Category Archives: Courts

A Federal Judge Has Overstepped

Posted on by
Reply

DACA was implemented by Department of Homeland Security memorandum—not even through Rule Making—and it can be removed by the same process or by Executive Order.  There is no legislation being ignored or abused here; this is purely and solely an internal Executive Branch affair.  Alsup is nakedly insinuating himself in what is only—can only be—a political matter and not a judicial one in a blatant violation of Constitutional separation of powers.

Even ex-Progressive-Democratic President Barack Obama (D) confessed he had no Constitutional authority to order the things DACA orders—before he had his DHS Secretary issue her memorandum.

Nevertheless, a Federal judge, William Alsup (from San Francisco and a Clinton appointee, but that has nothing to do with the illegitimacy of his ruling, only with the likelihood with which he’d issue such a thing) has barred President Donald Trump’s order rescinding it and which order also HIAed the rescission until March to give Congress time to handle the matter legislatively, which is how even Obama originally claimed he wanted it handled.

Alsup’s ruling ignores the law, ignores the supreme Law of the Land, and it creates “rights” that do not exist.  DACA may be good or bad policy, but its implementation or removal is a political decision; it has no place in the judiciary.  This is judicial activism at its worst.  Alsup’s ruling is a clear violation of his oath of office.  He needs to be dealt with accordingly.

YGTBSM

Posted on by
Reply

Another in the annals of.

The Louisiana court system, all the way up to the State’s Supreme Court, has upheld police denial of a (black) defendant’s demand for a lawyer during a police interrogation.  At one point during the interrogation, the suspect said, quite clearly IMNSHO,

If y’all, this is how I feel, if y’all think I did it, I know that I didn’t do it so why don’t you just give me a lawyer dog ’cause this is not what’s up.

The Supreme Court said the suspect’s statement was too ambiguous to constitute a demand for a lawyer.  Justice Scott Chrichton, in concurring, actually wrote in all seriousness,

In my view, the defendant’s ambiguous and equivocal reference to a “lawyer dog” does not constitute an invocation of counsel that warrants termination of the interview….

Elie Mystal, in his article at the link, generously attributed the ruling to an inaccurate transcript—”lawyer dog” vice the defendant’s clearly stated “lawyer, dawg,” even as he, rightly, decried the blatant racism in denying the suspect his lawyer.  Over that “ambiguity.”

I’m not so inclined.  Even without the comma, “lawyer dog” is a pretty clear slang phrase identifying the object of the suspect’s call.

Dawg.

“Continuing to Cooperate”

Posted on by
1

Special Counsel Robert Mueller revealed some indictments and charges, and he “accepted” a guilty plea deal from George Papadopoulos, a volunteer associate of the Trump campaign.

I’ll leave aside the indictments (which charges are wholly unrelated to the Trump campaign or the Trump administration or anything related to them, anyway); what’s interesting is Mueller’s plea deal with Papadopoulos.

Mr Papadopoulos is continuing to cooperate in the investigation, according to his plea agreement.

And that’s what’s key:

Papadopoulos’ cooperation is central to his plea. The plea agreement provides that the government will bring his cooperation to the Court’s attention at sentencing and that sentencing will be delayed until his cooperation is complete.

The prosecution—Mueller—is holding Papadopoulos’ sentence over his head in order to get “evidence” convenient to Mueller’s case.  This is legalized extortion.

I have to ask: what honest prosecutor would find value in what a man in Papadopoulos’ position might say about others whom Mueller is targeting?  What jury could take seriously testimony that the prosecutor—Mueller—has bought and paid for, or pressured out of on threat of heavy sentencing?

This sort of thing isn’t unique to Mueller, for all that Mueller’s pressuring of a witness is very high profile.  It’s a standard prosecutorial tactic.  “Tell me what I want to hear, and repeat it in open court, or go to jail for a very long time.”

Mueller’s Grand Jury

Posted on by
Reply

Judge Andrew Napolitano thinks the reason Special Counsel Robert Mueller has convened a grand jury as part of his “investigation” into alleged Russia collusion by members of President Donald Trump’s campaign staff is so Mueller can use the jury’s subpoena power to compel testimony and the delivery of documents.  Napolitano also said, in FoxNews insider‘s paraphrase, that the jury’s convening is

a sign that Mueller has found something from some source….

As an aside, I put investigation in quotes because it’s difficult to believe Mueller is conducting a legitimate investigation: he has too many leaks coming out of that thing, including the leak of the fact of this grand jury’s existence.  Grand juries are secret operations, among other reasons, so as to not tip off the target of the fact of the investigation or of its progress.  This leak is an enormous one, but it’s only one of the myriad that Mueller has allowed to occur and which stream Mueller has chosen not to stop.

Back to the topic.  Sure, the existence of the grand jury means Mueller “found something.”  It might be serious, or it might be the ham sandwich that any prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict.

Given the leaking coming from Mueller’s “investigation”—my spaghetti colander leaks less, albeit with the same deliberateness—it may well be that he has, indeed, assembled his ham sandwich.