Amber Guyger guilty: quick, and further, thoughts

First, I'm surprised the jury voted a murder conviction after the judge said castle doctrine should be taken into account AND allowed manslaughter as an alternative charge for conviction (even though legal experts said that, given Guyger admitting she fired willfully, manslaughter shouldn't be allowed).

First, we need to go where Dallas Observer columnist Jim Schutze refused to go in his Amber Guyger white-knight trial bromance about how she couldn't get a fair trial in Dallas and many, many other things.

As The Root and others have reported, and as her brother-in-law's OK sign and her mom's "All Lives Matter" T-shirt show, Guyger at a minimum left herself open to charges of racism. And, AFAIK, Schutze never discussed that. ADL has dismissed the OK sign as not being that version of OK. However, there are other Hispanics, Mr. Garza, who dislike blacks. There are American Indians who dislike blacks. Look at ... George Zimmerman. Being Hispanic is no defense against racism.

That said, a new story at Schutze's own employer shows that texts (not to her patrol partner lover, but others), along with post-hiring social media posts, show that yes, Amber Guyger appears to have several racist bones in her body. But Schutze, now that he can't carry on his bromance about Guyger getting a fair trial, asks "why is it always about race?" Dude? Are you like New York Times or Wall Street Journal columnists who never read the news stories in their own papers either?

Add in a sprinkling of posturing by Schutze, two or three sprinkles of holystoning and holier-than-thou-ing from Jim, and the column is complete.

Grits for Breakfast has some good in-depth thoughts, starting with the racism issue. Actually, that's No. 2, after abuse of authority by Dallas police union prez Mike Mata, whom many people rightfully want to resign.

No. 3, after the social media racism? De-escalation training for cops only works if they want to use it. And, going beyond Grits, on the issue, is there no stick of citations for cops who don't use it? Probably not.

No. 4 for Grits is why Guyger and patrol partner Martin Rivera weren't cited for evidence tampering for deleting texts. (More on this below.) That would be her Hispanic patrol partner with whom she was carrying on an affair, to the point of texting the night she shot, well, no, murdered, Botham Jean. But Guyger's b-i-l being Hispanic, as well as herself having a Hispanic lover? Nope, that's no proof against racism. See above.

Her attorneys said that prosecutors were trying to make her look bad. No, they were trying to show her making herself look bad by looking callous.

Per NPR's story about her sentencing, other social media posts made her look trigger-happy, which was part of the prosecution's case.

Her defense team added to the problem if it coached her to say that she wished she were dead and he were still alive. To me, it came off as over the top. WAY over the top.

Speaking of the sentencing?

Contra Grits, Judge Tammy Kemp hugging Amber Guyger was NOT the worst thing she did, in my opinion. Instead, right before that moment, it was this:

After that emotional denouement (of Brandt Jean hugging Guyger), Judge Kemp descended from the bench and walked over to Guyger thumbing through a book. 

Kemp read from her own Christian bible and reportedly counseled Guyger as to how she thought the gospel might work wonders for the soon-to-be numbered – in a state penitentiary – murderess. 

“I have three or four more bibles at home,” Kemp says. “This is your job for the next month.” 

The judge told Guyger to study John chapter 3 verse 16 – and then proceeded to read it aloud.

Why does Judge Kemp hate the First Amendment? This is a clear church-state separation violation, as I see it. And, I don't get non-Gnu Atheists, including a person I follow on Disqus, who clearly not only refuses to see this, but is actually excuse making for Kemp.

That then said, was justice done?

Hell no. Whether she was racist or not, though she said she shot deliberately, the classic, to the public, idea of premeditation seems absent.

On the other hand, prosecutors' closing argument made a powerful statement about Guyger's alleged state of mind. (The judge disallowed defense expert witnesses testifying more specifically about that; that will surely be a core part of the appeal claim.)

Some sort of plea deal should have been reached before the trial, on manslaughter, but with a sentence of at least 10 years, and maybe as high as 20 because of her apparent callousness. Plea negotiations are almost never revealed in public later, so I don't know what was offered by prosecution.

As for what time she WILL get? Balch Springs cop Roy Oliver, with a previous disciplinary record, got 15 years for murdering Jordan Edwards.

Update: Guyger has been sentenced to 10 years. That sounds about "right."

On the third hand, as regular readers may have been expecting? Per Walter Kaufman, there's really no such thing as guilt or justice and certainly, contra John Rawls, no such thing as fairness.

Beyond the stereotypical tropes that "justice won't bring back Botham Jean" or similar, murder instead of manslaughter is no more likely to rehabilitate Amber Guyger in prison, assuming she indeed needs some sort or rehabilitation. Even should Jean's family sue the apartment complex for its alleged security lapses, murder instead of manslaughter won't give them much more lawsuit leverage. As for Jean's family mentioning Michael Brown and Eric Garner, among others? Guyger's conviction won't bring them back to life, nor, since murder is a state-level crime, will it likely affect criminal justice of police officers in other states. Schutze does get that right, after you wade through his pontificating. But, nobody was listening to you that night.

Sidebar: Per Grist' plaint, Stephen Young says Dallas police chief U. Renee Hall says her department is investigating the tampering issue, as well as Mata's actions in sequestering Guyger in a police cruiser with recording items turned off. But, given all that, this sounds like fox-and-henhouse stuff. The Rangers normally investigate law enforcement agencies on potential criminality. Hell, why isn't Dallas County DA John Creuzot launching his investigators with the focus of possible grand jury action? Per Hall's claim that the DPD isn't all about this? Really? You let a person who never should have been a big-city cop become one of your cops. And per her information, you've got some sort of pool of anti-black racism among non-black officers.

Sidebar 2: Guyger's family also, looking at that photo, at least the left-hand half of it, left themselves open to charges of inbreeding or something.

This Texas Progressive's 2018 year in review

This outpost of the Texas Progressive Alliance hopes readers keep any New Year’s goals simple and measurable, and as goals not resolutions. This outpost also hopes readers consider or pursue life changes in the New Year that increase their contentment and are done at their own personal choice.

SocraticGadfly describes how DSA darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had another unforced error on Twitter — this one over Congressional pay in the shutdown.

Gadfly also offered a roundup of his top blogging for the year, going by views and other factors. Much of it was devoted to batting down conspiracy theories.

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas and national blogs and news sites.

At the Dallas Observer, Jim Schutze takes a look at the white year, black year and general year in review, while giving good decade-aged kicks in the nads to John Wiley Price and the Perot clan.

Texas Monthly looks at Steven Mark Chaney’s acquittal after serving 25 years on a murder sentence due to junk science..

Since this is a year-end wrap, Texas Monthly also looks at its top Texas books of 2018.

Along with your host, Michael Harris suggests reading actual print books, even as he, an author, struggles with that.

Ken Paxton’s prosecutors are challenging a pay ruling against them by the CCA, and he is trying to undercut them again, notes the Texas Tribune.

Grits for Breakfast posts his 2018 top 10 criminal justice reform stories.

The Texas Observer notes six Texan individuals or groups who lost power this past year. (Contra Kuff, I think the section about Bexar Dems is pretty clear.)

Fracking of gas as well as oil is great for the Texas economy, bad for climate change, the AP describes.

Dos Centavos posts his personal 2018 top 10.

David Bruce Collins takes a look at how many of the U.S. Democratic freshmen are actually New Democrats.

The Texas Trib notes that state Sen. Charles Schwertner remains in the MeToo spotlight after an ambiguous investigation.

The Texas Observer catches my own state Senatecritter liking him some white nationalists. Unfortunately, as it also notes, after being primaried by a sensible state Rep. and winning, Bob Hall coasted to victory.

The Observer also offers up a collation of six stories about rural Texas.

ProPublica reports Dallas schools aren’t helpful for minorities, in many ways.

Jim Schutze seems to have a bromance for Angela Hunt running for Dallas mayor; he’ll accept Scott Griggs.

Paradise in Hell remains our premier interpreter of Individual 1.

Juanita says "good riddance" to Paul Ryan.

Therese Odell suggests a New Year's resolution we should all adopt.

The Bloggess celebrates another successful community giving effort.

Many unions are still slouching toward Gomorrah. World Socialist notes a Wisconsin Aerospace local that scrubbed a strike and won’t tell the public why.

Needed: Grand jury nullification

The Harris County DA's 'shooting simulator.' AP photo/Austin Am-Statesman

Or anti-nullification, or whatever the hell we call it.

Being in the news biz, I'm quite familiar with the old phrase, "A prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich." I'm also quite familiar with how true it is, its hoaried clichéness aside.

However, at times, a district attorney does his or her damnedest to get a grand jury to not indict, or no-bill, someone arrested.

And, in Harris County (Houston), Texas, the degree to which the DA's office there is going to try to get police officers no-billed when they're facing charges related to shooting civilians is reaching national scrutiny level.

As it should.

It's true that the "shooting projector" may be used in other cases, but it sure seems like it was created specifically to get cops with seemingly itchy trigger fingers a pass. And yes, they exist, whether shooting adults, kids, the mentally ill or even occasionally pets. Here's the details:

The armed carjacker projected on a large screen threatens to kill you if you don't give up your keys. Holding a modified gun that emits a beam, you pull the trigger when he draws his weapon, and seconds later fire again at another person who jumps in front with something in his hand.

The second person turns out to be a bystander holding a cellphone.

This interactive way of illustrating the use of deadly force is part of unusual training that Houston-area grand jurors can receive before they begin hearing cases, including those involving police officers.

The Harris County district attorney's office in Houston calls the shooting simulator — which experts believe is only being used in Texas — an educational tool that helps grand jurors better understand what someone sees when confronted by a threat.

But amid a streak of nearly 300 cases in which grand juries have cleared Houston police officers in shootings, the training has become a point of contention among critics who say the simulator promotes a pro-law enforcement mindset. One defense attorney recently unsuccessfully challenged the simulator's use, calling it mind manipulation.

It is mind manipulation, even if a court doesn't recognize it.

Behavioral psychology has done a lot of study about "priming." While we still face some problems with replication of these studies — problems that can and should be addressed — there does seem to be some degree of truth to the fact that people can be subconsciously "primed" to look for and see certain things and not others, or to see things in a certain way.

Even a judge has confirmed that:

Harris County's simulator has so far withstood scrutiny by the courts. A judge last month ruled against defense attorney Paul Looney, who challenged his client's indictment by saying the simulations place grand jurors "subliminally in the shoes of the police officer." The defendant, an oil company executive, is charged with assaulting a Houston police officer last year.

It's also misleading because the simulator may not exactly replicate the situation in which the police officer actually was.

And, per the cliché above, it perpetuates a mindset that the DA knows who's a criminal and who's not, which is a matter for a trial jury, or a judge in a juryless trial, to establish. It's not the grand jury's business, nor is it the DA's business at grand jury level. That's why this is so true:

"(Grand jurors) should not be naturally in one camp or the other," said Joseph Gutheinz, a retired federal agent who served on a Harris County grand jury in 2008 and is critical of the simulator's use. "They should be after the truth."

Bingo. And, that's coming from a law enforcement official.

That said, this is all part of the "hang ’em high" mentality that seems to perpetuate Harris County criminal proceedings in general.

Now, per the story, DA Devon Anderson and her office will likely claim, "But it's voluntary." Yeah, but a lot of things, when it's as part of a group, and being done by a leader in a position of authority, come off as pressuring, even if theoretically voluntary.

And, it seems to be "working":

(A)n investigation by the Houston Chronicle last year found that Harris County grand juries have cleared Houston police officers in shootings 288 consecutive times since 2004.

That's a long streak, right?

The streak may not be entirely unusual. Sandra Guerra Thompson, a criminal law professor at the University of Houston Law Center, said grand juries usually give officers the benefit of the doubt in shooting cases because of the dangerous nature of their jobs.

Well, first of all, police officer isn't the most dangerous job in the country. It's not even in the top 10, per this list. And, a police officer's life is in more danger, on average, from driving in a high-speed chase than from engaging a potential shooter. And, overall, in public service jobs, it's at about the same danger level as a firefighter. In general, per a different list, being a logger is four times more dangerous and being on a fishing crew is five to six times more dangerous. Being a farmer is more dangerous than being a cop, for doorknob's sake.

None of this is to minimize the legitimate dangers that police officers, sheriff's deputies, state troopers, etc., face.

But, it is to put things in context — especially in the context of Ms. Anderson, and probably tens of thousands of DAs elsewhere — about cops with itchy trigger fingers in front of grand juries. It's to say that, in general, cops are human. Many cops go out of their way. Many others, even the sheriff's deputies of Posse Comitatus love, or local police, are jack-booted thugs. Some aren't that bad, but aren't good. When even small town cop shops look for MRAPs,  Bradleys and other Iraq War surplus for high-firepower militarized SWAT units, you know that's true. When a town of 500, with a minority police chief, thinks it needs a K-9, you really know that's true.

Or when a cop in Hearne, Texas, fatally shoots his second person in less than 2 years, you've got problems. Besides cops that are occasionally jack-booted thugs, or halfway that way, you've got other cops that are ... well, that are Barney Fifes. Period. End of story. Oh, and in a place like Hearne, I don't need the New Black Panthers dropping in to tell me race is probably involved. Having a Hispanic mayor (this time?) may help; the mayor has recommended the officer be fired.

And, he has been. That said, a nephew of the deceased said she shot first, apparently angry over not getting her driver's license renewed at 93. I'm not here to justify bad cops, but I'm also not here to justify knee-jerk responses by local governments, either.

That said, let's treat cops in the eyes of the law as human beings, not blue angels or civic saints, en masse. The more you keep doing that, the more others, well short of the NBPs, are going to have less, not more, sympathy in general.

So, how to address this?

Per the header, as I told friend Perry, it's simple.

Grand jury nullification, at least in Harris County, Texas. If you're a good liberal, and you're picked to serve on a grand jury, vote to true bill any cop brought before the grand jury. Don't get sentimental.

And, let's do this not just for these cop cases. Given that the US is the only country in the world that still uses the grand jury system, and even here, half the states (probably not "red") have abandoned it, we probably need grand jury nullification until the rest of the states, including the Pointy Abandoned Object State™, drop it.

And, actually, it's not "nullification." It's a "runaway grand jury," and Tea Party wet dreams aside, it gets at the roots of what grand juries did 250 years ago; in New England, they connected to the traditional town meeting and its oversight ideas. That said, the idea of a modern runaway grand jury in a state like Texas would be scary, precisely because Tea Party wet dreams can't easily be set aside.

Back to the basics of grand juries here.

At least Texas requires a three-quarters vote. At the federal level, and in some other states, it's still a bare majority.

In states with elected DAs, my personal thought is that, especially in smaller counties, grand jury work lets incumbent DAs show they're "tough on crime," too. As a second angle, it's use to argue tough cases in court, as in the DA saying, "A Harris County grand jury indicted Mr. Abbott (no resemblance to Greg Abbott or any other living persona named Abbott) on these three charges." So, they must be guilty is the implication.

If you want to prosecute someone, then do it. And defend it. If you want to not prosecute someone, then do that. And defend it, too.

Until we reach that day, though, grand juries, in states that still use them, need to stop being rubber stamps for DAs. No bill a few more ham sandwiches. And, in the case of cops, true bill a few more Reubens.

Conniving DA Ken Anderson gets 10 days — oops, make that 5, sir!

Anderson, the former Williamson County district attorney, is getting 10 days in jail for his shenanigans in the 1987 murder trial of Michael Morton.

No, take that back! As of Nov. 15, he's out for good behavior after only five. What bullshit.

Like some commentators on the website, I think it's way too little, even if he's also surrendering his law license.

He not only helped get an innocent man imprisoned for 25 years, he helped let the actual murderer, Mark Alan Norwood, run free, and kill somebody else.

If there's anything good out of this scenario, it's this:

After the hearing, Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck announced that an independent review will be conducted of all cases prosecuted by Anderson during his 16 years as district attorney to determine if there were any other cases with hidden evidence.

Now, if we could just do all this, and more, with John Bradley. That said, KXAN says the audit will also cover some cases where Bradley may have been more at fault.

Per the comments on the first link, at the American-Statesman, new constitutional amendment aside, I'll believe that Texas is serious about reining in rogue judges and prosecutors when it actually happens.

And, maybe, if the statute of limitations hasn't run out, the family of Debra Masters Baker needs to see both Anderson and Bradley for wrongful death.

Some not so black-and-white thoughts on the Zimmerman trial

First, Florida's Stand Your Ground law is problematic, indeed. Not only does it appear to lead to some racially biased shootouts, it also leads to drug dealers firing at one another and getting off, and in at least one case, a jealous spouse blasting away at a lover.

That said, even with all the non-racially biased problems with the law, it's nearly a decade old now, and no Florida Legislature since the one that passed it has seen fit to repeal it.

There's several other things at play, though.

First, a jury trial is not a "search for truth," not even in the common-sense meaning, let alone the epistemological one of philosophy. And, it appears that a certain amount of people who say "he's guilty" don't get this. Some can't get this, apparently, which in turn is another fact that undercuts certain Gnu Atheists, and other practitioners of scientism, about how rational and critical thinking homo sapiens is, or is not, by nature.

Even more scary is the percentage of people who theoreticallly can get it, and somewhere in their brains, even, do get it, but, at the surface level of consciousness, refuse to get it, or refuse to accept it. (Let me use this to point you to my blog post of several days ago, where I note that "atheism does not = political liberalism."

This gets back to Thomas More's words to Roper in "A Man for All Seasons." To paraphrase, in a new and secularly improved way, "If you're only going to selectively apply the rule of law, don't try to hide behind it yourself." (See more below.)

Again, a jury trial is not about a search for truth. It's the adversarial system it's always been billed as being in Anglo-American law. And, the verdict was correct.

Zimmerman, in fact, never should have been charged with second-degree murder. After the local police dawdled one way (and, over handling of the crime scene, the chief at the time George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin should have been fired earlier than he was pushed out passively), the state and its DA overreacted with that charge. Manslaughter was the best they could have won, and even that was iffy with the Stand Your Ground law; something like aggravated assault with serious bodily injury, or something like that, might have worked.

Indeed, Alan Dershowitz says that prosecutor Angela Corey should be charged with professional misconduct, or worse. And others have compared this to the Duke lacrosse non-case. I don't think it's that bad, but it's bad enough.

Even somebody probably more liberal than I, and definitely blacker than I, Ta-Nehisi Coates, agrees.

And, legal scholar Eugene Volokh reminds us of where the burden of proof rests in such cases, and what that standard of proof generally is in criminal law.

That said, even under older ideas of self-defense in Florida, it would have been next to impossible to prove premeditation. (Those ideas actually were the lodestone for the trial; Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law was never actually invoked, another myth about the trial.) Even if any shadow of SYG were gone, Zimmerman still wouldn't have been guilty of second-degree murder. He also wouldn't have been guilty of manslaughter, based on evidence actually available.

A lot of people probably think it was premeditated, already having an image of Zimmerman as a racist.

Well, either worries about police coverups trump racism, or else he's a bit more complex than some people would like him to be. Zimmerman protested loud and long about the Sanford PD covering up the beating of a homeless black person.

And, leave it to the Gnu Atheist types, starting with Greta Christina, to ramp up their holier-than-thou attitude, including the usual Gnu stance of refusing to actually discuss issues. Wonder if she would swear at Coates, too?

Meanwhile, David Simon is not the only person I've seen to hint at the idea of white collective guilt, though he's the most famous. (Coming on top of his attacks on Glenn Greenwald over Edward Snowden, I now officially believe Simon is hugely self-overrated.) A subcomponent of this is white folks telling other white folks to "check their privilege."

One last legal thought: It's trials like this that make me long for Continental European jurisprudence at times. True, a presiding judge with cross-examination powers can run amok (picture Judge Ito in France), but, he or she is theoretically checked by the presence of assisting judges as well as the appeals process. Arguably, the Continental system comes, or can come, closer to a pursuit for the truth than the Anglo-American system. (And, yes, I'm aware of the Amanda Knox case.)

Let me now address this from other personal angles.

We secularists know that truth is never black-and-white. Related to that, those of us who are non-Platonist secular humanists (I'm pretty sure that most Platonist humanists are religious ones, anyway) know that grand, abstract ideas, or Ideas, aren't real, let alone hyperreal. Some of us, who have read Walter Kaufmann, know that guilt and justice are among those unreal abstract ideas.

Also, we don't know the whole story. We do know that it looked like a good "story" to the mainsream media. We do know that Trayvon Martin's parents helped that by spreading a picture of the 10-year-old Trayvon. Even if he wasn't a man at 17, he wasn't a 10-year-old boy, either. We do know that, even at the same time that Zimmerman appeared to have some quasi-racist bones, he had at least one race-blind eye, per the link I posted above.

And, it was a "story." That's why the media lapped it up. White-on-black, until we discovered Zimmerman had Hispanic heritage, which laughably led one TV outlet to call him a "white Hispanic."

Yep, lapped it up. Lawyer and Texas legal blogger Grits for Breakfast notes that CNN probably is laughing all the way to the bank. As is at least one juror.

Well, juror B37 WAS laughing all the way to the bank, until a Twitterer led a bomb on her would-be agent and got the deal killed. It also sounds like the rest of the jurors don't really like B37's giving the impression she speaks for all of them. Given her attorney hubby and other things, I'll venture she thought of the idea early on. And, it would never constitutionally fly, due to First Amendment issues, but it would be nice if jurors, like convicts, could be prevented from profiting off trials. At least, constitutional jurisprudence might weaken this.

We also, also know that stupid, ethically and morally unwarranted killings have been committed in the dozens in Florida since Stand Your Ground. But, none of them had the same media-driven, "compelling" story line, even though many of them were more egregious, or in the case of drug dealer shootouts, more pathetic.

But, people, for whatever reason, didn't find outrage until now.

While not justifying race riots by white, brown or black, I do agree that Sanford police botched this case by not looking at possible criminality from the start.

Meanwhile, there's a sidebar issue. Would a second, federal-level criminal trial on civil rights charges be double jeopardy? That issue has been ruled a negatory by the Supreme Court. However, many long-ago members of the ACLU still said it is ...

Until Rodney King, as this piece notes.

And, while I'm not an ACLU member, in part related to the larger issue of how much it's become a general liberal activist group, and other things, I'll admit to double-jeopardy questions myself, tentatively siding with Ira Glasser and other older members and leaders.

And, I think Anthony Romero, had some other members, or former members, not busted the ACLU's chops, would still like Holder to move forward.

It's worth noting that the Center for Constitutional Rights properly stayed silent. (Any civil liberties charitable money from me in the past decade has gone to CCR.)

That said ...

If you want change, follow the dollar. Tell Florida-based businesses (like orange juice!) that you'll boycott them unless they push the Florida Legislature to change Stand Your Ground. Per a Facebook friend, maybe better than ag companies, don't buy LeBron jerseys. Or better yet, if mechanical breakdowns haven't sworn you off, don't ride Carnival Cruise Lines.

Or, per this list of the Fortune 1,000, don't rent from Budget. Don't get paper at Office Depot. Don't eat at any Darden Restaurants. But, you have to tell the companies that you're boycotting them, and why.

Meanwhile, don't hold your breath over the Department of Justice pursuing federal civil rights charges. In part due to the link I posted above, they'd also be difficult to prove beyond a standard of reasonable doubt. And, might not be warranted. Think about that, too.

Because, although Zimmerman has engaged in some moderately violent behavior in the past, and that link I posted above still might not offset other instances of possible anti-black animus, yet more money beyond legal settlements Martin's parents have already gotten still won't bring him back. Nor is a civil trial an epistemic search for truth, either.

Above all, though, don't be like President Barack Obama. Dear Leader has taken the self-love for his allegedly mellifluous voice to whole new levels.

Covering my first murder trial ...

And, I hope, my last. A Peyton Place case like this, with no "winners," is another good reason for me hoping to get out of this biz.

And, it's illustrative that the law and justice don't necessarily intersect.

Of course, per Walter Kaufmann's "Without Guilt and Justice," a book with which I agree in many respects, there is no such thing as "justice."

Really, it's not much more useful as a concept, if we're really honest about human nature and social psychology, than are ideas such as "unitary consciousness" and "free will."

Judges, juries and modern technology - lighten up, judges!

I disagree with the idea that Internet technology, especially mobile versions, is a disaster for our trial by jury system.

Rather, it's a semi-disaster for judges who try to micromanage juries through narrow sets of instructions, who don't take modern technology into account, and other things.

The juror who used an online dictionary on his smartphone to look up "prudent"? Would the judge have denied him a hardcopy dictionary? Would the defendant, if significantly smarter, claimed this man was not his "peer"? (That's a whole nother can of worms.)

In general, though, I think the problem is with judges more than anything else.

Jurors? For conscientious yet inquisitive ones, it's empowering, enlightening and freeing. Deal with it, antiquated judicial system.

Give the government my DNA?

If allowing the government to develop a national DNA database as a crime-fighting tool is the brilliance that Yale Law School is supposed to produce in its students, then an Ivy League education is REALLY overrated, except for post-graduation job bucks.

Beyond that ignoring of civil liberties issues, Michael Seringhaus undercuts his own argument:

Several states, including California and Colorado, have embraced a controversial new technique called familial DNA search, which exploits the fact that close relatives share substantial fractions of their DNA. If efforts to find a DNA match come up empty — that is, if the perpetrator is not yet profiled in the database — the police in these states can search for partial matches between crime-scene samples and offenders in their record base. If they find a partial match, they can zero in on relatives of the profiled person as possible suspects.

This sounds elegant, and it occasionally works: in Britain, a handful of high-profile cases have been solved using familial search. But this approach is crippled by a very high false positive rate — many partial matches turn up people unrelated to the actual perpetrator. And it raises serious legal questions: how can we justify the de facto inclusion in DNA databases of criminals’ family members who have been neither arrested nor convicted?

So, if a partial noncriminal DNA database, and at just a state level, has such problems, why wouldn't a national one, of everybody, be even worse?

But, Seringhouse plods on right into another mistake:

A much fairer system would be to store DNA profiles for each and every one of us. This would eliminate any racial bias, negate the need for the questionable technique of familial search, and of course be a far stronger tool for law enforcement than even an arrestee database.

Ahh, to the degree we can accurately talk about races, there are genetic differences. If an FBI agent, say, who has been trained in DNA analysis, wants to do that, he or she can still engage in some sort of racial profiling.

After that partial ignorance of DNA issues, he then falls short on criminology:

A universal record would be a strong deterrent to first-time offenders — after all, any DNA sample left behind would be a smoking gun for the police — and would enable the police to more quickly apprehend repeat criminals. It would also help prevent wrongful convictions.

We have plenty of deterrents today, or deterrents to the logical mind.

Criminals don't act logically.

And, Mr. Selinghouse needs more lessons in that too.

Prosecutors should not be immune from suits

Especially not suits for willingly confabulating “evidence” in order to jail innocent people. I think that they ought to have only the narrowest of qualified immunity, even, and certainly not absolute immunity.

I also think they ought to be subject to criminal as well as civil proceedings, and that, on both criminal and civil sides, the statute of limitations clock should not start ticking until the day the wrongfully imprisoned are released.
-END-

DNA evidence can be fabricated

Boy, these findings will have a world of criminology and ID theft fallout.

That said, your average criminal isn’t capable of this, and a good enough DNA test can tell if the DNA was fabricated or not.

SCOTUS gives criminal suspects another whack

The Supreme Court says crminals do not have a guaranteed right to DNA testing. So much for the constitutional idea of confronting your accusers in court if they present physical evidence against you.

California takes prison lesson from Texas

Yes, that is hard to believe, right? But it is… on prison integration.

And, I did not know Cali segregated prisoners,

But, that’s about to change .

California officials think it will be good in the long run; both black and white inmates, for the most part, think it will increase racial tensions. Here’s a ray of hope, from Texas:

Race has long been a factor when sorting and classifying prisoners, said Chad Trulson, associate professor of criminal justice at the University of North Texas.

Today, most cells are segregated, he said, but several inmate lawsuits have brought about changes to these unofficial policies. That was the case in Texas, which once housed members of different races in separate prisons. A suit prompted integration of the prisons in the late 1970s, and the policy was extended to individual cells nearly a decade later.

Trulson, who studied the aftermath of Texas's integration and is now advising California officials, said violence spiked initially but then subsided.

“Over the next decade and beyond, what we found is that violence among integrated cell partners was no more likely than violence among cell partners who were segregated by race,” he said.

On the other side, California has overcrowding Texas didn’t, and a larger prison gang population.

Drug crime racial bias goes beyond crack sentences

It goes to the actual likelihood of jail time.

Black men? Twelve times more likely to do jail time for drug offenses than white men. Black women? Five times more likely than whites.

Ridiculous. Of course, many poor blacks, or other minorities, get public defenders who, I guess, are too incompetent or too lazy to get them rehab time.

And, because poorer minorities are more likely to have theft convictions to support their habits (something the story doesn’t delve into), they’ve got longer criminal records. The same would be true of poorer whites, too.

I’d like to see a similar study controlled for income. I don’t doubt that even with that, blacks still are more likely to do time in drug cases than whites, though.

Five flaws in American criminal jurisprudence

So says Kerry Max Cook, wrongfully convicted of rape and murder, then incarcerated 22 years before exhonoration.

The five flaws?

The first flaw is an error of mistaken identification, and the second is the use of weak inmate testimony by the prosecution, he said. The third flaw is “junk sciences.” Cook said this is when the prosecution calls expert witnesses who essentially tailor their findings to remove reasonable doubt and ensure conviction.

The fourth flaw, prosecutorial misconduct, Cook deems the most critical in regards to his own false conviction, he said.

“The reason for that degree of prosecutorial misconduct is that prosecutors enjoy qualified immunity, and in the wrong hands, it becomes nothing short of a license to lie and cheat,” he said.

The fifth flaw is ineffective assistance counseling, Cook said, using a comparison between Kmart and Saks Fifth Avenue shoppers to show what having the money to hire the best lawyers can do for someone.

Sure, DNA testing may reverse cases, but if the state doesn’t do DNA review, let alone always do it, and do it well on today’s active cases? Well, it all boils down to defendant money:

“Money is what determines who lives and dies in this country. The death penalty is not racist; the death penalty targets the poor.”

Beyond that is the issue of getting money to get a good lawyer, especially in the face of that flaw of prosecutorial misconduct. (Arguably, that flaw includes Nos. 2 and 3 as well.)