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The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort Archive

Friday

31

August 2012

0

COMMENTS

Criminal Justice Reform in GOP Platform

Written by , Posted in Big Government, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

In my post listing 5 issues I thought Republicans needed to discuss at the convention, I pointed to the need for criminal justice reform. Apparently enough folks were on the same page, as it turns out that the 2012 GOP platform included language calling for much needed reforms. From Right on Crime:

This week, during its quadrennial national convention, the Republican Party released its 2012 platform. The platform is yet another indicator of how conservative leaders are reapplying basic conservative principles to criminal justice. For example, the new platform contains language explicitly emphasizing the importance of prisoner reentry, a notable change from the 2008 platform which contained none. The new platform urges that “[p]risons should do more than punish; they should attempt to rehabilitate and institute proven prisoner reentry systems to reduce recidivism and future victimization.”

Similarly, the new platform contains language emphasizing the importance of restorative justice, yet another element that did not appear in the 2008 platform:

“Government at all levels should work with faith-based institutions that have proven track records in diverting young and first time, non-violent offenders from criminal careers, for which we salute them. Their emphasis on restorative justice, to make the victim whole and put the offender on the right path, can give law enforcement the flexibility it needs in dealing with different levels of criminal behavior. We endorse State and local initiatives that are trying new approaches to curbing drug abuse and diverting first-time offenders to rehabilitation.”

Also very welcome is the language highlighting the serious threat of over-criminalization, particular regarding the federal criminal code.

The starkest change in the party platform from 2008 to 2012 is the inclusion of new – and relatively detailed – language criticizing overcriminalization:

“The resources of the federal government’s law enforcement and judicial systems have been strained by two unfortunate expansions: the over-criminalization of behavior and the over-federalization of offenses. The number of criminal offenses in the U.S. Code increased from 3,000 in the early 1980s to over 4,450 by 2008. Federal criminal law should focus on acts by federal employees or acts committed on federal property – and leave the rest to the States. Then Congress should withdraw from federal departments and agencies the power to criminalize behavior, a practice which, according to the Congressional Research Service, has created “tens of thousands” of criminal offenses. No one other than an elected representative should have the authority to define a criminal act and set criminal penalties. In the same way, Congress should reconsider the extent to which it has federalized offenses traditionally handled on the State or local level.”

Now party platforms don’t generally have much if any impact, but this is a welcome reflection of shifting GOP attitudes toward 1) Beginning to undo the labyrinth of federal criminal laws which are threatening basic freedoms and, 2) finding more effective and cost efficient solutions to certain crimes.

Wednesday

29

August 2012

3

COMMENTS

5 Issues Republicans Should Address At the Convention (Or After)

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Foreign Affairs & Policy, Liberty & Limited Government, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

Being the more leftist party, I criticize Democrats frequently. But Republicans do a lot of stupid things and have plenty to answer for themselves. Here’s a list of issues I’d like to see the party address prominently to the American people (at the ongoing Republican National Convention would be an ideal choice, but anytime during the rest of the campaign would be good).

Explain Why We Should Trust That Republicans Will Get Spending Right This Time. Republicans criticize the President, and rightly so, for spending like a drunken sailor. His massive and wasteful stimulus was bad enough as a one time deal, but he’s since set the new baseline at post-stimulus levels, and has called for ever more spending each year. But it’s important to remember that the big spending didn’t start with Obama.

Republicans can’t simply excuse Bush’s big spending as a response to an unusual financial crisis. Yes, a lot of money was spent in response to the financial meltdown, and perhaps that can be excused even if it was misguided. But what’s the excuse for creating a massive new prescription drug entitlement? Or the 30% increase in federal subsidy programs? Or the massive increase in regulatory spending? Simply put, when Republicans most recently controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress, they spent like drunken sailors, too. They need to explain clearly how they’ve internalized the lessons of those mistakes, and what controls are or will be in place to ensure they aren’t repeated.

(more…)

Friday

20

July 2012

1

COMMENTS

Gun Grabbers Pounce on Tragedy as Excuse to Attack Your Freedoms

Written by , Posted in Gun Rights, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

The gun-grabbers haven’t wasted any time in the wake of the Colorado theater shooting to begin plotting the curtailment of your basic rights. Nanny Bloomberg quickly came out with rhetorical guns blazing by hyping a national emergency and the need to seize guns:

“Soothing words are nice,” Bloomberg said during a regularly scheduled appearance on WOR 710 AM in New York. “But maybe it’s time the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they’re going to do about it, because this is obviously a problem across the country. And everybody always says, ‘Isn’t it tragic?’”

“I mean, there’s so many murders with guns every day,” Bloomberg continued. “It’s just gotta stop. And instead of these two people, President [Barack] Obama and Governor [Mitt] Romney talking in broad things about, they want to make the world a better place. OK, tell us how. And this is a problem. No matter where you stand on the Second Amendment, no matter where you stand on guns, we have a right to hear from both of them, concretely, not just in generalities, specifically, what are they going to do about guns?”

Bloomberg went on to suggest most of the nation’s governors should also make their stances clear, and said the problem wasn’t limited to major cities like New York.

“This is killing people every day,” he said. “And it’s growing. And it’s not just an inner city, East Coast, West Coast, big city phenomenon. Aurora is not a big city, it’s a suburb of Denver. … The murder rate in the rural areas is as just as bad, if not worse than the murder rate in the urban areas.”

But Bloomberg is either lying or doesn’t know what he is talking about. It’s not “growing.” Homicide rates are down considerably from where they were decades ago, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The gun-grabbers at the Brady Campaign also demanded the seizure of guns from law-abiding citizens.

“We understand that President Obama has just spoken and so might Mitt Romney,” Brady Campaign president Dan Gross said in a statement. “As someone who has suffered the lasting impact of gun violence, and President of Brady, I can tell you that we don’t want sympathy. We want action.”

Gross noted that this past April 16 marked the anniversary of “the worst mass shooting in American history,” when 32 people were shot and killed by a gunman on the Virginia Tech campus in 2007.

Gross called on people to “demand Congress take action to stop arming dangerous people.” He said the Brady Campaign is meeting today with activists around the country to sign a petition against arming dangerous people.

“We are insistent that our elected leaders take action to prevent future tragedies. Political cowardice is not an excuse for evasion and inaction on this life-and-death issue,” said Gross.

The suspect in custody, James Eagan Holmes, had no criminal record. So the only way to comply with the demands of the Brady Campaign to “take action to stop arming dangerous people,” those like today’s shooter we are to understand, is to “stop arming” everyone.

Sunday

15

July 2012

0

COMMENTS

This Might Have Something to Do With Those Fleeing Jobs

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Economics & the Economy, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

While the left is obsessing over whether Mitt Romney hired any dirty foreigners while CEO of Bain, or to manage his money, jobs are being lost right now as American manufacturers are sued out of business. But don’t expect any hand-wringing from Democrats this time, as they rely heavily on trial lawyers to maintain their power (Hat-tip: Overlawyered).

Citing the costs of lawsuits against the company, Blitz USA will close its gas can manufacturing facility in Oklahoma after almost 50 years in production and lay off more than 100 employees at the end of this month.

According to a release from the company, which makes 75 percent of the portable gas cans sold in the country, Blitz USA has been bombarded by litigation from users who allege the cans’ design did not protect them when they poured gasoline onto fires.

Since 2007, the Southeast Texas Record has reported on about 10 suits filed against Blitz USA in the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

…Among the lawsuits that have hit the company hard is a $4 million judgment in Utah, which is currently on appeal.

The plaintiff in the Utah case tried to start a fire in a wood-burning stove inside a trailer home by inserting the nozzle of the gas can into the stove and pouring gasoline onto the fire. The plaintiff was severely burned and his 2-year-old daughter was killed by the resulting conflagration.

As pointed out by the PointOfLaw.com blog in a July 9 post, the plaintiff blamed Blitz USA for failing to warn consumers of the dangers even though the plastic gas container is imprinted with instructions to “Keep away from flames, pilot lights, stoves, heaters, electric motors, and other sources of ignition.”

If it’s not frivolous lawsuits, it’s overzealous bureaucrats, onerous regulations or a President that belittles your accomplishments.  Perhaps before the left, or anyone for that matter, again complains about outsourcing and loss of American jobs, they should ask themselves why anyone would want to do business in this country in the first place. It’s become clear that we as a society increasingly do not appreciate such efforts.

Sunday

8

July 2012

0

COMMENTS

Overgovernment: Sad Feet Edition

Written by , Posted in The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

The latest edition of Overgovernment comes from, big surprise, the People’s Republic of Michael Bloombergistan New York, where dancing is a criminal offense:

It was nearly midnight when Stern and Hess, a film-industry prop master, headed home last July from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night’s Swing. As they waited for the train, a musician started playing steel drums on the nearly empty platform and Stern and Hess began to feel the beat.

“We were doing the Charleston,” Stern said. That’s when two police officers approached and pulled a “Footloose.”

“They said, ‘What are you doing?’ and we said, ‘We’re dancing,’ ” she recalled. “And they said, ‘You can’t do that on the platform.’ ”

…When Hess began trying to film the encounter, things got ugly, Stern said.

“We brought out the camera, and that’s when they called backup,” she said. “That’s when eight ninja cops came from out of nowhere.”

Hess was allegedly tackled to the platform floor, and cuffs were slapped on both of them. The initial charge, according to Stern, was disorderly conduct for “impeding the flow of traffic.”

“There was nobody on the platform. There were, like, three people,” she said.

The charges, including resisting arrest, were later dropped. The couple has filed a Manhattan federal court suit against the city for unspecified damages.

“If you are surrounded by good musicians, that’s going to make you want to dance,” Stern said. “The musician who is playing is legal, but . . . we’re illegal?”

After you have consumed your government allowed allotment of sugary soda, you may only slowly shuffle back to your domicile of origin. Remember, Nanny Bloomberg is watching.

Friday

6

July 2012

2

COMMENTS

The Unspoken Cause of Destructive Forest Fires

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

In the wake of the catastrophic Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado, the usual suspects are gleefully rubbing their hands at the prospect of using the tragedy to advance the cult of Global Warming. But while the doom-mongers are quick to blame global warming, while only begrudgingly acknowledging that anecdotes are not scientific data, the real man-made problem goes largely ignored: litigious environmentalists.

Fires are part of our natural environment, and have been long before there were any humans to burn fossil fuels. Fires clear out old, dead plants and make way for new life. But humans quite understandably don’t like uncontrolled natural fires, because they also kill us. But we simply fight to reduce the regular natural fires in order to protect ourselves, we actually make major, catastrophic fires more likely. Without the clearing of dead plants, fuel for major fires builds up over time to dangerous levels. Man’s solution to this unintended consequence of our domestication of nature is to engage in our own efforts to prevent the accumulation of such kindling. At least, some of us do. Unfortunately, environmentalists fight to thwart these efforts at every turn, with disastrous consequences.

Scientists with the U.S. Forest Service found in a recent study that unnatural overgrowth in trees is responsible for most wildfires in the U.S:

Thinning overgrown forests to a more natural rate of between 50 and 100 trees per acre would be the most effective way of reducing the number and severity of intense wildfires, the study concludes.

The Forest Service study is the largest ever conducted on fuel treatment effectiveness. The study provides a scientific basis for establishing quantitative guidelines for reducing stand densities and surface fuels. The total number of optimal trees per acre in any given forest will depend on species, terrain, and other factors, according to Forest Service researchers.

David L. Peterson, a researcher with the U.S. Forest Service‘s Pacific Northwest Research Station and one of the coauthors of the study, reports there are two reasons to engage in forest thinning. Removing smaller trees from a forest stand promotes the growth and vigor of the remaining larger trees. Forest thinning also reduces the continuity of live and dead plant material (fuels) from the soil surface into the forest canopy. The latter practice reduces the likelihood a wildfire will propagate into a crown fire.

Yet efforts to engage in this life-saving practices face significant opposition from environmentalist and anti-logging groups. A GAO study in 2003 found that, of the thinning projects open to appeal, 59% were challenged by environmentalists. Even more appalling, “Forest Service officials estimate they spend nearly half their time, and $250 million each year, preparing for the appeals and procedural challenges launched by activists.”

In all likelihood these challenges have only increased since 2003. Just scanning recent news reveals a number of such frivolous suits being filed across the country. Just last month the Forest Service was calling for more natural fires. AP described the current state of U.S. forests thusly: “A combination of decades of vigorous fire suppression and the waning of the timber industry over environmental concerns has left many forests a tangled, overgrown mess, subject to the kind of superfires that are now regularly consuming hundreds of homes and millions of acres.”

So the next time an environmentalist tries to blame man for causing a fire by burning fossil fuels, tell him that he’s right, people are indeed to blame. Namely, it’s the environmentalists who routinely oppose and obstruct anything – whether it be logging, controlled fires or other thinning initiatives – that could reduce the risk of superfires.

Wednesday

4

July 2012

1

COMMENTS

Medicaid and Federalism

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements, Liberty & Limited Government, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

The less talked about, though hardly ignored, aspect of the Supreme Court’s recent Obamacare decision is the fact that the court struck down the requirement that state’s expand Medicaid coverage up to 133 percent above the federal poverty line (some states do so already), or lose their federal Medicaid funding.  The court ruled that while the federal government can provide strings for accepting new federal dollars, it cannot threaten to revoke already granted dollars if new strings are not adhered to.  The latter is deemed coercive on the part of the federal government, and thus an unconstitutional violation of state sovereignty. The ruling essentially cuts in half the number of uninsured which the law was supposedly going to give coverage.

While the court was right to strike the provision, the scope of the decision was insufficient and the distinction offered is strained and unworkable. Congress must retain the power to revisit the law creating Medicaid, as one Congress cannot legally bind a future Congress, which means there is no real mechanism to prevent them from changing the requirements on states to receive Medicaid dollars. The error of the court is in not acknowledging that all federal dollars to states are coercive, whether they come with only carrots or include an explicit stick. All federal carrots eventually turn to sticks.

Transferring federal dollars to states erodes state sovereignty, undermines one of the primary benefits of federalism (competition and innovation in policy approaches) and reduces democratic accountability. No such grants should be allowed, period.

As I previously wrote on the subject:

A fifty-five mph speed limit, promptly ignored by most motorists, was dictated to the states by passage of the 1974 Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act.  Although the national speed limit was later repealed in 1995, numerous federal standards remain, such as the minimum ages for drinking and smoking. The federal government has largely accomplished this power grab by opening the spigot of federal dollars, then threatening to cut off any state that doesn’t kowtow to Washington’s demands.

So when a number of governors of both parties balked at taking federal money for unemployment insurance, knowing that they would be stuck with the bill of an expanded government welfare mandate when the federal funds expired, it should come as no surprise that the beltway response was to attempt to denigrate and browbeat the rogue states into compliance. Democratic Senator Charles Schumer responded to their rejection of federal funds by admonishing governors for playing “political games,” then boldly declared, “whether the governors want to or not, they can be forced to take the whole thing.” This astonishing declaration strikes at the heart of our federalist system.

…Aside from the eventual subjugation of state authority, funneling federal dollars into the states also leads to significant waste. No longer dependent on their constituents for financial support, the states become rent-seekers looking to game the federal system. This is why 250,000 Washington State residents recently received a $1 check in the mail.  As a reward for this wasteful spending, the federal government will pump into the state millions in new welfare funds. This seemingly irrational and grossly wasteful spending is encouraged by the present system, where states have financial incentives to meet federal bureaucratic rules that allow them to qualify for more funding.  The impact on the taxpayer is simply not important to the state in this calculus.

When states are offered federal dollars, it’s a lose-lose situation. Their citizens are already paying the taxes, and if one state refuses while another accepts, it means tax money is being redistributed from the more fiscally prudent state to big spending states. States, moreover, are only ever offered bribes to increase spending and regulation, but never to reduce either. In other words, it is a taxpayer funded incentive for bigger government. States that accept federal money, meanwhile, are then placed at the mercy of a federal government which can cut off funds at any time, leaving local politicians to either pick up the slack (by reducing other spending or racing taxes) or face the consequences at the polls.

Which leads to my next point. Collecting funds through federal mechanisms to be spent by states reduces politically accountability. Who do voters blame for poor results, the federal taxers or the state administrators? And what keeps either focused on the interests of voters? The goal of state lawmakers is to please the federal lawmakers that keep the money flowing, while the federal lawmakers just point to state government’s as the source of any mismanagement.

This is completely backwards from the concept of America at its founding. Taxes should be collected as locally as possible and sent up, rather than down, the political ladder. If state and local governments collected the bulk of taxes, for instance, and then had to “buy in” to the federal government, federal lawmakers would be held accountable by state governments that are closer to – and thus more easily held accountable by – the people.

States cannot be counted on to refuse the offer of federal dollars, and the mere fact that other states might and will accept penalizes them for refusing if they do. Nor is there hope that the federal government might decide on its own to stop engaging in the practice. Politicians will always seek to expand their power, which for the federal government means encroaching upon the sovereignty of the states. The cash spigot is simply too useful a tool in the pursuit of federal power to ever be turned off, and explains why the prevalence of such programs has exploded in recent decades.

The fact that the federal government can offer it at all is the problem, and the ideal solution is thus to prohibit all federal grants to states. But unless the Court can be convinced that any federal dollars are necessarily and inherently coercive to states, its Obamacare ruling will have minimal impact on the practice. A Constitutional amendment is the only real solution I see available.

For more on this issue, see this great summary by Cato’s Downsizing the Federal  Government, and related blog posts here and here.

Thursday

28

June 2012

0

COMMENTS

The World Has Not Ended

Written by , Posted in The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

I know many liberty advocates are greatly disappointed in today’s Supreme Court ruling, where Chief Justice John Roberts joined the four liberal justices in upholding the individual mandate through the taxing power. But the world has not ended today. The truth of the matter is that not much has changed for our longterm fiscal outlook. It’s still decidedly negative, and would have been no matter what today’s decision held. Because of this, there’s still going to have be another political bite at the health care apple.

First, the way the case was decided shouldn’t be overlooked. The limit that was placed, such that it is, on the reach of the Commerce Clause is not insignificant. With a five member majority believing that Congress has reached the bounds on how far they can stretch the clause, they may begin to chip away at some past Commerce Clause decisions. We can certainly hope so, anyway.

But from a policy perspective, health care remains a mess just as it would have been had the law been struck down. It’s a worse mess now, for sure, but all the central problems with health care are the same regardless of either decision the court could have made: the third party payer problem, the excessive coverage mandates by the state (and now federal) governments, the limitations on interstate insurance purchases. Eventually, these problems will have to be addressed. Obamacare will inevitably fail to reduce the explosive growth in the cost of health care because it does not address these fundamental causes, and that will force the hand of politicians. That is assuming that Obamacare even survives before the mandate takes effect in 2014, which based upon today’s reactions may very well not happen.

Monday

25

June 2012

1

COMMENTS

Scalia on State Sovereignty

Written by , Posted in The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

Today’s immigration decision in Arizona v. United States amounted to another nail in the coffin of federalism. Scalia, in his dissent, explained how the decision has abrogated state sovereignty (citations removed for readability):

The United States is an indivisible “Union of sovereign States.” … Today’s opinion, approving virtually all of the Ninth Circuit’s injunction against enforcement of the four challenged provisions of Arizona’s law, deprives States of what most would consider the defining characteristic of sovereignty: the power to exclude from the sovereign’s territory people who have no right to be there. Neither the Constitution itself nor even any law passed by Congress supports this result. I dissent.

As a sovereign, Arizona has the inherent power to exclude persons from its territory, subject only to those limitations expressed in the Constitution or constitutionally imposed by Congress. That power to exclude has long been recognized as inherent in sovereignty…

…There is no doubt that “before the adoption of the constitution of the United States” each State had the authority to “prevent [itself] from being burdened by an influx of persons.” … And the Constitution did not strip the States of that authority. To the contrary, two of the Constitution’s provisions were designed to enable the States to prevent “the intrusion of obnoxious aliens through other States.” …The Articles of Confederation had provided that “the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States.”… This meant that  an unwelcome alien could obtain all the rights of a citizen of one State simply by first becoming an inhabitant of another. To remedy this, the Constitution’s Privileges and  Immunities Clause provided that “[t]he Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.” … But if one State had particularly lax citizenship standards, it might still serve as a gateway for the entry of “obnoxious aliens” into other States. This problem was  solved “by authorizing the general government to establish a uniform rule of naturalization throughout the United States.” … In other words, the naturalization power was given to Congress not to abrogate States’ power to exclude those they did not want, but to vindicate it.

Scalia goes on to explain how opposition to the Sedition Act demonstrated doubt on the federal government’s role, but none whatever regarding the State power to control immigration, before offering:

In light of the predominance of federal immigration restrictions in modern times, it is easy to lose sight of the States’ traditional role in regulating immigration—and to over look their sovereign prerogative to do so. I accept as a given that State regulation is excluded by the Constitution when (1) it has been prohibited by a valid federal law, or (2) it conflicts with federal regulation—when, for example, it admits those whom federal regulation would exclude, or excludes those whom federal regulation would admit.

Possibility (1) need not be considered here: there is no federal law prohibiting the States’ sovereign power to exclude (assuming federal authority to enact such a law). The mere existence of federal action in the immigration area—and the so-called field preemption arising from that action, upon which the Court’s opinion so heavily relies, ante, at 9–11—cannot be regarded as such a prohibition.We are not talking here about a federal law prohibiting the States from regulating bubble-gum advertising, or even the construction of nuclear plants. We are talking about a federal law going to the core of state sovereignty: the power to exclude. Like elimination of the States’ other inherent sovereign power, immunity from suit, elimination of the States’ sovereign power to exclude requires that “Congress . . . unequivocally expres[s] its intent to abrogate,” …Implicit “field preemption” will not do.

…And it is an assault on logic to say that identifying a removable alien and holding him for federal determination of whether he should be removed “violates the principle that the removal process is entrusted to the discretion of the Federal Government,” … The State’s detention does not represent commencement of the removal process unless the Federal Government makes it so.

But that is not the most important point. The most important point is that, as we have discussed, Arizona is entitled to have “its own immigration policy”—including a more rigorous enforcement policy—so long as that does not conflict with federal law. The Court says, as though the point is utterly dispositive, that “it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain present in the United States,” … It is not a federal crime, to be sure. But there is no reason Arizona cannot make it a state crime for a removable alien (or any illegal alien, for that matter) to remain present in Arizona.

…The State’s whole complaint—the reason this law was passed and this case has arisen—is that the citizens of Arizona believe federal priorities are too lax. The State has the sovereign power to protect its borders more rigorously if it wishes, absent any valid federal prohibition. The Executive’s policy choice of lax federal enforcement does not constitute such a prohibition.

He  then concludes powerfully (emphasis mine):

…The President said at a news conference that the new program is “the right thing to do” in light of Congress’s failure to pass the Administration’s
proposed revision of the Immigration Act.7 Perhaps it is, though Arizona may not think so. But to say, as the Court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of the Immigration Act that the President declines to enforce boggles the mind.

…As is often the case, discussion of the dry legalities that are the proper object of our attention suppresses the very human realities that gave rise to the suit. Arizona bears the brunt of the country’s illegal immigration problem. Its citizens feel themselves under siege by large numbers of illegal immigrants who invade their property, strain their social services, and even place their lives in jeopardy. Federal officials have been unable to remedy the problem,and indeed have recently shown that they are unwilling to do so. Thousands of Arizona’s estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants—including not just children but men and women under 30—are now assured immunity from enforcement, and will be able to compete openly with Arizona citizens for employment.

Arizona has moved to protect its sovereignty—not in contradiction of federal law, but in complete compliance with it. The laws under challenge here do not extend or revise federal immigration restrictions, but merely enforce those restrictions more effectively. If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign State. I dissent.

Sunday

10

June 2012

0

COMMENTS

Justice Should Be the Priority

Written by , Posted in The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

The Florida Innocence Commission was established in 2009 by the State Supreme Court “to conduct a comprehensive study of the causes of wrongful convictions and of measures to prevent such convictions.” Seem like a reasonable objective to me. The Commission cost $200,000, a more than reasonable price for checking a potential source of government abuse. But Florida’s Governor Rick Scott disagrees, and has defunded the commission.

Providing for criminal justice is an legitimate and vital function of government, and states spend a lot of money doing just that. Many conservatives believe that it is enough to be “tough on crime,” and the stance seems to appeal to most voters. But conservatives should do better than just taking a simplistic, populist approach if it means creating new problems, and if better approaches exist. It’s good to be tough on crime as a general matter, but that can’t involve just taking a blindly aggressive approach to all things criminal justice, otherwise you end up with a system full of abuses and which is tough on both criminals and non-criminals alike.

Since 1973, there have been 23 Florida death row inmates released after evidence emerged to call their guilt into question. It costs a lot of money to process, house and exhaust the legal appeals of a death row inmate, never minding the impact on their civil liberties, and someone truly interested in leading a small, fiscally responsible government should welcome the opportunity to make a tiny investment if it means identifying sources of injustice in the justice system, so that future wrongful convictions can be avoided.

Police, prosecutors and judges are agents of the state. They posses tremendous power over the lives of citizens, and like any state power there is significant potential for abuse. Spending $200,000 to look at whether that power is being applied accurately shouldn’t be too much to ask, and is as smart an investment fiscally as it is the moral and right thing to do.

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About Me

profileI serve as Vice President of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a non-profit think tank dedicated to preserving tax competition and free markets. This site features my personal views, which are not reflective of CF&P.

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