In an 8-3 decision released Monday, the Ninth Circuit has overturned a California law banning for-profit prisons from the state.  Evan Simon of the California Globe reports that the law (AB32) , adopted in 2019, was authored by then-Assemblyman Rob Bonta to help support California’s sanctuary state policies.   The purpose of the law was to prevent private companies, working …

Scientific American has this report by Dana Smith on execution via nitrogen hypoxia. Dudley Sharp has this critique of the article. As Mr. Sharp notes, all of the people interviewed by Ms. Smith for the article are opponents of the death penalty. As is standard practice in journalism now, opponents of the death penalty are not identified as such. The …

As the progressive prosecutor movement grows in popularity, we see more and more policy changes that reduce penalties for certain crimes. One of the common themes is de-prosecution, or the discretionary decision to not prosecute certain criminal offenses. Another aspect of de-prosecution involves reducing the severity of punishment for individuals who are prosecuted. The movement came about due to the …

State laws interfering with federal government operations within the state present a constitutional problem that goes back to the early days of the republic. In the early nineteenth century, the Bank of the United States was very controversial, and the State of Maryland tried to kill it with a discriminatory tax. The Supreme Court declared the tax unconstitutional in a …

The U.S. Department of Justice has published this notice in the Federal Register, asking for comments about the use of pentobarbital in executions. This may be another step in the game of execution whack-a-mole. When the gas chamber and electrocution were the common methods of execution, they were attacked with an argument that the pain inherent in those methods was …

With homicides in Philadelphia on track to eclipse last year’s record-setting 562 murders according to AXIOS,  District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office is working to reduce sentences for convicted murderers.  The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that last week a federal judge rejected Krasner’s effort to reduce the death sentence of a 1984 double-murderer, in a decision highlighting the fact that his office …

The Bureau of Justice Statistics recently released results from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) on 2021 victimization rates. Estimates are based on the number and characteristics of crimes that respondents experienced during the prior 6 months. There were no statistically significant changes in violent victimization or property victimization rates from 2020 to 2021, with virtually no change in the …

The U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California (LA and adjoining counties) issued this press release last Wednesday: Federal prosecutors today filed criminal charges against nine defendants – seven of them dockworkers at the Port of Long Beach – who allowed more than $2.1 million in fraudulent claims to be submitted to their labor union’s health insurance plan for …

Violent crime is on the rise in the U.S., according to 2022 survey results recently published by the Major City Chiefs Association (MCCA). The MCCA is a professional organization of police executives that advocates for the advancement of public safety through innovation, research, and policy development. The results presented here were collected as part of an annual survey of their …

Karen Bass, a member of Congress and candidate for LA Mayor, was the victim of a home burglary recently. KTTV has this interview. Ms. Bass says “my safety was shattered” and describes returning home to find the house burgled as “traumatic.” But isn’t burglary a “non-violent property crime”? Aren’t people who commit such crimes nearly harmless, to be handled with …