Law

Bolton comment on Kash Patel
...as [Lawrence] Tribe has said, we face the real possibility of "an imperial judiciary walking arm in arm with an imperial executive" a new political order, one in which the laws and norms that have insulated America from dictatorship slowly degrade.
The End of Judicial Independence, Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic (10/2024)
Judges . . . have become the most consequential policymakers in the nation. They have gutted America’s campaign finance law and dismantled much of the Voting Rights Act. They have allowed states to deny health coverage to millions of Americans. They’ve held that religion can be wielded as a sword to cut away the rights of others. They’ve drastically watered down the federal ban on sexual harassment. And that barely scratches the surface. How Trump’s judges will change America (12/9/2019)
The norm that law enforcement must be free from political interference is so critical and so uniformly acknowledged in our system of government that the U.S. State Department regularly cites the politicization of a government’s prosecutorial power as grounds for determining that a foreign power is an “authoritarian state. Subverting Justice: How the Former President and His Allies Pressured DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election Report of the Senate Judiciary Committee (10/2021)
in cases where they did not have enough votes to form a majority, Trump justices and appeals court judges made clear in dissents that with more support, they would do even further harm to Americans’ rights concerning voting, religious liberty, privacy, LGBTQ rights, money in politics, gun safety and more. Such support may well come from more Trump appointments.
The Continued Harm Done by Trump Federal Judges (4/2019)
Republicans have long known that the judiciary is one of the most effective instruments of minority rule. Mr. Trump’s success in packing the federal judiciary — as of this writing, 220 federal judges, including three Supreme Court justices — will be one of his most devastating legacies. The prospect of further entrenching minority rule in the coming years will keep the alliance between Republicans and the religious right alive. Trump or No Trump, Religious Authoritarianism Is Here to Stay
"Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy."
Conservative retired Federal Judge Michael Luttig in his testimony to the Jan 6 Committee
The president wields the power of the pardon, and Trump has freely used it on behalf of wealthy white-collar criminals. He did so earlier this year for Michael Milken and Eddie DeBartolo Jr., sending a powerful message that white-collar crimes don’t really matter, even though white-collar crime in America “costs victims an estimated $300 billion to $800 billion per year,” Taub reports, while “street-level ‘property’ crimes, including burglary, larceny and theft, cost us far less — around $16 billion annually, according to the F.B.I.” BIG DIRTY MONEY, The Shocking Injustice and Unseen Cost of White Collar Crime By Jennifer Taub

A restoration of the rule of law: Kamala Harris’ “freedom” campaign is coming for Trumpism (9/3/2024)

The Trial Judge Who Has to Clean Up the Supreme Court’s Mess (8/8/2024)

Aileen Cannon has taken a sledgehammer to the rule of law (7/16/2024)

Donald Trump and the German Far Right: Is it Democratic to Prosecute Fascism? (3/25/2024)

The Prosecutor Who Blew the Whistle on Barr and Durham: THE INSPIRING TALE OF NORA DANNEHY, CONNECTICUT'S NEWEST SUPREME COURT JUSTICE. (11/1/2023)

Trump suggests he would use FBI to go after political rivals if elected in 2024 (11/10/2024)

The Prosecutor Who Blew the Whistle on Barr and Durham (10/29/2023)

Hard Right Billionaires are Spending Lavishly to Reshape State and Federal Courts (10/26/2023)

The Courts vs. Public Health (5/4/2023)

Moore v. Harper, Explained

For Republicans, Crime Pays, No Matter What Else Happens (11/9/2022) NYT

The Secret Police: A new era of law enforcement

Republicans’ lawless leaders at odds with midterm law and order message (10/3/2022) Guardian

Why are We Surprised Barr Covered-Up Trump's Treason When He Did the Same for GHW Bush & Reagan? (9/13/2022)

Joint Law Enforcement Memo Warns of Violence (8/15/2022)

Congress, Don’t Lose the Plot on Judicial Ethics (5/23/2022)

How a Corporate Law Firm Led a Political Revolution (4/25/2022)

Merrick Garland and the January 6 Investigation (FAQS)

America is now in fascism’s legal phase (12/27/2021) Jason Stanley in the Guardian.

Trump Keeps Picking Unqualified People To Be Lifetime Judges. Republicans Don't Care. (11/1/2019)

Texas Tries to Upend the Legal System With Its Abortion Law (7/19/2021)

Can Biden Fix the Courts That Trump Broke? (4/7/2021)

Republicans Have an Agenda All Right, and They Don’t Need Congress for It (3/30/2021)

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Republicans appointing Unqualified Judges

"a corrupt authoritarian and his henchmen are wielding the Justice Department as a shield for friends and a sword for political rivals. It is impossible to overstate the danger. Walter Shaub
"In the United States, the dissolution of law in the second half of the twentieth century accelerated in the twenty-first. In the first eight years of the new century, the claim of emergency and the momentum toward unconstrained executive power became increasingly legible, with a presidential office that sanctioned the practice of torture, detention without charge, widespread surveillance of its citizens, and a private mercenary army answerable only to the president. The first in this list - the practice of torture - carried the United States into the deepest region of war crime. The international and national prohibition on torture is not just one law among many but a foundational prohibition underlying the larger framework of laws." Elaine Scarry: Thinking in an Emergency
Remember, you don't need to have done anything wrong to be arrested in America any longer. You can be arrested for walking your dog without a leash. The man who was forced to spread his buttocks was stopped for a driving infraction. I was told by an NYPD sergeant that "safety" issues allow the NYPD to make arrests at will. So nothing prevents thousands of Occupy protesters – if there will be any left after these laws start to bite – from being rounded up and stripped naked under intimidating conditions. Naomi Wolf
Today, the colonial system that subsequently militarized the police and set incarceration running at warp speed is maintained by a dizzying array of wildly perverse incentives, meticulously mapped by co-authors Chris Surprenant and Jason Brennan in Injustice for All. Policing and incarceration are big business, shaped by the direct influence and lobbying activity of corporations and investment groups for which there is not even the pretense of public accountability. This business is aided and abetted by the formal political system: police militarization and mass incarceration policies are managed across red, blue, and purple states by actors from both parties at all levels of government. State violence has no opposition party. Power Over the Police (6/20/2020)

The Dystopian Police State the Trump Administration Wants (2/20/2020)

This Is How Bad It’s Gotten at the Justice Department (9/17/2020)

How the Courts Failed Us (5/7/2021)

Mapping Police Violence

Police Are Using $1.6 Billion in Surplus Military Gear Doled Out Since 9/11 (9/22/2020)

Trump consults Bush torture lawyer on how to skirt law and rule by decree (7/20/2020)

‘State-sanctioned violence’: US police fail to meet basic human rights standards (6/22/2020)

Republicans are hypocrites. They happily 'de-funded' the police we actually need (6/15/2020)

Power Over the Police (6/10/2020)

By the numbers: US police kill more in days than other countries do in years (6/9/2020)

Democratic senator to offer amendment halting 'military weaponry' given to police 06/01/20

Why does the Minneapolis police department look like a military unit? (5/28/2020)

The lesson of history seems clear enough: During a period of advanced constitutional rot and high political polarization the federal courts are unlikely to be an instrument of constitutional renewal. Renewal will have to come from political mobilization instead. Constitutional Rot Reaches the Supreme Court (10/6/2018)

COVID-19 is no excuse for Attorney General Barr to skirt the rule of law (4/9/2020)

Julian Assange lawyer tells court: After pardon fell through, Trump administration resorted to ‘extortion’ (2/24/2020)

Imagine That Donald Trump Has Almost No Control Over Justice (2/20/2020)

A Supreme Court for the Rich (2/21/2020)

The Right’s Big Lie About Roger Stone (2/14/2020)

William Barr, Trump’s Sword and Shield, The Attorney General’s mission to maximize executive power and protect the Presidency. David Rohde (New Yorker 1/20/2020)

What Trump has done to the courts, explained (12/9/2019)

Mitch McConnell is packing the courts with rightwing extremists while everyone is distracted by Trump’s impeachment (12/7/2019)

The Attorney General’s Secret Law Factory (7/3/2019)

Star-studded cast to perform play based on Mueller report (6/24/2019)

SCOTUS Allows More Corporate Coercion Masked as Voluntary Arbitration (4/25/2019)

The Republican Takeover of the Federal Courts Should Terrify You (4/16/2019)

Trump’s Attacks on Our Justice System

How the Justice Department Prosecutes Domestic Terrorism (3/29/2019)

List of lawsuits involving Donald Trump

The Secrets of Leonard Leo, the Man Behind Trump’s Supreme Court Pick (7/9/2018)

Harvard study: Black defendants get longer sentences from GOP-appointed judges (05/29/2018)

From "Probable Cause" to "Reasonable Suspicion": The Subversion of the Fourth Amendment (4/17/2018)

Police Shoot a Lot More People Than Previously Known (12/15/2017)

The lesson of history seems clear enough: During a period of advanced constitutional rot and high political polarization the federal courts are unlikely to be an instrument of constitutional renewal. Renewal will have to come from political mobilization instead. Constitutional Rot Reaches the Supreme Court (10/6/2018)
...by the mid-1980's the legal industry was bigger that steel or textiles, and about the same size as the auto industry. The new lawyers were increasingly concentrated in fast-growing, large law firms that served large corporations and were prepared to pay skyrocketing salaries to attract the best talent." Tailspin: Steven Brill pg 30.
Regarding liberty, justice places limits on the amount allowed; regarding equality, justice places limits on the kind and degree it allows. Thus justice is the sovereign idea among those that we act on—it places limits on the subordinate values of liberty and equality. Too much of either liberty or equality results in an unjust society. I agree with Adler, justice is the ultimate idea of moral and political philosophy. John G. Messerly, PhD
“Civil government, in so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all. – Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter I, Part II On the Expense of Justice.”
"...the wealthy few invest heavily in shaping laws that strive to place unlimited private property and corporate expansion above and beyond all else, including the lives of people, the health of communities, protection of what we own in common, the capacity of society to function as a democracy, and the stability of the living biosphere itself." Ralph Nader Breaking Through Power p42.
"... the United States has become a nation that does not apply the rule of law to its elite class, which is another way of saying that the United States does not apply the rule of law." Glenn Greenwald: With Liberty and Justice for Some p15

White House reportedly mulls asking judicial nominees to refuse interviews with ABA for ratings (11/13/2017)

SLAPPs: The Greatest Free Expression Threat You’ve Never Heard Of? (10/30/2017)

The Head Of The DEA Just Quit Because Trump Doesn’t Respect The Law (9/26/2017)

Why Donald Trump's plans to pardon sheriff Joe Arpaio are so troubling (8/26/2017)

Jeff Sessions enacts harsher sentencing and charges in criminal justice overhaul (5/5/2017)

Department of Justice is prosecuting a 61-year-old woman, Desiree Fairooz, for laughing during Attorney General Jeff Sessions' confirmation hearing. (5/2/2017)

Trump Abruptly Orders 46 Obama-Era Prosecutors to Resign (3/10/2017)

Jeff Sessions And Jim Crow(1/19/2017)

HATE CRIME ANALYSIS & FORECAST FOR 2016/2017

Resisting Militarized Repression: Facing Trump's Threat to "Send in the Feds" (1/31/2017)

"Police officers carry out random acts of legalized murder against poor people of color not because they are racist, although they may be, or even because they are rogue cops, but because impoverished urban communities have evolved into miniature police states." Chris Hedges
The truth is that, as a nation, we face nothing short of a justice “crisis.” It is a crisis both acute and chronic, affecting not just the poor but the middle class. The situation we face is unconscionable. Lawrence Tribe
Since full implementation of the federal sentencing guidelines in 1989 disparity in sentencing between African Americans and whites has increased. ∙ African American drug offenders have a 20% greater chance of being sentenced to prison than white drug offenders, and Hispanics a 40% greater chance. ∙ African Americans receive longer prison terms for drug offenses than whites. In 2002, the average prison term of 105 months for African Americans was 69% longer than the average of 62 months for whites. " The Sentencing Project

Donald Trump’s atrocious attorney general pick: Jeff Sessions will roll back voting rights and civil rights (11/18/2016)

Senate Republicans Are Blocking Obama's Judges at a Nearly Unprecedented Rate (11/4/2015)

The Grand Jury Process is a Grim Lie (11/3/2015)

Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice (10/31/2015)

Republicans are Clogging the Judicial Pipeline (9/21/2015)

Debtor's Prisons are back. This is the fight to get rid of them (9/23/2015)

Why US Police are out of Control (8/20/2015)

Most states let police take and keep your stuff without convicting you of a crime. (7/8/2015)

Amnesty USA: All 50 states fall short of international standards on police use of lethal force (6/18/2015)

Court Accepts DOJ's 'State Secrets' Claim to Protect Shadowy Neocons: A New Low (3/27/2015)

The Police in America Are becoming Illegitimate (12/7/2014)

How Big Business Buys State Courts (10/31/2014)

How Dark Money-Fueled Judicial Elections Corrupt Our Courts (10/30/2014)

Lobbyists, bearing gifts, Persue Attorneys General (10/28/2014)

Militarizing Police

Policing the Police (8/15/2014)

Do Laws Matter ? (6/15/2010)

SPAIN TO PROCEED WITH TORTURE PROSECUTION OF BUSH LAWYERS (9/8/2009)

Is Honesty the best policy ? Look at the evidence. (2/28/2013)

The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison (2002)

Robinson Meyer writes in The Atlantic that first of all, police shouldn't ask. "As a basic principle, we can't tell you to stop recording," says Delroy Burton, a 21-year veteran of DC's police force. "If you're standing across the street videotaping, and I'm in a public place, carrying out my public functions, [then] I'm subject to recording, and there's nothing legally the police officer can do to stop you from recording." What you don't have a right to do is interfere with an officer's work. ""Police officers may legitimately order citizens to cease activities that are truly interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations," according to Jay Stanley who wrote the ACLU's "Know Your Rights" guide for photographers, which lays out in plain language the legal protections that are assured people filming in public. Police officers may not confiscate or demand to view your digital photographs or video without a warrant and police may not delete your photographs or video under any circumstances.

What if an officer says you are interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations and you disagree with the officer? "If it were me, and an officer came up and said, 'You need to turn that camera off, sir,' I would strive to calmly and politely yet firmly remind the officer of my rights while continuing to record the interaction, and not turn the camera off," says Stanley. The ACLU guide also supplies the one question those stopped for taking photos or video may ask an officer: "The right question to ask is, 'am I free to go?' If the officer says no, then you are being detained, something that under the law an officer cannot do without reasonable suspicion that you have or are about to commit a crime or are in the process of doing so. Until you ask to leave, your being stopped is considered voluntary under the law and is legal."

Video

How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful

Ted Talk: Bryan Stevenson

The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz

Bibliography

Captured Courts Report

Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable by Joanna Schwartz

Lady Justice, Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America by Dahlia Lithwick

People vs Donald Trump, an inside account by Mark Pomerantz

Holding The Line by Geoffrey Berman

Stealing Our Democracy: How the Political Assassination of a Governor Threatens Our Nation Hardcover – June 16, 2020 by Don Siegelman (Author)

Rise of the Warrior Cop, Radley Balko

The chickenshit club: why the Justice Department fails to prosecute executives, Jesse Eisinger.

Bush’s Law, the Remaking of American Justice: Eric Lichtblau

The Color of Law

The Chickenshit Club, Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives: Jesse Eisinger

The End of Policing: Alex S. Vitale

Radicals in Robes, Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts are Wrong For America: Cass R. Sunstein

A Colony In a Nation: Chris Hayes

Justice in America: John Hurwitz (click for his BookTV talk on CSPAN)

Too Big To Jail: Brandon L. Garrett

With Liberty and Justice for Some: Glenn Greenwald

Taking Back the Courts: Norman Pattis

The American Inquisition, Justice and Injustice in the Cold War: Stanley I. Kutler