« "'You Miss So Much When You’re Gone': The Lasting Harm of Jailing Mothers Before Trial in Oklahoma" | Main | "Incapacitating Criminal Corporations" »
September 27, 2018
Dare I create an open thread for comments on a (sure-to-be-historic) day of overload?
I am likely not to have any time for blogging over the next couple of days because of this exciting event taking place in my building that my Drug Enforcement and Policy Center is helping to host:
"From Punishment to Public Health: Embracing Evidence-Based Solutions to End the Overdose Crisis" (September 27-28 in Columbus, OH): This conference aims to explore the impact of criminal justice laws and policies in compounding drug use harms, including overdose deaths, and offer an alternative framework for addressing problematic drug use and drug-related fatalities that is rooted in evidence, compassion, and the principles of harm reduction. More details about and registration for this event are available here and here.
Fortunately nothing else significant is happening in the legal world today (joking, of course).
I presume I will get (too many) news alerts on my phone about anything consequential that happens during the latest round of Kavanaugh hearings or during the planned meeting between Prez Trump and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein. But, at the risk of creating an extra place for people to say silly things on the internet, I figured it might make sense to create an open thread here for any thoughtful comments on any of the day's sure-to-be-historic events.
I have not blogged much about the SCOTUS confirmation mess because the story is a bit off-topic and covered aplenty elsewhere. But perhaps sentencing fans and readers have (respectful) "hot takes" on what we have seen so far or concerning what is in store int he coming hours and days. If so, feel free to share.
September 27, 2018 at 08:42 AM | Permalink
Comments
Given its patriarchal tendencies, this Blog's conspicuous silence on the subject of Today's hearing is probably just as well.
But did you post anything about Kavanaugh's superficial reasoning (joined, one might note, by Merrick Garland) in US v Haight, wherein Kavanaugh's opinion purports to align the D.C. Circuit with the position that offenses requiring only a "reckless" mental state qualify as ACCA violent felonies and Guidelines crimes of violence?
Kavanaugh's opinion for the three judge panel purports to join the majority position taken by the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Circuits, yet Kavanaugh's opinion --by explicitly excluding reckless crimes encompassing "accidents" -- actually stands only with the Fifth Circuit (which also explicitly excludes reckless crimes satisfied by accidental conduct, whereas the Eighth Circuit upheld as a career offender predicate offense a Missouri statute criminalizing reckless discharge of a firearm resulting in serious injury to another, which Missouri state case law explicitly interprets to be satisfied by indisputably accidental firearm discharge. Kavanaugh's opinion (from barely four months ago, mind you) hardly manifests exceptional legal analysis (or, if you prefer "prowess")…, the same of which may be said of Merrick Garland's joining that opinion.
Posted by: anon | Sep 27, 2018 11:58:09 AM
Trump nominates Kavanaugh. So one pussy-grabber nominates another pussy-grabber. What else is new?
Posted by: Mary from Vermont | Sep 27, 2018 1:24:00 PM
Mary from Vermont, here's the transcript of the Access Hollywood tape:
Donald J. Trump: You know and ...
Unknown: She used to be great. She’s still very beautiful.
Trump: I moved on her, actually. You know, she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it.
Unknown: Whoa.
Trump: I did try and fuck her. She was married.
Unknown: That’s huge news.
Trump: No, no, Nancy. No, this was [unintelligible] — and I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping.
She wanted to get some furniture. I said, “I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.” I took her out furniture —
I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.
Billy Bush: Sheesh, your girl’s hot as shit. In the purple.
Trump: Whoa! Whoa!
Bush: Yes! The Donald has scored. Whoa, my man!
[Crosstalk]
Trump: Look at you, you are a pussy.
[Crosstalk]
Trump: All right, you and I will walk out.
[Silence]
Trump: Maybe it’s a different one.
Bush: It better not be the publicist. No, it’s, it’s her, it’s —
Trump: Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.
Bush: Whatever you want.
Trump: Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.
Bush: Uh, yeah, those legs, all I can see is the legs.
Trump: Oh, it looks good.
Bush: Come on shorty.
Trump: Ooh, nice legs, huh?
Bush: Oof, get out of the way, honey. Oh, that’s good legs. Go ahead.
Trump: It’s always good if you don’t fall out of the bus. Like Ford, Gerald Ford, remember?
Bush: Down below, pull the handle.
Trump: Hello, how are you? Hi!
Arianne Zucker: Hi, Mr. Trump. How are you? Pleasure to meet you.
Trump: Nice seeing you. Terrific, terrific. You know Billy Bush?
Bush: Hello, nice to see you. How you doing, Arianne?
Zucker: Doing very well, thank you. Are you ready to be a soap star?
Trump: We’re ready, let’s go. Make me a soap star.
Bush: How about a little hug for the Donald? He just got off the bus.
Zucker: Would you like a little hug, darling?
Trump: O.K., absolutely. Melania said this was O.K.
Bush: How about a little hug for the Bushy? I just got off the bus.
Zucker: Bushy, Bushy.
Bush: Here we go. Excellent. Well, you’ve got a nice co-star here.
Zucker: Yes, absolutely.
Trump: Good. After you.
[Break in video]
Trump: Come on, Billy, don’t be shy.
Bush: Soon as a beautiful woman shows up, he just, he takes off. This always happens.
Trump: Get over here, Billy.
Zucker: I’m sorry, come here.
Bush: Let the little guy in here, come on.
Zucker: Yeah, let the little guy in. How you feel now? Better? I should actually be in the middle.
Bush: It’s hard to walk next to a guy like this.
Zucker: Here, wait, hold on.
Bush: Yeah, you get in the middle, there we go.
Trump: Good, that’s better.
Zucker: This is much better. This is —
Trump: That’s better.
Zucker: [Sighs]
Bush: Now, if you had to choose honestly between one of us. Me or the Donald?
Trump: I don’t know, that’s tough competition.
Zucker: That’s some pressure right there.
Bush: Seriously, if you had — if you had to take one of us as a date.
Zucker: I have to take the Fifth on that one.
Bush: Really?
Zucker: Yup — I’ll take both.
Trump: Which way?
Zucker: Make a right. Here we go. [inaudible]
Bush: Here he goes. I’m gonna leave you here.
Trump: O.K.
Bush: Give me my microphone.
Trump: O.K. Oh, you’re finished?
Bush: You’re my man, yeah.
Trump: Oh, good.
Bush: I’m gonna go do our show.
Zucker: Oh, you wanna reset? O.K.
Posted by: anon5 | Sep 27, 2018 3:12:41 PM
Mr. Kavanaugh is a realy Jeckyll and Hyde. A raging brute when he testified, spouting usual Trump screed. no doubt a real monster when drunk.
Posted by: Nancy | Sep 27, 2018 10:26:42 PM
Yeah, if that was Kavanaugh sober, can you imagine him drunk? This guy's unhinged, angry, aggressive and has difficulty with self-control and impulses. Not characteristics one looks for in a Supreme Court Justice (or any judge). I'm not sure this guy should even be a municipal court judge (no offense to the many fine muni court judges out there).
Posted by: Wow! | Sep 27, 2018 11:40:37 PM
So frustrated by Kavanaugh's refusal to answer the questions he was asked. Doesn't reflect well on his credibility.
Posted by: career AFPD | Sep 28, 2018 1:54:04 AM
On a slightly different note - why hire a sex crime prosecutor to question an accuser?
Posted by: Paul | Sep 28, 2018 8:15:36 AM
A lot of the back and forth over the witnesses who allegedly refute Dr. Ford's testimony (the other three people present saying that they don't remember) is similar to a problem that most attorneys are familiar with -- the alibi defense. Most people do not have photographic memories. So when you start asking them about anything that happened more than a week ago, they have trouble with remembering details. The further you go into the past, the less details that the average person will remember. This natural tendency is what makes most alibi witnesses easy to cross and attack as they somehow magically remember one day from fourteen months ago that only became significant when their friend or relative was arrested three months after that day and have no solid explanation for why that date was particularly memorable. Here, the witnesses are being asked to remember a day from thirty plus years ago that for two of them was just another party (and the third has a good reason to deny remembering anything as he is a potential co-defendant and the statute of limitations apparently has not run).
Posted by: tmm | Sep 28, 2018 10:28:22 AM
How do we sentence a 53yo man for something he did when he was 17? Would he get the sentence he would have gotten 30+ years ago or would he get the sentence a 53yo would get today?
Some suggest that not giving him the SCOTUS spot would be his punishment. If that's the way we work it, what would we do with a 53yo who is up for a different kind of job when his decades old crime is exposed, say, auto mechanic or produce manager at the grocery store or corporate middle manager?
Does a sex crime defendant get a harsher sentence if his/her victims speak at the sentencing hearing? If that's true (and I believe it is likely), then are we treating crimes as lesser crimes if the victim isn't there to speak? Or if the victim isn't willing to speak?
Posted by: marie | Sep 28, 2018 11:00:22 AM
Every other sentence Trump utters is a lie. It should come as no surprise that his nominee to the Supreme Court lies just as much.
Posted by: anon12 | Oct 1, 2018 12:32:35 PM
Well if Kavanaugh, the black-out drunk, angry woman assaulter, gets on the court, he'll be in good company with the angry, cruel Mr. Long Dong Silver himself. And to think that this was once the court of Holmes, Cardozo, and Brandeis.
Posted by: anon1 | Oct 1, 2018 7:38:11 PM
I still cannot comprehend how the American People can have elected this vile, narcissistic, misogynistic, mendacious, tax-dodging, Russian water-carrying blowhard and snake-oil salesman to be President of the United States.
Posted by: depressed | Oct 2, 2018 10:55:47 PM
