My reading list for Dec. 12
A recent poll by Marquette Law School reported that a majority of respondents (64%) supported the recent Second Amendment opinion issued by the Supreme Court last June. Andrew Willinger from the Duke Center for Firearms Law queries whether the survey question [adequately captured the complexity] (https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2022/12/bruen-public-opinion-and-survey-design/) of the Bruen opinion:
The Institute for Justice is bringing court challenges against questionable traffic stop practices by police departments around the country. IJ contributor, writing in Forbes, [highlights what happened] (https://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2022/12/08/officers-have-a-lot-to-gain-from-unconstitutional-traffic-stops-but-not-a-lot-to-lose/) to Mario Rosales in Alexandria, Louisiana. Watch the accompanying body worn camera footage. Claims for the cause for the stop don’t stand up and a refusal to consent to a search is simply ignored.
Clark Neily, vice president for criminal justice of the Cato Institute, writes an [opinion essay on the power of prosecutors] (https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/prisons-are-packed-because-prosecutors-are-coercing-plea-deals-yes-ncna1034201) who wield coercive plea bargaining to undermine the fairness. Clark’s piece really hit home as the first 17 years of my career were as a public defender and I saw daily how people traded a plea for their freedom. Taking the chance to tell their side to a jury was too risky when facing a potential sentence in a middle of nowhere California prison.
Academics have coined troubled officers who evade accountability by bouncing from one department to another, “wandering officers.” Well, here’s an eye opening example from Texas that appeared in the Houston Chronicle: “In 2016, Luckhurst, a bike patrol officer, gave a homeless man a sandwich with dog feces inside it. A month later, after a female officer requested the women’s bathroom be kept clean, he and another policeman responded by defecating in the toilet without flushing, then spreading ‘a brown substance with the consistency of tapioca’ on the seat.” [You’d think that would end a policing career. Well...] (https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/texas/article/sa120622CopAccounatibility-17635024.php)
Last week, New York City’s mayor announced that NYPD officers could start ordering mentally ill people into care. Anthony Almojera, an EMS lieutenant and author of “Riding the Lightning: A Year in the Life of a New York City Paramedic,” urges a cautious consideration of the potential harm in his [New York Times essay] (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/opinion/nyc-paramedic-mental-health-crisis.html)