is called a "writ of certiorari" from the Supreme Court, which effectively moves the case there for review.

For cases from state courts, the U.S. Supreme Court's jurisdiction is limited to review of final judgments, although the high court sometimes demonstrates some dexterity on what it considers "final."  For cases from the lower federal courts, the high court has the jurisdiction to take a case from them before they are done with it, but it rarely does.

The case of Dept. of Homeland Security v. Regents of U. of Cal., No. 17-1003 involves President Trump's effort to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the program that President Obama first said he had no constitutional authority to promulgate and later did anyway.  The government took the unusual step of petitioning for a writ of certiorari before judgment, and today the Supreme Court took the usual step of saying no.

Well, not quite the usual step.  Most unsuccessful certiorari petitioners get an unexplained one-liner:  "The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied."  Today's order in the DACA case reads differently:

The petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment is denied without prejudice. It is assumed that the Court of Appeals will proceed expeditiously to decide this case.

I'm sure the Ninth gets the message.  No dilly-dallying.

As California's previous Governor famously said (albeit in the singular), "We'll be back."  That is, the case will be back in SCOTUS unless Congress addresses the childhood arrivals issue in a statute.  If it does, the case join the case of the second travel ban order in the Munsingwear mootness hamper.

The U.S. Supreme Court today decided Murphy v. Smith, No. 16-1067:

This is a case about how much prevailing prisoners must pay their lawyers. When a prisoner wins a civil rights suit and the district court awards fees to the prisoner's attorney, a federal statute says that "a portion of the [prisoner's] judgment (not to exceed 25 percent) shall be applied to satisfy the amount of attorney's fees awarded against the defendant. If the award of attorney's fees is not greater than 150 percent of the judgment, the excess shall be paid by the defendant." 42 U. S. C. §1997e(d)(2). Whatever else you might make of this, the first sentence pretty clearly tells us that the prisoner has to pay some part of the attorney's fee award before financial responsibility shifts to the defendant. But how much is enough? Does the first sentence allow the district court discretion to take any amount it wishes from the plaintiff 's judgment to pay the attorney, from 25% down to a penny? Or does the first sentence instead mean that the court must pay the attorney's entire fee award from the plaintiff 's judgment until it reaches the 25% cap and only then turn to the defendant?

*      *      *

At the end of the day, what may have begun as a close race turns out to have a clear winner. Now with a view of the full field of textual, contextual, and precedential evidence, we think the interpretation the court of appeals adopted prevails. In cases governed by §1997e(d), we hold that district courts must apply as much of the judgment as necessary, up to 25%, to satisfy an award of attorney's fees.

This could be an important case on statutory interpretation, beyond the context of the Prison Litigation Reform Act.

If you hadn't guessed from the style of the above paragraphs, the opinion is by Justice Gorsuch.  Justice Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan.

The New York Times is a wonderfully reliable mouthpiece for the interests of criminals, drug pushers in particular, and it does not disappoint in yesterday's editorial.  What it adds, however, are two  point-blank lies early in the piece designed to smear Donald Trump.  

Each time we have one of these horrific mass shootings, many people shake their heads and ask, "What on earth could make somebody want to do something like this?"  In most cases, the perpetrator is dead and did not plan to survive the attack.  This time we have a living perpetrator, so perhaps we will learn more.

I suspect that a strong desire to be in the headlines is part of the motivation.  Too many young people place too much emphasis on being "famous" and have lost the distinction between being famous and being infamous.  There is even a television series titled, "Murder Made Me Famous."

In December 1941, President Roosevelt famously declared that the 7th was "a day that will live in infamy."  He didn't say "fame," and everyone knew the difference.  The perpetrators would go down in history, but as villains, and that was universally regarded as a bad outcome for them.

Maximum security prison can guarantee a killer will never kill again, right?

The Folsom Telegraph reports:

A California State Prison, Sacramento (SAC) inmate was found dead in his cell this morning, Feb. 12. Prison officials are investigating the death as a homicide.

At 11:10 a.m., Monday, Feb. 12, staff discovered inmate Juan Victoria, 48, unresponsive in his cell. Medical staff was summoned and a responding physician pronounced Victoria deceased at 11:22 a.m.

Victoria's cellmate David Acuna, 34, was placed in restraints and removed from the area. Acuna had minor injuries that showed signs of a possible struggle between the two inmates. He has been identified as a suspect.

*      *      *

Acuna was received into CDCR custody from Sacramento County on Sept. 16, 2015, with a sentence of 39 years-to-life with the possibility of parole for first-degree murder with use of a firearm and arson of an inhabited structure with special circumstances.

*      *      *

Activated in 1986, SAC is a maximum-security prison that houses approximately 2,100 general population inmates and employs about 1,700 people.

Of course, Acuna is presumed innocent until proven guilty and all that.  Conceivably it could be self-defense.  Even so, the incident demonstrates that incarceration does not fully incapacitate.

Paul Mirengoff has this post with the above title at Powerline.

Two years ago at this time, a bipartisan coalition of Senators was pushing legislation that would have slashed mandatory minimum sentences for many federal drug crimes. Such a bill had cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee. However, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wisely declined to bring it up for a vote in the Senate because his caucus was divided on the merits.

Now, Team Leniency is trying again. The same bill that died two years ago is before the Judiciary Committee.

It will breeze through that body. Three of the legislation's main opponents two years ago -- Jeff Sessions, David Perdue and David Vitter -- are no longer on the committee (Sessions and Vitter are no longer in the Senate). Sens. Orrin Hatch and Ted Cruz remain and are likely to oppose the bill again, and Sen. Ben Sasse, a new member of the committee, might join them. But the committee will approve the leniency legislation, most likely with only three dissenters.

What happens then? I hope McConnell will make the same calculation he made two years ago under similar circumstances. However, Team Leniency, which includes the Majority Whip (Sen. Cornyn) and the Judiciary Committee chairman (Sen. Grassley), will push hard for a vote.

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Brian Klaas has this article in the WaPo:

This week, the U.S. government confirmed that Russian hackers infiltrated voting systems in several states, having targeted 21 of them. While there is currently no evidence suggesting any votes were changed, a hostile foreign power did gain access to voter registration databases -- the vital foundation of election integrity. After all, if you control who can and cannot vote, you control a democracy.

America's foolish experiment with digital voting processes must end. The Kremlin -- or other hostile foreign actors -- will certainly strike again. It's time for good old-fashioned paper to make a comeback.

Complacency about crime is the petri dish of the movement to reduce accountability (read: sentences) for criminals. Complacency is fed by repetition of the (truthful, as far as it goes) assertion that crime has fallen dramatically in the last quarter century.  Typically absent from this assertion, however are two key facts:  First, violent crime, and murder in particular, has surged over the last three years over what it was at the end of 2014; and second, that three of the most significant causes of reduced crime (more police, more proactive policing, and increased use of incarceration) are exactly the programs the complacency peddlers hope to reverse.