Recently in General Category

Some conservative groups have believed for some time that they were unfairly singled out by the IRS for special scrutiny of their nonprofit status.

Turns out that is actually true, Zachary Goldfarb and Karen Tumulty report in the WaPo.  An IRS official said the actions were "not motivated by partisan concerns," but that seems doubtful.

Is this a crime?  Possibly a violation of 18 U.S.C. §241, conspiracy against exercise of constitutional rights.

In many languages, adjectives following their nouns is the normal order.  It is not the norm in English, though, and the term "attorney general" trips people up as a result.  Bryan Garner has this LawProse Lesson on the subject.

In American English, attorneys general is the correct plural form. The British prefer attorney-generals (the Brits have long hyphenated the phrase).

Generally, a compound noun made up of a noun and a postpositive adjective (one that follows its noun) is pluralized by adding -s to the noun, as with heirs apparent and causes of action. But we add -s at the end of closed compounds, as with all words ending in -ful {spoonfuls, handfuls}.

Kate Stanton reports for UPI that Facebook's "People you may know" feature introduced two women to each other on the basis of a common friend -- their husband.

Alan L. O'Neill has been charged with bigamy.  His lawyer says, "He is extremely embarrassed and remorseful."  I do not doubt that he is extremely embarrassed.

Shane Dixon Kavanaugh reports for the NY Daily News:

A costumed creep dressed as Cookie Monster was arrested Sunday after he shoved a 2-year-old boy during a crazed confrontation with the tot's mom in Times Square, cops said.

Osvaldo Quiroz-Lopez posed for a photo with the child about 3:20 p.m. and then demanded the mother cough up $2, police said.

The mother refused, causing Quiroz-Lopez, 33, to behave monstrously, cops said.  Police charged him with assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

Alistair MacDonald reports in the WSJ:

Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister who became one of the most influential global leaders of the postwar period, died on Monday, three decades after her championing of free-market economics and individual choice transformed Britain's economy and her vigorous foreign policy played a key role in the end of the Cold War.

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were the towering giants of their time.  We could really use a leader like them in the United States right now.

Orin Kerr at VC points us to this opinion of the Appellate Division of the Fresno Superior Court.

Public concern about the dangers of distracted driving has led to legislation that limits the use of cellular phones and electronic communications devices while driving. The drive behind this legislation was the concern about the interference with the driver‟s attention caused by the physical aspects of using these devices. This case requires us to determine whether using a wireless phone solely for its map application function while driving violates Vehicle Code section 23123. We hold that it does.

At the time the law was enacted, phones were phones.  Now phones are minicomputers.  It's not against the law to look at a paper map while driving.  Should it be against the law to look at a map on a smart phone while driving?  Is a phone still a phone when it's being used as a map?

Now comes word that a recently elected West Virginia sheriff, Eugene Crum, was gunned down yesterday.  A suspect has been shot and is in the hospital.

Though there is no indication of any connection, Mr. Crum's killing comes on the heels of a Texas district attorney and his wife being shot to death in their home over the weekend, and just weeks after Colorado's corrections director [Tom Clements] also was gunned down at his home.

Bill Lindelof reports for the SacBee:

The Sacramento County Coroner's office has released the name of the man whose body was discovered Monday morning hanging from rope outside the 16th floor of a downtown building.

He was identified as Craig Michael Fugate, 30, of Vancouver, Wash. The coroner's website lists the cause of death as undetermined.

Sacramento police spokeswoman Michele Gigante said Fugate apparently died accidentally while trying to vandalize the building's exterior.

Battalion Chief Craig Wiedenhoeft, of the Sacramento Fire Department, said Fugate accidentally asphyxiated himself.

Wiedenhoeft said the rope that looped around his chest and legs had constricted him. "He got pulled into a fetal position when the rope cinched up on him," he said.

Less than two weeks after Colorado's chief of corrections was murdered, another law enforcement official has been gunned down.  Tanya Eiserer and Tasha Tsiaperas report for the Dallas Morning News:

Kaufman County's district attorney and his wife were found slain Saturday, raising fears that their deaths may be part of a plot that included the killing of one of the county's assistant district attorneys in January.

Kaufman Police Chief Chris Aulbaugh and other officials confirmed that Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia Woodward McLelland, had been shot at their home near Forney.

Their deaths followed the Jan. 31 slaying of Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse.

"It is a shock," Aulbaugh said late Saturday. "It was a shock with Mark Hasse, and now you can just imagine the double shock. ... Until we know what happened, I really can't confirm that it's related, but you always have to assume until it's proven otherwise."

As Kent and Bill have pointed out, Juan Williams' suggestion that factors other than racism and access to guns are worth considering when talking about crime and race.  Indeed, and it's with annoyance and amusement that I've listened to the attacks on Dr. Ben Carson who has frankly and strongly talked about the need for more personal responsibility in our culture.  Many people find that kind of talk lacking in modern sophistication because it, after all, has nothing to do with social science, government funding, or externalized blame.   

But I'm reminded of the moral principles instilled in me by the Jesuits during my days at Canisius High School.  Those Three Principals of Living in a Moral Universe:  [1] actions have consequences; [2] choices matter, and [3] privileges entail responsibility have served me well and should be taught to every child.  They are straightforward, very much old-fashion, and utterly lacking in progressive speak. 

They are also the truth. 

Probably the single most frequently heard phrase in the debate about crime and punishment these days is "incarceration nation."  The phrase is used to undergird the idea that the United States over-incarcerates its population.  This tendency, it is said, is expensive, inhumane, inconsistent with our tradition of liberty, and out of touch with the rest of the Western world, which has much lower rates of imprisonment.

Anyone who has practiced criminal law knows that lying in court is epidemic.  Almost all of it comes from the defense, either the defendant directly or his associates.  This should hardly be a surprise:  Since almost all defendants are factually guilty, their telling the unvarnished truth is the quick route to jail.  Can't have that!

From Syracuse comes a horrific story involving suspect David J. Renz,a man who had previously been convicted of possession of child pornography and was apparently released back into the community with what has become the ubiquitous electronic monitoring bracelet.  That safeguard did nothing for Lori Bresnahan and her 10 year-old daughter: 

Authorities say they have a suspect in custody in the death of a woman who was attacked in front of a 10-year-old girl who was with her during a carjacking and kidnapping Thursday night at Great Northern Mall in Clay.

Police say the suspect kidnapped the victims, raped the girl, and stabbed the woman [to death]. Police say there is no indication he knew the victims.

New York State Police Captain Mark Lincoln spoke to reporters at a news conference Friday morning at State Police barracks in North Syracuse

...

A spokesperson at Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney John Duncan's office tells CNY Central that Renz removed a monitoring bracelet that he was required to wear prior to the attack. Renz was previously charged possessing child porn and was released from custody in January.

...

According to court papers, Renz was previously charged for possessing more than 100 gigabytes worth of child porn on an encrypted hard drive that contained more than 500 videos and more than 3,000 images.

New York has no death penalty, but apparently prison is worse than death.  

"To err is human; to really foul things up requires a computer."

I received an email today from LinkedIn, a social networking site that is sort of a professional, upscale version of Facebook.  The email said, "Greg Coleman is celebrating 6 years at Yetter & Warden," and it invited me to congratulate him.

If it were only true.  If I only could.  Alas.

James Huffman, dean emeritus at Lewis & Clark Law School, has an op-ed in the WSJ titled Perverse Incentives of the Lawyers Guild.  It has nothing to do with crime, but it is a good example of why the American Bar Association, a private organization unaccountable to the public, should be given no standing whatever in the exercise of government power, an issue that comes up frequently in right-to-counsel cases.