The site's seen its highest traffic ever this week after Instapundit and National Review Online linked to Grits' post on the DEA's nostalgia for alcohol prohibition. That's pretty fun -- who'da thought I was National Review's kind of guy? (BTW, here's what an Instapundit hit does to your Labor Day traffic.)
Otherwise, blogging will be on the light side the next few days, but here's a few quick hits that hopefully will tide you over, gentle readers, until I can shorten the stack on my desk:
Probation "harsher" than prison? Austin US District Judge Lee Yeakel sentenced the computer hacker who stole thousands of social security numbers from the University of Texas to five years probation, paying $170K restitution, and banned his use of the Internet without permisssion from his probation officer. Federal sentencing guidelines called for a sentence of 15-21 months, but Yeakel declared the sentence "harsher" than prison. Was it? I'm curious as to whether Grits' readers think that's true?
Nuther Ron Mock client nears execution: Frances Newton is scheduled to die next week, and the thought that she might be innocent, convicted on possibly faulty evidence from a Houston crime lab, makes me sick to my stomach. She had one of the worst lawyers of all time. The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty sent out an action alert to plead with the Governor and the Board of Pardons and Paroles to spare her life.
Public defenders in Paris? In Paris (that's northeast Texas, not France), Lamar County officials are considering setting up a public defender's office in response to rising indigent defense costs and a declining number of attorneys willing to take court-appointed cases. That's probably a smart move.
The sound of the other shoe dropping: It appears as though Texas' anti-abortion lobby's recent string of legislative successes has cleared the way to prosecuting doctors as murderers for performing abortions withut parental consent, see Injustice Anywhere and Doc Berman's accounts. It's like a pro-life zealot's view of doctors was accidentally codified. At least, I think it was an accident. One of our yahoo Texas DA's, you can be sure, will file that moronic case now that they've thought of it.
Okay, 45,000 people couldn't have gotten high, but we could have charged that many with possession. Legal Assistance looked at Grits' post on DEA testilying about meth weights and, in response, walks through Texas law on whether drugs must be possessed in "usable" quantities to be illegal. Short answer: Pot, yes, powder, no.
For you history buffs: See Lufkin Daily News publisher Gary Borders' story of a Reconstruction-era Texas lawman, Columbus Hazlett, who was nearly lynched as a boy for his family's pro-union sympathies. Later, as a state policeman, he was jailed after he and another officer threatened a judge and shot a deputy sent to arrest them. Hazlett was killed after breaking out of jail in Nacogdoches. As an aside, I sure didn't know Angelina County (Lufkin) actually voted against seccession, the only East Texas county to do so.
Local marijuana initiatives: Liberty Index summarizes the various local marijuana reform initiatives around the country. Good blogging - I'd not seen that information compiled elsewhere.
Fourth Amendment lore: Here's a good, brief primer by Orin Kerr on the history of Fourth Amendment case law, via CrimProf blog. (The Fourth Amendment protects people and their property from unreasonable searches and seizures, at least in theory.) I often forget, though, that the Fourth amendment didn't apply to state and local law enforcement until after the 1961 decision in Mapp vs. Ohio. I can only imagine what cops got away with before that.
No Fourth Amendment for you! Ironically, given his historical homage to the Fourth Amendment, Orin Kerr thinks Janice Rogers Brown won't be nominated as a US Supreme Court Justice precisely because she respects and defends the Fourth Amendment when deciding search and seizure cases (obviously a disqualifying attribute for a Supreme Court Justice). Others chimed in; Doc rounds up the links.
No panties, no visit: Loretta Nall's recounting of the Great Alabama Prison Panty Rebellion cracked me up. And pissed me off. She's a good writer. I suspect that was her goal.
Hate to see you go: Finally, farewell to Watching Justice, a much-needed DoJ watchdog project that's ending too soon.
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1 comment:
15 to 18 months working in the tire recapping plant at the Darrington Unit just might change his mind as to the harshness of his sentence.
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