THE NY TIMES SAYS JERRY BROWN SHOULD SIGN THE CALIFORNIA TRUST ACT

The Trust Act is one of the bills that are sitting on Jerry Brown’s desk awaiting a signature. This weekend the NY Times features an editorial explaining why he should sign it.
Here is how the NYT opinion piece opens:

There is a significant and immediate step Gov. Jerry Brown of California can take to protect community safety and civil liberties in his state.

He can sign the Trust Act, a recently passed state bill that prevents local police departments from turning their jails into immigration holding cells for noncriminals or minor offenders whose sentences are up or who should otherwise be out on bail. The act would require the police to let such people go, even if Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have issued voluntary requests, known as detainers, that they be held until they can be picked up for deportation. Only those who have been convicted of or charged with serious or violent felonies would continue to be detained at ICE’s request.

The purpose of the act is to bring state enforcement in line with federal deportation priorities — which is to focus on dangerous criminals, national-security threats and repeat offenders. It was prompted by a troubled ICE program called Secure Communities, which enlists local authorities in immigration enforcement by doing checks on everyone they fingerprint. The program has led to the deportation of tens of thousands of minor offenders or those with no criminal records. The Trust Act is one state’s way to prevent such overkill.

Most of the state’s sheriffs, LA’s Sheriff Lee Baca most prominently included, oppose the Trust Act saying that it would force them to decide whether to violate State law or federal law.

Baca has gone so far as to say he won’t enforce the thing, even if it is signed by the governor.

Only Santa Clara Sheriff, Laurie Smith, has broken from the pack to announce that she is fine with the Trust Act. In fact she took the same stance that the LAPD has long taken with Special Order 40, maintaining that forcing local police to engage in immigration enforcement to makes immigrants less likely to report the kind of serious crimes that are a genuine threat public safety, simply because they’re fearful of being deported.

And about the claim that the Trust Act, if it is allowed to go into effect, will force local law enforcement to break either federal or state law, according to more than 30 legal scholars, this either-or interpretation of the law’s potential affect is utter nonsense. Here’s the letter the profs from such schools as Berkeley, Stanford, Yale, NYU, Penn State, Davis, Georgetown, UC Irvine, Hastings, Brandeis, and more, sent to the governor on the issue.

The letter is 8-pages of legal language, which you may find interesting, but it’s bottom line may be found in the following two statements:

The Constitution does not allow the federal government to command that local sheriffs enforce a federal regulatory regime. The regulation of immigration is no exception to this rule.

The Immigration and Nationality Act makes clear that local participation in immigration can only take place with the consent of localities.

SO IS THERE A $$$ ANGLE TO ALL THIS LEGAL CONTROVERSY?

Interestingly, while most of the state’s sheriffs oppose the Trust Act and embrace Secure Communities or S-Comm, many police chiefs, like San Francisco’s and Oakland’s— are in favor of the Trust Act.

LA’s Charlie Beck has long expressed concern about the potential negative effects of enforcing S-Comm while, as mentioned above, Lee Baca is an ardent S-Comm supporter and says, if the Trust Act is passed, he won’t enforce it.

So what could cause such a difference in perspective between county and city law enforcement agencies?

Perhaps Riverside County Sheriff Stanley Sniff has the key. Sniff, who wrote an letter urging Brown to veto the Trust Act, told David Olson of the Press-Enterprise that the bill would “… jeopardize federal funding to help pay the cost to house illegal immigrants.” Riverside, he said, has received up to $1.8 million annually for S-Comm enforcement. In other words, not locking up as many immigrants would make most or all of those nice dollars vanish.

So maybe the Trust Act isn’t a legal problem for the sheriffs as much as it is a fiscal one.

The governor has until Sept. 30 to jump one way or the other on the bill.

THE UNENDING FASCINATION WITH THE JEFFERY MACDONALD MURDER CASE CONTINUES

On Tuesday, Sept 4, the third major book on the Jeffery MacDonald murder case is being released. It is called A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald, and in it, author Errol Morris, pretty much decides MacDonald is innocent of the murders of his wife and two young daughters, although Morris concedes he cannot prove MacDonald’s innocence to a certaintly.

When I say Morris’s is the third major book, I mean there have been several lessor volumes other than the two well-known examinations of the case, Fatal Vision, the monster best seller by The Selling of the President author, Joe McGinnis, and The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm, a book that—love it or hate it—is now a staple in non-fiction literature courses.

The author of the newest book is, of course, the highly regarded writer/director of such stellar documentaries as The Thin Blue Line, which actually exonerated a man after it was released, and The Fog of War, which completely reframed the reputation of Vietnam war architect Robert McNamara while winning Morris an Academy Award.

Sunday’s NY Times, the Daily Beast, the Atlantic and others have features on the new book.

Here’s the opening of the story in the Atlantic:

It was not quite the case of the century, but Americans of a certain age are likely to remember the savage, 1970 murders of Army doctor Jeffrey MacDonald’s wife and daughters and his subsequent convictions on first and second degree homicide. Or, they remember the story of the case popularized by Joe McGinniss in Fatal Vision and, perhaps, the story of McGinniss and MacDonald, told by Janet Malcolm in The Journalist and the Murderer.

Now comes documentary filmmaker Errol Morris with his new book A Wilderness of Error, a devastating expose of the incompetence and corruption that enabled MacDonald’s conviction and continues to obstruct his appeals. MacDonald, now 68, has been imprisoned for 30 years, denied parole because he continues to deny his guilt, as his efforts at exoneration continue, decades after conviction. Last April, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new hearing in his case, scheduled in September 2012.

As Morris observes, it’s impossible to know “with absolute certainty” whether MacDonald is guilty or innocent. But evidence of innocence wrongly excluded from his trial, including multiple confessions from other suspects, seems considerably stronger than evidence of guilt, and Morris, a dogged, discerning investigator, makes clear that MacDonald was “railroaded.” Personally, I don’t have a shadow of a doubt that in a fair trial, a relatively unbiased jury would not have found him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt (and I’ve contributed to his defense fund).

What went wrong in this case? The short answer, Morris suggests, is that military police and, eventually, civilian prosecutors assumed a conclusion and selected evidence to support it. “When police arrive at a scene, like any of us, they try to formulate an idea of what happened … they take the seeming chaos of a crime scene and interpret it. Often the explanation is based on convenience. It’s easier to pick one narrative about an explanation than another.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Just to be clear, we aren’t taking a side in this. We’re just noting that the case continues to fascinate and frustrate a bunch of smart people, each of whom seems to read a different answer in the facts available.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE U.S. SUPREME COURT HAS TO DECIDE WHETHER OR NOT TO STOP AN EXECUTION

In Tuesday’s NY Times Adam Liptak takes a look behind the metaphorical curtain to find out what kind of process the Supremes and their respective staffs go through when they deal with requests to stay executions.

This isn’t a news story but rather a peek backstage to look at one small part of the way SCOTUS works and it’s quite intriguing. Here’s a clip:

John Balentine was an hour away from being put to death in Texas last month when the Supreme Court granted him a stay of execution.

The unseemly and unsettling spectacle of a last-minute legal scramble in the shadow of the ultimate deadline, with the condemned inmate waiting for word of his fate just outside the death chamber, may suggest that the Supreme Court does not render considered justice when it is asked to halt an execution.

But it tries. Indeed, the court goes to extraordinary lengths to get ready, and its point person is a staff lawyer named Danny Bickell.

“Cases where there is an execution date,” he said with a sigh, “that’s where I come in.”

Mr. Bickell’s formal title is emergency applications clerk, but capital defense lawyers have an informal title for him, too. They call him the death clerk.

In remarks at a conference of lawyers specializing in federal death penalty work at a hotel here last month, Mr. Bickell provided a rare inside look at the Supreme Court’s oversight of the machinery of death in the United States.

It starts with a weekly update…..

UH, OH. SCALIA SAYS THE CONSTITUTION DOESN’T COVER SEX BIAS (OR BIAS AGAINST SEXUAL PREFERENCE)

Oh, Antonin, honey! Are you having one of those bad old we-don’t-need-not stinking-stare decisis moments again?

Supreme court justice Antonin Scalia said during a question-and-answer session with a professor at UC Hastings College of the Law on Friday, that the 14th amendment’s guarantee of equal protection doesn’t apply to sexual discrimination, or discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Never mind that about a zillion rulings since 1970 say otherwise about gender-based discrimination.

Read the rest at the San Francisco Chronicle.

PS: Can’t imagine what possible future SCOTUS case Scalia might be winding up for, can you?

COVERING TRIALS IN THE AGE OF TWITTER

The New Haven Register reports how the coverage of a high profile murder trial is affected by madly tweeting reporters.

9TH CIRCUIT TO DECIDE WHO OWNS THE EXPENSIVE SOFTWARE YOU JUST BOUGHT

First the bad news: A three-judge appeals panel recently decided that if you think you might want to resell that expensive piece of software you bought and don’t need anymore—tough luck, Jack! You don’t own it. The manufacturer does.

This could set a not very fun precedent for books, movies and music.

Now the maybe good news: the full, 11-judge 9th circuit court of appeals, has agreed to rehear the issue. (Whew!)

After the 9th Circuit, it could go to SCOTUS—because, my dears, precedent-wise, this ain’t no small issue we’re talking here.

UPI has lots more.

The NEW YORK TIMES TAKES UP THE STORY ON JUDGES CONSIDERING THE COST OF A SENTENCE BEFORE RULING

The NY Times writes about the pros and cons of Missouri’s new Cost of Crime policy. Here ‘s a clip:

For someone convicted of endangering the welfare of a child, for instance, a judge might now learn that a three-year prison sentence would run more than $37,000 while probation would cost $6,770. A second-degree robber, a judge could be told, would carry a price tag of less than $9,000 for five years of intensive probation, but more than $50,000 for a comparable prison sentence and parole afterward. The bill for a murderer’s 30-year prison term: $504,690.

LA WEEKLY ON CITY HALL’S SHAMEFUL SLASHING OF LIBRARY BUDGETS

Some of us have been quietly bemoaning the cuts in the Los Angeles Public Library system. But, in the current LA Weekly Patrick Range McDonald lays out the city’s slash-and-burn library policy for us in all its awfulness and detail.

Among other things, library hours have been cut back to five days a week, meaning libraries all over the city are closed on Monday.

The ranks of librarians and library staff have been cut by one third.

McDonald points out that New York and Chicago (and most other large cities, save Detroit, have protected their library systems from such ravages—particularly the two days of closures.

But not LA.

McDonald suggests that we should be cutting the GRYD gang programs instead, which I don’t agree with. (He has other suggested cuts as well.) But it’s one among a few small quibbles with an otherwise important story that should be read and contemplated—and then talked about—by all who care about the health and well being of our very precious, very desperately needed libraries.

PS: Did I mention that library usage is going up, not down, in the troubled economy? Consider it mentioned.

NYT DAVID CARR PRATTLES ON IN A CLUE-FREE MANNER ABOUT STEWART AND COLBERT’S OCT 30 MARCHES

There are some interesting points to be made regarding the dueling “I Have a March” announcements Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert made on their respective shows on Thursday night, but NY Times media critic David Carr didn’t make them in his annoyingly condescending and insight-free Sunday column on the matter.

If for some reason you don’t know about the Stewart/Colbert Oct 30 marches on the national mall, watch the videos here.

(Even if you do know about the marches, you should watch the videos.)

AND SPEAKING OF LIBRARIES, BEHOLD THE HIGHLAND PARK BOOK BOOTH!

This is brilliant. I think we should each start one in our own neighborhoods. (And if you do, please send a photo, okay?)

<strong(This photo was posted by the LA Review of Books—a new literary website launching in January 2011.)

Photo: Bettmann/Corbis

Later this week, I’ll have a new story on the mess that is LA County probation and some additional information on the circumstances surrounding the heartbreaking death of Zac Champommier.

But for now, here’s a round-up of weekend news that I thought you’d find of interest.

IF DEATH ROW INMATE TROY DAVIS PROVES HIS INNOCENCE, THEN WHAT?

Last summer the U.S. Supreme Court granted Georgia death row inmate, Troy Davis, a new hearing before a federal judge in which Davis and his attorneys would be able to to try to prove Davis’s innocence of the 1989 murder of an Atlanta police officer. [Back story on Davis's case here.] It is, as the AP points out, “a chance afforded no American facing execution in nearly half a century.”

But the AP also discusses the fact that it isn’t at all clear what is to happen even if Davis and company persuade the judge that Davis didn’t do the crime.

Some experts say the judge could order a new trial. Others say the judge could make a recommendation to the Supreme Court that Davis be freed from prison. There’s also a possibility the judge could find Davis innocent, yet rule he’s powerless to spare Davis’ life.

“There is some ambiguity,” said John H. Blume, a Cornell Law School professor who specializes in death penalty appeals. “Whenever you’ve got something this new, that hasn’t happened all these years, you’re really making your best guess.”

Read the rest.

REASON # 4598 WHY SO MANY PEOPLE ARE GOING ELSEWHERE FOR NEWS OTHER THAN TO THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA

For weeks, I have found myself in a state of quietly growing rage at the way the so-called journalism establishment has taken endless snide little potshots (and some not-so-little shots) at Michael Hastings and his scoop-of-the-season Rolling Stone article, “The Runaway General,” in which then-General Stanley McChrystal and his aides made the smart-mouthed remarks that cost the general his job.

And so who did the ever vigilant Washington press corps attack after the release of excellent Hastings article? Why Hastings of course.

Thus it was relief to read Eric Alterman’s scathing round-up of nearly all the instances of what Rolling Stone’s Matt Tabbai had earlier and accurately described as Hysterical Backstabbing Jealous Hackfest 2010!

Here’s a representative clip:

But almost as impressive as the article itself—and, of course, the commotion it caused in the administration’s Afghan policy resulting in McChrystal’s firing and his replacement by Gen. David Petraeus—has been the Washington journalistic establishment’s reaction to it. Reporter after reporter has complained that by accurately reporting what McChyrstal and his aides said in explicitly on-the-record conversations to a reporter with a tape recorder and/or notepad in his hand, Hastings has violated the tenets of professional journalism. (A few of the reporters did this, it should be added, after stealing his work for their own websites.)

And about that work-stealing issue that Alter mentions: I flagged it at the time, but was astonished to find that few others seemed to notice. Here’s what Alterman says on that matter:

The other decidedly comical aspect of the journalistic establishment’s reaction to the piece they so disdain was the eagerness a few of them showed in trying to steal it. Not only did website after website post the highlights of the general’s shocking quotes before Rolling Stone did, but two of them—Politico and Time—stole it outright, posting the results of months of research and tens of thousands of dollars of investment on their own sites without even bothering to ask permission from the people responsible for them.

Asked by an NPR reporter whether this behavior “cros[ed] a line,” Bill Grueskin, who is dean of academic affairs at the Columbia University School of Journalism, replied, “I think they crossed the line in the same way that a bank robber who goes into a bank and takes money out of the cashier’s drawer crosses a line.” New York Times media reporter David Carr titled his column on the controversy “Heedlessly Hijacking Content,” and termed it “a clear violation of copyright and professional practice, and it amounted to taking money out of a competitor’s pocket.”

And do keep in mind that these people who excoriated Hastings (but thought nothing of stealing his work), are the same folks who regularly beat their breasts about the icky “non-professionalism” of bloggers.

Right. Sure. Whatever you say, boss.

A YEAR OUT OF PRISON BRUCE LISKER MEETS WITH ONE OF HIS JURORS

On LA Observed, Photojournalist Iris Schneider has been doing an occasional and quite wonderful series on Bruce Lisker, who was released from prison nearly a year ago after serving 24 years for murdering his mother, Dora Lisker. Monday Schneider posted her latest installment in which she accompanied Lisker when he met with Lorraine Maxwell, one of the twelve jury members who convicted him when he was 17-years-old of the 1983 murder.

Earlier installments are here, here and here.

THE LA TIMES GETS AERIAL EXPERT’S REPORT THAT CONTRADICTS OFFICIAL ACCOUNT OF HOW THE STATION FIRE MIGHT HAVE BEEN STOPPED

The LA Times’ Paul Pringle has gotten his hands on a very credible report that suggest that the official account of the way the disastrous Station Fire was handled may be troublingly inaccurate.

OBAMA TELLS CONGRESS: HANDS OFF FEDERAL RACE TO THE TOP FUNDS

The NY Times editorial board rightly approves of Obama’s threat to veto any spending bill that slashes money from his Race-to-the-Top school reform program. Find the cuts elsewhere people.

CLAY SHIRKY EXPLAINS WHY THE (INTERNET) KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

If you don’t recognize the name of web prognosticator/author/astonishingly fine thinker Clay Shirky, suffice it to say that, if you are interested in the whole Future of News thingy, he’s the guy you want to read. He has a brand new book out, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, which is already selling at a rapid clip.

To get a glimpse of what’s inside, read his essay in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal titled “Does the Internet Make You Smarter?”

Or better yet, read the interview in the Guardian in which the self-described techno-luddite interviewer admits she finds herself hanging on Shirky’s every word.

A KID DIES AS DCFS OUT-OF-CONTROL BACKLOG OF ABUSE ALLEGATIONS INCREASES

LA Times’ Garrett Theroff reports on this case that is tragic and also deeply disheartening because of what it illustrates.

Here is the opening:

The tip that abuse was taking place in the Long Beach home where 2-year-old Joseph Byrd lived came to Los Angeles County child welfare officials nearly two months ago.

But 57 days after opening an investigation into the allegations, social workers had yet to determine if Joseph was at risk when the toddler was pronounced dead Saturday. Coroner’s officials have listed the case as a homicide.

At the time of Joseph’s death, social workers were still looking into allegations of abuse and neglect in a family that already had been investigated five times, according to sources familiar with their history. Three of those cases were substantiated, sources told The Times.

Joseph’s case is a grim illustration of the growing number of abuse and neglect investigations still open past the state’s 30-day deadline.

Despite pledges to resolve Los Angeles County’s mounting backlog, the crisis has deepened significantly in recent weeks. At last count, cases involving more than 20,000 children reported at risk of abuse or neglect had not been fully investigated within 30 days — up from 18,000 in May

There’s lots more, so read on.

SUPREMES RULE AGAINST SCHOOL GROUP THAT EXCLUDES GAYS

This is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t case that I flagged a few months ago. The NY Times’ Adam Liptak reports.

A public law school did not violate the First Amendment by withdrawing recognition from a Christian student group that excluded gay students, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a 5-to-4 decision.

The case, involving a clash between religious freedom and antidiscrimination principles, divided along familiar ideological lines, with the court’s four more liberal members and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in the majority….

And here’s the best majority quote, from Justice Stevens:

….Justice Stevens said groups that “exclude or mistreat Jews, blacks and women” must be tolerated in a free society. But “it need not subsidize them, give them its official imprimatur or grant them equal access to law school facilities.

CALIFORNIA NAACP BACKS POT LEGALIZATION, CITING RACIAL DISPARITIES

An unusual amalgam of supporters are turning up to back the marijuana legalization initiative.

On Tuesday, the California NAACP became the latest, as the AP reports:

The NAACP’s California chapter pledged its support on Tuesday for a marijuana legalization ballot measure, saying current laws are unfairly used to target minorities.

The group highlighted findings it says show the arrest rate among blacks for low-level marijuana crimes far exceed those of whites in the state’s largest counties.

“Justice is the quality of being just and fair and these laws have been neither just nor fair,” said Alice Huffman, president of the California State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

AMID ALL THE BAD PROBATION NEWS, A LOCKED UP KID WINS AN ACADEMIC TROPHY

It seems that the Los Angeles County Office of Education stages an annual academic decathlon-style competition for kids who are locked up in various probation-run facilities in Los Angeles County.

The LA Times’ Abby Sewell has a story of one 17-year-old who was locked up at Dorothy Kirby Center, a residential probation facility that caters to kids with emotional issues, and who co-captained the team that won.

Here’s a clip:

For more than two months, Riley and his six teammates spent two hours after school every day and 2 1/2 hours on Saturdays drilling for the competition, which focused on the American Old West this year. Riley put in extra time on his own, practicing on his guitar to play the national anthem and a rendition of country classic “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky” at the competition.

After picking up his shiny red and gold trophy, Riley sat down in a daze.

“It feels so . . . real. This is life, this is what I can make it,” he said.

In another week, the aspiring musician from Lancaster will leave and face life in the real world, which will include junior college and eventually a four-year degree at Cal State Northridge, he said.

Read it and be encouraged.

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard the case of the Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. You remember this case. It is about whether the UC Hastings College of the Law has the right to yank funding and school support from an on campus group called the Christian Legal Society because the CLS excludes gays from becoming voting members or officers of the group.. More specifically, it excludes anyone down for “unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle,” which CLS defines as (among other things) “all acts of sexual conduct outside of God’s design for marriage between one man and one woman, which acts include fornication, adultery and homosexual conduct.” Like I said, gays.

As Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick explains it:

Hastings advised CLS that because its ban on gay and nonbelieving leaders and officers violated the school’s nondiscrimination policy, the group could still operate but would not be treated as one of about 70 registered student organizations, with access to school funding, facilities, e-mail, and bulletin boards. CLS sued, Hastings won in the lower federal court and again at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

Yet, lest those of you reading this rush rapidly to your habitual ideological corners, Lithwick also points out that, if we are to consider the case fairly, it will require thinking outside left/right parameters. Unfortunately, says Lithwick, that’s not at all what the Supremes did.

This is an unbelievably hard case, pitting a religious group’s basic right to define and preserve its core beliefs against a publicly funded university’s effort to ensure that school-sponsored and -funded groups do not discriminate on the basis of religion or sexual orientation. But judging from the ideological zeal of today’s battle, you’d think the case was open-and-shut. The liberals are for nondiscrimination. The conservatives are certain that liberals plan to infiltrate unpopular Christian groups for nefarious purposes. If there was any hugging, I missed it entirely.

The NY Times Adam Liptak, on the other hand, sees CLS v. Martinez as one of a couple of upcoming proxy cases testing the water for the 900-pound gorilla of a case regarding gay rights that will be plopping on SCOTUS’ collective desk a few years from now: Perry v. Schwarzenegger.

Plus there is this other case, next week, writes Liptak:

The divide between the two sides is even starker in the case to be argued next week, Doe v. Reed, No. 09-559. The question there is whether Washington State’s open records law violates the free speech rights of people who signed ballot petitions by requiring their names to be made public. Some of those people say they fear retaliation and harassment from advocates of same-sex marriage.

(Read on for a further preview of that intriguing case.)

And, for those of you who simply want to know what went on in court today with regard to the CLS/Hastings case, here’s Nina Totenberg.

UPDATE:

SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS LAW BANNING SALE OF ANIMAL CRUELTY VIDEOS

Tuesday morning, in a 9-1 decision (Alito the hold out), the Supreme Court ruled that videos depicting animals being illegally killed or tortured are protected under the First Amendment. The LA Times has the rest of the story.

WHEN DOES RESTRAINING AND SECLUDING KIDS TURNS ABUSIVE AND DANGEROUS

On Wednesday, December 9, Representatives George Miller (D-CA) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) plan to introduce a bill that prevents the misuse of restraint and seclusion on school kids. (Miller is the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. McMorris Rodgers is a member of the Committee.)

One would imagine that such a bill as this one would not be necessary in this day and age. But one would be wrong.

It seems that, unlike with hospitals, and like facilities that receive federal funding, there are currently no federal policies that provide guidelines as to how restraint and seclusion can be used in schools, and the state laws are ridiculously uneven.

As a consequence, there have been reports of horrific cases of adults sitting on kids who are face down until they have stopped breathing, adults placing mentally disabled kids in closets for extended periods of time, in certain cases with fatal results, and on and on.

(The video above shows the Congressional testimony of a mother named Toni Price about once such incident. Price’s account is dignified, clear and heartbreaking.)

A look at the report on the matter from the US General Accounting Office is quite sobering.

Anyway, this is a bipartisan bill. Take a look.

The video above is of one mother’s testimony at a Congressional hearing on the issue this past spring.

ROBBER APOLOGIZES TO VICTIM

Evidently on Sunday night, a gun-wielding robber who jacked $70 from a Christmas tree salesman apologized to his victim saying, “Times are tough,” according to the LA Times.

I know several young able bodied men who are about to apply for General Relief because, despite daily searches for any kind of work they can find nothing, and they need some way to put food in the house but do not want to turn to the same desperate strategy as the gunman.

I got a call from one of them last night. He does not want a government hand out, he said. “But what can I do?” he asked me. I had no answer.

CAN A CAMPUS CHRISTIAN GROUP BAN GAYS AS VOTING MEMBERS?

On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to take a case which pits issues of religious freedom against a college’s policy of nondiscrimination. Moreover, the case has views of two circuit courts at odds with each other, one of them California’s beloved and sometimes notorious 9th Circuit.

The Christian Science Monitor has a very thorough write up. Here’s a clip:

The Christian Legal Society (CLS) at the Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco was stripped of its registered student organization status at the college because it refused to allow gay and lesbian students to become voting members or officers of the group.

Under the Hastings nondiscrimination policy, student organizations must allow fellow students to join and potentially seek leadership positions in any organization without regard to their status or beliefs….

Starting in the 2004-2005 academic year, the CLS required prospective members to sign a statement of Christian faith. The statement includes a pledge that the undersigned student trusts in “Jesus Christ as my savior.”

Prospective members must express belief in several religious tenets, including “one God, eternally existent in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” The statement includes a pledge of belief in the virgin birth, eternal life, Jesus’ resurrection, a divinely created heaven and earth, and that the Bible is the inspired word of God.

In addition, the national Christian Legal Society developed a policy position stating its view of biblical principles of sexual morality. The position, adopted by the Hastings chapter, said that “unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle” was inconsistent with the group’s statement of faith and would disqualify an individual from membership.

Great case! Morally complex and legally ambiguous. Go Supremes!

JUSTICE BREYER: “GET ME THE REWRITE GUY!”

And Speaking of the Supreme Court…based on another case that went before the court on Monday, it looks quite possible that the nation’s Miranda warning may get rewritten. The case—Florida v. Powell—concerns one Kevin Dwayne Powell who did not understand, even after the warning was given, that he could have an attorney with him during questioning—as that fact is not really spelled out.

(Although if Mr. Powell had watched a little more episodic television, surely he would have known his rights a bit better.)

As the AP explains the rest.

STILL MISSING DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

This isn’t really a social justice issue at all, it’s a literary issue. But if you care about such things, the new posthumous piece of fiction by David Foster Wallace in the upcoming issue of the New Yorker, is a reminder why so many of us are, more than a year later, so devastated that Wallace could seem to find no way out of his personal psychic pain other than to silence it in the most permanent of manners.

Still and all, no matter how bittersweet, another encounter with DFW’s huge and humane talent is utterly thrilling.

The New Yorker published short story is an excerpt from The Pale King, the unfinished novel he was working on before he committed suicide in September 2008.

In a well-reported story, the AP’s Deborah Hastings finds that “States pull back after decades of get-tough laws”—but not California.

Here’s how it begins:

For the last four decades, the laws of the land were all about dropping the hammer on crime by locking away criminals for a very long time.

Some carried scary names like “Three Strikes and You’re Out,” as in cast out of society. The harshest penalties for drug offenders, the Rockefeller laws, were named after a New York governor battling a 1970s heroin epidemic.

Nearly half the country and the federal government have adopted some kind of hardcore laws, while “get tough on crime” became the mantra of politicians running for everything from the local city council to the president of the United States.

The public, too, was enamored. The laws promised to make life safer in increasingly unsafe times by putting away bad guys and hiding the keys for years — no more slaps on the wrist, no matter if the ultimate offense was having drugs in your pocket or stealing golf clubs.

But after cracking down and incarcerating hundreds of thousands, cash-strapped states including New York, Kentucky and Kansas are pulling back. They face an uncommon confluence of dire economics and prisons bursting at the seams and several have changed, in whole or in part, their stances on hard punishment.

Their reasons: the get-tough laws didn’t always work….

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m holed up at an intriguing conference on health care reform….(more on that later), so I’ll make this fairly quick:

Here are THREE Must Reads and ONE Must Watch:

1. THAT SIXTY MINUTES INTERVIEW

Last night when I had dinner with a hoard of very smart health care reform policy wonksters, one of the first-broached topics of conversation around the various tables was the Obama 60 Minutes interview, the universal opinion being that it was an gargantuan relief to have someone elected to high office in the U.S. who displayed a strong preference for, as one person put it, “evidence-based” ideas.

Here’s a link (to the Swamp’s link) to the interview.

************************************************************************************************************

2. PROP 8 & COLORADO’S EQUAL PROTECTION CHALLENGE

A lot of people believe that the key to the gay marriage issue is eventually going to be found in the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In this morning’s LA Times UC Hastings law professor Brian Gray explains that there is already a successful precedent for such a challenge when, twelve years ago, the US Supremes struck down a law in Colorado based on equal protection when the Colorado voters attempted to restrict gay rights.

In that decision (Romer v. Evans ) Justice Kennedy wrote: “If the constitutional conception of ‘equal protection of the laws’ means anything, it must at the very least mean that a bare … desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest.”

Hastings makes sure to say that such a case would be no slam dunk as Prop. 8 is not the same as Colorado’s Prop 2. Yet, he says, there is an essential similarity….

Anyway, read it.

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3. MO DO ON THE HILLARY-FOR-STATE ISSUE

On Sunday, Maureen Dowd had a pretty savvy take on the question of whether asking Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State is really good idea or a really bad idea.

Good or bad, the key in contemplating the Hillary question is to look past the immediate move and see the whole chess board. Dowd does just that.

Here’s a clip:

On the down side, Hillary would be taking over a big and demoralized government bureaucracy, after proving with her campaign that she does not know how to run a big and demoralized group of people.

On the up side, she would never have to exaggerate her foreign policy résumé again; this time, she really would be brokering peace and flying into places where they’d try to fire at her.

And if she worked hard enough — and she would — she could restore clarity to Foggy Bottom, the striped-pants center of diplomacy so maligned and misused by W. and Dick Cheney on their Sherman’s march to war in Iraq and in their overwrought bid to become the only hyperpower.

If Barry chooses Hillary as secretary of state, a woman who clearly intimidated him and taught him to be a better pol in the primaries, it doesn’t signal the return of the Clinton era. It says the opposite: If you have a president who’s willing to open up his universe to other smart, strong people, if you have a big dog who shares his food dish, the Bill Clinton era is truly over.

Appointing a Clinton in the cabinet would be so un-Clintonian.

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4. SAVE/DON’T SAVE: WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE $&%$#@*& AUTO INDUSTRY UPDATE BELOW

This morning’s NY Times has an interesting article speculating about how if GM and/or Ford and Chrysler are allowed to go belly-up, that while it will be “painful,” for a while, it won’t be the catastrophe that some predict because, in time, the foreign car makers will step in to fill the breach and a “new equilibrium” will eventually result, jobs will be rescued, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Okay, well, maybe. And then again maybe not.

So, before we encourage our elected representatives to go all Lehman Bros. on the American auto industry, I strongly recommend reading Friday’s article by The New Republic’s senior editor, Jonathan Cohn, about why we likely need to rescue the automakers (but with some new and strict rules imposed as part of the bailout).

Here’s the story’s opening:

General Motors has come to Washington, begging for a $25 billion bailout to keep it and its ailing Detroit counterparts going next year. But nobody seems too thrilled about the prospect. Liberals dwell on the companies’ gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles. Conservatives obsess over all the well-paid union members with gold-plated benefits. And people of all ideological backgrounds remember how they used to buy domestic cars, years ago, but stopped because the cars were so damn lousy. “The downfall of the American auto industry is indeed a tragedy,” the Washington Post editorial board sermonized recently, “but the automakers and the United Auto Workers have only themselves to blame for much of it.” And, if they have only themselves to blame, the argument goes, why do they deserve taxpayer help? Let them fail and file for bankruptcy. In the long run, the economy will be stronger and the workers better off. It’d be worth?the short-term pain, which might not even be so severe.

In normal times, with another company, that might be correct. But these are not normal times….

No kidding. Read the rest.

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UPDATE: This morning’s WaPo has an OpEd by economist Jeffrey Sachs that complements what Jonathan Cohn says above. Read it! Here’s the opening:

A government-supported restructuring of the auto industry is urgently needed for our economic and energy security. If the Bush administration allows the auto industry to collapse, it will compound the panic that started with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Washington should seize the opportunity to begin a new era of U.S. technological leadership in the global auto industry, starting with an immediate loan.

Okay, here’s where we are so far:

UCI Chancellor, Michael Drake says that his choice to rescind the job offer to Erwin Chemerinsky to become dean of the UC Irvine law school wasn’t one teensy, weensy bit political, that it was really just a “management decision.” (Whatever that means.)

Meanwhile Chemerinsky says, he was told, point blank, that he was turning out to be “too politically controversial.”

The UC Irvine Donald Bren School of Law was to have opened its doors in the fall of 2009 as the first new public law school to be established in the University of California in over forty years. (UC now operates law schools at UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Davis and the Hastings Law School in San Francisco.) The search to find the right dean for the school began in December of 2006. Actual screening of applicants started on February 1 of this year. The search committee was filled with heavy hitters from both sides of the political spectrum, many from UCI’s brilliant and well-respected School Social Ecology.

By late summer, the winnowing process was over and Chemerinsky was offered the position on August 16, pending the approval of the University of California Board of Regents.

According to California Speaker Fabian Nunez—who sits on the board—the regents were never asked.

But Something Happened. We know this because on Tuesday 9/11, Chancellor Blake—who, before this debacle was reportedly very well liked, both on and off campus— flew in to meet with Chemerinsky….and withdrew the job offer.

In the days between then and now, poor, beleaguered Chancellor Blake has been dissembling like crazy. First it was the regents who were the problem, then it was Chemerinsky’s mid-summer op ed, then it was….I don’t know….the psychic influence of He Who Must Not Be Named….or whatever.

Finally we were treated to the Rashomon experience of these dueling editorials (here and here) in the LA times.

So what’s the real deal?

This morning’s OC Register offered some clues:

…..as early as Aug. 29, Republican political consultant Matt Cunningham said he received a forwarded e-mail in which Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich asked fellow Republicans how Chemerinsky’s appointment could be stopped.

Bingo.

A little further poking around reveals that also on August 29, a short article appeared in the LA Times reporting that “someone involved with the selection process” had leaked that Chemerinsky was the “front runner” for dean. (One wonders the reason for the leak, but I digress.) Clearly, Antonovich—and likely some others—saw the article and began frantically emailing.

And then someone likely applied pressure. And then more pressure. Finally, somebody—or several somebodies— told Blake that he better do whatever he had to do, but job-offer-or-no-job offer, Chemerensky was a no-go.

It is important to mention here that while conservative meddlers such as Antonovich should be ashamed of themselves, the right-leaning legal/academic community has been almost uniformly stellar in its response to the Irvine/Chemerinsky mess.

As of today, the Orange County Register and others are calling for Chancellor Blake’s head. With his ham handling of the situation, maybe Blake should go, or maybe he should stay. Until we learn the full back story, and what kind of threats….er…suggestions were made to Blake—and by whom— it’s hard to say. (Eventually, we will know. Count on it.)

In the meantime, why should the rest of us care that a job offer was tendered to a Duke University law professor, and then later withdrawn?

Here’s why: Because when the worst kind of petty back room political maneuvering holds that kind of power over one of the state’s best—hell, one of the country’s best—public universities, then we all damn well better care.