Crime
April 19, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
The Justice Department’s inspector general (IG) referred his finding that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe repeatedly misled investigators for a determination of whether McCabe should be criminally prosecuted. The referral was to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. It came shortly after the IG issued his report on McCabe’s misconduct. A criminal referral does not necessarily mean a criminal prosecution. It means the U.S. Attorney will consider
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April 18, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
There was an interesting clash yesterday between Justice Neil Gorsuch and the other conservative Supreme Court Justices. In the case of Sessions v. Dimaya, the Court held that the government could not deport a legal resident who was twice convicted of first-degree burglary. The majority consisted of the four liberal Justices plus Justice Gorsuch, who wrote a separate concurrence. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas wrote separate dissents. The Immigration
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April 13, 2018 — Scott Johnson
I’ve gotten to know Harley Feldman through our local chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Harley is a brilliant, soft-spoken guy and successful businessman. Three years ago his daughter Allison was brutally murdered at her home in Scottsdale, Arizona. This week her murderer was apprehended. The broad outlines of the story are set forth in stories here and here as well as the video below. I want to add some
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April 9, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Reagan Stevens, a deputy director in the New York Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, was arrested along with two young men on Saturday for illegal weapons possession. The three were sitting in a double-parked car near the scene of a shooting in Queens. The vehicle reeked of marijuana, according to police. A loaded, 9mm semi-automatic pistol with its serial number scratched out was hidden in the car’s glovebox. There was
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April 8, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
George Will argues in favor of broad restoration of felons’ right to vote. How broad he doesn’t say, but his column effectively presents the case for a more expansive restoration than exists in many jurisdictions. There are good arguments against moving in that direction, however. Roger Clegg presents them in a critique of Will’s piece. This is an issue over which reasonable people can differ, but I think Clegg has
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April 1, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
It wasn’t so long ago that Baltimore politicians were pandering to the anti-law-and-order crowd with talk about “no justice, no peace” and “space to destroy.” Now that this kind of sentiment has helped produce a spike in homicides, earning Baltimore the title of America’s most dangerous city, the pols are singing a different tune. In fact, many are calling on the state legislature to enact tough anti-crime legislation. Here’s Del.
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March 19, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Johns Hopkins University wants to form its own police department with armed, sworn police officers to patrol its university and hospital campuses. The University already has its own security personnel, approximately 1,000 strong. Even so, last Fall there were 16 gunpoint robberies around its main campus in Baltimore. Thus, the Baltimore delegation to the state general assembly will propose legislation to enable Hopkins to have its own police department. The
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March 18, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Senator Tom Cotton will introduce legislation next week to combat the opioid epidemic in America. The proposal will impose penalties for fentanyl distribution and trafficking that better reflect the severity of the crime. It will also provide resources to the Post Office to stop shipments of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids arriving from overseas. Fentanyl, a fully synthetic opioid, is 100 times more powerful than morphine. Dumped into the U.S.
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March 15, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
My conservative cousin from New York (for a few more months) filed this dispatch on criminality in Andrew Cuomo’s inner circle. Tuesday’s conviction of Andrew Cuomo’s close associate Joe Percoco deals a sharp blow to the Governor’s 2020 Presidential hopes and may even jeopardize his reelection prospects this year. Percoco was Cuomo’s executive deputy secretary and longtime confidant. He was found guilty of soliciting and accepting bribes from top management
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March 10, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday a vet and former patient at the Pathway Home at the Veterans Home of California-Yountville in northern California took hostage and then murdered the program’s executive director, Christine Loeber, Dr. Jen Golick, the program’s clinical director, and Dr. Jennifer Gonzales, a psychologist with the Department of Veterans Affairs in San Francisco. The Pathway Home lost two-thirds of its leadership team yesterday. Only the director of development and communications remains.
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March 6, 2018 — Scott Johnson
When I began practicing law, I occasionally had to sit in court and wait my turn to argue my case while the judge sentenced defendants who pleaded guilty to various offenses. I drew the conclusion from what I saw that it was quite difficult to get yourself sent to prison. You almost had to work at it. It was a revelation to me. That was a while back, but things
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March 4, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
On Thursday, President Trump nominated Bill Otis to serve on the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Immediately, the left, marching in lock-step as usual, launched an attack on Bill. I addressed one of the salvos, NPR’s, here. For years, Bill has written for “Crime and Consequences,” an influential blog in the field of criminal law. Thus, those opposing his nomination had the opportunity to sift through Bill’s archive looking for objectionable material
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March 2, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, President Trump nominated my friend Bill Otis to the United States Sentencing Commission. The White House announcement is here. Faithful Power Line readers will recognize the name. Bill has been an occasional contributor to this site. Bill is part of a bipartisan slate of nominees for the Commission. It includes Bill Pryor of the Fifth Circuit, whom I consider one of the best federal appellate judges in the country.
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February 28, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Daniel Horowitz convincingly ties the Parkland shooting to the culture of leniency towards criminals, also known as the jailbreak agenda. He writes: The jailbreak agenda is definitely on display in the Broward County law enforcement agencies. It turns out that Broward County has been promoting a program, funded in part by the federal government, to incentivize local officials to do everything they can to keep juveniles out of jail. .
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February 21, 2018 — John Hinderaker
The last Children’s Crusade ended badly. This year’s version won’t be as catastrophic, but it isn’t likely to be any more successful. It started in Florida, where liberal activists didn’t wait until the bodies at Stoneman Douglas High School were cold to begin organizing kids for another run at increased gun controls. Stoneman Douglas students have been featured so often on CNN, used as props for blatantly political purposes, that
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February 16, 2018 — Scott Johnson
James Taranto has moved on from his daily online Best of the Web column and his recurring documentation of New York Timesthink under the catchphrase “Fox Butterfield, is that you?” Butterfield was the Times reporter endlessly befuddled by, or indignant over, high incarceration rates coupled with low crime rates. Invoking Butterfield, Taranto noted cases of reported contradiction where correlation was more like it. CBS Minnesota affiliate WCCO introduces Pat Kessler’s
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February 12, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
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
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