criminaljustice
"In the courtroom, we see Donald Trump for who he is," says a new Biden campaign ad. "He's been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual assault, and he committed financial fraud." One of these things is not like the others. Those "34 felonies" sound like Trump's most serious offenses, and they are the only justification for calling him "a convicted criminal," as the ad also does. But those crimes were bookkeeping offenses that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg converted into felonies via a convoluted, legally iffy theory that combined several interacting statutes with questiona...
Reason
Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore will issue a blanket pardon for low-level marijuana convictions in the state today, a move that the governor's office estimates will clear the records of an estimated 100,000 people. Moore's office claims it is the largest mass pardon by a state related to marijuana, and the first to include offenses for the possession of paraphernalia as well. Maryland legalized recreational marijuana last year after voters approved a 2022 constitutional amendment by 67 percent. Moore says the pardons are an effort to remove the burdens of felony convictions, such as barrier...
Reason
Can state police track drivers everywhere they go via hundreds of license plate cameras? A new lawsuit says that Illinois' widespread use of such cameras—called automatic license plate readers (ALPRs)—violates the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches because it breaches citizens' reasonable expectations of privacy. The complaint—filed by two residents of Cook County, Stephanie Scholl and Frank Bednarz, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on May 30—names the Illinois State Police (ISP), ISP Director Brendan F. Kelly, Illinois Attorney General...
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
America isn't alone in its moral panic over sex trafficking, as an Argentinian case against a self-help center called the Buenos Aires Yoga School (BAYS) suggests. Prosecutors are trying the school's 85-year-old founder, Juan Percowicz, and a number of its members, alleging that the school was really a cult engaged in brainwashing and sex trafficking. Authorities raided the group's headquarters and the houses of 50 members two summers ago, accusing the group of being a front for an international sex slavery ring. Seventeen people, including Percowicz, were arrested and jailed on suspicion of h...
Reason
A federal jury in Delaware today found Hunter Biden guilty of three felonies based on his purchase of a revolver from a Wilmington gun shop in October 2018. That outcome is not surprising, since Biden had publicly admitted that he was a regular crack cocaine user around the time of the transaction. But Biden can still challenge the verdict by arguing that his prosecution violated the Second Amendment—a claim that pits him against his own father. The central charge against the president's son was a violation of 18 USC 922(g)(3), which makes it a felony for an "unlawful user" of a "controlled su...
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
In this week's The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman scrutinize President Joe Biden's executive order updating asylum restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border in response to illegal border crossings. 00:00—Biden's new asylum restrictions 00:00—The prosecution of political opponents: former President Donald Trump, Hunter Biden, and Steve Bannon 00:00—Weekly Listener Question 00:00—No one is reading The Washington Post 00:00—This week's cultural recommendations Mentioned in this podcast: "Biden Announces Sweeping Asylum Restrictions at ...
Reason
Last November, federal prosecutors invited Ilene Wahpeta, an incarcerated woman, to give a victim impact statement at the sentencing of Andrew Jones, a Bureau of Prisons (BOP) employee who was convicted of sexually assaulting three other inmates. Less than a year later, the U.S. government is fighting a petition Wahpeta filed for early release based on the same allegations that prosecutors previously invited her to speak about, arguing she wasn't a named victim in the criminal case against Jones and that her claims aren't credible. The Justice Department announced in 2022, amid several damning...
Reason
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