Tag: justice

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Accountability crime and punishment media and media people national politics & policies

Pardon Me

Dr. Fauci, Anthony Fauci, covid, pardons, Biden, justice

Another round of presidential pardons, anyone?

At Medium, former New York Times science and health reporter Donald G. McNeil, Jr., urges President Joe Biden to “preemptively pardon Jack Smith, Robert Mueller, Merrick Garland, Brad Raffensberger, Fani Willis, Letitia James, E. Jean Carroll, Judge Juan Merchan and every judge who has ever issued a ruling that made Donald J. Trump unhappy.”

He says that “President Biden should also pardon himself,” along with “the heads of Operation Warp Speed and the chief executives of Pfizer and Moderna,” and “can’t even imagine how many political journalists … also need protecting.”

Is there anyone left?

“While we’re at it,” writes McNeil, “I’d like a pardon too.”

The award-​winning journalist had a colorful history at The Times. In 2020, the paper reprimanded him for comments attacking Trump and the head of the Centers for Disease Control over their COVID response, declaring “that his job is to report the facts and not to offer his own opinions.”* 

And we can’t forget the primary focus of McNeil’s essay, titled: “Now Biden Should Pardon Tony Fauci.” Declaring “Dr. Fauci has done nothing wrong,” the reporter decries that “a motivated prosecutor can go after you for anything … can break you financially with legal fees just proving your innocence.”

Yes, we know … having watched it unfold against Mr. Trump.

McNeil clearly fears that Trump will become a dictator, throwing out the Constitution and the rule of law. Judging from Trump’s first term, I am not so worried. But does even McNeil really believe these pardons could survive his imagined MAGA maelstrom? 

For nearly 40 years, Anthony Fauci directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, with primary responsibility for the treatment of contagious illnesses, including during the COVID-​19 pandemic. A presidential pardon would be an official admission of his guilt. 

In your own vernacular, Mr. Biden: Don’t! 

Fauci deserves his day in court. And so do we. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

* Then, in early 2021, McNeil resigned from the newspaper “under pressure” after complaints surfaced about him using the n‑word on a student trip to Peru, for which he served as a guide.

Note: Back in 2022, Elon Musk did post on X: “My pronouns are Prosecute/​Fauci.”

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crime and punishment Fourth Amendment rights

Precogs in the Machine

pre-crime, Philip K. Dick, police, justice

Whether “predictive policing” is good or bad depends on what it means.

If it means using crime patterns to determine which neighborhoods should get more police patrols, that’s reasonable enough. 

But what if it means assuming that certain individuals may commit a crime if left to themselves? And then “preventatively” harassing them?

The Institute for Justice has just won an important victory against predictive policing as practiced by the sheriff’s office of Pasco County, Florida.

The office’s idea was to predict which residents were most likely to commit future crimes. Algorithms — or what IJ attorney Rob Johnson calls a “glorified Excel sheet” — were supposed to perform a function comparable to that of “precogs,” the psychics in the movie Minority Report, who envision future crimes.

To counter the precrime, the sheriff’s office made frequent visits to the homes and haunts of pre-​guilty individuals to interrogate them and their families, “sometimes multiple times a week.” Families who objected would get slapped with citations for bogus code violations.

All that’s over with now, we hope. 

In response to IJ’s litigation, the sheriff’s office has admitted violating the due process rights and Fourth Amendment rights of the people they harassed, and it has dropped the program.

Scott Bullock observes that if the policy of harassing people based solely on guesses about what they or associates “might” do had been allowed to stand, such a program could easily have spread to other locales. 

This is much less likely now.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights judiciary

States Without Standing

Friends of freedom of speech had been looking forward to a certain U.S. Supreme Court decision, Murthy v. Missouri.

The Biden administration has for years worked to suppress social-​media speech that disputes official government doctrines about biology, pandemic policy, elections, and other controversial matters. In short, the kind of speech the First Amendment was designed to protect.

Several suits have been launched against the federal government’s censorship. This one had been brought by Louisiana, Missouri, and other states, abundantly proving that administration officials actively pressed social-​media companies to suppress speech.

By a 6 – 3 vote, the court tossed lower-​court rulings that favor the states’ position. According to the decision’s coiled reasoning, the states lack legal right to sue. They lack standing.

Dissenting: Justices Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas.

The majority made a big point of ruling only on this question of “standing” — which none of us speakers of speech have, apparently — and not on the main question. We can hope, I guess, that some other case will someday be brought by plaintiffs whose rights the majority will concede have been infringed by the government’s infringing actions, which by their nature assault the right of freedom of speech of all Americans.

Meanwhile, in the words of Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, the court’s decision “gives a free pass” to the government’s efforts to “threaten tech platforms into censorship and suppression of speech that is indisputably protected by the First Amendment.”

This isn’t a minor procedural setback.

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 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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crime and punishment partisanship

Caveat Preemptive

Donald Trump

Were Donald J. Trump an exemplar of strict Kantian honesty; had he a reputation for exactitude about his achievements and acumen; if hyperbole had not become his own very public modus — then, and only then, would the near half a billion judgment against him make even a modicum of sense.

But the former U.S. president and infamous branding entrepreneur is and has always been known to be something of a b.s. artist. No one has excuse to take what he says literally. Business partners and all who make deals with Trump should do their own diligence. Their watchword should be: caveat emptor.

Yet, last week, New York State regulators and prosecutors bent over backwards to find Trump guilty. “On Friday, New York County Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ordered Donald Trump to pay a staggering $355 million for repeatedly inflating asset values in statements of financial condition submitted to lenders and insurers,” explains Jacob Sullum of Reason. “When the interest that Engoron also approved is considered, the total penalty rises to $450 million. All told, Trump and his co-​defendants, including three of his children and former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, are on the hook for $364 million, or about $464 million with interest.”

That is a lot of money to protect other businesses from Trump’s characteristic exaggerations, which so appalled the court. But not any of the banks Trump did business with.

No one has been harmed, for Trump repaid all the loans.

There is no victim — making Trump the biggest-​name victim of victimless crime prosecution of all time.

We, the people, know that “honesty is the best policy” is not standard business practice, and that Trump doesn’t always follow it. But we are also not demanding that our governments insert themselves into every successful transaction looking for fibs and fakery.

That would be a recipe for selective prosecution.

Which is just what this case is: selective prosecution of a political opponent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment general freedom insider corruption

If It Can Happen to Trump

freedom, law, justice

If it can happen to former President Donald Trump — something like the politically motivated ham-​sandwich indictment issuing from an avid Trump-​hating Democratic DA — can it happen to you and me?

It already happened to me. Fifteen years ago.

Handcuffs and leg-​irons. Paul Jacob, Rick Carpenter, Susan Johnson.

The Oklahoma Three. Indicted by an arch enemy of citizen initiative, Oklahoma Apparatchik and Attorney General Drew Edmondson.

No, we hadn’t robbed a bank or gunned down the sheriff.

We were accused of not following all regulations in conducting a 2006 petition drive in Oklahoma. The fictional charge: “conspiracy to defraud the state of Oklahoma.”

The possibility of ten years in prison hung over our heads for a year and a half. In all that time, the AG started but never completed a preliminary hearing after which a judge could decide whether the indictment had enough evidence to warrant a trial. (Because it didn’t.) Then, the federal 10th Circuit declared unconstitutional the law we had allegedly violated, residency requirements for signature gatherers. 

Gritting his teeth and with smoke pouring out of his ears, Drew Edmondson dismissed the charges.

If somebody with official power like Edmondson or New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg wants to wield it against you and is indifferent to the requirements of justice, he might just do that.

Can it happen to you? Maybe not. Keep your head down, never say anything somebody somewhere could dispute, don’t leave the house, always wear a disguise, never exercise your political rights in a way that might draw the attention of thin-​skinned and scared denizens of the political establishment.

Do all this, and you’ll probably almost certainly be fine. Maybe.

Or just fight them anyway.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights judiciary partisanship

Disbar the Disbarrers?

Texas State Bar, politics, censorship, corruption

After Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton legally challenged how several states conducted the 2020 election, dozens of lawyers submitted complaints. 

To the state bar. 

Their idea: disbar the Republican officeholder for daring to oppose the current Democratic narrative about “election denialism.” 

The Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel dismissed those initial complaints as “not demonstrat[ing] Professional Misconduct,” but several attorneys appealed the decision, including a friend of Paxton’s Democratic opponent in the 2022 election for attorney general. The Texas State Board reversed the dismissal. Now a judge has allowed the case against Paxton to go forward.

The threat of disbarment is increasingly being wielded as an ideological weapon and without regard to whether targeted individuals have committed any wrongdoing worthy of disbarment. It’s the lawyers’ version of cancel culture.

This is demonstrated in a lengthy report by Margot Cleveland in The Federalist, who details many other instances as well as Paxton’s. 

These include the DC Bar’s pursuit of former Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clark and the California Bar’s pursuit of John Eastman, among a “barrage of politicized bar complaints pursued against Republican lawyers who provided legal advice or litigated various issues in the aftermath of the November 2020 general election.”

The purpose, then, is not to combat corruption but to corruptly intimidate any lawyers inclined to represent Republicans in challenges of dubious election results. One malefactor is a group called 65 Project, targeting more than a hundred Republican-​aligned attorneys but no Democrat-​aligned attorneys. Seems partisan.

Should lawyers who seek to disbar lawyers solely because of political disagreements be disbarred themselves?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment insider corruption national politics & policies

Thin Blue Nonsense

Justice, thin blue line, Themis, scales of Justice

What did Vice President Mike Pence learn from the Trump years?

Perhaps, that his 2016 ploy to ratchet up his career backfired … when his running mate actually won?

Thank goodness, he followed normal procedures in January 2020, rejecting then-​President Donald J. Trump’s pleas to send back to the states the Electoral College slates. 

In a recent speech at St. Anselm’s College, the former Vice President advised fellow Republicans not to overreact to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s raid on Trump’s Mar-​a-​Lago residence. Mr. Pence insists that Republicans “can hold the attorney general accountable for the decision he made without attacking the rank-​and-​file law enforcement personnel at the FBI.”

That sounds about right, until you read the rest of Pence’s remarks. “The Republican Party is the party of law and order. Our party stands with the men and women who stand on the thin blue line at the federal and state and local level, and these attacks on the FBI must stop. Calls to defund the FBI are just as wrong as calls to defund the police.”

Has Pence lost “the plot”? The FBI has a long history of abusing the rule of law. While leaders are rightly blamed — J. Edgar Hoover used his agency to create a vast spy-​and-​blackmail network — they have not worked alone to do flagrantly unconstitutional things. After all, remember in October of 2020, the Bureau made headlines foiling a plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor. The plot was concocted by multiple agents, who worked mightily to entrap members of a citizen militia into going along with it.*

Pence surely remembers that the FBI agents who conspired against the Trump administration were breathtakingly partisan, lying and concocting documents to perform what amounts to an attempted coup d’etat. 

It’s not a “law and order” outfit if its most consequential actions illegally serve partisan political purposes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* These G‑men and G‑women were consenting adults — consenting not only to the politics of such entrapment, but also to engaging in sexual acts to get their way. 

Note: Two defendants in the Michigan conspiracy case are now being retried, after the jury in their first trial could not reach a verdict.

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crime and punishment ideological culture local leaders

Sorosian Justice?

George Soros, San Francisco, crime, justice

Criminal courts provide an old kind of justice, where individuals’ specific acts are judged and individuals, if found guilty, are punished.

“Social justice” is something else again — a daring, socialistic attempt to correct for all the ills “of society” or, more widely, “the cosmos.” That’s a huge agenda to stuff into the old practice, which, while never perfect, did serve, in its way, a noble social goal: curbing crime.

But when the social justice crowd infiltrated the old system in places like California, crime flourished. In early June, San Franciscans recalled their radical District Attorney and sent woke politics into a tailspin.

I’ve reported on this, but the story continues. As explained by Jack Phillips in The Epoch Times, the newly appointed replacement “district attorney in San Francisco fired at least 15 employees from the prosecutor’s office after her left-​wing predecessor Chesa Boudin was recalled last month.”

Heads rolled. And heads weren’t pleased. 

“I was unceremoniously fired without cause via phone by the Mayor’s appointed DA,” one prominent civil servant tweeted. “I am the highest-​ranking Latina/​LGBTQ member of the management team at that office. I will continue the fight 4justice.”

But what is that justice?

It’s a “fairer system,” said Chesa Boudin, the ousted DA, who objects to having been “scapegoated” for rising crime — but it’s sure hard to believe his pro-​criminal policies did not contribute to the crime wave.

Boudin’s brand of justice has been rumored to benefit from extensive promotion by billionaire George Soros. Soros’s office has denied supporting Boudin, yet The Epoch Times notes that Mr. Soros’s PAC funded, through an intermediary, Boudin’s recall defense campaign.

Most Americans want reforms to our justice system but do not agree with George Soros.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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