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So, SHG is revisiting an old debate about criminal defense lawyering, and he’s joined by Judge Kopf who has probably come over here (to LoS, that is) to re-familiarize himself with the term “epistemology”, which is now one of our wordpress “categories” since it seems to come up a lot. The example is familiar, too:  do you “back off” of your “blistering cross” of the complaining witness when you know she’s right, that her…
…specifically footnote #1 in the dissenting (en banc, no less) opinion of the latest Cole v. Carson decision (we’ve kicked that one around before) coming out of the United States Court of Appeals for the fifth circuit: We do not challenge the majority’s decision to leave in place fabricated evidence charges against these two officers and Officer Carson. Only Carson, who was present at the encounter but did not shoot, appealed the district court’s refusal…
This story is probably emblematic both of the favoritism shown to police-turned-criminal-defendants, and of something deeper. Three police detectives “had sex” with an 18 year old woman they had in custody.  In handcuffs, no less.  By any sane definition, this is – and always has been – rape.  It is also difficult to imagine a more flagrant and shocking abuse of power by police officers. The sentence is probation, not prison.  That may be an…
Why – with the advent of the #MeToo movement and Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein and so on and so forth – hasn’t the “Ke$ha-Dr. Luke” matter been re-evaluated? Why is Dr. Luke getting a pass? Maybe he should.  We don’t know.  But on the surface, we think it pretty obvious he shouldn’t.  So we’re a little perplexed.…
And a missed opportunity. There are agendas.  Apparently Philly’s District Attorney Larry Krasner has one:  “reform”.  One would think there’d be widespread agreement that reform is in order.  And maybe there is. But there’s a counterargument, as twitter traffic will attest.  Krasner’s agenda is encountering law enforcement push back.  Perhaps not all law enforcement, but the unofficial-official LEO party line, which is that Krasner coddles criminals and undermines police and in general is just a…
His name is Shaka Johnson.  Read all about it here. This is one of those situations where a lot of folks deserve commendation.  The police were patient and restrained in the face of six of their comrades having been shot. Yes, shot.  Somewhat miraculously, none of them had life threatening injuries. So, kudos to the Philly cops. But Johnson is in a league by himself.  Apparently the gunman was a sometime client who called…
So, farmers are upset and claiming that the “trade war” with China is putting them out of business. We don’t want to see any productive hard working people put out of business.  Especially farmers.  But we also think there may be foundational and structural adjustments to be made and that it’s not easy to do that without some pain. The way things have been working, we run enormous trade deficits with China and other…
So, farmers are upset and claiming that the “trade war” with China is putting them out of business. We don’t want to see any productive hard working people put out of business.  Especially farmers.  But we also think there may be foundational and structural adjustments to be made and that it’s not easy to do that without some pain. The way things have been working, we run enormous trade deficits with China and other…
His name is Brian Leiter.  He’s a law professor at the University of Chicago.  And he’s a big fan of Nietzsche.  He writes a blog about it. Ugh. Odd that we had never run across the man before – we have our own interest in the subject – because clearly he’s been at it a while. Somewhat recently we socialized with one of our friends from our undergraduate years who was also a philosophy major…