That’s when the criminal justice episode of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! premieres on Showtime. It will feature commentary from your humble Agitator.
I haven’t heard if this episode will feature gratuitous nudity. I can say for certain that it won’t feature any of my nudity, gratuitous or otherwise. Just sweet, naked reason.
I’ve written a couple columns recently about NYPD’s broken windows crime policy, which along with the statistics-driven CompStat reporting system has created some twisted incentives. The two policies seem to be driving NYPD’s patrol officers to harass New Yorkers for non-crimes through an aggressive stop-and-frisk policy, while at the same time encouraging the under-reporting of actual crimes.
The Village Voice has been publishing and reporting on a series of audio recordings taken by a NYPD officer that seem to confirm both policies. Earlier this month, the Voice published an alarming interview with NYPD Detective Harold Hernandez, who says pressure the pressure to reclassify sexual assaults as misdemeanors left a rapist free to commit more assaults.
Responding to the ongoing Voice series “NYPD Tapes,” Hernandez reveals publicly for the first time that the downgrading of crimes to manipulate statistics allowed a man to commit six sexual assaults in a Washington Heights neighborhood in 2002 before he was finally caught after his seventh attack.
The initial six crimes, committed over a two-month period, went unnoticed by 33rd Precinct detectives, Hernandez says, because patrol supervisors had improperly labeled most of them as misdemeanors. It was only through a lucky break—an alert neighbor spotted the suspect pushing his seventh victim into her apartment—that the rapist, Daryl Thomas, was finally captured.
After his arrest, Hernandez persuaded Thomas to detail his earlier crimes. The detective then combed through stacks of crime complaint reports to identify the pattern of violence.
Hernandez learned that most of the victims’ complaints in the prior assaults had been classified as criminal trespassing, so the incidents never reached the detective squad and, in turn, were never declared a pattern, which would have triggered an intense campaign to capture the perpetrator.
In today’s Voice, civil libertarian Nat Hentoff slags NYPD Chief Ray Kelly, pointing to new lawsuits estimating that more than 90 percent of the people harassed in stop-and-frisk operations are never fined or arrested. (Many of those arrested are also never charged.) Hentoff notes that Kelly is fawned over in the press as a “rock star” chief who “radiates power” (and likely running for mayor). Hentoff points to a New Yorker profile of Kelly which asks, “The long-serving NYPD Commissioner is autocratic, dismissive of civil liberties concerns—and effective. Is that a reasonable trade?”
Given mounting evidence that at least part of New York’s perpetually declining crime stats may be due to underreporting, it’s probably time to start asking questions about the “effective” part, too.
Crunching on an article today, but I saved these open browser tabs just for you…
My column this week is on how the confirmation process is designed to keep us as ignorant as possible about how a prospective Supreme Court justice would actually perform on the bench.
Warm congratulations to friend-of-TheAgitator.com and rock star libertarian attorney Alan Gura for his second Supreme Court victory.
It was a 5-4 decision, with the justices aligning exactly as you’d think they would. Thomas made the principled case for reviving the Privileges or Immunities Clause. Scalia predictably punted, acknowledged he doesn’t really agree with his own opinion.
MORE: This past weekend in Chicago, home of the gun ban the Court just struck down: 54 shot, 10 dead.
So if I’m correctly reading the various tributes to Sen. Robert Byrd floating around the web this morning, I’m supposed to celebrate how the man atoned for his bigotry earlier in life by devoting the rest of his life to public service . . . where he used other people’s money to build monuments to himself.
That this could be considered a form of redemption says all you need to know about what the political class considers important.
Daisy and I were at the dog park yesterday when a mighty Tennessee thunderstorm tore the sky open upon us. I found it all exhilarating. The pup, not so much.
Good for the custard shop manager. It’s like Biden is shocked the guy isn’t awed and honored by his very presence. We need to be less deferential to politicians. And yes, that goes for both sides. I praised Jim Webb when he refused to shake Bush’s hand, too.
…after eight years of imprisonment. The ruling came last month, but its relevance is magnified by Charlie Savage’s report in the New York Times yesterday that Obama has essentially dispensed with his campaign promise to close down Guantanamo.
What’s most significant about this is that Hassen is now the 36th detainee who has won his habeas hearing since the Supreme Court in 2008 ruled they have the right to such hearings — out of 50 whose petitions have been heard. In other words, 72% of Guantanamo detainees who finally were able to obtain just minimal due process (which is what a habeas hearing is) — after years of being in a cage without charges — have been found by federal judges to be wrongfully detained. These are people who are part of what the U.S. Government continues to insist are “the worst of the worst” who remain, and whose release is being vehemently contested by the Obama DOJ.
Terrifying photo essay from Foreign Policy on the world’s failed states. Note that with just a few exceptions, the 60 or so states the magazine had determined to be “failed” are located in tropical climates.
Someone recently sent me this fascinating video related to the new book by sociologist Philip Zimbardo (of the Stanford prison experiments fame–or infamy, I guess). The theme of Zimbardo’s new book is the way time is perceived among different cultures. Of relevance to the Foreign Policy essay is the idea that populations and cultures in northern climes have adopted a future-oriented timeframe, likely because it’s necessary for their survival. You have to stock food, fortify shelter, and so on to prepare for the winter months or you’re going to starve. Or freeze. Tropical populations have a more present-oriented concept of time. Food is available year round. There’s no winter for which they need to prepare. I’ve read some interesting commentary on how these differing concepts of time might explain why warmer countries have been slower to develop than cooler ones.
I don’t know nearly enough about developmental economics or sociology to gauge the validity of the theory. I just find it interesting. Would be interested to hear what readers with some specialized knowledge in this stuff think.
….I am not in favor of eugenics for Uzbeks.
Just the Dutch.
Yesterday, the Mississippi Supreme Court granted petitions for certiorari to both sides in the Cory Maye case.
Maye was convicted of capital murder in 2002 for shooting and killing police officer Ron Jones during a 2001 drug raid on Maye’s home. Maye says he didn’t now the men breaking into his home were police. Last year, the Mississippi Court of Appeals granted Maye a new trial on a claim that he should have been permitted to move the trial back to the country where the alleged crime was committed after his trial attorney requested it be moved to another county, then thought better of that request. That ruling dismissed some of his Maye’s other claims, but also neglected to address others. The state appealed the court’s ruling for a new trial on the venue claim. Once they did, Maye’s attorneys filed their own appeal, asking the court to address the other issues the appeals court dismissed or declined to discuss.
The Mississippi State Supreme Court has a pretty high rate of reversal when it takes up cases from the Mississippi Court of Appeals, which would seem to be bad news for Maye. But this case is more complex. The only thing that’s clear at this point is that the court is divided.
Looking at the votes to grant cert, four justices granted cert only to Maye’s claims. Three justices voted only to grant cert to the state’s claims. One justice voted to hear both, and one voted to hear neither. That makes for some complicated reading of the tea leaves.
The court could do several things, here. It could simply uphold the appeals court ruling and send the case back to Jefferson Davis County for a new trial. It could overturn on the venue issue, but grant a new trial on a different claim. It could both uphold the appeals court and rule in Maye’s favor on additional claims, which could limit the way the state is permitted to present its case at the new trial. Or, of course, it could overrule the appeals court, dismiss all of Maye’s claims, and Maye would be back to life without parole and no prospect of a new trial. There’s also a slim possibility that prior case law—particularly the case of Wheeler v. Mississippi—could compel the court to actually order an acquittal.
So this may actually be good for Maye, though I suspect he and his attorneys would have preferred the certainty of the court refusing cert and proceeding directly to the new trial.
My 2006 article on Maye’s story here. And here’s the award-winning Reason.tv documentary on Maye, Mississippi Drug War Blues.
“It’s a great moment. I’m proud to have been here. No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we’ve done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done.”
That’s a “teary” Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), on the financial overhaul bill assembled by leaders in both houses this week. So Dodd, the chair of the committee with jurisdiction over the bill, has no idea how the bill work. Which also means he has no idea if it will work. Which also means he has no idea if the bill will do more harm than good. Nonetheless, he’s certain it was needed, and is proud to have helped make it happen.
Here’s “Folk Bloodbath,” Josh Ritter’s beautiful tribute to the murder ballad. It’s off his new album, which carries the Agitator.com seal of approval.
Another drug warrior invents facts. Check the video below from Stossel’s show last week, in which former ONDCP official and narcotics officer Paul Chabot debates former narcotics cop and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition speaker Neil Franklin.
At one point, Chabot says the “majority” of crimes that take actual victims are committed by people under the influence of illegal drugs. That isn’t true. According to data from Chabot’s former employer, it’s around 22 percent at federal level, and 33 percent at the state level. And of course that doesn’t mean the drugs caused the crimes. Or even contributed to them. Though I’m sure there’s some of both. The only conclusion you can safely draw from those numbers is that there’s some overlap between people who use illegal drugs and people who commit violent and property crimes.
Chabot also says in the video that parents in San Francisco “don’t take their kids to the park anymore” because of the legal marijuana dispensaries. What does tha tmean? All parents? Some? A majority? Has he conducted a survey? I’m relatively certain he made this up too, but I guess I can’t really prove him wrong from my apartment in Nashville. I’m not even sure it’s possible to prove a statement like that right or wrong. I’m sure Chabot could find some parents who are frightened of the stoners. I’m sure I could find plenty who aren’t. So hey, San Francisco readers: Do you have kids? Are you afraid to take them to the park of late because of the marijuana fiends?
In the second video, Chabot, Franklin, and Jeff Miron take questions from the audience. During that segment, Chabot actually invokes the “surge” in Iraq in arguing for stepping up the drug war (and in doing so completely avoids the question posed to him). Just in case you were still under the delusion that the term “drug war” is a metaphor. He also says there are more youth entering rehab today for marijuana than all other drugs combined. I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is, it’s because courts and prosecutors make rehab a punishment for people arrested for possession (or, more likely, a condition for their charges to be dropped). Chemically, marijuana is less addictive than nicotine or caffeine.
Finally, Chabot says cops aren’t out there “hooking and booking” pot smokers. Chabot need only take a few steps out of the studio where this segment was filmed, where tricking pot smokers into committing crimes is a matter of policy at NYPD.
MORE: As someone in the comments section points out, Chabot recently ran for the California State Assembly. He lost in the GOP primary this month. He’s also a former drug addict. Never underestimate the tyranny of the former addict.
Politicians really are ridiculous people.
(Via Matt Welch)
I know many of you are still in awe of the Chipps Cooney video I posted last night. Here, he actually explains how he does his tricks. This is probably going to get him kicked out of the Alliance.
Federal edition: A website run by the federal government to debunk conspiracy theories about the federal government. Somehow, I doubt the people for whom this site is intended are going to find it convincing. (Thanks to TheAgitator.com commenter Dana Gower for the tip.)
State edition: North Carolina Alcohol Beverage Control board officials spend six months investigating topless bars in Charlotte. The fruit of their dogged investigation: Sixteen dancers charged with indecent exposure for going nude below the waist. (Thanks to H&R commenter Soylent Greens for the tip.)
I have a longish post at Hit & Run on three new puppycide incidents in the news this week.
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