Kids for Cash judges ordered to pay $200 million

Judges Who Sent Kids to Detention Centers for Financial Kickbacks Ordered To Pay Over $200 Million | Reason - Emma Camp:

August 18, 2022 - "For almost seven years, two Pennsylvania judges sent hundreds of children — some of them as young as 8 years old — to privately run juvenile detention centers in exchange for financial kickbacks. On Tuesday, Judge Christopher Conner ordered former Judges Mark A. Ciavarella and Michael T. Conahan to pay over $200 million in compensatory and punitive damages to their victims.

"Starting in 2000, the pair sent children into juvenile detention for offenses as innocuous as jaywalking, petty theft, or truancy. In what became known as the "kids for cash" scandal, the children were sent to two privately run detention centers whose builder and co-owner paid the men $2.8 million, according to the Associated Press, over the course of the scheme.

"According to testimony from plaintiffs during the class-action suit, many of the sentences the children received were staggering. One plaintiff, who was 16 at the time, was sentenced to 11 months for driving the wrong way down a one-way street without a license. Another girl, then only 10, was sent to detention for a schoolyard fight with no serious injuries. One child was sent to detention for stealing a Hershey bar, another for writing on a school window with a marker.... One plaintiff was sentenced to an additional eight months in detention after Ciavarella instructed him to pick a sports team, and he picked the wrong one....  

"According to CBS news, following the plot's discovery, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has thrown out 4,000 juvenile convictions between 2003 and 2008. However, many of the plaintiffs still suffer from mental health problems. Several children sent to detention by Ciavarella and Conahan have died by suicide or drug overdose in the years after their detention. 'Children and adolescents suffered unspeakable physical and emotional trauma at the hands of two judicial officers who swore by solemn oath to uphold the law,' Judge Conner wrote in a memorandum on the ruling. 'Ciavarella and Conahan abandoned their oath and breached the public trust. Their cruel and despicable actions victimized a vulnerable population of young people, many of whom were suffering from emotional issues and mental health concerns.'

"Unfortunately, it is unlikely that any of the plaintiffs will receive financial compensation for their unjust detentions as, according to the A.P., Ciavarella and Conahan are now serving lengthy prison sentences. Ciavarella was sentenced to 28 years in prison, and Conahan was sentenced to 17 years, though he was released to home confinement in 2020, citing COVID-19-related concerns.... 

"The plaintiffs in this case 'are the tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions. The law is powerless to restore to plaintiffs the weeks, months, and years lost because of the actions of the defendants,' wrote Conner. 'But we hope that by listening to their experiences and acknowledging the depth of the damage done to their lives, we can provide them with a measure of closure and…ensure that their stories are never forgotten.'

Read more: https://reason.com/2022/08/18/judges-who-sent-kids-to-detention-centers-for-financial-kickbacks-ordered-to-pay-over-200-million/

Wrongfully convicted man freed after 23 years

After Spending 23 Years in Prison for a Murder He Didn’t Commit, Ricky Kidd Is Going Home – Reason.com - Zuri Davis & Joe Seyton:

August 15, 2019 - "Ricky Kidd was charged in 1996 for a double murder that he did not commit ... and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. On Wednesday, Judge Daren L. Adkins of Missouri's 43rd Judicial Circuit granted Kidd habeas corpus relief. After 23 years behind bars, Kidd will finally get to go home a free man, unless state prosecutors opt to retry him within 30 days of the Adkins' ruling....

"Police in Kansas City, Missouri, received a call in 1996 after neighbors believed they heard gunshots. Upon investigation, the lifeless bodies of George Bryant and Oscar Bridges were discovered at Bryant's property. An anonymous tip, which was likely called in by those connected to the crime, named Kidd as a suspect. That tip — and a number of Brady violations committed by the prosecutor — sealed Kidd's fate.

"Multiple witnesses attested that around the time of the shooting, Kidd was driving to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office at Lake Jacomo, Missouri, to apply for a gun permit [but] Kidd's alibi was not enough to save him from a sloppy police investigation. Nor did it convince the Jackson County lead prosecutor, ... Amy McGowan, [who] acknowledged in a 2017 deposition that 'there is no physical evidence tying [Kidd] to the crime scene that I recall.'

"McGowan did not disclose the depositions of Gary Goodspeed Sr. and Gary Goodspeed Jr., both of whom are now considered 'viable alternative suspects' in the murders of Bryant and Bridges, according to Adkins' ruling. Kidd's lawyers have spent years arguing that this was a Brady violation that ultimately helped doom Kidd.

"Though Kidd was sentenced to die alone in a cell, he had the Midwest Innocence Project (MIP) in his corner. Thanks to that group's years-long effort, Kidd received a Rule 91 hearing in April, which allowed him one final shot at habeas corpus relief.... On Wednesday, Adkins ordered the state of Missouri to release Kidd from prison.

"'Based on a careful consideration of the record and these proceedings, this Court finds that the evidence is clear and convincing that Kidd is innocent of the murders of George Bryant and Oscar Bridges,' Adkins wrote in his 107-page decision.....

"'If anything, Ricky's case shows just how hard it is to correct an injustice,' Tricia Bushnell, executive director [of] the MIP and a member of Kidd's legal team, told the AP. 'It shouldn't take 20 years to bring a man home. Ricky's case is solved. We know who committed this crime,' she added.... And even if he does get to come home, which seems likely, there's no getting back the 23 years Kidd lost while incarcerated."

Read more: https://reason.com/2019/08/15/after-spending-23-years-in-prison-for-a-murder-he-didnt-commit-ricky-kidd-is-going-home/
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‘Kids for Cash’ scandal documented (video)

Corrupt ‘Kids for Cash’ judge ruined more than 2,000 lives - Larry Getlen, New York Post:

February 23, 2014 - "Hillary Transue, 14, created a fake, humorous Myspace page about her school’s vice principal. Justin Bodnar, 12, cursed at another student’s mother. Ed Kenzakoski, 17, did nothing at all. It didn’t matter.

"As we see in the documentary “Kids for Cash,” ... all three Luzerne County, Pa. teens met the same fate for their minor infractions.... They were brought before Judge Mark A. Ciavarella and, without warning or the chance to offer a defense, found themselves pronounced guilty, shackled and sentenced to months of detention in a cockroach-infested jail. They were trapped in the juvenile justice system for years, robbing most of them of their entire high-school experience.

"Judge Ciavarella, who sentenced around 3,000 children in a similar manner, was later sentenced himself to 28 years in prison for financial crimes related to his acceptance of $2.2 million as a finder’s fee for the construction of a for-profit facility in which to house these so-called delinquents. The scandal was called 'Kids for Cash,' and it rocked the state in 2009.... Ciavarella had 2,480 of his convictions reversed and expunged....

"At the end of 'Kids for Cash,' directed by Robert May, information flashes across the screen saying: 'Two million children are arrested every year in the US, 95% for non-violent crimes'; that '66% of children who have been incarcerated never return to school'; and that 'the US incarcerates nearly 5 times more children than any other nation in the world.'”

Read more; https://nypost.com/2014/02/23/film-details-teens-struggles-in-state-detention-in-payoff-scandal/
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Congress must limit POTUS's emergency powers, says Rand Paul

Sen. Rand Paul says it's time for Congress to rein in the President's power | News | WDRB.com:

June 14, 2019 - "Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said President Trump is acting too much like a king, and it is time for Congress to do its job of checking presidential power. Paul, a Republican who generally supports the president, pointed to Trump’s declaring a national emergency to fund a border wall.

“'You may remember me sometimes saying President Obama was abusing the separation of powers and acting too much like a king. Well, now there's a Republican doing some of the similar things,' Paul told WDRB News ... in Louisville. 'I'm for spending for some border security. I think we do have to have secure borders, but I think Congress has to appropriate the money. I don't think the president should be allowed to.'

"Paul said the separation of powers also applies to tariffs. 'I'm not a big fan of tariffs,' he said. 'I think they're hurting Kentucky. But I really am not a big fan of one person being able to decide there are tariffs.'

"Paul has co-sponsored a bill with Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon to limit the president's emergency powers. Paul said he is 'absolutely' concerned that a president’s power should be checked regardless of which party controls the White House....

"Paul was in Louisville to talk to a meeting of the Kentucky Bar Association about criminal justice reform. He was a big supporter of the First Step Act, which reduced mandatory life sentences for some non-violent drug offenses to 25 years and funded programs to help ex-felons return to society. He believes the federal and state governments should do even more. 'In Kentucky, believe it or not, you can kill somebody and be eligible for parole in 12 years,' he said. 'But you can sell drugs, and be in jail for life. I think we have to reassess.'

"But Paul said he does not want to be misunderstood as supporting drug use. 'I think drugs are a bad thing,' he said. 'I don’t want our kids on drugs. I don’t want our adults on drugs. But the thing is I also don’t want to put people in jail for it either.'

"Justice reform is an issue he pushed during his 2016 presidential campaign, and Paul is not exactly ruling out a second run in 2024. 'It’s just hard to imagine in the future, but I did it once, and it was an exciting time,' he said. 'Unless something would dramatically change, I don't see it happening again. But we'll see.'”

Read more: https://www.wdrb.com/news/sen-rand-paul-says-it-s-time-for-congress-to/article_70cb2d20-8ecf-11e9-86d6-8382b2c25328.html

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Wrongfully convicted men freed after 43 years

2 men wrongfully convicted of 1976 murder freed after 43 years behind bars - ABC News - Meghan Keneally:

March 29, 2019 - "There were bullet holes in the window screen and the curtains, but the main witness said the two shooters were inside and at the foot of her bed. The witness said she saw the muzzle flashes from two guns, but ballistics testing said that the bullets at the scene were fired from only one gun. People at a nearby party said they heard the gunshots, and if the shots were fired inside the bedroom, auditory testing said that wouldn't have been possible. And there were dozens of people at that birthday party down the street from the shooting that would have testified that the suspects were at the party -– therefore providing an alibi....

"But these pieces of evidence and the shifting story of the witness were not considered during a two day trial in 1976, and two men landed in jail as a result. One was sentenced to death, and the other was sentenced to life in prison.

"On Thursday, they walked free after a review of their case prompted the newly-formed Conviction Integrity Review (CIR) division of the State’s Attorney’s Office in Florida determined that they 'no longer [had] confidence in the integrity of the convictions or guilt of the accused'....

"Clifford Williams, who is now 76, and his nephew Nathan Myer, who is 61, had their convictions vacated. The last time they were free men, they were 33 and 18-years-old, respectively. They each spent 43 years behind bars for a murder that not only did they not commit, but that someone else [Nathaniel Lawson] had confessed to years after the killing....

"The murder in question was the May, 1976 shooting death of Jeanette Williams, who was not related to Clifford Williams but was renting an apartment from him when she was murdered. Nina Marshall ... was in bed with her and was also shot by the assailant but survived.... Marshall was the one that said that there were two shooters inside the bedroom, and subsequently identified Williams and Myers as the shooters. Both men have maintained their innocence throughout the process....

"Florida is one of 33 states that compensate individuals who were wrongly imprisoned and subsequently exonerated. The state stipulates that individuals can receive $50,000 per year that they were wrongfully convicted but with a cap of $2,000,000. The compensation law excludes anyone with either one prior violent felony or more than one non-violent felony. Myers will be eligible for such compensation, but Williams will not."

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/men-wrongfully-convicted-1976-murder-freed-43-years/story?id=62012500&cid=social_fb_abcn&fbclid=IwAR2x3rLrSqLge-4TK7ExR3Qt5uhVdGAlUD6SXSnU3Ke9Zo_7JodEpUeB5IU
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U.S. Congress passes First Step Act

First Step Act: House passes criminal justice reform, following Senate - Vox - German Lopez:

December 20, 2018 - "The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a criminal justice reform bill, sending the most significant changes to the federal criminal justice system in decades to President Donald Trump’s desk. The Senate previously overwhelmingly approved the legislation in an 87-12 vote.

"The bill, called the First Step Act, makes modest changes to the federal system. It very slightly pulls back punitive mandatory minimum sentences by, for example, letting judges give lower sentences in some circumstances and relaxing a 'three strikes' law to give 25 years instead of life in prison. It makes 2010 crack sentencing reforms, which eased crack sentences to bring them more in line with powder cocaine penalties, retroactive. It expands 'good time credits' that well-behaved inmates can use to get out of prison a little earlier. It creates 'earned time credits' that encourage inmates to take part in rehabilitative programs for an earlier release.

"It doesn’t end the war on drugs or mass incarceration. It won’t stop police from locking up nonviolent drug offenders. It doesn’t legalize marijuana. It doesn’t even end mandatory minimums or reduce prison sentences across the board, and it in fact only tweaks both. As the First Step Act’s name suggests, its supporters consider it a first step.

"The bill also only affects the federal system — which, with about 181,000 imprisoned people, holds a small but significant fraction of the US jail and prison population of 2.1 million.... In total, the First Step Act will let a few thousand inmates — likely around 6,000 to 7,000 — out of prison early once it’s enacted, and slightly shorten prison sentences in the future....

"Even though Trump ran on a 'tough on crime' platform in which he promised to support harsh prison sentences, the president has come to support the legislation — in large part thanks to the backing of key advisers, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner. He’s expected to sign the bill in the coming days."

Read more: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/20/18148482/first-step-act-criminal-justice-reform-house-congress
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Cash bail requirements cost U.S. $15 billion/year

Report: Imprisoning People Who Can’t Pay Bail Costs America $15 Billion a Year - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Scott Shackford:

December 19, 2018 - "America's dependence on cash bail does more than just deprive people of their liberty merely for being accused of a crime; it also costs the rest of us a fortune....

"A new report by The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution attempts to measure the full financial impact of pretrial detention in the United States. Analysts Patrick Liu, Ryan Nunn, and Jay Shambaugh calculated that pretrial detentions that are the result solely of people being unable to pay bail cost the country $15 billion a year.

"They arrived at this figure by looking at the average number of people who are sitting in jails every day who have been offered bail but haven't paid it, typically because they cannot afford it. That's about 412,000 people, nearly a quarter of our incarcerated population. They calculated how much it costs to jail somebody each day. This varies wildly from state to state, but averages out to $77.67 a day, or about $28,000 a year per person....

"Liu et al. also did their best to calculate out how much money the economy loses due the amount of time somebody spends in jail and is therefore unable to work. That worked out to an average of about $8,590 annually per prisoner. All together, that comes out to $15.26 billion a year....

"The report also looks at trends of pretrial detention and finds a dramatic increase over a decade of both the number of people being held in jail prior to trial and the amount of time they have to spend waiting for their day in court.

"Since the 1990s, the number of people who have been ordered to pay bail (or some other financial obligation) in order to be freed has risen from 53 percent to 72 percent. What's more, pretrial detentions have increased even as total arrests have gone down....

"During this timeframe, the amount of time it took between arrest and adjudication for people charged with crimes increased in pretty much every category.... So people who cannot afford the increasing amounts of money being asked for their freedom are being punished with even longer waits behind bars....

"About 50 percent of those who are released before trial need a commercial bond (as in a bail bondsman) to cover the court's imposed bail. That means they have to pay typically 10 percent to the bondsman to be freed, which is money they never get back. Essentially, they're being ordered to pay a fine to a third party (sometimes in the thousands of dollars) to be released. If they don't, they sit in a jail cell. Either way, they're punished prior to conviction."

Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/12/19/report-imprisoning-people-who-cant-pay-b
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Trump backs criminal justice reform bill

Bipartisan criminal-justice reform could happen soon — if the 1990s wing of the GOP gets out of the way - Los Angeles Times:

November 19, 2018 - "A federal criminal-justice reform bill designed to make sentencing more rational and inmates’ return to society more successful has bipartisan support and last week won the backing of President Trump.... The bill, known as the First Step Act, would move federal sentencing laws and reentry programs ever so slightly in the direction of reforms already adopted in many deep blue states such as California and many bright red ones such as Georgia.

"Congress has already reduced sentences for crack convictions to bring them more in line with similar offenses involving powder cocaine, but the changes apply only to convictions handed down in 2010 or later. This bill would finally make those changes retroactive and would thus affect thousands of imprisoned, mostly African American men sentenced under the unfair drug laws adopted in the crime panic of the 1990s. It also would eliminate mandatory life-without-parole for repeat drug offenders and would reduce mandatory sentences for other drug offenses by a few years. It would reduce mandatory minimums for gun crimes ([but] does not eliminate the availability of much longer sentences). And it would enforce laws and regulations that are already on the books but are not always followed — for example, applying good-conduct credits ... and providing rehabilitative services and education.

"These changes are overdue. Long sentences keep thousands of Americans locked up well after the punitive or rehabilitative value of the incarceration has been exhausted. The bill returns some discretion to judges to make the sentence fit the crime....

"The bill is modest in the extreme.... For all its modesty, though, it’s a good bill, and if they are smart, Democrats and Republicans, the House and the Senate, will join and adopt it during the lame-duck session....

"Many conservatives have come to question tough sentencing laws, seeing them as contrary to bedrock values of small government, fiscal discipline, personal responsibility and family preservation. The 'Right on Crime' movement has worked to recapture from liberals the moral leadership on criminal-justice reform. At the same time, tough-on-crime Republicans like [Sen. Tom] Cotton (and recently departed Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions) remain influential....

"Trump ... campaigned as a traditional tough-on-crime conservative and backed Sessions.... Earlier this year, he called for the death penalty for drug dealers.... But the bill has been strongly pushed by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the president has now signed on. Most of the signals are good. Congress would be wise to act quickly, before the notoriously mercurial president changes his mind."

Read more: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-step-act-20181119-story.html
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Record # of wrongly-jailed freed in US in 2017

Discovery of Police Corruption Freed Dozens of Imprisoned Americans in 2017 - Hit & Run : Reason.com - Scott Shackford:

Mar. 14, 2018 - "In 2017, 84 Americans were freed from prison after revelations of government misconduct helped prove them innocent. That sets a record, according to an annual report on exonerations in America... An additional 96 defendants in Chicago and Baltimore were released last year in 'group exonerations' as a result of two very high-profile police corruption cases.

"The details are part of the National Registry of Exonerations' annual report, a project by the University of California Irvine Newkirk Center for Science and Society, the University of Michigan Law School, and the Michigan State University College of Law. All in all, 139 exonerations were added to their registry for 2017, a drop from 171 in 2016. Though the total number of exonerations came down, a record number of people were exonerated due to official misconduct, mistaken eyewitness identification, false confessions, and perjury or false accusations.

"There has been a significant decline in exoneration for drug crimes ... because a backlog of cases from Harris County, Texas, has finally been cleared. In Harris County, the district attorney's office discovered hundreds of cases where defendants pleaded guilty to drug possession but subsequent crime lab tests discovered no actual illegal substances in the drugs. The county has been working since 2014 to go through all these cases and free people imprisoned for substances that turned out to not be illegal....

"Ledura Watkins, 61, was convicted of murder in 1976 in Detroit. After serving 41 years in prison, he was exonerated and released in June after details came out about faulty forensic evidence and police and prosecutor misconduct. His case represents the longest sentence served by anybody on the registry....

"Among the behaviors that led to this record-setting year, the most common form was concealing evidence. Of the 51 cases where a person convicted of homicide was subsequently exonerated in 2017, 43 involved official misconduct.... There were 29 exonerations involving false confessions in 2017, another record..... Eleven exonerations were a result of false confessions connected to ... one detective.

"In 66 exonerations — almost half the total — the underlying crime didn't even happen."

Read more: https://reason.com/blog/2018/03/14/discovery-of-police-corruption-freed-doz
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Bastiat on The Law and its limits

Bastiat Knew the Proper Limits of Government Force - Foundation for Economic Education - Working for a free and prosperous world - Frank Hollenbeck:

February 18, 2018 - "High school students in the United States are usually required to take a course in government. They learn about the structure of government but rarely discover the appropriate role of government.... If they did, one of their required readings would be Frédéric Bastiat’s treatise The Law, a seminal mid-nineteenth-century work....

"Bastiat states that individuals are born with the natural rights of life, liberty, and property. From this notion, the only proper function of the use of force or the law is the collective organization of the natural right to self-defense of these rights....

"He then defines any illegitimate use of force or of the law as legal plunder. This is an all-encompassing term which includes any unjustified violation of the life, liberty, or property of others. Many examples abound today with regulations on labor (e.g. minimum wage laws), products (e.g. subsidies and tariffs), health care, education, or even the use of marijuana or any other drugs....

"The problem with legal plunder is that it creates hatred and discord and eats at the very fabric of society. The US Civil War was fought primarily for two reasons: slavery and tariffs. The first was a violation of liberty, the second was a violation of property....

"The law should be a viewed as a negation; if you don’t violate the life, liberty, or property of someone else, you should not see the arm of the law or care much about the role of government.... If the law were properly defined, you would not blame the government for your misfortunes nor would you credit it with your successes.... Bastiat wrote:

[I]f you attempt to make the law religious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial, literary, or artistic — you will then be lost in an uncharted territory, in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse, in a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and impose it upon you. This is true because fraternity and philanthropy, unlike justice, do not have precise limits. Once started, where will you stop? And where will the law stop itself?

"More important than left or right is the concept of liberty. The solution to the problem of human relationships is freedom, and it thrives most when the role of government is limited, the use of force is constrained, and the law is confined to the administration of universal justice, or, more precisely, the law is exclusively used as a roadblock to injustice."

Read more: https://fee.org/articles/bastiat-knew-the-proper-limits-of-government-force/
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Liu forfeiture unconstitutional, BC suit argues

New constitutional challenge argues B.C. civil forfeiture regime violates Charter - The Globe and Mail - Sunny Dhillan:

February 11, 2018 - "British Columbia's civil forfeiture regime violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by forcing individuals to produce evidence against themselves and by resulting in penalties that are grossly disproportionate, says a new constitutional challenge.

'The case, which will proceed to trial in B.C. Supreme Court in November, stems from a 2015 police search of a multimillion-dollar home on Vancouver's west side that turned up hundreds of marijuana plants....

'The Globe and Mail has reported extensively on the Civil Forfeiture Office, which was established as a way to fight organized crime but has come to have a far broader reach. The office does not need a criminal conviction or even charges to pursue a file. The Globe has interviewed those who have had to fight to keep their homes, vehicles, money and even a coin collection. Others have been unable to afford to argue their case.

"B.C.'s NDP government, which had called for a review of the province's Civil Forfeiture Act when it was in opposition, has since said it does not plan to order one. The province's Public Safety Minister, Mike Farnworth, has said the office is operating as it should....

"Kwok Wai (Andy) Liu, ... granted the Vancouver Police Department access to the property in September, 2015, at which point officers discovered approximately 700 to 750 marijuana plants.... 10 kilograms of dried marijuana, 'packaged in a manner consistent with drug trafficking rather than personal consumption,' were also found, as were three Health Canada licences allowing for personal production of cannabis. Each licence authorized the growth of 146 plants.

"The property was sold in October, 2016, for approximately $3.1-million. The money is being held by the court until the case is resolved. The office has said Mr. Liu would not have been able to afford the home unless he trafficked marijuana. It has said money from the sale should be forfeited to the province....

"Liu said the Civil Forfeiture Act violates the Charter.... Vancouver police did not forward his file to the Crown to consider criminal charges but did send it to the Civil Forfeiture Office, which faces a lower standard of proof – on a balance of probabilities instead of beyond a reasonable doubt. He said individuals who face civil forfeiture cases do not have adequate protections, including but not limited to the presumption of innocence and the right to not be compelled by the state to testify against oneself....

"Liu is seeking several declarations, including one that would see the right to silence apply to civil forfeiture proceedings and one that would state the application of the Civil Forfeiture Act can lead to results that are grossly disproportionate to the alleged unlawful activity."

Read more: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/new-constitutional-challenge-argues-bc-civil-forfeiture-regime-violates-charter/article37935108/
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Why is ignorance of the law "no excuse"?

If the Law Is This Complicated, Why Shouldn’t Ignorance Be an Excuse? - Clark Neily & Jack Brown - Townhall:

October 30, 2017 - "When was the last time you sat down with a complete set of the federal, state, and local codes setting forth the tens of thousands of criminal violations for which you could be sent to jail? If you answered 'never,' you’re in good company. Nevertheless, America’s judges still cling to the proposition that it’s perfectly fine to lock people up for doing something they had no idea was illegal. But it’s not fine, and the justifications for that palpably unfair rule have only grown more threadbare with time....

"One rationale for the maxim that ignorance of the law is no excuse was to give people an incentive to educate themselves about legal requirements. But as any law student will attest, one can study those requirements for years and barely scratch the surface. Another rationale was to prevent people from escaping criminal penalties by claiming ignorance, even when they actually knew they were breaking the law. That might have made sense in ancient times when there were only a few dozen crimes on the books and all of them involved morally blameworthy conduct like murder, arson, or rape.

"But today the law has grown so complicated, and the relationship between law and morality so attenuated, that these supporting rationales no longer make sense. There have been multiple attempts to count the number of federal crimes, including by the Department of Justice, and no one has yet succeeded. Title 18 of the United States Code, which governs crimes and criminal procedure, has over 6,000 sections, and it is estimated that there are more than 4,500 federal crimes and over 300,000 agency regulations containing criminal penalties. And of course this does not include the dizzying array of state and local criminal codes, ignorance of which is practically assured but still not excused....

"Moreover, ... the increasing criminalization of morally blameless conduct makes the punishment of innocent mistakes even more likely. For example, federal law makes it illegalto possess the feather of any native migratory bird even if one just picks it up off the ground, and the potential penalties for doing so include fines and even time in prison....

"A trio of seafood importers were sentenced to eight years in federal prison because some of the lobsters they imported from Honduras were alleged to be undersized or egg-bearing females that were unlawfully shipped in plastic bags instead of the cardboard boxes mandated by federal law.....

"Indianapolis 500 champion Bobby Unser ... was convicted of illegally driving his snowmobile in a National Forest Wilderness Area in 1996 after he and a friend were stranded in the mountains during a blizzard, and forced to take shelter in a barn while suffering from hypothermia....

"In 2009, Robert Eldridge, a fisherman from West Chatham, Massachusetts, faced up to a $100,000 fine and a year in prison after he freed a humpback whale that had been caught in his fishing gear, and only escaped with a comparatively small $500 fine after pleading guilty. More recently, Alison Capo also faced a year in prison after her daughter rescued a federally protected woodpecker from the family cat.... (Her initial fine of $535 was ltimately rescinded by the agency, claiming it was a “clerical error.')....

"Subjecting well-meaning homeowners, desperate snowmobilers, innocent password sharers, and countless other blameless Americans to prosecution for conduct that no reasonable person would know was illegal does nothing to advance the cause of justice and much to undermine it."

Read more: https://townhall.com/columnists/clarkneily/2017/10/30/if-the-law-is-this-complicated-why-shouldnt-ignorance-be-an-excuse-n2401290

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Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism published

The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism - The Washington Post - Ilya Somin, The Volokh Conspiracy:

August 29, 2017 - "The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism  (edited by Jason Brennan, Bas van der Vossen, and David Schmidtz), has just been published. This book is the most wide-ranging analysis of libertarianism, its strengths and weaknesses, and its applications to a wide range of political issues, to be published in a long time.

"In addition to the editors, contributors include a wide range of prominent libertarian scholars and critics of libertarianism, including Peter Boettke, Geoffrey Brennan, Sarah Conley, Jessica Flanigan, Samuel Freeman, Gerald Gaus,  Michael Huemer, Peter Jaworski,  Anna Stilz, Fernando R. Tesón, Kevin Vallier, and others....

"Here is the publisher’s summary of the book:

Libertarians often bill their theory as an alternative to both the traditional Left and Right. The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism helps readers fully examine this alternative without preaching it to them, exploring the contours of libertarian (sometimes also called classical liberal) thinking on justice, institutions, interpersonal ethics, government, and political economy. The 31 chapters – all written specifically for this volume – are organized into five parts. Part I asks, what should libertarianism learn from other theories of justice, and what should defenders of other theories of justice learn from libertarianism? Part II asks, what are some of the deepest problems facing libertarian theories? Part III asks, what is the right way to think about property rights and the market? Part IV asks, how should we think about the state? Finally, part V asks, how well (or badly) can libertarianism deal with some of the major policy challenges of our day, such as immigration, trade, religion in politics, and paternalism in a free market. Among the Handbook’s chapters are those from critics who write about what they believe libertarians get right as well as others from leading libertarian theorists who identify what they think libertarians get wrong. As a whole, the Handbook provides a comprehensive, clear-eyed look at what libertarianism has been and could be, and why it matters.

"Sadly, the price [$171. on Amazon - gd] may well be too high ... to buy the book ... for anyone but libraries, the very wealthy, and academics with expense accounts. But if you’re at all interested in the subject, you should definitely at least take a look at it and check out some of the chapters."

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/08/29/the-routledge-handbook-of-libertarianism/?utm_term=.ef6fc0504a5e
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Financial Review has lunch with Charles Koch

Political machine man: Lunch with Charles Koch | afr.com - Stephen Foley:

January 10, 2016 - "While Charles and his younger sibling, David, feature as boo-hiss villains in Democratic candidate speeches, their activities concern those of all political hues who fear the unchecked power of private wealth to influence the US electoral system. The Koch brothers have pushed for and used new freedoms such as those opened up by the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which removed limits on corporate political spending, to fundraise at large scale and in relative obscurity. Their network of organisations - a panoply of think tanks, campaign groups, voter registration and opposition research arms as well as political action committees - employs 1,200 people in 107 offices nationwide, about three and a half times the current staff of the Republican National Committee....

"Koch's staff have told him they expect to marshal close to $US900m from conservative donors. The money will be spent trying to influence this year's elections in favour of rightwing ideas; around a third of it on directly funding political campaigns against Democratic candidates.

"With the field crowded and voting still a way off, Koch has declined several times to endorse a Republican primary candidate....  I ask about the rhetorical turn the race has taken when it comes to dealing with Islamist terror, and about Trump's assertion that the US could require all Muslims in the country to register with the government. 'Well, then you destroy our free society,' Koch says of the idea. 'Who is it that said, "If you want to defend your liberty, the first thing you've got to do is defend the liberty of people you like the least"?'

"He then expounds on the war on terror. 'We have been doing this for a dozen years. We invaded Afghanistan. We invaded Iraq. Has that made us safer? Has that made the world safer? It seems like we're more worried about it now than we were then, so we need to examine these strategies'....

"Although Koch now calls himself a 'classical liberal' - citing William Gladstone as a political hero for opposing Corn Law trade tariffs and political patronage in 19th-century Britain - today's libertarian Republicans and leftish Democrats may find intriguing common causes. The Kochs have also financed efforts - to roll back harsh sentencing laws, reduce the US's prison population (the highest in the world) and make it easier for felons to be reintegrated into society - more commonly associated with Democrats.

"Where the Kochs and the left are never likely to see eye to eye is on the environment. Over lunch, Koch positions himself not as a denier of climate change but rather as sceptical that it justifies drastic government intervention. 'Over the past 135 years, the ground temperature has warmed - there's some debate on this - around eight-tenths of a degree centigrade. In the atmosphere [the temperature change] has been slightly less, but not enough to argue much about. A big driver is most likely man-generated CO2, but what we see is that this increase is much less than has been projected. So, the indications are that the temperature isn't as sensitive to increases in CO2 concentration as was thought. I don't see the evidence that there's an immediate catastrophe or even one in the future.'

"The level of climate change, says Koch, does not justify penalising the use of cheap fossil fuels or subsidising alternative energy companies. Tax breaks and other incentives to use solar panels, he explains, cut the cost of energy for homeowners who can afford to install them, at the expense of higher bills for the rest. 'It's the poor people subsidising the rich people, which is what happens with this corporate welfare everywhere'....

"Through our conversation, there seems to be no issue to which smaller government, freer markets and unfettered competition is not the solution. "Our worst example in this country is the way we've treated Native Americans," he says at one point. "A great portion of the property of the American Indians is held in trust by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They are not allowed to control their own." Citing the high rate of unemployment among Native Americans, he says, "This is what this whole philosophy of control and dependency does. How do you have a life of meaning? It's hopeless. So, they're a bunch of alcoholics. Well, no kidding."

Read more: http://www.afr.com/news/politics/world/political-machine-man-lunch-with-charles-koch-20160110-gm2nlm
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Police used as tax collectors, justice reform conference told

America's most conservative figures make case for criminal justice reform: Jarvis DeBerry | NOLA.com:

November 6, 2015 - "You want to know why some Ferguson, Mo., residents hated their police? Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform and perhaps the most rigidly conservative man in the country, gave his opinion Friday morning (Nov. 6). Norquist, as everybody knows, hates taxes. And at a criminal justice reform conference hosted by the Charles Koch Institute, Norquist argued that humankind's antipathy for the tax collector explains the anger in that St. Louis suburb.

"As a March report from the Department of Justice revealed, city officials in Ferguson relied on tickets and fees to fund their government. Every year, officials were raising projections, that is, the amount they expected to extract from the people. And who were they expecting to bring them that money? The police.

"'We've turned these guys into tax collectors then we wonder why we hate them," Norquist said. 'Because we haven't read history. Take them out of the tax-collection business!'....<

"Stephanie Cutter, who served as a deputy campaign manager for President Barack Obama in 2012 ... agreed with Norquist that it's problematic to send police out primarily to collect fees, but insisted that it's more complex than that. Cutter also stood with Norquist in opposition to civil asset forfeiture. That's when, for example, the police raid a house looking for drugs and take an occupant's property or cash. Even if the person is acquitted of a crime, he or she will likely have to sue to get their property back. Suing often costs more than the value of the seized property. 'There's nothing fair about it,' Cutter said....

"[O]ther conference panelists complained about the increasing militarization of our police forces. There was also lots of talk about 'overcriminalization.' Some of the panelists seem to equate increasing government regulations on businesses with overcriminalization, but Stephen Smith, a law professor at Notre Dame, said what's happening to individuals is far worse than anything happening to corporations.

"Many of our criminal statutes are vaguely written and judges interpret them in a way that's most favorable to prosecutors, Smith said, and in so many places, indigent defense is a joke....

"Citing the work of attorney Harvey Silverglate who says the average American unwittingly commits three felonies a day, Smith said that in the feds' eyes, 'Everything's a crime. You can try to fight it. Even if you have the money to fight it, you're still going to be convicted.'"

Read more: http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2015/11/grover_norquist_reform.html
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Mens rea bills introduced in U.S. House & Senate

In reforming federal criminal law, intent is key | TheHill - James R. Copland & Rafael Mangual:

November 27, 2015 - "On November 17, the House Judiciary Committee unveiled four bills to address what we and other reformers have called 'over-criminalization.' The first of these, The Criminal Code Improvement Act, was principally sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and bipartisan cosponsors including Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the House’s longest-serving member. The bill sought to clarify federal criminal standards regarding criminal intent. The next day, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) introduced his own, similar criminal justice reform bill.

"On November 18, Sensenbrenner’s bill sailed through committee markup unanimously, but left-wing groups such as ThinkProgress and Public Citizen came out in opposition, falsely characterizing it as a sop to business. The White House followed suit — placing in jeopardy the Obama administration’s stated desire for criminal-justice reform, including changes to federal sentencing laws.

"That’s unfortunate. Over-criminalization, which refers to the vast expansion of what is deemed criminal under law, is a very real concern. The federal criminal code now contains nearly 5,000 crimes and more than 300,000 criminally enforceable regulations. Thus, it is impossible even for trained attorneys, let alone the everyday citizen, to know what may be considered criminal. According to civil-libertarian lawyer Harvey Silvergate, the average American unknowingly commits three felonies a day....

"Traditionally, individuals could be held civilly liable for accidentally transgressing legal norms, but to be criminally convicted, an individual had to have mens rea, Latin for a 'guilty mind.' The federal legal and regulatory codes, however, are now rife with offenses that lack such protections: According to a 2010 study by the Heritage Foundation and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, 57 percent of the 446 new nonviolent crimes proposed in the 109th Congress lacked the traditional intent standard, as did 64 percent of those crimes ultimately enacted into law....

"Sensenbrenner’s and Hatch’s bills squarely address this problem by making 'knowing' or 'willful' violations the default rule for criminal violations in federal law: Though Congress may make certain actions criminal without a showing of intent, courts would no longer be permitted to assume that Congress meant to do so unless a statute says so explicitly.....

"Indeed, fourteen states already have statutes that explicitly create a default criminal-intent standard. Ohio most recently enacted such legislation, in December 2014. Like Sensenbrenner’s bill in committee, Ohio’s default criminal-intent act passed both houses of its legislature unanimously, and there is no good reason why there shouldn’t be similarly broad, bipartisan support for the idea at the federal level.

"Reasonable minds can differ about the merits of various federal laws and regulations, but it’s indisputably impossible to navigate 300,000 rules without risk of error.... The White House’s stated opposition aside, let’s hope Congress takes up the new bills — and starts taking criminal intent seriously."

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/judicial/261355-in-reforming-federal-criminal-law-intent-is-key
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Few jailed drug offenders are real criminals

Most people in federal prison for drug offenses have no serious criminal history - Vox - German Lopez:

November 13, 2015 - "In October, the [U.S] federal government conducted the largest ever release of federal prisoners, letting 6,000 drug offenders out into the world. As bipartisan support pushes criminal justice reform forward at the state and federal levels, Americans should expect these types of releases to continue. But many people, such as Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, are worried this will lead to more crime and chaos.

"But there's a good reason not to worry: There's little indication most federal drug offenders are violent or dangerous, even if they were involved in drug trafficking.

"A new report from the Urban Institute ... found that a majority of drug offenders in federal prison have no serious, violent criminal history. A little more than one in five have a minor history, such as simple assault and other crimes that don't typically lead to serious injury. Fewer than one in four drug offenders in federal prison has a serious history....

"Only 14 percent were sentenced for being a manager, supervisor, leader, or organizer in an offense. Fewer than 14 percent were sentenced for using violence, making a credible threat to use violence, or directing the use of violence during the offense. And more than 75 percent didn't have or weren't in the presence of a weapon during the offense.

"The result: There are a lot of people serving long prison sentences — on average, more than nine years, according to Urban Institute — for what amounts to small-time drug dealing. The general consensus among criminal justice reformers is that there's little reason to think this population is a serious risk to society and should be in prison at all or for very long, so maybe releasing them a little early isn't a bad idea."

Read more: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2015/11/13/9730702/drug-offenders-facts-statistics
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Tucker arrested strip-searched for traffic violation

Captured, Cuffed, and Jailed: A Personal Story - Jeffrey Tucker - Liberty.me:

August 23, 2015 - "From one minute to the next, I went from seemingly free to cuffed and captured. Anyone who has ever experienced such a thing knows exactly what I mean. If you haven’t experienced it, I hope you never do....

"By day’s end, it was over. Except not really. This one incident is over. But the reality that none of us really control our lives, that none of our property is really our own, that we all stand vulnerable to legal kidnapping at any moment: This is an ongoing reality for the whole population....

"Well, here’s how it happened to me. There’s a new traffic law in most states called the 'move over' rule. When the police are stopped on the right hand side of the road, you are to move over to the left lane. This makes the police feel safer. For my part, I had never heard of this law or never had it really tested in my driving behavior. The police had set up a trap, stopping there on the side just to test compliance. I moved over a bit but not enough.

"The lights flashed behind me, and I pulled over. I gave the officer my license. Another police car arrived. He returned and told me to step out of the car, and asked me why my license was suspended. I was shocked. Then I remembered I was one day late in paying a parking ticket. The lady at the counter told me there might be an issue with my license, so she gave me an official paper labelled 'Official Notice of Reinstatement of Driver’s License,' and put the official seal on it....

"I told the police that they could find this document in my car. They looked because at this point I was not allowed to move. They brought the paper back and stared at it. One policeman said it was clearly legitimate. The other said, no this was issued by the municipal court, not the Department of Motor Vehicles, so he couldn’t accept it....

"I was cuffed and led to the car. I protested that my computer, my phone, all my stuff was in the car. None of this mattered. They searched my car for drugs, guns, liquor, or whatever. They found an unlabelled bottle of pills (a blood thinner) and interrogated me about it, strongly implying that having an unmarked bottle of pills is illegal (is it? I don’t know).... My car would be towed to a wrecker lot, [they] explained. If I get out on bail, I could pay to get it back. Would the lot still be open by then? I asked. The policeman had no answer, no concern....

"The police car with me in it took off and within 15 minutes I was being strip searched. They dug deep into every pocket, looking for what? (I would learn later)....

"A Hispanic man was brought in after me, and I saw how other people are treated. He was cuffed in back, very tightly. They were much more rough on him during the search.

"Then something remarkable happened. They found what looked like small flakes of marijuana in his pocket, no more than ¼ of a teaspoon. They immediately changed his charge from 'failure to appear' — he missed a court date for a traffic violation — to a felony: bringing illegal substances into a correctional facility. Once this happened, the officer shouted to everyone with great glee: 'we’ve got a felon!!' They high-fived it all around....

"In other words, this is why they were searching me so thoroughly. They want to find any excuse, any small reason to intensify charges, to spread more misery and wreckage. One of the guards seemed less excited than the others, and I asked him how he can stand to watch this kind of thing happen all day, every day. He told me that you just get used to it.

"'Just doing my job.' I must have heard that phrase 15 times during my ordeal. The cops use it. The clerks use it. The guards use it. The whole system sees itself this way. It is just doing what it is supposed to do.... No single person is responsible for judging the morality or justice of it all. It is the system, and they work within it. They can’t change it. They cooperate with it. They live by the book. It’s the book itself that is the oppressor....

"This is a system of exploiters and the exploited, exactly as Marx himself had explained. But the difference is this: the law is the exploiter and the population is the exploited ... every law ends in the right of a tiny elite to capture you, pillage you, and, ultimately, kill you. Every addition to the law code intensifies the violence."

Read more: https://tucker.liberty.me/captured-cuffed-and-jailed-a-personal-story/
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Kochs win praise for criminal justice reform efforts

Democrats Fight — With Each Other — Over The Kochs - BuzzFeed News - Evan McMorris-Santoro:

July 17, 2015 - "Democrats are defending the efforts of the Koch brothers. And they’re defending the Kochs from attacks by other Democrats, who say the brothers’ criminal justice work is just a 'scam'....

"It’s a weird turn of events, but the unsurprising conclusion to the drug war collision course: progressives and libertarians, led by the Kochs, agree that the tough-on-crime policies of the 1980s and ’90s need to change, from mandatory-minimum sentencing to the use of criminal records in hiring. President Obama even praised the Kochs this week, a week in which he commuted the life sentences of 46 drug offenders and advocates say big changes could really be coming....

 "Beyond the politics, many progressive-leaning advocates inside the criminal justice movement actually don’t think the Koch brothers ... are trying to pull a fast one with their support for the cause. Mark Holden, Koch Industries’ general counsel, can talk for hours about the minutiae of the criminal justice system and the ways it should be changed to be fairer to the poor and minorities. Liberal advocates often single him out as a powerful ally.

"Outside of the legislative fight, the Kochs have won praise from the left for instituting changes within Koch-owned companies [that] advocates on the left have long said would mitigate the impact a conviction could have on felons long after they leave prison. In April, Koch Industries stopped asking prospective employees about their criminal history on applications.... Holden said the banning the box was an effort to make hiring at Koch Industries a model. 'We removed the box from our application because we are focused on finding the best candidates for employment based on who they are now and their entire person,' he told BuzzFeed News....

"The recent success of the criminal justice advocates can be traced back almost entirely to Koch-backed efforts in red states like Texas and Georgia to reduce nonviolent drug sentences and release prisoners into less expensive community outreach programs and supervised probation. That effort linked libertarians, evangelicals and social justice progressives....

"In Washington, progressive lawmakers who had pushed for changes to the criminal justice system as it relates to the drug war for years found themselves with Republican allies as the libertarian wing of the Tea Party movement took power. Those Republicans quickly became the most vocal supporters of criminal justice legislation on Capitol Hill, joining with progressive Democrats to support bills aimed at eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and other priorities....

"The two sides formally combined their national efforts after Republicans won the Senate in 2014. Criminal justice was on the short list of agenda items the White House said could be possible in the new political reality, and it wasn’t long before the Kochs and CAP linked up to to create the high-profile Coalition For Public Safety, which promised to pour millions into a push to pass new criminal justice laws.

"Koch-funded advocates and their allies are a regular part of the coalition to make bipartisan criminal justice legislation happen before the end of the year. That group has the support of the White House, which has regularly hosted meetings between criminal justice advocates, including Koch-backed advocates, and administration officials".

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/democrats-fight-with-each-other-over-the-kochs
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Conviction in wife's death overturned 45 years later

John Salmon's manslaughter conviction overturned - Toronto - CBC News: "John Salmon's manslaughter conviction overturned"

June 22, 2015 "A man who fought for 45 years to clear his name of a manslaughter conviction was exonerated by an Ontario court today after experts said his common-law wife's death was linked to her having suffered a stroke.

"On Monday morning, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned John Frederick Salmon's conviction in the 1970 death of Maxine Ditchfield....

"Salmon, 75, served three years in prison. At the time, a pathologist testified Ditchfield died from brain swelling caused by a severe beating. The 30-year-old woman's body had dozens of bruises, many on her head, when she was taken from the Woodstock, Ont., home she shared with Salmon on Sept. 21, 1970. She died the next day in hospital.

"A jury found Salmon had beaten her in a drunken rage.

"But now, four forensic pathologists say her brain swelling was caused by a fall and a stroke after a night of drinking. The bruises are now believed to have been caused by repeated falls following the stroke.

"'So many of these cases of wrongful conviction result from bad pathology at the outset — where a natural cause of death is turned into a homicide,' said lawyer James Lockyer, who, together with Marie Henein, represented Salmon in court.

"Lockyer blamed the conviction on poor work by the original pathologist, who has since died, and what he described as a 'think dirty' presumption of guilt among officials of that era.

"'The science was there for him to draw the correct conclusions and he didn't. He got it wrong,' Lockyer said.

"The Crown also called for an acquittal....

"Salmon has always maintained his innocence.... [He} told reporters he did not keep track of the money he spent on his case over the years, but estimates it was about $100,000.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/john-salmon-s-manslaughter-conviction-overturned-1.3122365
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