Category Archives: Courts

Dangers of a Progressive Senate

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Last Monday the Senate voted down four gun control measures, the least offensive of which was Senator John Cornyn’s (R, TX) proposal to let DoJ delay a gun purchase by someone DoJ suspected but that also would require Justice to show probable cause in court within 72 hours in order to permanently block the purchase.

The Democrats’ response was as predictable as it was disingenuous.  Here’s Senator Chuck Schumer (D, NY), for instance.

It’s hard to believe, but still true, that our Republican colleagues voted to allow suspected terrorists to buy guns.  We will keep pushing until they see the light.

It’s hard to believe, but astoundingly still true, that Democrats continue to insist on depriving Americans of our rights whenever those rights become inconvenient to Democrat agenda goals.  Suspected terrorists.  Never mind conviction.  Never mind even probable cause, which isn’t anything more than a showing to a judge that a case that might be brought has a legitimate chance of success in court, in front of a jury.  Due process?  Democrats don’t need no stinking due process.

72 hours is too short?  The DoJ already has an extensive file on the suspected individual; that’s why they suspect him.  The long pole in this tent is the drive over to the local courthouse.

We must keep resisting because Democrats disparage American rights and refuse to see the light.

Elections have consequences.

Computers Sentencing Humans

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court is considering exactly that.

The state’s highest court is set to rule on whether such algorithms, known as risk assessments, violate due process and discriminate against men when judges rely on them in sentencing.

No.  Even when sentencing a criminal, where his crime is substantially similar to other criminals’ crimes, the key is that substantial part.  No two crimes really are alike, no two criminals really are identical, even the criminal convicted today is not the same man he was when he was convicted—even of a substantially similar crime yesterday—history has happened.  One size cannot fit all, even here; sentencing must be unique.

And that sentence must be handed down by a judge or, in many jurisdictions (and my personal favorite), a jury.  It takes a human to assess the man, and it especially takes a human to assess his likelihood of recidivism or rehabilitation.  It takes a human, or a collection of us, to assess the man’s potential redeemability and his likelihood of redemption.

Computers have none of the comprehension, conscience, intuition, or moral capacity that are so critical to such judgments.  Even a computer’s risk assessment must be suspect, as the inputs cannot include everything a human or that collection of humans that is a jury sees when they assess the man’s record and look into the eyes of the man standing before them.

Aside from the principle of the question, the particular tool in question in the case before the Wisconsin Court is badly flawed.

…a widely used tool called COMPAS, or Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions, a 137-question test that covers criminal and parole history, age, employment status, social life, education level, community ties, drug use, and beliefs.

The assessment includes queries like, “Did a parent figure who raised you ever have a drug or alcohol problem?” and “Do you feel that the things you do are boring or dull?”  Scores are generated by comparing an offender’s characteristics to a representative criminal population of the same sex.

Tests, questionnaires, surveys, and the like are extremely easy to game, and any lawyer worthy of his pro bono fee is fully capable of coaching his client to game this one.

Computers shouldn’t sentence humans; humans should sentence humans.  And it shouldn’t be done on the basis of input-limited machine-calculated predictions of the future, in any event.  It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.

Of Course She Does

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Recall the blatant dishonesty of Department of Justice lawyers.

Now Attorney General Loretta Lynch has chosen to fight District Judge Andrew Hanen’s order that her lawyers actually undergo documented ethics training—training that any pre-law pupil might undergo.

In filings Tuesday, the department said the order would “far exceed the bounds of appropriate remedies” and would cost the department millions.

Because requiring lawyers to understand the ethics of their profession is unreasonable for a DoJ lawyer.  Sure.

The Department of Justice responded in the court filing Tuesday, saying that it “emphatically” disagrees with the judge’s ruling, claiming that none of its lawyers intended to deceive.

Now Lynch is adding to the deliberate lies.  Of course her lawyers intended to deceive when they made representations to Hanen’s court that they knew were inaccurate or false.  Words are a lawyer’s stock in trade.  Lynch’s lawyers knew exactly what they were saying at the time they said those things, and they said them anyway.

The filing requests Hanen’s order be put on hold so federal lawyers can review.

No need to put Hanen’s order on hold.  It can be part of the lawyers’ ethics training plan.

In Tuesday’s filing, the DOJ estimated that the ethics training mandated would cost upwards of $7.8 million.

The convenience of the government is not relevant to whether the government’s lawyers should be sanctioned or to the nature of the sanction.  Inconvenience, in fact, is a necessary part of sanctioning.  On the other hand, to the extent this is an unreasonable cost for the government to bear, it would be entirely reasonable to require the misbehaving lawyers pay for their own training.

Compounding matters, the sanctions imposed by this Court…unjustifiably impose irreparable injury on…thousands of innocent third parties[.]

This is plain nonsense.  The only damage done thousands of innocent third parties was done by Lynch’s dishonest lawyers.  As this concerns Lynch’s beef that Hanen’s order is inappropriate, Lynch’s involvement of thousands of innocent third parties is nothing but a cynically dragged red herring.

How dare a mere judge question the Department of Justice?  Why, the nerve of that man.

Voting Rights

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A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Ohio officials to reinstate a week of same-day registration and early voting before an election, finding a 2014 state law eliminating the practice violated the Constitution by depressing African-American voting.

Judge Michael Watson said this in his ruling:

They have greater time and resource limitations that may prevent them from waiting in line on Election Day and are less likely to vote absentee.

Never mind that there are no impediments to voting absentee.  Not economic, transportation, time, [or] child-care constraints that increase the cost of voting.

This is a bad ruling.  Not only has he misstated the impediments, he also has applied the wrong solution to his claimed wrong.  The second paragraph of the 14th Amendment prescribes the penalty to be applied to a State that has deprived some of its voting-eligible citizens of their right to vote.  Which, of course this judge knows, since he explicitly cited that paragraph in his ruling.

Judges like this are forcing an end to early voting altogether and requiring voting to go back exclusively to in-person on election day or by absentee ballot.

‘Course, that might not be a bad outcome in its own right.  Absentee ballot voting also is early voting.  And couch potatoes need go no farther than their mailbox to vote.

Watson’s ruling can be seen here.

The Obama/Lynch Justice Department

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A federal judge in Texas has ordered hundreds of US Department of Justice lawyers to undergo ethics training, accusing the agency of a “calculated plan of unethical conduct.”

The extraordinary order by US District Judge Andrew S Hanen says Justice Department lawyers intentionally misled him in the course of a lawsuit filed by Texas and 25 other mostly conservative states challenging the Obama administration’s immigration policy.

Hanen wrote in his order

What remains before this Court is the question of whether the Government’s lawyers must play by the rules.
…
The United States Department of Justice (“DOJ” or “Justice Department”) has now admitted making statements that clearly did not match the facts.  It has admitted that the lawyers who made these statements had knowledge of the truth when they made these misstatements.

And this:

The decision of the lawyers who apparently determined that these three-year renewals…were not covered by the Plaintiff States’ pleadings was clearly unreasonable.  The conduct of the lawyers who then covered up this decision was even worse.

Such conduct is certainly not worthy of any department whose name includes the word “Justice.”

In fact, it is hard to imagine a more serious, more calculated plan of unethical conduct.  There were over 100,000 instances of conduct contrary to counsel’s representations.

Nor has this been simply a “first offense.”

This Court in at least one prior order has detailed the multiple times attorneys for the Government misrepresented the actions being taken (or, according to their representations, not being taken) by their clients.

Hanen’s reference to 100,000 was to 100,000 deferrals under the Obama edict that had already been granted, contrary to the DoJ lawyers’ representations at trial.

Unfortunately, Hanen has no authority to disbar these despicable liars.  It’s interesting to note, however, that while Hansen assures us that he’s satisfied these misbehaviors did not occur after Attorney General Loretta Lynch ascended to her AG-ship, Lynch herself has chosen to remain silent on the matter—and by clear implication, to do absolutely nothing concerning these…lawyers…who now work for her.  In particular, these persons are still on the Government’s payroll.

Is there any way at all this DoJ can be trusted with any case before it or potentially before it?

Elections have consequences.