Category: crime and punishment

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Accountability crime and punishment general freedom

Assumptions Attack

police, general freedom

Officers of the law are suing a rapper because his house attacked them, invading their privacy.

The rapper, Afroman, known for songs like “Crazy Rap” — and now “Will You Help Me Repair My Door,” about post-raid maintenance and the easy availability of lemon pound cake in his kitchen — claims otherwise.

The home of Afroman, aka Joseph Foreman, was raided by the Adams County sheriff’s office in August of 2022. They grabbed money. There was a paper warrant authorizing the action, but, he says, no actual justification, just “assumptions.”

He wasn’t home at the time. His family was.

Afroman admits to smoking blunts and said after the raid that he would have cooperated if asked about the contents of his ash trays. But he had no significant amount of marijuana in his home.

“You shouldn’t kick people’s doors down over speculation,” he said, “and you shouldn’t kick people’s doors down with an AR-15 over assumptions. You shouldn’t kick people’s doors down traumatizing kids over an assumption.”

The sheriff’s office found no evidence of “drug trafficking” and filed no charges.

Now officers are suing Afroman, who seems to be a plucky sort, for incorporating footage taken by his wife and security cameras during the raid into rap videos. The lawsuit says the video evidence is causing them “emotional distress, embarrassment, ridicule, loss of reputation and humiliation.”

Apparently, they were all just standing around minding their own business when this thing happened to them.

Countersue, Afroman.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights Internet controversy

Court Invokes First Amendment

hate speech, free speech, 1st Amendment

This is where we’re at. We must be in suspense about whether a judge will object when governments act to repress speech in the name of combatting “misinformation,” “disinformation,” or “hate speech.”

Fortunately, Judge Andrew Carter sees the obvious and has blocked a new New York State law to regulate “hateful” online speech. The law was challenged by anti-censorship video platform Rumble and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

Carter says: “The First Amendment protects from state regulation speech that may be deemed ‘hateful,’ and generally disfavors regulation of speech based on its content unless it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest.”

The alleged “compelling governmental interest” exception is vague and not really consistent with the First Amendment. But the judge otherwise makes sense.

Laws like New York’s constitute a cart blanche for government to repress speech — any speech.

Any controversial words can be labeled hateful, misinformative, disinformative. People have been censored for asseverating that there are only two sexes, that the COVID-19 injections aren’t really vaccines, that the U.S. shouldn’t send more than $100 bazillion to Ukraine, etc.

It’s hatefully misinformative disinformation to proclaim that debates about such questions are impermissible. But people in any case have a right to be wrong; others, the right to refute them.

When the truth is on your side, you have an advantage. But you can’t beam your understanding into the minds of others.

You must be free to speak.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom

The Last Shall Be First

Iowa Speech

The Iowa house has acted to make it easier for persons in the state to speak without getting sued into oblivion.

By a 94-1 vote, representatives passed House File 177, an anti-SLAPP bill that provides for prompt dismissal of lawsuits intended to intimidate people into silence rather than to redress wrongdoing. (A SLAPP is a “strategic lawsuit against public participation.”)

The bill seeks to protect “the exercise of the right of freedom of speech and of the press, the right to assemble and petition, and the right of association.”

One lawmaker behind the bill, Republican floor manager Steven Holt, said that he made it a priority after the Carroll Times Herald was litigated into penury for reporting on the case of a local married police officer, Jacob Smith, who had pursued inappropriate relationships with teenage girls.

Just before the paper published its findings, Smith resigned from his job. Then he promptly sued the Herald for libel. The reporting would make things tough for him, he attested.

The suit failed, but not before a year in court that cost the small-town newspaper about $140,000 in legal fees and related expenses. (The paper has launched a GoFundMe campaign to recover this amount.)

David Keating, president of Institute for Free Speech, says that if the anti-SLAPP bill is enacted, “Iowa would leap from last to best in the nation at preventing frivolous lawsuits from threatening free speech.”

Let’s hope that all other states then play catch-up.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment ideological culture

Houck Off the Hook

police raid, church, faith

A jury has acquitted anti-abortion activist Mark Houck of ridiculous federal charges. 

Houck had admitted to pushing a pro-abortion activist (and volunteer abortion clinic security personnel) who, charges Houck, had been verbally harassing his 12-year-old son. The incident occurred outside of a Philadelphia abortion clinic in October 2021.

Local police looked into the scuffle and decided that there was nothing there.

But in September 2022 — almost a year later — the Biden-Merrick Justice Department galumphingly arrested Mr. Houck for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrances Act as if he’d been acting to stop someone from entering the clinic.

To arrest him, the agency sent a crew of J. Edgars to raid Houck’s home, gratuitously traumatizing his family, even though he had been ready to voluntarily surrender himself.

Peter Breen, head of litigation at the Catholic Thomas More Society, a public-interest law firm that represents Houck, said that the charges “allege that Mark Houck interfered with a so-called volunteer abortion patient escort when in reality, Houck had a one-off altercation with a man who harassed Houck’s minor son, approximately 100 feet from the abortion business and across the street.”

Breen believes that the case was brought “solely to intimidate people of faith and pro-life Americans. Why in the world would you send this phalanx of officers heavily armed to this family’s home, violate the sanctity of their home, frighten their children . . . other than just to send a message?”

Sadly, he’s exactly right.

At least it’s over. 

For now. 

At least for Mark Houck.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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The California Non-Consensus

censorship, authoritarianism, speech, 1st Amendment

A judge has given California doctors a reprieve from an anti-medical-speech law produced by lawmakers and Governor Newsom. The judge has blocked the law until a lawsuit challenging it on First Amendment grounds can be resolved.

AB 2098 says that it “shall constitute unprofessional conduct” for doctors to spread “false or misleading information” about the COVID-19 virus, how to prevent and treat it, and the efficacy of alleged vaccines. (By using the word “alleged,” I’ve lost my medical license right there.)

What constitutes “misinformation”? 

Government-empowered medical boards would make these judgments in light of “contemporary scientific consensus.”

Why is “scientific consensus” so sacred? Does it never err? Aren’t facts and logic, which discourse helps to establish and convey, the proper arbiters, not a designated “consensus”? How does one actually arrive at a “scientific consensus” of any legitimate value? By divine revelation?

And if there are doctors, scientists and other researchers who dissent, especially in great number, doesn’t that make “consensus” entirely mythical, non-existent? The word misapplied? 

Of course, despite the issuance of government-approved dogmas and revised dogmas about these matters, every aspect of the pandemic has been the subject of intensive investigation and controversy for over three years.

As Judge William Shubb notes, “COVID-19 is a quickly evolving area of science that in many aspects eludes consensus.”

It’s a shame Shubb couldn’t simply have shut down the law permanently. Do we really need a lengthy legal process while California doctors wait to learn whether they may still fully participate in professional discussions?

But it seems that the agents of repression must have their day in court too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment ideological culture media and media people

Police Supremacy

police brutality race

The homicidal beating of Tyre Nichols by five cops made the news, the reels and the opinion columns, quickly and “bigly.” You know that the first reaction was to cry Racism!, and that then, after it came out that the policemen charged with his murder were all black . . . it was still Racism! 

You might have laughed. If bitterly.

Van Jones’s headline seems, on the face of it, ridiculous: “The police who killed Tyre Nichols were Black. But they might still have been driven by racism” (January 27, 2023).

Yet, the actual arguments aren’t completely absurd.

Just the big picture is.

Today, we’ve been given a new set of definitions. Racism is no longer prejudiced discrimination against individuals based on antipathy against a hated group, now it’s “prejudice plus power,” and . . . somehow the new anti-racists don’t realize that power isn’t just about race.

It wasn’t likely internalized hatred for blacks that these black policemen exhibited. Far more likely it was exasperation and contempt for a man who wouldn’t submit to their control.

Police have a job, and are given a lot of license and leeway to take away our liberty after a suspected crime. Tyre Nichols did not readily submit to an arrest for reckless driving, but bolted, running away. When the cops caught up with him, they gave him a beating. Was it because he was black? Not likely, or at least not primarily. It was most likely because he wouldn’t obey.

This old police attitude is more understandable than racism, no?

But “understandable” isn’t excuse. 

We can meaningfully talk about reforms — such as getting rid of qualified immunity — but first, let’s stop calling it racism and “white supremacy.” The issue is cop supremacy, and it’s not really a mystery.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment education and schooling

Problem Student, Problem Admin

school problem, problem student, gun, violence, education

“School downplayed warnings about 6-year-old before teacher’s shooting, staffers say,” The Washington Post headlined its Saturday report.

Weeks ago, elementary school teacher Abigail Zwerner was shot by a first grader in their Newport News, Virginia, classroom. Authorities are not sure of the precise motive but have called the attack “intentional.”

Zwerner remains hospitalized in stable condition, while her child assailant is in emergency custody undergoing “court-ordered mental health treatment.”*

School officials received a tip that the boy had brought a gun to school but did not find the weapon in their search.

More disturbing, The Post interviewed “educators claiming that Zwerner raised alarms . . . and sought assistance” but “that school administrators waved away grave concerns about the 6-year-old’s conduct.” The lad reportedly “threw furniture and other items in class,” once “barricaded the doors to a classroom, preventing a teacher and students from leaving,” and “was known campuswide for disruptive and violent behavior.”

One educator revealed that “the boy wrote a note telling a teacher he hated her and wanted to light her on fire and watch her die.” When brought “to the attention of Richneck administrators,” however, the teacher “was told to drop the matter.

“Several teachers said they received no support when they faced violence in the classroom or attacks from students,” the article informed. “Some speakers claimed the district is more interested in keeping discipline statistics low than in taking meaningful action to address students’ problems.”

The Post’s story was hampered by numerous school personnel refusing to talk citing their fear of reprisals from school authorities. 

While mental health help must be addressed, there is no solution to problems if administrators act like crooked politicians, simply sweeping aside serious issues.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* In Virginia, a person must be seven years of age to be charged with a crime, so the first grader will not be prosecuted.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights international affairs

Don’t Be China

Xi, China, censorship, Winnie the Pooh

China is one of the world’s top censors.

The Chinazi regime bans all kinds of communication, even images of Winnie the Pooh (because of its use as a symbol of chubby Dictator Xi). It has imposed all manner of censorship on the Internet, often with the help of western technology companies. And it has imprisoned many of its critics.

China would like the whole world to be the same way. It would be easier to shut critics up if they had no place to escape to, no place where they could continue publicly rebuking the Chinese government.

And China has a new weapon with which to expand its censorship regime, the globally popular excuse for outlawing disagreement with official doctrines that consists of characterizing all contrary opinion as “misinformation” or “disinformation.”

The Chinese government wants nations to go much further than merely urging social media companies to ban posts or suspend users, the approach that U.S. officials have been following in recent years. At a recent United Nations meeting on cybercrime and in a related document (p. 18), China has urged that disseminating “false information that could result in serious social disorder” be everywhere established as “criminal offenses.”

Reclaim the Net observes that this proposal “is likely to be contested by Western countries, even though many of them have been copying parts of China’s playbook.”

Certainly, the governments of other countries would be in a better position to oppose China’s global censorship agenda if they relinquished their own censorship agendas.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Commission by Omission?

censorship, free speech, First Amendment

Debra Paul, publisher of the weekly Londonderry Times, should not be facing jail time for publishing political ads.

In a land where a First Amendment explicitly if imperfectly protects freedom of speech, does anyone believe she should be?

Well, the New Hampshire attorney general, for one. 

For two, whoever called his attention to the trivial oversight that led to Ms. Paul’s arrest last August. 

Her venial sin, if it’s even that, was to publish political ads that failed to include the legend “Political Advertisement” as required by New Hampshire law. 

The violation is punishable by up to a year of incarceration and a fine up to $2,000.

As Paul noted in August, “This is clearly a case of a small business needing to defend itself against overreaching government. To threaten a small business owner with jail time over something this insignificant is very heavy-handed.”

Insignificant, why? 

Not labeling a political message “Political Advertisement” is only controversial in the slightest when the message imitates normal editorial or news content. The arrest warrant reports that the ads in question were on the order of “VOTE YES ARTICLE 2.” 

Obvious political advertising.

Months later, Paul still awaits her fate. An arraignment is scheduled for later this month. On the advice of her lawyer, she had little to say when we asked her for an update about the case. But she hinted that a political adversary may have filed the complaint against her.

The net of multitudinous picayune laws that snagged Paul can snag anybody who does anything more culturally and socially ambitious than sitting at home staring at the wall all day. Such regulations can be exploited by anyone eager to harass someone for reasons quite apart from an alleged infraction.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment general freedom tax policy

Voting for Audits

IRS, tax audit, taxes

Eighty-seven thousand new IRS agents!

What could possibly go wrong?

In a bill passed and signed last August, “$80 billion worth of new funding over the next decade” was shoveled at the Internal Revenue Service “so it could” — as a recent Reason article summarizes — “hire 87,000 new workers, purportedly to better target millionaire and billionaire scofflaws.”

The assurance that the new investment in personnel would not be directed towards “those making under $400,000 annually” was, as Reason’s Liz Wolfe makes clear, “not provided within the text of the actual bill.”

Ah — political promise over actual law and all bureaucratic experience. The IRS, you see, prefers to focus its audits on the lowest income earners, who were audited more often than millionaires.

Why? Well, the key is one feature of the tax code: the earned income credit. Which, it just so happens, is easy to get wrong. And upon which lower-income workers have come to rely.

The other reason is even more basic: “given a dearth of experienced auditors not likely to be fixed soon, the agency would rely on the easiest and least time-consuming types of audits.” Which are conducted through the mail. Easy. Cheap. And annoying.

Even with more IRS auditors with more experience, this path of least resistance — these earned income credit audits — will likely get the most use.

The reasons behind the reasons? Why were Democrats so eager to increase the ranks of tax collectors? Sure, Democrats love taxes. But like most tax hikers, they promote the idea that others will pay all those taxes; they promise to stick it to the rich . . . while ever-so consistently missing the mark and whacking the poor and middle classes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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