Tag: courts

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litigation

A Million from Michael Mann

Michael Mann, climate, free speech, censorship, courts

Things aren’t working out for Michael Mann. The infamous “climate scientist” has been pursuing a years-​long vendetta against critics of his methods and conclusions, and it’s been a bumpy ride.

Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg accused him of manipulating data “in the service of politicized science.” Instead of answering the criticism, Mann treated it as actionably defamatory.

In 2012, Mann launched a lawsuit against Simberg (of the Competitive Enterprise) and Steyn (then writing for National Review).

National Review observes that the criticism which offended Mann “was obviously protected by the First Amendment,” so that his suit should have been scuttled immediately.

Instead, judges antagonistic to free speech when they find the speech uncongenial enabled Mann’s litigation to trundle on for years.

The story gets complicated, as touched upon a few months ago. In 2021, the tide seemed to be turning in favor of Steyn and Simberg, with a court issuing a favorable summary judgment. But in January 2024, a jury found Steyn and Simberg liable for defamation. The awards? Steyn was ordered to pay $1 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages, Simberg to pay $1 in compensatory damages and $1,000 in punitive damages.

That insane $1 million amount was later reduced to $5,000.

Now it is Mann taking the hit, with rulings that he must pay about a million bucks in legal fees to CEI and Rand Simberg ($477,350) and National Review ($530,820).

National Review urges Michael Mann to finally relinquish his authoritarian quest lest he lose even more. 

Will he? It would be irrational to continue, but it was irrational at the start.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Fifth Amendment rights U.S. Constitution

The Hill to Die On

due process, illegal immigration, deportation, Constitution, courts

“This is a hill they’re willing to die on,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R‑Tenn.) told a Fox News audience. The senator was dumbfounded by the Democrats’ support for returning Abrego Garcia, the man deported from Maryland to an El Salvadorean prison.

Former Trump campaign manager and advisor Kelly Anne Conway, substituting for regular host Sean Hannity, opened the program by showing a picture she explained was “Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen staring affectionally into the eyes of admitted illegal immigrant and accused serial wife abuser and human trafficker with suspected gang ties, who was recently deported to his home country.”

Others claim Garcia is “a loving father and husband,” who “has never been charged with or convicted of a crime in the United States.” 

But whether a dangerous criminal or an innocent, hard-​working family man, Garcia’s status is hardly the issue. This is about whether our government must follow its written Constitution. 

In court filings, the Department of Justice acknowledged that Garcia’s deportation was an “oversight” and “an administrative error,” as it violated a previous court order not to send him back to El Salvador. 

A unanimous Supreme Court clarified that the administration is required “to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”

My question is: Why are Trump and Republicans willing to die on this hill? 

It could kill their future political chances. 

I believe in due process, and I vote. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ballot access election law judiciary

A Done Decision

rock climber

We probably needn’t feel suspense about whether the Wisconsin Supreme Court will let certain sloppy voting practices continue.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty and the chairman of the Racine County Republican Party filed a lawsuit alleging that Racine city officials illegally used a van to collect absentee ballots in 2022. A circuit court ruled that such mobile voting sites violate state law.

Now, “without allowing any lower appellate courts to rule first,” the state’s supreme court will decide whether the circuit court is right about that.

The high court voted 4 to 3 to accept the case. The three justices who opposed end-​running the appellate courts are conservative (read: Republican); the other four are liberal (read: Democrat).

The Democrat justices voted to take the case at the request of the Democratic National Committee, which leads a political party known to be a proponent of slapdash voting procedures, slapdashery that observers tend to agree favors Democrats.

Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, who is part of the conservative bloc, has stated that the “liberal” justices proceeded in this way in order to help the Democrats politically. Ziegler knows her “liberal” colleagues, and I guess they must be the sort of progressives who don’t make conscientious adherence to the law in the service of election integrity a top priority.

So I think what’s about to happen is more of a foregone conclusion than it is a cliffhanger.

We know how the court will decide — but wouldn’t we love a surprise ending?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment general freedom

ATF’s 115-​Year Mistake

mistaken identity, prison, guns

“Oops. Sorry about almost sending you away for 115 years. Case of mistaken identity and dishonest testimony.”

But Bryan Montiea Wilson did not get even a “sorry” from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) or local law enforcement.

Wilson, who works for a railroad equipment manufacturer, had never been arrested when ATF agents nabbed him in December 2023. Accused of gun and drug sales to local police officers said to be working with the ATF, Wilson could only repeatedly assert his innocence.

His looming punishment included up to 115 years in prison and millions in fines. Then, suddenly, he was released.

How did Wilson wind up being falsely accused? The Truth About Guns site reports that prosecutors realized their blunder after his court-​appointed lawyer investigated. But an uninformative request to dismiss the case is all ATF offered.

“Further review … reveals that the interests of justice would best be served by a dismissal of the pending charges as opposed to further prosecution.… The Government respectfully requests that the Court dismiss the pending charges against defendant Bryan Montiea Wilson.”

I guess we can thank the prosecutors for mentioning “justice.” But there should at least be an accounting in such cases; and this accounting, plus further consequences, should be mandatory.

“Something got messed up and they landed on me,” Wilson says. “I don’t know how this happened, but it can’t happen again. It shouldn’t happen again.”

Wilson has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies partisanship

Hypocrisy’s Cash Value

Donald Trump, Joe Biden, court, campaign contributions

“If these corrupt Democrats didn’t have HYPOCRISY,” the Republican National Committee explained, “they’d have NOTHING!”

After months of Biden surrogates savaging former President Donald Trump for the dastardly deed of using campaign monies to cover his mounting legal fees from the plethora of trumped-​up indictments brought by partisan Democratic prosecutors, it turns out the Democrats have been doing the same thing.

The BBC noted: “Democratic donors paid at least $1.7m (£1.35m) of U.S. President Joe Biden’s legal fees during the investigation into his handling of classified documents, records show.”

“We are not spending money on legal bills or hawking gold sneakers,” Rufus Gifford, finance chair of the Biden campaign, told MSNBC only days before the news broke.

Highly questionable that Biden could sell anyone a sneaker, but the other claim was a provable lie.

“The use of party funds to cover Biden’s legal bills is not without precedent and falls within the bounds of campaign finance law,” the Associated Press article quickly informed, before adding that it “could cloud Biden’s ability to continue to hammer former President Donald Trump over his far more extensive use of donor funds to cover his legal bills.”

How unfortunate! The hypocrisy could ruin the piling on by Democrats.

“Democrats say the cases are nothing alike,” The Washington Post reported.

“There is no comparison,” offered a Democratic National Committee spokesman. “The DNC does not spend a single penny of grass-​roots donors’ money on legal bills, unlike Donald Trump, who actively solicits legal fees from his supporters …”

Let’s get this straight: the difference is that Trump is upfront in asking his middle-​class supporters for help, while Biden’s money came surreptitiously from wealthy Democrats?

This must be the proverbial dime’s worth of difference between the parties.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom

Richly Revealing

Donald Trump, gag order, censorship, courts, indictment

There is something rich in the latest gag order placed on Mr. Trump.

“Former President Donald Trump on March 27 criticized the New York judge overseeing his ‘hush money’ case and criticized the judge’s daughter,” explains Jack Phillips of The Epoch Times, “just hours after the judge handed down a gag order against him.”

Richly … ironic? 

Apt? 

Idiotic?

“This Judge,” the former president wrote on his own social media site, “by issuing a vicious ‘Gag Order,’ is wrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement, including the fact that Crooked Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, and their Hacks and Thugs are tracking and following me all across the Country, obsessively trying to persecute me, while everyone knows I have done nothing wrong!”

To them, Orange Man’s very existence is “wrong,” and the thing they most want is Trump to shut up. So, in the course of a trial upon a subject combining campaign finance regulations with more prurient interests, a judge gagging the defendant from speaking in public about his prosecutors is … well, convenient. For them. 

The prosecution is arguably an attempt to silence Trump; gag orders remove doubt. And allow the Empire State to exact the punishment before the trial concludes.

The prosecutors and politicians and major media propagandists who are aghast at Trump’s charges aren’t exactly saying that what Trump says about the judge’s daughter (that she “represents Crooked Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, and other Radical Liberals”) is false. 

They object … because … what he says makes them look bad.

And what they are trying to do is make Trump look bad.

Just rich. 

With meaning. 

More philosophically minded folks say we have a crisis of meaning these days. I don’t know. I see meaning everywhere!

But it’s not always meaning we like.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment ideological culture judiciary

Violent Double Standard

law, justice, crime, double standard

Trying to find justice in the justice system is sometimes like panning for gold in a dry river. But what ho, hey, we’ve found some.

Victoria Taft points us to “a federal judge who believes in justice” … or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Recently, California District Court Judge Cormac Carney chastised a purportedly anti-​crime department of the Department of Justice for prosecuting two men who “became members of a group characterized as ‘white supremacist’” for alleged violence while carefully ignoring the often worse conduct of Antifa and BAMN members.

Carney dismissed the federal charges against the two men.

He argued that “prosecuting only members of the far right and ignoring members of the far left leads to the troubling conclusion that the government believes it is permissible to physically assault and injure Trump supporters to silence speech.…

“At the same Trump rallies that form the basis for Defendants’ prosecution, members of Antifa and related far-​left groups engaged in organized violence to stifle protected speech.”

There’s something wrong when people who had been holding a peaceful event full of speeches and flag-​waving are prosecuted — not just prosecuted, but selectively prosecuted — for defending themselves when violent leftists show up and act violently.

If a speaker commits an actual crime, sure, he should be punished, in a proportionate way and without regard to the ideology of the speaker. Equal justice under the law, that’s all.

How about it, Justice Department? Care to earn your name?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights judiciary

Untruth Speaker, Untruth Speaker

Donald Trump

“You can’t call anyone a liar?” Judge Patricia Millett asked federal prosecutors, “with a tone of incredulity,” according to The Washington Post report.

Millett, along with Judges Cornelia T.L. Pillard and Bradley Garcia, serves on the three-​judge panel of the federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. This week they devoted two hours to the appeal of a federal district judge’s gag order placed on former president Donald Trump.

Under Millett’s questioning, federal prosecutor Cecil VanDevender agreed that under the order Mr. Trump could say that someone testifying against him was “an untruth speaker” but not call that person a “liar.”

“He has to speak ‘Miss Manners’ while everyone else is throwing targets at him?” inquired Judge Millett. “It would be really hard in a debate, when everyone else is going at you full bore.”

She noted that the First Amendment importantly protects inflammatory speech, adding with some exasperation: “Your position doesn’t seem to give much balance at all to the First Amendment’s vigorous protection of political speech.”

Trump’s attorney argued that the current leading Republican presidential candidate has taken advantage of the order’s stay, pending this appeal, by “posting about this case almost incessantly since the day it was filed and they haven’t come forward with a single threat that’s even arguably inspired by any evidence in his social media posts.”

The three-​judge panel, at least as The Post reads the hearing’s tea leaves, “indicated it may narrow the order prohibiting the former president from attacking individual prosecutors … or from calling potential witnesses against him ‘liars’ in the heat of next year’s campaign.”

It should. Unless the speech is specifically criminal it should be freely allowed. Orange Man should have the same rights we all rightly possess.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights judiciary social media

Censors Cancelled

Federal Judge, social media, censorship

The verb is “enjoin.”

In a July 4 preliminary injunction, Judge Terry Doughty has enjoined federal officials from communicating with social-​media companies except on matters pertaining to criminality or threats to national security.

“The Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition,” explains Doughty. The government “seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’”

For a few years now, government officials have asked social-​media personnel to censor speech on topics like the pandemic, elections, and laptops dropped off by Hunter Biden, speech that officials want to suppress only because they disagree with it or find it inconvenient. Politically.

A lawsuit brought by Missouri and Louisiana argues that federal officials pressured and colluded with social-​media companies to block speech protected by the First Amendment.

Some critics of this and other lawsuits — and of more non-​formal objections to the government’s conduct — say that what has been exposed in documents brought to light during litigation, and in the Twitter files, cannot be called governmentally instigated censorship at all.

What’s really going on, they burble, is nothing more than persons working for the FBI, the CDC, the White House, and other such government-​force-​backed entities idly wondering — in incidental and nonbinding casual conversation, mind you — whether the social-​media company they’re just happening to hobnob with could come down like a ton of bricks on the accounts of persons saying things that government officials disapprove. No big deal.

Not the most plausible pseudo-​exculpation I’ve ever heard.

The relevant adjective? “Guilty.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Fourth Amendment rights

Marks of Tyranny

chalk, tire, Constitution

It pays to contest petty (as well as major) civil and criminal charges that your local and state governments lay against you. Sometimes you get off.

People have used some pretty “out there” arguments in their own defense. Example? Risk homeostasis in a speeding case. That was a stretch.

But this Michigan case, though it may seem odd, is as American as Apple pie.

Alison Taylor sued the city of Saginaw over her parking violation citations. Her argument? The Fourth Amendment.

You see, the municipality’s parking officer had used chalk to mark her (and others’) tires. If on a second round the officer sees a car with the mark at the right spot, showing that it had not moved in the allowed period — write up a ticket!

Ms. Taylor had accumulated 14.

So she and her lawyer argued that “using the chalk to mark her tires constituted an unreasonable search without a warrant.”

The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. This traditional method of enforcing parking rules was recognized as an infringement of the right of the people “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects.”

Trivial? The consequences may not be, as my source for this case, Greg Rasa of Autoblog, points out.

Dubious? Imagine a non-​legal way to fight the chalk-​mark method — non-​officers chalking car tires with multiple marks indistinguishable from the officers’. Cities would object, of course, but their best case against such a practice would be the car owners’ case: defacement of private property. 

Yes, if the saboteurs’ marks are defacement, so are the city’s.

Justifying the appellate court’s ruling.

Chalk one up for constitutionally guaranteed rights?

This is Common Sense. It’s Friday! I’m Paul Jacob.

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