This has been another one of those years with a heightened awareness of police violence against unarmed black men. Awareness is a good thing. Understanding, however, is better. You can’t solve a problem until you know what the problem is. The problem isn’t really racism, though. The problem is fear. These shootings...
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...
One of our bugbears here at The Criminal Lawyer is the excessive number of federal crimes — particularly those that are created by regulators rather than by elected legislators. We’re not alone in this concern, and over the past several months we’ve noticed what can only be called a growing...
If you belong to a certain population, who cares if you get arrested for no reason? Certainly not certain parts of the NYPD, according to former detective Stephen Anderson. If there’s an arrest that needs to be made, and you don’t have a guilty person to arrest, you just “arrest...
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...
“There has been a spate of particularly brutal and senseless attacks on the police,” according to Eugene O’Donnell, professor of police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and a former police officer and prosecutor. “It seems to me, [there is] an unprecedented level of disrespect and willingness to challenge...
“Nathan, when you become mayor, I’m gonna be the first volunteer for your security detail.” This was a detective speaking, back when we were an ADA in the Manhattan DA’s office. My office, as usual, had about five cops in it. I liked this detective, and asked how come he...
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama signed into law the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act. As usual, the Act included provisions that had nothing whatsoever to do with National Defense Authorization. And one of the tacked-on provisions was the much-debated Hate Crimes Prevention Act. We wrote about this back on May...
We’ve asked it before, but what the heck is going on with some of these federal prosecutors nowadays? There was the whole Ted Stevens fiasco over the winter, when the feds actively withheld exculpatory evidence and witnesses in their rush to convict the former Senator. Then the 7th Circuit directed...
In a perhaps not-all-that-important decision this morning, the Supreme Court overruled a landmark case involving the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Although it seems like a big deal, today’s decision doesn’t really seem to change anything. Criminal procedure is not likely to change. The upshot is that the police still...
The other day, by a vote of 249 (59%) to 175 (41%), the U.S. House of Representatives voted to expand the scope of federal “hate crimes” to include crimes against gay people, transgender people, the mentally disabled and the physically disabled. With strong support from the White House and from...
The Supreme Court this morning exemplified exactly what’s wrong with the death penalty in this country. In a clear effort to avoid a decision that would impose a death sentence, the Court made a nonsense ruling so it could extend the course of appeals — appeals that have already run...
Although juries have existed in one form or another since ancient times, the jury as we now know it originated in 12th-century England. At first an accusatory formality, the jury evolved into a check on governmental power. Nowadays, an accused’s right to have the evidence against him judged by members...
The Supreme Court ruled today that defense attorneys assigned by the state are not government actors, merely because the government assigns and pays them. They are attorneys for the defendant, and their actions are actions of the defense, not the government. This seems like a no-brainer. Every defense attorney knows...
Here in Manhattan, we like to brag that we’ve got the busiest courthouse in the world. But at least the system can handle it. According to Tuesday report from the chief justice of the New Delhi High Court, however, the courts in India are all just as busy, but the...
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