Readers of my Illustrated Guide to Law have frequently asked about a seeming double standard in criminal law when it comes to drunkenness. On the one hand, a person who is too drunk to think will be liable for crimes he commits; but on the other hand, a person who...
Yesterday, the New York Senate voted to pass “Brittany’s Law,” to create a new public registry of offenders. Think “sex offender” registry, only for anyone convicted of any violent felony. People with a conviction in their past would have to register for ten years or more (under penalty of another...
I’m on the road today, but I wanted to post something. So I’m going to cheat and cut-and-paste some recent Q&A posts from my Tumblr. If you’re looking for a longer read, go check out my comic, which just completed a long section involving how the Fourth Amendment plays out...
NYC’s Police Commissioner Ray Kelly wrote a piece for today’s WSJ titled “The NYPD: Guilty of Saving 7,383 Lives” and subtitled “Accusations of racial profiling ignore the fact that violent crime overwhelmingly occurs in minority neighborhoods.” In it, he makes a great case for the fact that his cherished stop-and-frisk...
You’re not the only one to ask, that’s for sure. The short answer is this: The prosecution had the burden to remove all reasonable doubt from the jury’s minds — both that Zimmerman had committed every element of the crimes charged, and that he had not acted in self-defense. This...
So after catching one of the guys thought to have committed the Boston Marathon bombing (and a string of violent acts thereafter), the government said they weren’t going to read him his rights. Not just yet. Invoking the “public safety exception” to the Miranda rule, they said they wanted a...
Tomorrow’s issue of the Economist has a brief piece on some new drug policing in Virginia: “Cleaning Up the Hood: Focusing on drug markets rather than users means less crime.” The article is on DMI, or Drug-Market Intervention, a law-enforcement strategy that has been spreading around the country since...
Andrei Chikatilo was serial killer who murdered at least 56 young women and children starting in 1978 until his capture in 1990. The details are as bad as one might expect, and apparently the murders and mutilations were how he achieved sexual release. His killings seemed unpredictable to investigators at...
Wanda: What would an intellectual do? What would… Plato do? Otto: Apol- Wanda: Pardon me? Otto: Apollgzz. Wanda: What? Otto: Apologize! Well, no. He probably wouldn’t. Not Plato. And certainly not in the case of Troy Davis, whose final clemency request was denied this morning, and who now faces execution...
When we were just starting out in the law, we frankly had no problem with the concept of profiling. Not racial profiling — that’s just a logical absurdity along the lines of “most people who commit crime X are of race Y, therefore it’s reasonable to suspect people of race...
Quite a few people have asked us about self defense, lately. Must be something in the water. Whatever the reason, it’s a question that a lot of people seem to be asking, so we figured we’d save ourselves from repeating the same conversation over and over, and just post the...
The blawgosphere was atwitter recently over that Kentucky murder trial where the defendant had confessed, but claimed it was a false confession, due to “sleep-deprived psychosis” from drinking too much coffee. The jury didn’t buy it (here’s a short article on it). Did that case remind anyone else of this...
The Supreme Court is back in session on Monday, and we’re not ashamed to admit that we’re excited. As always. And they’re starting off the argument season with a bang — a critical issue on federal sentencing of gun crimes. Can’t wait. The case is actually two cases, Abbott v....
A year and eight days ago, the Supreme Court took the unusual step of granting an “original writ,” and handed down a novel decision directing a federal court to revisit the murder conviction of Troy Anthony Davis by allowing Davis to put on evidence of actual innocence. (See our...
On May 8, 2005, we were having a party. It was our birthday, and our firstborn had just turned 1 a few days before, so it called for a big celebration with friends and family. For us, it was a time of new beginnings. But for Jerry Hobbs, May 8...
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