Lenient sentencing
January 9, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
My friend who reads the New York Times has been waiting for it to provide frontpage coverage of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s memo instructing prosecutors not to seek jail or prison time for all but the most serious crimes and to cease charging a number of “lower-level” crimes. Having previously relegated the matter to page 18, the Times finally elevates it to the front page in discussing pushback by New
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January 5, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
New York City has a new mayor, Eric Adams. He’s a former cop who campaigned on promises to support the police in efforts to make his city safe from runaway crime But less enhanced and proactive policing won’t take New York far unless it’s accompanied by effective prosecution of those whom the police arrest. Unfortunately, Manhattan’s new district attorney is on record as unwilling to perform that core task. The
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December 23, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Marilyn Mosby is the Baltimore prosecutor who, along with then-mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, undermined police morale following the death of Freddie Gray in 2015. Mosby did it by prosecuting half a dozen police officers who weren’t guilty of wrongdoing. She failed to convict any of them. The city’s failure to support its police force led to a surge in violent crime in the months and years following Gray’s death. We wrote
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December 6, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Last Wednesday, a prominent Los Angeles philanthropist was shot to death by a career criminal who was robbing her Beverly Hills home. The victim was Jacqueline Avant, wife of Clarence Avant, a Grammy Award-winning music executive who is known as the “Godfather of Black Music.” The man accused of the murder is Aariel Maynor, 29. He was arrested during a second burglary in which he accidentally shot himself in the
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November 23, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The Bay Area of California is now the “Shoplifting Capital of America,” as Rich Lowry dubs it. Things are so bad that Gov. Gavin Newsom paid the area a visit. Newsom declared that he has “no empathy or sympathy” for the shoplifters. It’s noteworthy, and a little scary, that the governor felt he had to say this. Until recently, it went without saying that elected officials didn’t empathize or sympathize
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October 6, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Jeff Sessions has written an excellent article for the New York Post called “Blame woke pols for the nation’s needless spike in murders.” Most of what Sessions says will be familiar to Power Line readers. However, it’s great to have someone of Sessions’ stature publishing these arguments in an outlet with the kind of circulation the New York Post enjoys. Sessions starts by noting that from 2019 to 2020, the
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October 3, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Christopher Gradoville, age 37, was the director of baseball operations at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. As a Creighton student-athlete, he was a baseball star. Gradoville finished his Creighton career with a .327 batting average, 22 home runs, and 136 RBIs, in 183 games including 153 as a starter. Our Omaha friend Dave Begley tells me that Gradoville and his wife were expecting their first child. Last week, Gradoville was
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October 3, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Last week, Karim Clayton was arrested by the Fairfax County, Virginia police for assault and battery. The police held him on $2,000 bond. The next day, Clayton posted bail and was released. The day after that, he was arrested for trying to steal electronic equipment from a store in Arlington County, Virginia. A tipster has described Clayton as “a one-man petty crime wave.” That, he is, but not all of
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September 25, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Earlier this week, I wrote about a plea deal reached by far-left, Soros-backed Fairfax County prosecutor Steve Descano under which a serial child molester whose offenses carry a life sentence would instead receive only 17 years. A Fairfax County judge reluctantly accepted the deal but called it “woefully inadequate” and said the prosecutors had “victimized” the child in question. Now a second Fairfax judge has done what the first was
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July 8, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Daniel Horowitz points to an analysis by the Chicago Sun-Times showing that judges are signing off on the release of gang leaders and other notorious criminals. They are doing so pursuant to the First Step Act, the bipartisan, pro-criminal sentencing act that Donald Trump supported and signed into law. Local prosecutors reportedly are at wits’ end over this development, as they should be. Chicago has been plagued by a surge
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June 1, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The wave of violent crime in America is so pronounced that the mainstream media can’t help but report it. But that doesn’t mean the media must mention some obvious reasons why the nation might be experiencing the surge of violence. This weekend, the Washington Post featured two stories on the the crime wave. This one focused on crime in Prince Georges County, Maryland, a predominantly black county just outside of
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February 24, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
During the 1980s, Rayful Edmond III was the narcotics kingpin of Washington D.C. He probably did more harm to residents of the city than anyone else in history. According to this report in the Washington Post, Edmond oversaw an operation that brought around 1,700 pounds of cocaine into Washington every month. Law enforcement officials estimate that he was making around $2 million a week from drug dealing between 1985 and
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August 28, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Alice Marie Johnson is the poster grandma for criminal justice leniency legislation. She spoke last night at the GOP Convention, getting a prime time slot on the final night. Her speech was powerful and, from what I’ve seen, received good reviews. But the speech was a fraud, and so, to a considerable degree, was Johnson. It’s fraudulent at several levels to present Johnson as the face of the leniency-legislation-for-criminals movement.
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August 21, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Marquise Love is the thug who was caught on video viciously assaulting Adam Haner in Portland, Oregon the other day during a “protest.” Love knocked Haner unconscious. Police now have Love in custody. As is almost always true in publicized cases involving serious felonies, Love has a long rap sheet. In a well-functioning criminal justice system, he would be in prison. In our ultra-lenient system, he was free to cause
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August 10, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
As noted here, a prisoner released from an Alexandria, Virginia jail due to the Wuhan cornavirus killed the woman who testified against him on sexual assault charges. There had been no cases of the virus in that jail. In another local case, a Montgomery County, Maryland man released from jail for the same reason stabbed a 63 year old man to death. These stories prompted Fox 5 Washington to take
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August 10, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Last October, Ibrahim Bouaichi sexually assaulted Karla Dominguez with whom he reportedly had been in a relationship. He was charged with six felony counts and held without bond in an Alexandria, Virginia jail. In April, a judge, Nolan Dawkins, ordered the release of Bouaichi due to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. Bouaichi was 33 years old. The virus probably posed about the same threat to his health as the flu. Moreover,
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July 25, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
During the debate over the First Step Act, conservatives favoring lenient treatment for felons liked to point to Texas where, supposedly, enlightened programs were rehabilitating criminals with remarkable success. These “evidence-based” programs were cited to justify shorter sentences for, and the early release of, federal felons who took various courses while incarcerated. The usually sensible Sen. John Cornyn helped lead this charge, as did Heritage Foundation. No disrespect to Texas,
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