Illegal Pot Farms Damaging the Environment: With illegal marijuana farms flourishing across California, scientists are finding that they are having a serious negative impact on the environment. Christopher Weber of KCRA News reports that after two men were arrested for illegally growing around 9,000 marijuana plants on public land known as Emerald Triangle in Northern California, state authorities found an illegal and highly toxic rodenticide, which could kill a 300 lb. bear, along with piles of trash. Following discovery of Carbofuran which is a banned neurotoxicant that is used to kill rodents on illegal pot farms, scientists warn that it could completely destroy the wildlife population near an illegal grow. The trash left at the sites, which include food containers, attract animals who ingest the rat poison and fertilizer, which are also being found in streams near the farms. Illegal pot farms have increased since the legalization of marijuana, with and estimated sales of $9 billion compared to $3 billion for legal market. The state recently decided to raise taxes on legal marijuana on January 1, which will encourage further expansion of the illegal market.
November 2019 Archives
It would be an unusual case where a teenager as young as 14 should be charged in adult court, but unusual is not the same as never. In 2016, the people of California decided by direct vote that the decision as to whether to charge teens in the 14 to less-than-18 age range in adult court should be made by a judge and not the prosecutor. Okay, that's democracy.
Can the Legislature then strike the balance in a different place and decide that teens a day or more short of their 16th birthday can never be charged in adult court no matter how depraved their crimes? The California Court of Appeal for the Second District said no in O.G. v. Superior Court, No. B295555.
Continue reading Charging 14- and 15-Year-Old Thugs in Adult Court.
Last week, Federal District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a preliminary injunction preventing the U. S. Attorney General from carrying out executions for federal capital crimes. DOJ promptly appealed. See this story in the WSJ by Jess Bravin and Sadie Gurman.
The slender reed on which this injunction rests is Congress's use of the word "manner" rather than "method" in adopting the way executions are carried out in states.
Continue reading Manner v. Method of Execution.
Several Illegals Arrested for Murders: A illegal alien was arrested last week for the murder of an Anaheim man. Police found the body of Adrian Bonar in the trunk of a car in October. Dave Gibson of the Mercury News reports that following the arrest of Antonia Lopez Silva for kidnapping, police linked him to Bonar's murder. While arresting Silva, officers found four pounds of fentanyl, four guns and a male hostage. In 2014, Silva plead guilty to raping a 12-year-old girl and received a one-year sentence. KPTV reports that an illegal alien has been arrested for murdering his former employer in the Oregon town of Wilsonville. Camilo Santiago-Santiago was charged with second-degree murder for gunning down Carl Hellinger on the morning of November 18. Santiago led police on a chase as he fled the scene. He was arrested after he turned his vehicle onto a dead end road. He had three firearms in his possession when arrested. Fox news reports on the arrest of illegal alien, Nemias Perez Severiano for the hit and run killing of a 67-year-old veteran in Norristown, PA last Tuesday. The defendant reportedly hit Samuel Jackson with his car, dragging him 50 feet before he fled. Severiano, a Mexican citizen, was driving without a license and admitted drinking seven or eight beers before getting behind the wheel.
Update: See end of post.
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The U.S. Supreme Court held a conference Friday. As usual, the Court issued a very short orders list later the same day, taking up a single case, and a long list today turning down many cases.
The case taken up Friday wasTanzin v. Tanvir, No. 19-71, regarding a civil suit against federal employees for putting the plaintiffs on the "do not fly" list, allegedly in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Continue reading Supreme Court Orders.
As Kent noted in yesterday's post, San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system has become a dangerous place for law abiding commuters. Today, Jenna DeAngelis of CBS New York reports that crime is rising in that city's subway system. The NYPD reported a 10.9% increase in assaults on subways over the past year. Over the past three days there were six violent assaults including an attack with a hammer and two stabbings. The city's Transit Workers Union logged a 40% increase in reported assaults on transit employees. Political leaders In both San Francisco and New York have abandoned "broken windows" policing, which had allowed police to crack down on vandalism, drug dealing, turnstile jumping, and other misdemeanors. The logic is quite simple; when you stop enforcing laws against crime the result is more crime.
Continue reading Crime Up in New York Subways.
Taylor Kate Brown reports for the SF Chron, "Homicide, rape, assault and robbery have doubled on BART [the Bay Area Rapid Transit system] in the last four years -- from 234 incidents in 2015 to 481 incidents last year -- after six years of relative stability, according to state Department of Justice records."
Continue reading Violent Crime Doubled on BART in Four Years.
Off-topic but interesting, the California Supreme Court this morning struck down the Presidential Tax Transparency and Accountability Act as violating the primary elections section of the California Constitution. The case is Patterson v. Padilla, S257302.
Continue reading Presidential Tax Returns.
Jason Riley has this column in the WSJ with the headline/subhead "Bloomberg Grovels Over Stop and Frisk: If black lives matter, New York's former mayor has nothing to apologize for."
He traces the history of the horrific rise and subsequent fall of crime rates from the 1960s through recent years.
Minority communities bore the brunt of the crime wave and vocally criticized what they considered inadequate law enforcement. In 1967, the Harlem-based Amsterdam News editorialized that the city "can't get rid of crime by ignoring or compromising with it" and called for "restoring the legitimate, unbiased use of firearms by our police." The local chapter of the NAACP said, "It is not police brutality that makes people afraid to walk the streets at night" and demanded an end to "the reign of criminal terror in Harlem." In a 1968 report, [Vincent] Cannato writes, the civil-rights organization asked for "greater police protection in Harlem, harsher criminal penalties for murderers and drug dealers, and 'vigorous' enforcement of the city's anti-vagrancy laws."
Continue reading Jason Riley on Bloomberg and Crime.
More on The Boise Case: A piece by Anchorage attorney Lee Baxter in the Alaska Landmine, discusses at length the petition by Boise, Idaho to have SCOTUS review the Ninth Circuit's 2018 Martin v. Boise ruling. The court held that Boise, by enforcing its anti-camping ordinance, had criminalized homelessness and violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. This is the proponents argument. But Baxter believes that, "the Martin decision does not prohibit the Municipality of Anchorage from taking other actions to prevent to remove any individual, including homeless individuals, from camping in public places" so long as they are not criminally punished. In 2000, the Eleventh Circuit held in Joel v. City of Orlando that the anti-camping ordinance punished conduct, which is constitutional, and not status, which is not. The proponents argue that homeless sleeping in parks or on sidewalks is involuntary conduct, meaning that they have no other options. Seven states including Alaska and several California cities including Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego have filed briefs in support of Boise. The CJLF brief in this case is here.
Illegal Sought for Killing Oregon Woman: An illegal alien from Mexico has fled to his home country to escape prosecution for the July 12 death of a Portland woman and the serious injury of her husband. Travis Fedschun of Fox News reports that 20-year-old Alejandro Maldonado-Hernandez was arrested and charged with felony manslaughter and several other crimes after his car crashed while he was street-racing, killing Janice Ator and injuring her husband Patrick. An ICE detainer request was ignored by the Washington County Sheriff's Office, which released Maldonado-Hernandez on bail on August 8. Later that month ICE reported that the suspect had fled to Mexico and that three people who helped him flee have been arrested by federal agents. Oregon is a sanctuary state which prohibits its law enforcement agencies from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, including holding criminal aliens to allow ICE to take them into custody. Recently, the Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court announced a new rule which forbids ICE agents from arresting criminal aliens inside or near state courthouses without a federal arrest warrant. In non-sanctuary states where federal warrants are not required, criminal aliens are held briefly in local jails until ICE agents can pick them up for deportation. Nathalie Asher, Field Director of ICE stated, "How many lives have to be lost before politicians are more concerned about public safety than their own political agendas?"
Rebecca Davis O'Brien reports for the WSJ:
Two federal corrections workers who were on duty the night Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan detention cell have been indicted on federal charges in connection with the disgraced financier's death, according to charges unsealed Tuesday.
Continue reading Epstein Jail Guards Indicted.
Rafael Mangual has this article in the City Journal regarding almost-candidate Michael Bloomberg following the lead of candidate Joe Biden and apologizing for past correct positions on criminal justice.
Bloomberg's apology (again, like Biden's) ignores the role that proactive policing played in driving down crime. By exercising their authority to initiate contacts with citizens--in some cases, by legally detaining, questioning, and, yes, frisking those whom they reasonably believed to be involved in crimes and armed--NYPD officers significantly deterred crime in the city's most troubled precincts (which had large minority populations). This was the finding of a 2014 study, which addressed an important limitation in the earlier assessments of stop-and-frisk. Those assessments focused on citywide crime numbers, though many of the NYPD's stops were concentrated in high-crime neighborhoods. With a more "microlevel" analysis, the 2014 study found that NYPD stops-and-frisks had significant, albeit "modest," effects on crime.
Continue reading Bloomberg's Apology.
When the First Step Act was pushed through Congress, we knew that its expansive drafting was going to kill people. Troy Pine of Providence, Rhode Island died on October 2. The direct cause of death was stabbing, and a formerly life-sentenced former gang leader, Joel Francisco, has been charged with that crime. See this article by Brian Amaral in the Providence Journal. The indirect cause was the way the First Step Act was written.
Continue reading First Step Act Kills Providence Man.
Natasha Khan reports for the WSJ:
HONG KONG--A court struck down the government's emergency anti-mask law as unconstitutional, a ruling that underscored the independence of the city's British-style judiciary that is under pressure from China to back a stronger crackdown on social unrest.
Continue reading Judicial Review in Hong Kong.
Turns out cannabis stocks were a pretty lousy investment, Ciara Linnane reports for Market Watch.
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a short orders list after its Friday conference today. The Court took up three criminal cases for full briefing and argument.
United States v. Briggs, No. 19-108 and United States v. Collins, No. 19-184 are military cases involving the statute of limitations for rape under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Walker v. United States, No. 19-373, asks whether a Texas conviction for robbery can be a "violent felony" under the Armed Career Criminal Act when, at the time of Walker's prior conviction, that crime could be committed by theft plus reckless (not necessarily intentional) injury to another person.
A longer orders list with cases turned down and procedural orders will be released Monday.
Airbnb To Ban "Party Houses": After a shooting at one-night rental where a Halloween party was being held, Airbnb, which rented the property, is promising to crack down on the use of its rentals as "party houses." Stefanie Dazio and Daisy Nguyen of the Associated Press report that five people died from the shooting at the upscale home in Orinda, California. The four bedroom home was rented by a woman who claimed that she and her family, who suffer from asthma, needed a place to stay away from smoke a Sonoma County fire burning at the time. Suspicious of a one-night rental on Halloween, the owner told the renter that parties were not allowed. That night neighbors called the owner to report on the party and he called the police. The shootings occurred before the police arrived, as roughly 100 partygoers ran for their lives. Three victims died at the scene while two others died in the hospital. All were between 19 and 29. The CEO of San Francisco-based Airbnb said his company is beefing up its screening of "high risk" reservations and has created a "rapid response team" to address complaints of unauthorized parties. No suspects have been arrested for the shooting.
UPDATE: As noted by a comment, five suspects were arrested Thursday. Details in this story from the San Francisco Chronicle.
The Federalist Society's National Lawyers Convention runs from today through Saturday. Many of the events are being live streamed. The panel sponsored by the Criminal Law Practice Group (of which I am an executive committee member and former chairman) is The Wisdom and Legality of Sanctuary Cities, today from 3:30-5:00 p.m. EST, 12:30-2:00 PST.
The late votes tallied in the San Francisco District Attorney race came in for the anti-law-enforcement candidate, Chesa Boudin. In essence, he is going to take all the policies that have trashed a once-beautiful city and gravely degraded the quality of life there and make them all worse. Erica Sandberg has this article in the City Journal.
Boudin pledged to stop taking first-offense drunk drivers to trial, providing they didn't injure anyone. He promised to end gang enhancements, part of a California law that adds additional prison sentences to defendants who participate in violent street gangs. As for quality-of-life crimes that harm communities, he's been open about ignoring them, stating that "crimes such as public camping, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, blocking a sidewalk, etc., should not and will not be prosecuted."
So if a drunk driver, previously caught, plows into you and leaves you paralyzed from the neck down, the DA will shrug and say, "Gee, well, he didn't hurt anyone last time he was caught driving blind drunk, so we let him go and let him continue driving. Your lifetime paralysis is a small price to pay for the wonderfulness of second chances."
The word "sewer" in the title of this post is partly figurative and partly literal.
Continue reading San Francisco Votes to Descend Further Into the Sewer.
This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court heard argument for the second time in the case of Hernandez v. Mesa, numbered 17-1678 on its second trip to 1 First Street.
A USDOJ investigation of the incident found that Sergio Hernandez and his companions were human smugglers attempting an illegal border crossing. When Agent Jesus Mesa detained one of the group, the others pelted him with rocks. Agent Mesa fired from the U.S. side of the border, and Hernandez was killed on the Mexico side. DOJ determined that Agent Mesa acted in accordance with policy.
Hernandez's parents have pursued a suit for years, alleging that he was just an innocent boy playing an innocent game when a "rogue" officer gunned him down for no reason. Because Agent Mesa and the Government are moving for judgment without a trial, these allegations are assumed to be true solely for the limited purpose of ruling on that motion. Some reports of the case mislead the public into thinking that the parents' improbable allegations are the actual facts of the case.
CJLF's amicus brief is here. Kimberly Robinson has this report on the argument for Bloomberg Law. Brent Kendall has this report for the WSJ.
Comments and registration for commenting have been turned off for the time being while we address a security issue.
Update (11/14): Comments have been turned back on.
See update at end.
San Francisco may (or may not) have dodged a bullet in its District Attorney election. California has largely avoided the wave of pro-criminal prosecutors being elected in a number of other cities thanks largely to California's system of non-partisan local elections. Elsewhere, the left-fringe candidates have won by winning the Democratic primary with a Soros-funded war chest in cities so heavily Democratic that the general election is a formality.
San Francisco might yet have a different result from the rest of the state, but its unusual ranked-choice system may have saved it from the worst candidate. That does not mean it will get the best, though. After all, it is San Francisco.
Continue reading San Francisco DA Election.
Crime Increasing Under Prop 47: Since California voters adopted Proposition 47, which downgraded thefts of $950 or less from felonies to misdemeanors, there has been an increase in shoplifting across the state. Barnini Chakraborty of Fox News reports that cities like San Francisco now have organized crime rings brazenly stealing merchandise right out of stores and reselling it on the streets. The founder of San Francisco's Code Tenderloin, a homeless service provider, said that drug addicts, who are often homeless, are stealing and fencing the merchandise to feed their drug habit. Neither Mayor London Breed or anyone in the District Attorney's office responded to multiple calls for a statement about the problem, although San Francisco has the highest rate of property crime of the nation's 20 largest cities. The President of the California Retailers Association said that black market dealers are coming into the state to collect stolen merchandise because of the lack of consequences if caught. When asked about the increase in thefts one San Diego 7-11 owner said, "its becoming a lifestyle for us now because we can't do anything much except take the loss." Reports that arrests for property crime are down in California prove the point that essentially, theft has been legalized in the Golden State.
Justin Sayers has this article with the above headline in the Arizona Daily Star, the local paper.
Tucson voters overwhelmingly opted against the "sanctuary city" initiative, which would have limited the circumstances in which police officers could ask about immigration status.
The city clerk's unofficial results with all precincts reporting are, as of election night:
Yes: 23,562 28.60%
No: 58,820 71.40%
Continue reading Tucson voters overwhelmingly strike down 'sanctuary city' proposal.
Katie Meyer reports for WITF that nearly 3/4 of Pennsylvania voters approved that state's version of Marsy's Law, granting constitutional rights to crime victims. Incredibly, though, the Secretary of the Commonwealth was enjoined by a Commonwealth Court judge "from tabulating and certifying the votes in the November 2019 General Election relating to [this] ballot question ... until final disposition of the Petition for Review, including appeals." This preliminary injunction order was affirmed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in a 4-3 vote.
Those of us who believe that people who commit serious crimes against others should be fully punished for what they have done have had a more difficult time in the legislative arena than at any time since the 1960s.
Although it would be simplistic to attribute the change to any one cause, surely a major cause, probably the primary cause, is the drop in crime rates.
Continue reading "Tough on Crime" Is the Political Victim of Its Own Success.
Feds: Gang Members too Dangerous for Court: A U.S. Attorney in
California has asked a federal judge to allow ten members of the
notorious Aryan Brotherhood prison gang to appear in court via video
rather than in person for required hearings. Stan Stanton of the
Sacramento Bee reports
that the gang members are facing trial for running drugs, smuggling
phones and ordering murders from inside California prisons. After
learning that some of the gang members held in the Sacramento County
Jail or state prison awaiting trial, were communicating with each other
about the security procedures, types of locks and the smuggling of a
cell phone, U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott asked the judge to permit their
participation by video rather than take the security risk of
transporting them from their cells to the courthouse. The Brotherhood is
the most violent gang in U.S. prisons with a long record of running
wide ranging criminal enterprises while behind bars and brutally
murdering rival gang members, law enforcement and corrections officers
and anyone else who gets in its way. Their defense attorneys argue that
"there is nothing to suggest that these guys have any intention of
escaping." Five of the defendants face the possibility of a federal
death sentence.
When you access the Internet wirelessly, your computer is broadcasting information, including your MAC address (Media Access Control), a code unique to your device. The strength of your signal is also readily detectable. Do you have a privacy interest in any of that, protected by the Fourth Amendment? No, said the Ninth Circuit yesterday in United States v. Norris, No. 17-10354. The police can tune in along with everybody else.
Continue reading Wireless Address Info and the Fourth Amendment.
As you might gather from the title, United States v. Dailey, USCA9 No. 18-10134, Nov. 4, 2019, involves some complex issues.
When an element of a crime is the fact that the defendant committed or was previously convicted of another crime, described in general terms rather than listing specific code sections, a question arises in deciding whether the other crime fits the description. Do we look at the minimum elements that could possibly be true and still result in the conviction of the other crime? That is the "categorical approach." Or do we look at what the defendant actually did while committing that crime. That is the "non-categorical approach."
The question must be asked for each statute. The Ninth Circuit confronted the problem yesterday in the case of Jazzmin Dailey, who drove a 16-year-old girl, T.B., from Arizona to Las Vegas, instructed her in prostitution, bought her provocative clothing, and threatened to kill her if she told the police. Does this make Dailey a "sex offender" for the purpose of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act? One would think it should.
On a late January night in 2018, Joel Villela was pulled over for speeding. The officer smelled alcohol on Villela's breath. When Villela refused a roadside field sobriety test, the officer arrested him on suspicion of DUI. Under Washington state law (RCW 46.55.360), Villela's car was impounded. A subsequent inventory search of the vehicle revealed digital scales, sandwich bags, pipes, and a large amount of cash. Cocaine was discovered on Villela after a search incident to arrest. Villela was charged with DUI and possession with intent to deliver controlled substances.
Villela filed a motion to suppress the "fruits" (drug evidence) of the inventory search of his car claiming that the mandatory impoundment was an unlawful seizure under Washington Constitution Article I, section 7. That section provides that "no person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or his home invaded, without authority of law." Under Washington law, "authority of law" means a warrant or a long-standing exception to the warrant requirement.
Continue reading Washington declares mandatory vehicle impoundment law unconstitutional.
Yesterday, South Dakota carried out the long-overdue execution of Charles Rhines for murdering Donnivan Schaeffer in 1992. The Sioux Falls Argus Leader re-posted this archive story from 2014 with details of the crime and the reasons why this case stands out as particularly deserving of the death penalty. The same paper has this story by Danielle Ferguson on the execution. Donnivan Schaeffer's mother, Peggy Schaeffer, made a statement:
"Today is a big day, a day marked with sadness and grief but also relief and justice," she said. "But above all today is a day we talk about Donnivan, the boy who loved his family, fiancee and friends, the guy who drove that old red pickup ... He is missed, and he is loved, and he will never be forgotten.Sheila Jackson, Donnivan's former fiancee, said Donnivan was a supporter of the death penalty and that he "really believed in an 'eye for an eye.'" Both Jackson and Peggy Schaeffer agreed justice had been served.
Rhines's case went to the Supreme Court 14 years ago. See Rhines v. Weber, 544 U.S. 269 (2005). I will have more to say about that case in another post.
Continue reading South Dakota Carries Out Long Overdue Execution.
Theft with no Consequences: According to an article by CWBChicago, Chicago, specifically Logan Square, has been experiencing a series of robberies and retailers in neighboring communities are on alert. While retail thefts are common in this area, this species is different. The armed suspect had shoplifted at the same Walgreens location three separate times over the course of three weeks sometimes threatening employees. Along with this, organized shoplifting across the Cook County is also rising. Groups of 5-7 men will go to stores such as DSW or Ulta Beauty with large duffle bags and organize group shoplifting. The haul thieves escape with from one of these incidences can exceed $8,000. The increased thefts are due to Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx's decision not to prosecute thefts valued at under $1,000 as felonies. State law allows felony prosecution of thefts valued at $300 or more. Reducing the consequences for retail theft has encouraged shoplifters, who now understand that they can get away with it. Studies show that since Foxx was elected, shoplifting has increased by 20%. Chicago police and Cook County Mayors and supervisors are demanding change.
The podcast of my post-argument teleforum on the D.C. Sniper case, Mathena v. Malvo, is now available on the FedSoc website. Audio of the argument is available at the Oyez Project.
Meth Making a Comeback: While opioids such as fentanyl and heroin have received the most attention from the media and politicians in recent years, due to the dramatic increase in fatal overdoses, a recent report indicates that the use of methamphetamine (meth) is also increasing. The Associated Press reports that data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) analyzing fatal drug overdoses in 2017 indicate that although meth is responsible for 13% of overdose deaths nationally, it was the number one cause of fatal overdoses in 19 states west of the Mississippi. For example, in New England fentanyl was the drug most frequently linked to fatal overdoses while meth was ranked 10th. In the mountain states and the Dakotas meth was the number one cause of fatalities while fentanyl was sixth. A New Mexico state health official noted that the surge in meth overdoses is related to its wide availability and low cost. Preliminary numbers from the CDC indicate that this problem is getting worse.
No, crime does not increase during a full moon, the BetaGov team at NYU's Marron Institute of Urban Management reports in this press release.
