Society

Rand Paul versus George Stephanopoulos. A great confrontation, and I do not agree with the title on this video, that Rand Paul "melts down."

  Here's the transcript.   STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Paul, let me begin with a threshold question for you. This election was not stolen, do you accept that fact?  SENATOR RAND PAUL, (R-KY): Well, what I would say is that the debate over whether or not there was fraud should occur, we never had any presentation in court where we actually looked at the evidence. Most of the cases were thrown out for lack of standing, which is a procedural way of not actually hearing the question. There were s...
Tags: Voting, Supreme Court, Law, Congress, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Rand Paul, Department Of Justice, Republican, Biden, George Stephanopoulos, Justice Department, Trump, George, PAUL R KY, PAUL

"What a Libertarian Attorney General Could Do"

The title of this post is the title of this new Cato commentary by Clark Neily.  I recommend the whole piece, and here are some excerpts: Inauguration Week seems like an opportune time to think how much more just the Department of Justice could be if President Biden took the bold step of putting a libertarian in charge of it.  As I've written before, our criminal justice system is fundamentally rotten — it punishes vast amounts of morally blameless conduct, uses coercion-fueled mass adjudicatio...
Tags: Law, Department Of Justice, Biden, Doj, U S Department of Justice, Ted Stevens, Douglas A Berman, Clark Neily

Intriguing (and significant?) executive order from Prez Trump on "Protecting Americans From Overcriminalization Through Regulatory Reform"

I just saw this new federal Executive Order which was issued yesterday, January 18, 2021, by Prez Trump titled "Executive Order on Protecting Americans From Overcriminalization Through Regulatory Reform."  Here are the main operational sections of the order: By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to improve transparency with respect to the consequences of violating certain regulations and to protect Americans from facing ...
Tags: Law, United States, Department Of Justice, Federal Register, United States of America, Douglas A Berman, Prez Trump, United States Gypsum Co

Over sharp dissents, court intervenes to allow federal government to execute 13th person in six months

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the federal government to execute Dustin Higgs, reversing lower-court orders that had put the execution on hold and drawing strongly worded dissents from two justices. Higgs’ execution was the third federal execution this week, and it concludes a push by the Trump administration to carry out death sentences before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who opposes capital punishment. In a brief, unsigned ruling issued around 11 p.m., the justices rever...
Tags: Featured, Maryland, Supreme Court, Law, Court, Joe Biden, Indiana, Department Of Justice, Johnson, Trump, Higgs, U S Court of Appeals, Sotomayor, Breyer, Elena Kagan, 4th Circuit

Court allows execution of Corey Johnson to proceed after COVID-19 diagnosis

The justices on Thursday night denied two last-minute appeals by Corey Johnson, who sought to postpone his execution so that he could recover from COVID-19, which he contracted in prison after spending most of his life on death row. Johnson also argued that he was ineligible for the death penalty on the basis of intellectual disability and that he should have been allowed to seek a sentencing reduction under a 2018 prison-reform law. In rejecting his appeals, the court cleared the final obstacle...
Tags: Featured, Maryland, Supreme Court, Law, Virginia, Indiana, Department Of Justice, Johnson, Donald Trump, Richmond, Trump, Higgs, D C Circuit, Sotomayor, Breyer, Elena Kagan

A police officer arrested after the pro-Trump assault on the Capitol is also a current member of the US military

Rocky Mount Police Department Officers Jacob Fracker, left, and Thomas Robertson, right. Department of Justice Two Virginia police officers, Jacob Fracker and Thomas Robertson, were arrested in connection with last week's riots at the US Capitol. Fracker, as Military.com first reported, is a current member of the Virginia National Guard, making him the first current military member to be arrested in connection with the riots. Several former military members have been arrested or are facing...
Tags: Facebook, Politics, Navy, Police, Virginia, Iraq, US, Trends, Department Of Defense, Joe Biden, Afghanistan, Military, Army, Pentagon, Department Of Justice, Air Force

Antitrust and Employment Law: A Match Made for…Prison?

Why do Human Resources Professionals and Employment Law Attorneys need to worry about antitrust law? I’ll confess it’s not a question that many of us thought we would need to answer. I didn’t take the class on antitrust law in law school. But over the last few years, antitrust law HAS been creeping more and more into the HR area and the latest development should provide a big flashing caution sign to all employers. First, a very brief background, in October 2016, the Department of Justice releas...
Tags: Texas, Crime, Law, HR, Conspiracy, Compensation, Antitrust, Wages, Warning, Criminal, Human Resources, Department Of Justice, Biden, Indictment, Doj, Poaching

Reversing several lower courts, justices allow execution of Lisa Montgomery

The Supreme Court on Tuesday night cleared the way for the execution of Lisa Montgomery, the first woman to be executed by the federal government in 68 years. Montgomery was convicted in 2008 of strangling Bobbie Jo Stinnett, a Missouri woman who was eight months pregnant, and extracting the premature baby to pass off as her own child. In a series of brief, unsigned orders, the Supreme Court reversed a pair of rulings from federal appeals courts that had put Montgomery’s execution on hold, and i...
Tags: Featured, Supreme Court, Law, Joe Biden, Indiana, Missouri, Department Of Justice, Justice Department, Montgomery, Trump, Federal Bureau of Prisons, D C Circuit, U S Court of Appeals, Elena Kagan, Kagan, 7th Circuit

Merrick Garland Is Here To Save The Rule Of Law In America

He'll bring integrity back to the role of attorney general.
Tags: Law, Government, America, Department Of Justice, Quote Of The Day, Merrick Garland

Merrick Garland Nominated As Attorney General

He's certainly qualified. But is that enough?
Tags: Law, Government, Joe Biden, Department Of Justice, Merrick Garland

Case preview: Justices will confront statutory puzzle on bond eligibility for noncitizens contesting deportation

Pham v. Guzman Chavez, which will be argued on Jan. 11, addresses the right of certain noncitizens to be released on bond while they are in the process of removal from the United States. The migrants at issue are a subgroup of a subgroup: those who have previously been ordered removed, and are statutorily subject to swift deportation based on reinstatement of the prior order, but who have a so-called “withholding” claim, which, if granted, prohibits their removal to a particular country under th...
Tags: Featured, Law, United States, Department Of Justice, Department Of Homeland Security, U S Court of Appeals, Customs Enforcement, Natural Resources Defense Council, Pham, INA, Board of Immigration Appeals, Chevron USA, Merits Cases, Zadvydas, Davis the Supreme Court, Guzman Chavez

Is It Time to Regulate Collaborative Practice?

Collaborative practice is a dispute resolution process that is primarily used in family law, and it is currently unregulated in Canada. The forthcoming amendments to the Divorce Act include collaborative practice as a “family dispute resolution process” that a lawyer ought to “encourage” her client to consider, where “appropriate”. This suggests to me that a process that has for the last 30 years has been largely community-based, has finally come into its own – into the federal scope of the Divo...
Tags: Minnesota, Law, California, US, Toronto, Canada, New Brunswick, Court of appeal, Department Of Justice, Alberta, Legal Ethics, Ucla, Cpc, Cfl, Ontario, Webb

Notable recent reports on FIRST STEP Act implementation efforts

While there is considerable discussion of the next steps in federal criminal justice reform (including by me), there is still lots and lots of work still to do in implementing fully the FIRST STEP Act of 2018.  The reality of FIRST STEP work to do comes through over and over again in these two recent implementation reports from the Department of Justice and the Independent Review Committee: The Attorney General's First Step Act Section 3634 Annual Report (Dec. 2020) Pursuant to the Requirement...
Tags: Law, Department Of Justice, Douglas A Berman, Independent Review Committee

Watchdog group calls from Trump's criminal investigation over call pressuring Georgia's secretary of state to overturn election results

US President Donald Trump and daughter Ivanka Trump walk to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on January 4, 2020 in Washington, DC. Drew Angerer/Getty Images Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a center-left watchdog group, is asking prosecutors to conduct a criminal investigation into President Donald Trump. The request came in a letter sent Monday to the Department of Justice and Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis. It comes after audio revealed...
Tags: Politics, Law, Congress, Washington, White House, US, Trends, Atlanta, Georgia, Joe Biden, Department Of Justice, Donald Trump, Charles Davis, Trump, State, US Department of Justice

2H 2020 Quick Links, Part 4 (FOSTA)

* “Department of Justice shut down CityXGuide.com and arrested the site’s owner, for the first time utilizing the criminal expansions created under FOSTA/SESTA.” Notice of proceedings. Indictment. * Emily Morgan, On FOSTA and the Failures of Punitive Speech Restrictions, 115 Northwestern University Law Review 503 (2020): FOSTA fails to achieve its primary goals because it enacts content-restrictive provisions, the burden of which falls largely on already vulnerable groups. In this case, those v...
Tags: Facebook, New York, Law, Senate, Massachusetts, Salesforce, Department Of Justice, Doj, DOE, Rhode Island, Kik, Thomas, Ferrer, Huffington, JB, New House

Pence asked a judge to kill a lawsuit filed by Trump fans seeking to empower him to overturn Biden's election win on January 6

Vice President Mike Pence at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit, in West Palm Beach, Florida, on December 22, 2020. AP Photo/Lynne Sladky Vice President Mike Pence responded late Thursday to a lawsuit by a group of Trump supporters hoping to push him to overturn Joe Biden's election victory. It is part of a longshot bid to empower the Vice President to accept or reject the results of the presidential election in each state. The Trump supporters, led by Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, as...
Tags: Politics, Texas, Law, Congress, US, Trends, Joe Biden, Arizona, News UK, US Senate, Department Of Justice, Biden, Donald Trump, Doj, The Washington Post, Louie Gohmert

Oversight Left To Georgia Voters For Kelly Loeffler Short-Selling America Before COVID-19 Hit

Still, in any investigation, the Justice Department declining to bring charges doesn’t mean a person did nothing wrong.
Tags: Law, Finance, Government, Department Of Justice, Justice Department, David Perdue, Senate Ethics Committee, Jonathan Wolf, Kelly Loeffler

Petitions of the week: Federal funding for sanctuary cities and another dispute about the border wall

This week we highlight cert petitions that ask the Supreme Court to delve further into contentious issues of immigration policy. One group of cases challenges the Trump administration’s attempt to crack down on so-called sanctuary cities. Another case involves certain construction projects that are part of the U.S.-Mexico border wall. If the justices take up the border-wall case, it will be the second case added to the court’s docket this term involving the legality of border-wall construction. ...
Tags: New York, Featured, Supreme Court, Law, Congress, California, Mexico, Defense, San Francisco, City, Department Of Defense, United States, Department Of Justice, Donald Trump, Department Of Homeland Security, Doj

DOJ produces huge "Final Report" from the work of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice

The day before current Attorney General William Barr is stepping down, the US Department of Justice has released this 300+ page "Final Report" to conclude the work of the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice.  This press release provides the context for this big document: Today, following months of virtual meetings, testimony and study, U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr submitted the final report of the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and th...
Tags: Law, White House, Law Enforcement, Commission, Department Of Justice, Doj, US Department of Justice, Donald J Trump, Barr, Administration of Justice, Douglas A Berman, William P Barr, William Barr, Commission on Law Enforcement, Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement

Former Justice Department Lawyer Apologizes For Not Quitting Sooner So Trump Would Have Crappier Lawyers

She's 'haunted' by the work she did to dismantle democracy.
Tags: Law, Government, Department Of Justice, Donald Trump, Justice Department, Quote Of The Day

Reviewing CJUTF Recommendations: how might the Biden Administration seek to abolish the death penalty?

Right after the election, I blogged a bit (here and here) about some criminal justice reform recommendations from the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force (available here pp. 56-62, called the CJUTF hereinafter).  A few weeks ago, as explained here, I decided to start a series of posts to spotlight and amplify some recommendations from the CJUTF that ought to be of particular interest to sentencing fans.  In the wake of two more notable federal executions last week (noted here and here), this post wil...
Tags: Fcc, Law, Congress, Massachusetts, Joe Biden, Cnn, United States, House, Boston Marathon, Department Of Justice, Biden, Donald Trump, Justice Department, Kamala Harris, Pressley, Charleston Church

Morning Docket: 12.11.20

* A "robot lawyer" startup, that once focused on parking tickets, is now helping users file FOIA requests. Hope the platform can't write the Morning Docket... [TechCrunch] * A new lawyer for the Trump Campaign allegedly argued that Kamala Harris was not a natural-born U.S. citizen. [Forbes] * The Department of Justice is suing the State of Alabama over allegedly substandard prison conditions. [NPR] * Jerry Falwell, Jr. has dropped a defamation lawsuit he filed against Liberty University. [N...
Tags: New York Post, Law, Alabama, Foia, Ufc, Department Of Justice, Kamala Harris, Forbes, Liberty University, Jerry Falwell Jr, Trump Campaign, Morning Docket, Bloomberg Law

States tell justices to deny Texas request to overturn 2020 election

Four states – Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – urged the Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon to reject Texas’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Using strong language rarely seen in Supreme Court filings, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told the justices that they should “not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process, and should send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated.” The filings came in the lawsuit that Texas is seek...
Tags: Utah, Texas, Featured, Supreme Court, Law, Senate, Georgia, Joe Biden, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, States, Department Of Justice, Donald Trump, Trump, Ken Paxton, Howe

Argument analysis: “Very hard questions” in dispute over Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac shareholder suit

The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Wednesday in a high-stakes battle over the regulation of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the wake of the 2008 housing crisis. Shareholders in the company have challenged both the constitutionality of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which Congress created to oversee the two companies, and the FHFA’s 2012 agreement with the Treasury Department, which the shareholders say “nationalized” Fannie and Freddie. After nearly two hours of debate, ...
Tags: Featured, Supreme Court, Law, Congress, Treasury, Department Of Justice, Social Security Administration, Thompson, Sonia Sotomayor, John Roberts, SSA, Freddie Mac, Brigham Young University, Roberts, Treasury Department, Alito

Judge Sullivan: Flynn Walks, Barr Stinks, Take That Pardon And GTFO Of My Courtroom

Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you.
Tags: Law, Government, Department Of Justice, Flynn, Sullivan, Michael Flynn, Emmet Sullivan, Bill Barr

Attorney for Jared Kushner and a Trump fundraiser investigated by DOJ in alleged bribery-for-pardon scheme

Senior Advisor Jared Kushner (C) arrives with lawyer Abbe Lowell (L) for a meeting with the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill July 25, 2017 in Washington, DC. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images The US Department of Justice investigated an attorney for Jared Kushner in connection with an alleged bribery-for-pardon scheme, The New York Times reported. As Business Insider reported, a US judge released documents this week showing that federal investigators were concerned about ...
Tags: Politics, Law, White House, US, Trends, C, Washington Dc, New York Times, Social Security, The Times, Bribery, Department Of Justice, Times, Donald Trump, Doj, Charles Davis