Emily Bazelon, Charged

At Amazon, Emily Bazelon, Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration.

Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, His Name Is George Floyd

At Amazon, Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice. 

Tucker Carlson: What is a Woman? (VIDEO)

This was the $64,000 question yesterday during Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson tesitimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I covered this a bit yesterday, here: "Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn's Tenacious Interrogation of Supreme Court Nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson (VIDEO)."

Background at the New York Times, "Ketanji Brown Jackson Asked to Define 'Woman' at Hearing."

And here's Tucker:

All Three Defendants Convicted of Murder in Ahmaud Arbery Lynching

Very emotional and uplifting press conference.

Spiritual. Grateful for the grace of God.

At NYT, "Three Men Found Guilty of Murdering Ahmaud Arbery: Defendants Face Up to Life in Prison":

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Three white men were found guilty of murder and other charges on Wednesday for the pursuit and fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, in a case that, together with the killing of George Floyd, helped inspire the racial justice protests of last year.

The three defendants — Travis McMichael, 35; his father, Gregory McMichael, 65; and their neighbor William Bryan, 52 — face sentences of up to life in prison for the state crimes. The men have also been indicted on separate federal charges, including hate crimes and attempted kidnapping, and are expected to stand trial in February on those charges.

The verdict suggested that the jury agreed with prosecutors’ arguments that Mr. Arbery posed no imminent threat to the men and that the men had no reason to believe he had committed a crime, giving them no legal right to chase him through their suburban neighborhood. “You can’t start it and claim self-defense,” the lead prosecutor argued in her closing statements. “And they started this.”

Though the killing of Mr. Arbery in February 2020 did not reach the same level of notoriety as the case of Mr. Floyd, the Black man murdered by a white Minneapolis police officer three months later, Mr. Arbery’s death helped fuel widespread demonstrations and unrest that unfolded in cities across the country in the spring and summer of 2020.

The case touched on some of the most combustible themes in American criminal justice, including vigilantism, self-defense laws, the effects of widespread gun ownership and the role of race in jury selection.

Like many other recent episodes involving the killing of Black people, the confrontation was captured on video that was eventually made public. Unlike many of the others, the video was made not by a bystander but by one of the defendants, Mr. Bryan.

From the beginning, Mr. Arbery’s family and friends raised questions about local officials’ handling of the case. The three men who were later charged walked free for several weeks after the shooting, and were arrested only after the video was released, a national outcry swelled and the case was taken over by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Jackie Johnson, the local prosecutor who initially handled the case, lost her bid for re-election in 2020 and was indicted this year by a Georgia grand jury, accused of “showing favor and affection” to Gregory McMichael, a former investigator in her office, and for directing police officers not to arrest Travis McMichael. The case was ultimately tried by the district attorney’s office in Cobb County, which is roughly 300 miles away from Brunswick in metropolitan Atlanta.

The case brought political and legal upheaval. Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, signed a hate-crimes statute into law, and sided with state lawmakers when they voted to repeal significant portions of the state’s citizen’s arrest statute.

During the trial, defense lawyers relied on that citizen’s arrest law, which was enacted in the 19th century. They argued that their clients had acted legally when, on a sunny Sunday afternoon in February 2020, they set out in two pickup trucks in an effort to detain Mr. Arbery, an avid jogger and former high school football player who spent nearly five minutes trying to run away from them.

Eventually trapped between the two pickup trucks, Mr. Arbery ended up in a confrontation with Travis McMichael, who was armed with a shotgun and fired at Mr. Arbery three times at close range. Mr. McMichael testified that he feared that Mr. Arbery, who had no weapon, would get control of the shotgun from him and threaten his life.

Over the 10 days of testimony in the trial, prosecutors challenged the idea that an unarmed man who never spoke to his pursuers could be considered much of a threat at all.

“What’s Mr. Arbery doing?” Linda Dunikoski, the lead prosecutor said in her closing statement. “He runs away from them. And runs away from them. And runs away from them.”

The verdict, read aloud in a packed, windowless courtroom in the Glynn County Courthouse, came at a time when Americans were already divided over the acquittal, a few days earlier, of Kyle Rittenhouse. Mr. Rittenhouse, who asserted that he was acting in self-defense, fatally shot two men and wounded another during protests and violence that broke out after a white police officer shot a Black man in Kenosha, Wis.

Before the verdict in the Georgia case, some observers worried that the racial makeup of the jury — which included 11 white people and one Black person — would skew justice in the defendants’ favor.

Superior Court Judge Timothy R. Walmsley oversaw the proceedings. When he approved the selection of the nearly all-white jury, he noted that there was an appearance of “intentional discrimination” at play, but he said that defense lawyers had given legitimate reasons unrelated to race when they moved to exclude eight Black potential jurors in the final stages of the selection process.

Before the verdict, Wanda Cooper-Jones, Mr. Arbery’s mother, said she had faith in the power of the facts that the jurors were shown. “I’m very confident that they’ll make the right decision once they see all of the evidence,” she said.

Mr. Arbery’s family said he was out jogging on the day of his death, but defense lawyers said no evidence had emerged to show that Mr. Arbery jogged that day into the defendants’ neighborhood of Satilla Shores, just outside of Brunswick, a small coastal city.

Video footage showed Mr. Arbery, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, walking into a partially built house in the neighborhood shortly before he was killed. It was a house he had walked into numerous times before. Each time, surveillance video showed him wandering around the property, but not taking or damaging anything. The owner of the house told police that items had been stolen from a boat that was sometimes stored on the property, though he was not sure the boat was there when the thefts occurred.

General concerns about property crime in Satilla Shores were widespread in early 2020, residents testified at the trial.

Travis McMichael told the police that he had seen Mr. Arbery outside the partially built house one evening 12 days before the shooting. During that encounter, Mr. McMichael said, Mr. Arbery put his hands in his waistband, as if reaching for a gun. Mr. McMichael called 911 that evening. Mr. Arbery ran away.

On the day of the shooting, a neighbor across the street saw Mr. Arbery in the house and called the police. Mr. Arbery left the house soon after, and ran down the street. Gregory McMichael spotted him and, along with his son, jumped into a truck and gave chase. Moments later, the third defendant, Mr. Bryan, began chasing Mr. Arbery as well.

At the trial, defense lawyers sought to show that the men were acting that day out of a “duty and responsibility” to detain a man whom they felt they had reasonable grounds to believe was a burglar, as Robert Rubin, a lawyer for Travis McMichael, put it. In her closing argument, Laura D. Hogue, a lawyer for Gregory McMichael, noted that Mr. Arbery had been on the property before and said he had become “a recurring nighttime intruder — and that is frightening, and unsettling.”

Travis McMichael was the only defendant to take the stand. He told the court he took his shotgun out during the pursuit because his U.S. Coast Guard training had taught him that showing a weapon could de-escalate a potentially violent situation.

He testified that he believed he had little choice but to shoot Mr. Arbery once they clashed...

More at Memeorandum.

And from Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "AHMAUD ARBERY CASE: Jury finds Travis McMichael, his father Greg McMichael and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Ryan, guilty of felony murder, among other charges."

Batya Ungar-Sargon tweets:

In a country with our ugly history, today is a good day. The tragic lynching of Ahmaud Arbery, the theft of a young man's life, cannot be undone by a just verdict. But it would have been compounded by an unjust one. We haven't overcome all our demons, but we are one step closer. https://t.co/Y8K8t2MijA

— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) November 24, 2021

Kyle Rittenhouse Found Not Guilty on All Charges in Kenosha Self-Defense Trial (VIDEO)

Justice was served. 

A brave young man, yet just 18 years old (and 17 at the time of the shootings) who showed courage under fire, in Kenosha and trial by a the bloodthirsty and vicious leftist mass-media.

At the Other McCain, "Kenosha: Verdict Today? Or Never?"

From Stephen Green, at Instapundit, "BREAKING: KYLE RITTENHOUSE NOT GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS."

And at WSJ, "Kyle Rittenhouse Found Not Guilty of All Charges in Killing of Two."

A Wisconsin jury found Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged in the killing of two people during unrest in Kenosha, Wis., last year, not guilty on all charges.

Mr. Rittenhouse, now 18 years old, faced charges of intentional, reckless and attempted homicide, and reckless endangerment. The case revolved around his actions the night of Aug. 25, 2020, as he patrolled the city with a small medical kit and an AR-15-style rifle amid unrest following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

His attorneys argued he acted in self-defense and entered a not guilty plea. He has been free on $2 million in bail, mostly raised by supporters online.

The jury deliberated for three days and three hours, after a trial that took a little over two weeks.

Mr. Rittenhouse cried, breathing quickly and shaking while he clutched at his chest as the verdict was read. The judge thanked the jury and said they had been wonderful to work with. The judge said the charges were dismissed with prejudice and that he had been released from his bond.

The most dramatic moments of the trial came as Mr. Rittenhouse testified in his own defense, at one point breaking down on the stand. He later said that he feared for his life as Joseph Rosenbaum, the first person he shot and killed, ran toward him and had his hand on the barrel of Mr. Rittenhouse’s rifle as Mr. Rittenhouse began firing.

“If I would have let Mr. Rosenbaum take my firearm from me, he would have used it and killed me with it and probably killed more people,” Mr. Rittenhouse testified during cross examination by prosecutors.

Lawyers who weren’t involved in the case said the testimony probably helped his case.

The prosecution portrayed Mr. Rittenhouse as an outsider who lied about his status as an EMT and was ill-prepared to render aid or handle a firearm in the chaotic situation. But even some of its own witnesses bolstered defense arguments that he acted in self-defense when he shot and killed Mr. Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and injured Gaige Grosskreutz, now 27.

Richie McGinniss, a videographer for the online publication the Daily Caller who was called by the prosecution, testified that Mr. Rosenbaum was chasing Mr. Rittenhouse through a parking lot and appeared to lunge for Mr. Rittenhouse’s gun in the moments leading up to the shooting.

Mr. Grosskreutz said in his testimony that he was pointing a handgun toward Mr. Rittenhouse when the then-17-year-old fired at him, causing severe damage to Mr. Grosskreutz’s arm.

The prosecution has always faced an uphill battle in the case. Under Wisconsin law, the defense must only cite some evidence for self-defense, putting the burden of proof on prosecutors to negate that claim beyond a reasonable doubt...

Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened to the Adults in Charge.

Oh man, what a gnarly piece at ProPublica, "Judge Donna Scott Davenport oversees a juvenile justice system in Rutherford County, Tennessee, with a staggering history of jailing children. She said kids must face consequences, which rarely seem to apply to her or the other adults in charge."

Via Jonathan Last, "Joe Biden Is in a World of Trouble (Even Democrats Don't Like Him)."

The Buck Stops With Barr

A great piece, from Kim Strassel, at WSJ, via Memeorandum, "The Weekend Interview: William Barr: ‘One Standard of Justice’":

The U.S. attorney general is meditating on one of his frustrations with the modern Justice Department: The outside world keeps moving faster; the wheels of justice ever more slowly. “Nobody wants to take responsibility anymore,” William Barr says with a hint of incredulity. “They wring their hands and push issues around the bureaucracy and trade memos for months.” His response: “Bring it to me! I’ll make the decision. That’s what I’m here for!”

If Mr. Barr, 70, dominated headlines over the past two years, it’s because he made a lot of tough calls. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s constitutionally dubious claims that President Trump committed obstruction of justice? No. An investigation of the 2016 Russia-collusion probe and the dismissal of charges against Mike Flynn ? Yes. New oversight of sensitive political investigations and surveillance of U.S. citizens? Yes. A criminal referral about Mr. Trump’s call to the Ukrainian president? No. Repeated demands—from the left and the right—for his department to engage in politics? No, no, no.

Consequential decisions have a way of annoying people—Democrats, Republicans, the staff, one’s boss—but Mr. Barr, who’d been attorney general before, from 1991-93, knew that going in. “I’m in a position in life where I can do the right thing and not really care about the consequences,” he told senators during his January 2019 confirmation hearing. In a 90-minute phone interview Tuesday—less than 24 hours after the announcement of his resignation, effective Dec. 23—he sounded his usual spirited self.

He reminds me why he took the job in the first place: “The Department of Justice was being used as a political weapon” by a “willful if small group of people,” who used the claim of collusion with Russia in an attempt to “topple an administration,” he says. “Someone had to make sure that the power of the department stopped being abused and that there was accountability for what had happened.” Mr. Barr largely succeeded, in the process filling a vacuum of political oversight, reimposing norms, and resisting partisan critics on both sides.

Mr. Barr describes an overarching objective of ensuring that there is “one standard of justice.” That, he says, is why he appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the FBI’s 2016 Crossfire Hurricane probe. “Of course the Russians did bad things in the election,” he says. “But the idea that this was done with the collusion of the Trump campaign—there was never any evidence. It was entirely made up.” The country deserved to know how the world’s premier law-enforcement agency came to target and spy on a presidential campaign.

Mr. Barr says Mr. Durham’s appointment should not have been necessary. Mr. Mueller’s investigation should have exposed FBI malfeasance. Instead, “the Mueller team seems to have been ready to blindly accept anything fed to it by the system,” Mr. Barr says, adding that this “is exactly what DOJ should not be.”

Mr. Durham hasn’t finished his work, to the disappointment of many Republicans, including the president, who were hoping for a resolution—perhaps including indictments—before the election. Mr. Barr notes that Mr. Durham had to wait until the end of 2019 for Inspector General Michael Horowitz to complete his own investigation into the FBI’s surveillance. Then came the Covid lockdowns, which suspended federal grand juries for six months. Mr. Durham could no longer threaten to subpoena uncooperative witnesses.

“I understand people’s frustration over the timing, and there are prosecutors who break more china, so to speak,” Mr. Barr says. “But they don’t necessarily get the results.” Mr. Durham will, and is making “significant progress,” says Mr. Barr, who disclosed this month that he had prior to the election designated Mr. Durham a special counsel, to provide assurance that his team would be able to finish its work. The new designation also assures that Mr. Durham will produce a report to the attorney general. Mr. Barr believes “the force of circumstances will ensure it goes public” even under the new administration.

The biggest news from Mr. Durham’s probe is what he has ruled out. Mr. Barr was initially suspicious that agents had been spying on the Trump campaign before the official July 2016 start date of Crossfire Hurricane, and that the Central Intelligence Agency or foreign intelligence had played a role. But even prior to naming Mr. Durham special counsel, Mr. Barr had come to the conclusion that he didn’t “see any sign of improper CIA activity” or “foreign government activity before July 2016,” he says. “The CIA stayed in its lane.”

Mr. Barr says Mr. Durham’s probe is now tightly focused on “the conduct of Crossfire Hurricane, the small group at the FBI that was most involved in that,” as well as “the activities of certain private actors.” (Mr. Barr doesn’t elaborate.) Mr. Durham has publicly stated he’s not convinced the FBI team had an adequate “predicate” to launch an investigation. In September, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe declassified a document showing that the FBI was warned in 2016 that the Hillary Clinton campaign might be behind the “collusion” claims.

Mr. Barr says Mr. Durham is also looking at the January 2017 intelligence-community “assessment” that claimed Russia had “developed a clear preference” for Mr. Trump in the 2016 election. He confirms that most of the substantive documents related to the FBI’s investigation have now been made public.

The attorney general also hopes people remember that orange jumpsuits aren’t the only measure of misconduct. It frustrates him that the political class these days frequently plays “the criminal card,” obsessively focused on “who is going to jail, who is getting indicted.”

The American system is “designed to find people innocent,” Mr. Barr notes. “It has a high bar.” One danger of the focus on criminal charges is that it ends up excusing a vast range of contemptible or abusive behavior that doesn’t reach the bar. The FBI’s use “of confidential human sources and wiretapping to investigate people connected to a campaign was outrageous,” Mr. Barr says—whether or not it leads to criminal charges.

Also outrageous, in Mr. Barr’s view, was the abuse of power by both the FBI and the Mueller team toward Mr. Trump’s associates, especially Mr. Flynn...

Keep reading.

Golden State Killer Sentenced to 26 Life Terms

At LAT, "Golden State Killer given life in prison for rapes, murders that terrorized a generation":

The crimes began as window peeping in DeAngelo’s hometown of Rancho Cordova. They progressed to bedroom burglaries and panty thefts in Visalia, and then the murder of Claude Snelling, a college instructor who caught the intruder attempting to abduct his 16-year-old daughter from her bedroom in 1975.

The rapes that ensued became more violent as DeAngelo began to attack couples together and, later, to kill them.

While DeAngelo typically dragged women out of bed and away from their husbands to rape them in other rooms, crime scene evidence shows the couples he murdered died in bed beside each other.

“It wasn’t enough for him to rape or beat or shoot his victims,” said Santa Barbara County Dist. Atty. Joyce Dudley. “He wanted to take inflicting human pain to the highest level possible. Therefore, he often ensured that their loved ones saw or heard their loved ones being killed. That’s who Joe DeAngelo is.”

The investigations were often botched by law enforcement agencies refusing to cooperate, but the crimes also instigated major advances in criminal justice laws and tools. They were cited by women’s rights advocates to successfully increase the penalties for rape. A political crusade launched and funded by the family of murder victim Keith Harrington fueled a California law requiring felons to add their DNA to a databank used to hunt criminals.

Harrington’s older brother, Ron, used his victim statement in court this week to make the case for overriding privacy concerns and preserving police access to consumer genealogy sites, like the one detectives used to identify DeAngelo.

As part of a plea deal with prosecutors, DeAngelo admitted to carrying out 53 attacks on 87 victims in 11 counties, starting in 1975 and ending with the rape and murder of a teenage girl in Orange County in 1986. Authorities believe he is also responsible for two more sexual assaults and a shooting for which he was not charged.

In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed to spare him the death penalty. He was sentenced to 11 life terms without the possibility of parole, to be served consecutively, plus 15 life terms and eight years...

More.

California to Empty Prisons, Dump Convicted Murderers on the Streets

Of course the Times picks the most appealing, sympathetic convict they could find to profile.

This will not turn out well.

See, "California is releasing some murderers due to COVID-19. Some say it should free more":

Although Gov. Gavin Newsom and corrections officials have focused on freeing nonviolent offenders from prisons to slow the spread of coronavirus, they also are letting out people who have committed violent crimes but have serious medical conditions. https://t.co/vB3GUpCLoo

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) August 9, 2020

Terebea Williams was 22 when she shot her boyfriend, drove 750 miles with him bleeding in the trunk of his own car and then dragged him into a Northern California motel, tied him to a chair and left him to die.

Convicted of murder, carjacking and kidnapping, Williams went on to earn a college degree during her 19 years in prison, where she also mentored younger inmates and was lauded by administrators for her “exceptional conduct” while incarcerated.

The contrasting portraits of Williams as stone-cold killer and rehabilitated model prisoner highlight the difficulties in a plan to release thousands of California inmates to curb the spread of COVID-19, which has killed at least 52 of those incarcerated and sickened more than 8,700 others.

This spring, the state expedited the release of 3,500 inmates because of the coronavirus, and in July it freed 2,345 others early. Thousands more are eligible for release, including at least 6,500 deemed to be at high risk because of medical conditions that make them especially vulnerable to COVID-19.

Although Gov. Gavin Newsom and corrections officials have focused on freeing nonviolent offenders, they also are letting out people who, like Williams, have committed violent crimes but have serious medical conditions.

Williams, 44, walked out of a women’s prison in Chowchilla, Calif., on July 29, lopping decades off her 84-years-to-life sentence for killing Kevin “John” Ruska Jr., who died of infection from a gunshot wound to the gut.

Some prisoners’ rights advocates say Williams exemplifies the type of inmate who should be released — one who has already served a lengthy sentence, poses a low risk of reoffending and is particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus. Some are also pushing to expand the criteria for early releases to include similar types of inmates now serving life without parole for murder.

But in Williams’ case and others, officials have drawn the ire of prosecutors, victims’ rights advocates and family members amid questions about which and how many inmates are being released — and whether it is being done with enough transparency to protect the public.

“The governor of California, Terebea’s public defender and the politicians of California have used COVID to allow this cold, calculated, lying, unremorseful murderer out of jail 65 years early, without giving the victim, Johnny, a voice,” said Ruska’s cousin, Karri Phillips...

Keep reading.

The Coming Black Crime Bloodbath (VIDEO)

She's one of the most politically incorrect women in America, and she's riding a wave of prescience on Black Lives Matter. Super compelling interview with Epoch Times editor Jan Jekielek.

And at Amazon, Heather Mac Donald, The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe.

Surprise: The Wealthy Fled New York City as the Coronavirus Broke Out

Yeah, big surprise here.

At NYT, "The Richest Neighborhoods Emptied Out Most as Coronavirus Hit New York City":

Hundreds of thousands of New York City residents, in particular those from the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods, left as the coronavirus pandemic hit, an analysis of multiple sources of aggregated smartphone location data has found https://t.co/IO8qUK8zqq

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 15, 2020

Hundreds of thousands of New York City residents, in particular those from the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods, left as the coronavirus pandemic hit, an analysis of multiple sources of aggregated smartphone location data has found.

Roughly 5 percent of residents — or about 420,000 people — left the city between March 1 and May 1. In the city’s very wealthiest blocks, in neighborhoods like the Upper East Side, the West Village, SoHo and Brooklyn Heights, residential population decreased by 40 percent or more, while the rest of the city saw comparably modest changes.

Some of these areas are typically home to lots of students, many of whom left as colleges and universities closed; other residents might have left to care for friends or family members across the country. But, on average, income is a strong simple predictor of a neighborhood’s change: The higher-earning a neighborhood is, the more likely it is to have emptied out.

Relatively few residents from blocks with median household incomes of about $90,000 or less (in the 80th percentile or lower) left New York. This migration out of the city began in mid-March, and accelerated in the days after March 15, when Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he was closing the city’s schools.

The highest-earning neighborhoods emptied first.

“There is a way that these crises fall with a different weight on people based on social class,” said Kim Phillips-Fein, a history professor at New York University and author of a book about how New York changed during the fiscal crisis of the 1970s. “Even though there’s a strong rhetoric of ‘We’re all in it together,’ that’s not really the case.”

These estimates are based on data provided by Descartes Labs, a geospatial analysis company.

Descartes Labs used anonymized smartphone location data to find a large sample of New York City residents — not commuters or tourists — based on where they lived during a two-week period in February. They then analyzed their aggregate movements as the pandemic hit and whether they had left the city. The sample was about 140,000 residents, including residents from nearly every populated census tract in the city.

Smartphone location data is imperfect. It misses people who don’t own a smartphone. It requires guesses about who is a resident rather than a visitor or commuter. It relies on the kinds of apps that track and transmit a user’s precise location. And it is unlikely to be perfectly representative of the general population.

But it can be more useful than other methods to measure quick changes in population on a large scale...

Interestingly, that 420,000 who left is the exact same number of all the Chinese who flew into the country before President Trump banned flights from China.

Keep reading.

Jeff Sessions Returns Department of Justice to Rule of Law

From Andrew McCarthy, at NRO, "On Criminal Justice, Sessions iss Returning DOJ to the Rule of Law":

A response to Joyce Vance and Carter Stewart

wo former top Obama-appointed prosecutors co-author a diatribe against Trump attorney general Jeff Sessions for returning the Justice Department to purportedly outdated, too “tough on crime” charging practices. Yawn. After eight years of Justice Department stewardship by Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, and after Obama’s record 1,715 commutations that systematically undermined federal sentencing laws, we know the skewed storyline.

The surprise is to find such an argument in the pages of National Review Online. But there it was on Tuesday: “On Criminal Justice, Sessions Is Returning DOJ to the Failed Policies of the Past,” by Joyce Vance and Carter Stewart, formerly the United States attorneys for, respectively, the Northern District of Alabama and the Southern District of Ohio. Ms. Vance is now lecturing on criminal-justice reform at the University of Alabama School of Law and doing legal commentary at MSNBC. Mr. Stewart has moved on to the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, fresh from what it describes as his “leadership role at DOJ in addressing inequities in the criminal justice system,” focusing on “alternatives to incarceration,” and “reducing racial disparities in the federal system.”

The authors lament that Sessions has reinstituted guidelines requiring prosecutors “to charge the most serious offenses and ask for the lengthiest prison sentences.” This, the authors insist, is a “one-size-fits-all policy” that “doesn’t work.” It marks a return to the supposedly “ineffective and damaging criminal-justice policies that were imposed in 2003,” upsetting the “bipartisan consensus” for “criminal-justice reform” that has supposedly seized “today’s America.”

This is so wrongheaded, it’s tough to decide where to begin.

In reality, what Sessions has done is return the Justice Department to the traditional guidance articulated nearly four decades ago by President Carter’s highly regarded attorney general, Benjamin Civiletti (and memorialized in the U.S. Attorney’s Manual). It instructs prosecutors to charge the most serious, readily provable offense under the circumstances. Doesn’t work? This directive, in effect with little variation until the Obama years, is one of several factors that contributed to historic decreases in crime. When bad guys are prosecuted and incarcerated, they are not preying on our communities. The thrust of the policy Sessions has revived is respect for the Constitution’s bedrock separation-of-powers principle. It requires faithful execution of laws enacted by Congress.

The thrust of the policy Sessions has revived is respect for the Constitution’s bedrock separation-of-powers principle. It requires faithful execution of laws enacted by Congress.

A concrete example makes the point. Congress has prescribed a minimum ten-year sentence for the offense of distributing at least five kilograms of cocaine (see section 841(b)(1)(A)(ii) of the federal narcotics laws). Let’s say a prosecutor is presented with solid evidence that a defendant sold seven kilograms of cocaine. The crime is readily provable. Nevertheless, the prosecutor follows the Obama deviation from traditional Justice Department policy, charging a much less serious offense: a distribution that does not specify an amount of cocaine — as if we were talking about a one-vial street sale. The purpose of this sleight of hand is to evade the controlling statute’s ten-year sentence, inviting the judge to impose little or no jail time.

That is not prosecutorial discretion. It is the prosecutor substituting his own judgment for Congress’s regarding the gravity of the offense. In effect, the prosecutor is decreeing law, not enforcing what is on the books — notwithstanding the wont of prosecutors to admonish that courts must honor Congress’s laws as written. Absent this Justice Department directive that prosecutors must charge the most serious, readily provable offense, the executive branch becomes a law unto itself. Bending congressional statutes to the executive’s policy preferences was the Obama approach to governance, so we should not be surprised that a pair of his appointed prosecutors see it as a model for criminal enforcement, too. But it is not enforcement of the law. It is executive imperialism. It is DACA all over again: “Congress refuses to codify my policy preferences; but I have raw executive power so I shall impose them by will . . . and call it ‘prosecutorial discretion.’” (In truth, it is a distortion of prosecutorial discretion.)

It should not be necessary to point out to accomplished lawyers that, in our system, “bipartisan consensus” is not a comparative handful of Democrats and Republicans clucking their tongues in unison. Yes, between leftist hostility to incarceration and libertarian skepticism about prosecutorial power, there is common ground among some factions of lawmakers when it comes to opposing our allegedly draconian penal code. But these factions are not much of a consensus. The only consensus that matters is one that drums up support sufficient to enact legislation into law. “Criminal-justice reform” is of a piece with “comprehensive immigration reform” and the Obama agenda: If it actually enjoyed broad popularity, resort to executive fiat would be unnecessary — Congress would codify it.

The criminal-justice “reformers” want mandatory-minimum-sentencing provisions eliminated and other sentencing provisions mitigated. Yet, despite the sympathetic airing they get from the “progressive” mainstream media, they are unable to get their “reforms” passed by Congress. How come? Because strong majorities of lawmakers understand themselves to be accountable to commonsense citizens — people who aren’t “evolved” enough to grasp how reducing the number of criminals in prisons will somehow decrease the amount of crime. Most of us benighted types proceed under the quaint assumption that, even in “today’s America,” the streets are safer when the criminals are not on them.

In light of the caterwauling about mandatory-minimum sentencing by people either unfamiliar with or in a state of amnesia about what the federal system was like before it was instituted, it is worth repeating: Such provisions mean that the public, rather than the judge, decides the minimum appropriate term for serious crimes. As a class, judges are elite products of American universities and tend to be more left-leaning than the general public. That is particularly the case with respect to President Obama’s 335 judicial appointees, many of them — like Obama himself, as well as Vance and Stewart — philosophically resistant to incarceration as a response to crime. We can certainly repeal mandatory minimums, but if we do, it will vest those judges with unfettered discretion to mete out punishment...

Sessions is Numero Uno in my book. I was bummed upon hearing the talk of his possible resignation. We really need this guy at the helm over there. He's MAGA.

Keep reading.

Difference Between 'Social Activists' and 'Social Justice Warriors'

Seen on Twitter:

Truth pic.twitter.com/YMwkZFwPi0

— Kassy Dillon (@KassyDillon) June 11, 2017

S. Jonathan Bass, He Calls Me By Lightning

Looks like a thrilling read.

At Amazon, S. Jonathan Bass, He Calls Me By Lightning: The Life of Caliph Washington and the forgotten Saga of Jim Crow, Southern Justice, and the Death Penalty.

James Comey Headlines

It's not a "constitutional crisis." Democrats want to make it into one, but it's not.

Today you gotta just sit back and take cover while the partisan bilge flies.

Headlines:

Trump fires Comey as FBI director: A look at Wednesday's front page pic.twitter.com/6tvIdUxJpa

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) May 10, 2017

On today's #frontpage: @FBI director #Comey's ouster stuns #Washington; #Colleges vexed by rise in #MentalHealth needs pic.twitter.com/740AIPv7t3

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) May 10, 2017

The front page of The New York Times for Wednesday, May 10, 2017 pic.twitter.com/yPEiXwMXgl

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 10, 2017

Before the Election, Teachers Told Their Students Everything Would Be Okay. Now They're Freaking Out

I attended an immigration rights forum at lunch yesterday, sponsored by the Latino faculty members, which included a representative from the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition. People are scared. The event was emotional. Lots of crying. I feel for these folks. In fact, I'm gathering information, including legal defense resources. With the appointment of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, I'd say the fears are well justified.

In any case, leftists thought unicorns and rainbows were going to continue in a third Obama term under Hillary Clinton. It's not happening, and school teachers are at a loss for words.

At LAT, "Teachers told their students everything would be OK after the election. Now, they're not so sure":

For months leading up to the presidential election, elementary school teacher Ingrid Villeda tried to instill in her students a certain faith in democracy.

The 18-year veteran of L.A. Unified’s schools looked for simple ways to decode the ugly back-and-forths on TV. She taught her fifth-graders about the virtues of a democratic nation in which ordinary citizens study the candidates’ policy positions and then choose their leaders. She wore suffragette white on election day and told them the story of how women fought for and won the right vote.

Within the walls of Villeda’s school, 93rd Street Elementary, where roughly three-quarters of the students are Latino, Donald J. Trump and his vow to deport millions of immigrants living in the country illegally seemed far away and fictional. That is, until the morning after the election, when Villeda’s students ran to her in the schoolyard, the sleepless night written on their faces.

“People really don’t like us?” asked a girl from Mexico. “What are we going to do about that?”

Recalling this moment in a phone conversation, Villeda began to cry. “They’re looking at me to be able to stand in front of them and say, ‘You’re okay; we’re going to be fine.’ ”

For students and teachers in the nation’s second-largest school system, the repercussions of America’s choice for president are likely to be both profound and lasting. In L.A. Unified, 74% of the roughly 600,000 students are Latino, and many have relatives and acquaintances who are living in the U.S. without legal permission.

Children are coming to school shrouded in anxiety, asking teachers to interpret the day’s headlines for them, examining each bit of news for its potential threat.

“Am I safe?” many want to know, voicing new concerns about immigration raids or hate-inspired attacks against religious and ethnic minorities as well as LGBT people.

“All week long they’ve been kind of like zombies, numb from shock, and so have a lot of educators,” said Martha Infante, 46, a social-studies teacher at Los Angeles Academy Middle School. The day after the election, she said, was the most difficult day of her career...

Still more.

President-Elect Donald J. Trump Selects U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General (VIDEO)

At NYT, via Memeorandum, "Donald Trump Selects Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General."

It's a great pick.

And naturally, all leftists can do is bawl about how Sessions was accused of racism 30 years ago, allegations which apparently derailed a judicial appointment.

See Pema Levy, at the hate-site Mother Jones, "Sessions' Anti-Immigration Influence Will Go Far Beyond His Role as Attorney General: Thirty years ago, charges of racism derailed his confirmation for a judgeship. Now he’ll be vastly more powerful."

And at ABC News:

Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby Charged in Shooting of Unarmed Black Man (VIDEO)

Authorities says Terence Crutcher was unarmed.

At the Tulsa World, "Officer Betty Shelby charged with first-degree manslaughter in fatal shooting of Terence Crutcher":

The Tulsa County District Attorney's Office filed a first-degree manslaughter charge on Thursday against Officer Betty Shelby in the fatal shooting of Terence Crutcher last week.

District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler said during a brief press conference that a warrant has been issued for the arrest of Shelby, 42, who is expected to turn herself in to authorities.

Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan said Monday that Crutcher, a 40-year-old father of four, was unarmed when Shelby shot him once in the upper right lung area next to his stopped SUV near 36th Street North and Lewis Avenue at 7:44 p.m. Sept. 16. He was pronounced dead at a hospital less than an hour later.

"The tragic circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Crutcher are on the hearts and minds of many people in this community," Kunzweiler said at the press conference Thursday. "It is important to note that despite the heightened tensions felt by all — which seemingly beg for an emotional reaction — our community has consistently demonstrated a willingness to respect the judicial process. It is the shared responsibility of all who have the ability to control their actions to do just that."

The charges against Shelby are the second Kunzweiler has filed in less than two years against an officer who killed someone while on duty. His office filed a second-degree manslaughter charge against former Tulsa County Reserve Deputy Robert Bates in the April 2, 2015, shooting of Eric Harris during an undercover operation in north Tulsa.

Bates resigned from his post and was convicted in April of this year, receiving a four-year prison sentence.

Shelby faces one count of manslaughter committed in the heat of passion, or in the alternative while resisting a person's attempt to commit a crime. First-degree manslaughter carries a sentence of four years to life in Department of Corrections custody, according to Oklahoma law.

If convicted, Shelby would have to serve 85 percent of her sentence before becoming eligible for parole.

A probable cause affidavit in the case alleges that Shelby "acted unreasonably by escalating the situation from a confrontation with Mr. Crutcher, who was not responding to verbal commands and was walking away from her with his hands held up, becoming emotionally involved to the point that she overreacted."

The affidavit states she told Sgt. Dave Walker in a police interview that she was in fear for her life and thought Crutcher would kill her. Shelby reportedly told investigators she was yelling repeatedly for Crutcher to stop walking to his vehicle and get on his knees.

However, dash cam and police helicopter footage shows Crutcher walking to the SUV, which was stopped in the middle of 36th Street North, with his hands up while Shelby had a gun pointed at him. The videos show that at least three officers had either a gun or Taser drawn as Crutcher walked back to the SUV.

Shelby turned on her police car's rear flashing lights only when stopping to approach Crutcher, which meant her dash camera did not turn on, Sgt. Shane Tuell told reporters Monday.

Attorney Scott Wood, who has represented Shelby so far, said there are about two unrecorded minutes of interaction between Shelby and Crutcher.

Officer Tyler Turnbough reportedly told Shelby he had his Taser ready before deploying it about the same time Shelby fired her gun.

Shelby said in her interview that she saw Crutcher reach into the driver's side front window before she shot him. Lead investigator Doug Campbell wrote in the affidavit that the videos show that Crutcher's right hand is up and that his left hand is "unobservable" at the time he was shot...

More.

Plus, more video at KJRH News 2 Tulsa, "Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby charged with first degree manslaughter in death of Terence Crutcher."

The 'Bitch' Presidency

Radical feminists are worked up in a lather over the coming wave of "misogynist" attacks on Hillary Clinton as she (if she) assumes the presidency.

The argument's basically suggesting all the racist Islamophobic truther attacks on Obama squared.

See Michelle Cottle, at the Atlantic, for some epic lulz:

I'm thinking a Trump-Ailes union bodes ill for the ladies in general. Unless you happen to like dirty old men https://t.co/XlfLiOfcOO

— Michelle Cottle (@mcottle) August 17, 2016

Heather Mac Donald, The War on Cops

This looks fantastic!

Heather Mac Donald has been absolutely on fire this last couple of years with her commentary and reporting on the insidious "Black Lives Matter" movement. Her new book is destined to be a blockbuster.

Awesome.

It's out June 21st.

Pre-order at Amazon, The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe.