It’s no secret that Texas criminal law has a heavy hand, and that innocent people are frequently sucked into the system by elected judges who want to appear ‘tuff on crime’. There’s been some house cleaning statewide, but especially in Dallas County since they got a new DA, Craig Watkins. I can’t find any reliable [...]
The children have finally been allowed to return home to their mothers and their fathers. The state Supreme Court determined that CPS had no basis for taking the children as they did. My current favorite CPS rumor is that everyone in-house is told to save everything for when, not if, they get sued.
This brightly shining [...]
So it’s not just my perception that tuff on crime crowd aren’t usually the sharpest knives in the drawer. A couple of high-profile exonerations have left some overly-agressive prosecuters red-faced. One man in Dallas had 27 years of his life stolen away by a single victim’s mis-identification. Another man in New York state was freed [...]
It is said that when Ben Franklin was sent to France as America’s first ambassador, he once played chess with the King of France. He began by removing the kings from the board, saying, “In America, we have no need for kings.”
I was personally raised in an environment so strongly anti-monarchial that it didn’t occur to me [...]
Word from Sacramento comes that the Governator will be taking the unprecedented step of releasing up to 20,000 non-violent prisoners from California jails in an effort to ease the outrageous overcrowding there. Frankly, once you rule out those in for violence and the sex-crimes, you’re mostly left with the dope smokers, so even though everyone seems [...]
The Drug Policy Alliance has produced an amazing essay on the current state of the War on Drugs, and it’s remarkable just how flimsy the theoretical basis of this delusion is. Ethan Nadelmann concisely obliterates six popular Drug War propaganda lines:
“The Global War on Drugs can Be Won”
“We Can Reduce the Demand for Drugs”
“Reducing the [...]
First, please note this clever list, with the understanding that as each point describes how one votes at a primary, it also provides a reason why you ought to vote in a primary. For Dem’s, this includes the privilege of voting for Dennis Kucinich.
Several solutions have been offered for dealing with the escalating battle between the states in [...]
Today, the Supreme Court ruled that judges no longer need to abide by the letter of the manditory minimum laws. Tomorrow, they decide whether to make their decision retroactive. [AP Wire source]
In two cases presented to the Supremes, convicted drug dealers were given less harsh sentences than those mandated by Congress. The Supremes agreed in [...]
Just a couple of weeks driving cross-country is all it takes to understand the inherent lunacy of “speed limits”. They’re posted everywhere, but many people disregard them. Enforcement is selective and can never be applied to all violations. The top speed for the exact same traffic geometry can vary between 55 and 90 mph, depending [...]
Even if you think you know everything about how the War on Drugs has unfolded, you really ought to read this article in the newest Rolling Stone magazine: How America Lost the War on Drugs.
In a blistering overview of 40 years of failed policy, Ben Wallace-Wells examines the evolving federal efforts from the perspective of presidents, [...]