crime
The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the right to a trial by jury and to due process apply to people who face a steep sentencing enhancement under federal law, in a ruling that transfers some power from the hands of judges to the public and will affect many criminal defendants' future punishments. The procedural history of the case is a bit of a whirlwind. But at its center is Paul Erlinger, who was charged in 2017 with being a felon in possession of a firearm and sentenced to 15 years under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), which increases the punishment for that offense—felon in posses...
Reason
A federal judge late last month handed down the final sentence in a string of high-profile prosecutions related to a protest at an abortion provider in Washington, D.C. That defendant, Paulette Harlow, 75, received two years in prison for helping block an entrance to a clinic in October 2020. She joins nine other defendants who received sentences from 10 to 57 months' incarceration. That the group broke the law is basically beyond debate. Whether or not the law under which they were prosecuted should be a law at all, however, is not—a question worth interrogating regardless of where you fall o...
Reason
Since March of last year, the Australian state of Victoria has been rocked by a series of arsons and firebombings. Some of the targets are victims of extortion; others are caught in an escalating turf war between rival gangs. Two men with links to organized crime have been publicly murdered, one in a broad-daylight shooting at a shopping mall in a Melbourne suburb. Violent conflict is not unexpected in organized crime, but what is unusual is the drug at the center of this conflict: nicotine. This tobacco turf war has been widely covered in Australian media but generally ignored elsewhere. In i...
Reason
Three teenagers were arrested last week for allegedly vandalizing a Pride crosswalk in Spokane, Washington, by running scooters over the mural to create skid marks. Ruslan V.V. Turko, 19, and two unnamed minors were each charged with first degree malicious mischief, a felony. The criminal case pits two supposedly left-leaning values against each other: a desire to promote acceptance, and the idea that people should not be arrested and imprisoned for victimless crimes. Let's first break each one down. Is there any proof the teens were being intolerant, or is this a misunderstanding (especially ...
Reason
A new investigation from The Washington Post has revealed that over the past two decades, almost 1,800 police officers were charged with crimes related to child sexual abuse. Even worse, of those convicted, nearly 40 percent managed to avoid prison time. The investigation revealed a staggering lack of accountability for officers who sexually abuse minors—finding not only that convicted officers often received paltry sentences, but that police departments sometimes rehired officers with child sex abuse convictions. The Post's analysis looked at thousands of court filings, as well as The Henry A...
Reason
Violent crime in the U.S. dropped by a significant amount in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the previous year, according to the FBI's Quarterly Uniform Crime Report. The FBI data, which is collected from participating police departments across the country, shows that overall violent crime decreased by 15 percent nationally compared to the first quarter of 2023. "Murder decreased by 26.4 percent, rape decreased by 25.7 percent, robbery decreased by 17.8 percent, and aggravated assault decreased by 12.5 percent," the FBI reported. "Reported property crime also decreased by 15.1 percent." ...
Reason
"It was a very safe city." So said Mike Waters, owner of a pub in D.C.'s long-gentrified Dupont Circle area, in a neighborhood Zoom meeting this past January, neatly encapsulating a seemingly sudden deterioration in public safety. Violent crimes rose 39 percent in Washington, D.C., last year, including a 67 percent jump in robberies. Homicides increased a stunning 35 percent. Property crime rose 24 percent, with 3,756 motor vehicle thefts in 2022 becoming 6,829 in 2023. The city's 911 system struggled to handle 1.77 million calls, more per capita than anywhere else in the country. The trend di...
Reason
The topsy-turvy legal odyssey concerning a Michigan man's driving privileges, which has captivated the nation, took another turn yesterday when he reappeared in court not long after a video showed him behind the wheel of a car while he Zoomed into a hearing that was allegedly for driving with a suspended license charge. "This is for driving on a license suspended," said Judge J. Cedric Simpson of the 14A District Court in Washtenaw County on May 15. "That is correct, your honor," a public defender replied. It turns out that was not, in fact, correct. At least not in the literal sense, because ...
Reason
It was impossible to avoid the "strange bedfellows" cliché when reading about the criminal justice reform movement in the 2010s. Conservatives and evangelicals worked alongside bleeding-heart liberals and civil libertarians to fix what they all (at the time) agreed were unjust prison sentences and punitive policies. Fast-forward a decade, and the bipartisan sleepovers are over. Most of the same advocate groups are still lobbying for reform—and notching victories in some states—but the broad-based path for criminal justice reform bills has narrowed or altogether disappeared in other places. Cla...
Reason
In 2022, Yareni Rios was arrested in connection with an alleged road rage incident. When police detained her near train tracks in Weld County, Colorado, they left her locked in a police car parked on the tracks. Soon after, a train struck the car, leaving Rios with broken ribs, a broken arm, and injuries to her head, back, and legs. Last year, Rios sued the officers responsible. This week, two Colorado towns agreed to pay her a whopping $8.5 million settlement. "This is an excellent result," Paul Wilkinson, an attorney for Rios, told 9NEWS, a local news station, "especially when dealing with s...
Reason
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