Category Archives: Courts

A Liberal Justice Talked out of Turn

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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg now is in the business of publicly bashing politicians who don’t think like she does.

I can’t imagine what this place would be—I can’t imagine what the country would be—with Donald Trump as our president.  For the country, it could be four years.  For the court, it could be—I don’t even want to contemplate that.

We can also turn her remarks around.

I can’t imagine what this place would be—I can’t imagine what the country would be—with Hillary Clinton as our president.  For the country, it could be four years—or a dozen, with her insistence on extending Obama even further, and even farther left.  For the court, it could be—I don’t even want to contemplate that.

And Ginsburg had these gems:

I don’t expect that we’re going to see another affirmative action case [regarding Fisher v University of Texas, wherein Justice Anthony Kennedy gutted his own prior ruling in the case].  I think [Justice Kennedy] comes out as the great hero of this term.

And

It would be an impossible dream.  But I’d love to see Citizens United overruled[.]

The problem here isn’t that she’s engaging in political speech, though.  It’s that her political speech, because of her position and role in our Federal government—a Supreme Court Justice—means that whatever she says in the political arena can only prejudice all of her subsequent rulings.  With such political bashing, she’s predetermining her position on any case that comes before the Court, and not only those that might be brought under or by a Trump administration.

On the other hand, it’s good to know her prejudices—as well as those pre-written opinions on cases yet to come—beforehand, rather than discovering them in her opinions after the rulings have been announced.  Which emphasizes the importance of a question asked by a tweeter and quoted in The Washington Post piece at the first link above:

If there’s a redo of Bush v Gore, how does Ginsburg not recuse herself, given her Trump comments?

How, indeed?  Worse, how could we expect her to?

Dangers of a Liberal Court

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The Supreme Court has refused its opportunity to overturn a Connecticut and New York ban on certain government-disfavored firearms.

The justices on Monday left in place a lower court ruling that upheld laws that were passed in response…mass shooting involving a semi-automatic weapon….

Never mind that had such firearms been in the hands of some of the adults present at mass shootings, the shooters could be stopped much earlier in their rampages.

And in a case in which evidence that was produced following an illegal traffic stop but that otherwise was legitimately collected—including pursuant to an active arrest warrant—was upheld by the Supreme Court as legitimate evidence, there were these Liberal Justice dissents.  From Justice Sonya Sotomayor:

The court today holds that the discovery of a warrant for an unpaid parking ticket will forgive a police officer’s violation of your Fourth Amendment rights.

Never mind that arrest warrant, which required a search and so was well within the 4th Amendment.  And

In a portion of her opinion that expressed only her own views, Sotomayor also described the “humiliations” of unjustified police searches and said that “people of color are disproportionate victims of this type of scrutiny.”

Aside from this being wholly irrelevant to the case at hand, “people of color” commit most of the crimes—but she won’t address the underlying cause of that disproportionality: Liberal economic policies that trap minorities in poverty.  No, it’s that the wise and empathetic Latina didn’t get her way.

And

…outstanding warrants are increasingly common.

Why is that, exactly?  Do the folks subject to those warrants have a government gun in their ears preventing them from answering the warrant and clearing it?  Or are these folks, of their own volition, simply ignoring the warrants—warrants which are issued on the assumption that most of these folks will honor their commitment to appear in return for not being arrested on the spot?

And Justice Elena Kagan:

the ruling “creates unfortunate incentives for the police—indeed practically invites them to do what Fackrell did here.”

Because all cops are crooked; we can’t treat the individual cases of abuse individually.  Oh, wait—is a Supreme Court Justice profiling?

This only gets worse with a Liberal majority of Justices on the Supreme Court.

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.