Controversy over whether immigrants should be allowed to drive is a textbook example of how government retraints on freedom take on a life of their own and grow far beyond their original purpose.  The California legislature is set to allow undocumented immigrants obtain driver's licenses provided they pass the same tests as California citizens. (Full story from AP, via ABC)  Put simply, soon the California DMV will consider it irrelevant whether an applicant is a citizen and will consider driving skills only in whether to license a driver.  When driver's licenses were first required it was to ensure that drivers had enough skills to drive, over the years we have allowed it to become a de facto national identity card that the country has always been resistant to.  In Winston-Salem, police will sometimes detain people simply because they cannot provide any identification.  It is only because the legislature decided to regulate driving that we now talk about the privilege of having a driver's license.

Others believe that allowing undocumented immigrants to have driver's licenses and forms of ID such as consular identification cards will give illegal immigrants access to services they are not entitled to, such as having a bank account or renting a place to live. (NPR segment)  Funny, I always thought the way to access services was to pay for them.  What kind of services does someone qualify for simply by having a driver's license.  Why should you have to be a citizen to open a bank account?  If that is a good idea, why not require routine drug testing for everyone who opens a bank account or applies for a driver's license.  Or condition the issuance of a driver's license on submitting to random searches of cars.

A radical thought: issue driver's licenses to people who can pass the test. Period.  Let people with money open a bank account.  If you find someone is here illegally send them home.  If you really want to crack down on illegal immigation require a national citizenship card.  But let's not treat daily activities like driving and banking as some sort of privileges we should thank the government for.

It looks like the FBI was part of the Justice Department in name only, according to a Congressional report the New York Times wrote about:

The report focuses heavily on one episode, the 1965 murder of Edward Deegan, a small-time hoodlum, who was killed by Jimmy Flemmi and Joseph Barboza, who had just been recruited by an F.B.I. agent in Boston, H. Paul Rico.

The F.B.I. knew the two men were the killers because it had been using an unauthorized wiretap at the headquarters of the New England Mafia in Providence, R.I., and had heard Mr. Flemmi ask the Mafia boss, Raymond Patriarca, for permission to kill Mr. Deegan. A few days later Mr. Deegan was shot to death.

The F.B.I. was so intent on protecting its new informants, the report said, that it passed up a chance to try Mr. Patriarca for his involvement in the killing. Instead, four men who had nothing to do with the killing were tried and convicted, with two sentenced to death and two to life in prison. Two of the men later died in prison, and two had their sentences commuted and were freed after serving 30 years behind bars.

What kind of legitimate purpose is served by allowing murderers to get away with it and standing by while the innocent are convicted?

The fact that a British reporter for the Mirror was able to fake his background and get hired at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle has me wondering if the security-industrial complex doesn't have a fixation on high-tech gadgets and a distaste for old-fahioned gumshoeing.  For example, wanting a multi-million dollar explosive sniffer or Kevlar limousine, but failing to do routine background checks on employees. 

From my perch I see more crimes solved by basic investigation, tips and luck than by fancy forensic science, but you would never think that if you watch CSI.

 

 

Free legal advice: if the police catch you buck naked in a laundry room at an apartment complex where you do not live, exercise your right to remain silent.  No explanation will keep you from getting charged with something.  Nice details in  the story:

Locked away for a year at a time.  The offense: self-righteousness, overconfidence, egocentrism.

Repeat sex offenders are not sympathetic characters.  However it is scary to think about having to impress state psychiatrists and judges with a shining attitude before winning release.  New Jersey detains about 45% of sex offenders through a civil commitment process after they have finished their sentences.

The psychiatric profession admits what most of us feel in our bones.  That it is impossible to predict future dangerousness in an individual with any accuracy.  Certainly past experience has shown that many ex-cons will commit another crime following release from prison, but predicting who will re-offend with any accuracy is impossible.  Yet New Jersey and 15 other states pretend to do it.

I would not have a problem with a statute that provided for mandatory life without parole for a second sex offense. However it seems creepy to me to have to convince the government that you are no longer a danger to get out of prison.  If the New Jersey program operates in typical government ways it rewards the suck-ups and toadies and punishes anyone who is not 100% with the program.

 

The state needs 300 applications before it will issue the Appalachian Trail license plate.  These are the proposed designs.  Part of the fee will support the trail.  More information and plate applications here.

 

The Senate's solution to stopped-up judicial nominations: 30 hours of non-stop demagoguery, condemnation and recriminations.  It makes me think of 17th-century physicians who treated every disease with either bloodletting or purgatives.  What could be more wasteful or pointless than 100 millionaires earning six-figure salaries yelling at each other for 30 solid hours?

Federal judicial nominations have been highly controversial since the Bork and Rehnquist nominations in the mid- to late-1980's.  Neither party can claim any high ground, the GOP successfully blocked Clinton nominees (arguing at times that the open slots did not need filling) and now the Democrats are blocking GOP nominees now.  It is a sad commentary on politics but that is the way the game has been played for twenty years now.  It won't change.

Only a Senate rule change allowing for the full body to vote up or down on any nominee will solve the problem.  But no politician is willing to surrender the power to block activity, it is too important and will come in too handy when you need to prevent a military base closing in your state.

 

Opera director Gerald Thomas mooned a booing NYC audience unhappy with his re-working of a Wagner opera.  He has been charged with public indecency.  Maybe he was inspired by Saturday's lunar eclipse.

New York Times story.

 

Later thought: is Avril Lavigne in trouble?

 

This is the only NC photo of the lunar eclipse I've found.  I watched it live at Hanging Rock State Park.  The rest of the Blue Ridge Blog is worth checking out.

 

The contempt power has always frightened me.  The idea that a government official may summarily jail someone for offending him or her offends my sense of fairness.  When a woman is jailed for failing to follow the letter of an order requiring her to refinance her house after divorce, I have visions of an imperial judiciary telling the party "we are not amused." (See N&O Column by Ruth Sheehan).  In a contempt matter in Harnett County District Court Judge Albert Corbett ordered Sheryl Larson to jail for not following his order to refinance the house she was awarded in the divorce settlement.  The typical reason for requiring a refinance in these cases is to end the other spouse's obligation to pay the mortgage.  However, in the Larson case, the lender had already agreed to release Larson's spouse, so it is hard to see how the spouse was harmed.  It also is not clear that Larson could refinance, maybe no lender was willing to refinance.  When N&O columnist Sheehan asked Judge Corbett about while he felt jail was necessary, he replied,

While admittedly Larson, a single mother, elicits more sympathy than a man would, the fundamentals don't change when the roles are reversed.  Jailing a man under similar circumstances wouldn't make much sense either.  Judge Corbett's response sounds petty -- if that is the best justification he can muster for sending someone to jail, he should hang up the robe.

Contempt is a critical tool for the courts, but it works best when it is employed sparingly.  Contempt is legitimately applied to coerce parties into complying with court orders or to those who interfere with court functions.  When the offense is disrespect to the court, it is better to remember that respect is earned and that citizens are entitled to disagree with public officials, even judges.

In 2002 the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled that a person in the courtroom could be jailed for refusing to stand when court was adjourned.  The court reasoned in its ruling,

When I read this I thought that, while it is traditional to stand for the National Anthem or the President, no one is required to do so.  If the President can't sic the Secret Service on someone for refusing to stand, how can it be essential to the functioning of the court that everyone in the courtroom stand?

 

It's The Family Circus, only funny.

 

During oral arguments in a case challenging roadblocks to obtain information about a crime, Justice Steven Breyer made this roadblock friendly comment:

First some background from the New York Times: A week after a fatal hit and run, police set up a roadblock where they stopped cars, handed out fliers and asked for information.  The roadblock snared a drunk driver.  The Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the stop was unconstitutional since the officers had no reason to suspect a crime before stopping the drunk driver.

Roadblocks to catch drunk drivers have generally been ruled constitutional.  Drug roadblocks have been struck down.

I think Justice Breyer's comment misses the point, every government intrusion on liberty appears slight when viewed in isolation.  Is 10 seconds too much to ask to help solving a crime? No.  But it never seems to stop with just 10 seconds.

I spend 8-10 hours preparing my income tax forms (that is too much to ask).  I have to let someone look through my dirty clothes before I can get on a plane.  I have to fill out a form and wait 3 days to buy a pistol.  I have to show a photo ID let my papers and effects be scanned before I can enter a federal office building.  I have to wait in line at the DMV to get a photo ID.  While you can argue in most of these cases (income tax excepted) that the intrusion is small, sometime the totality of the police state gets a little daunting.

 

An Israeli lawyer tried to sue his wife for twice-daily sex.  Motion denied.

 

With the Patriot Act in the holster, the feds can't wait to slap leather, even when the target is Vegas casino owners.  What happened to limiting anti-terrorism laws to terrorists?

Bad news from the N.C. Court of Appeals.

It's great to see the search-engine queries that land people here:

 

 

 

Ida Know has also been listed as a "person of interest."  N.Y. Times story.

 

Cornell researchers have made a nanoguitar.

It should not have come as a surprise that the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to take up the case involving Judge Roy Moore in Alabama.  The case presented no novel issue in the area of public religious displays.  The consensus position from the cases is that religious symbols in government-sponsored displays are OK if they are part of collection of historical documents.  Judge Moore own words defending the monument make it clear that he did not consider the 10 Commandments part of a historical view of legal codes, but rather his endorsement of the view that God as the source of morality and therefore law.  Ruling in Judge Moore's favor would have required a wholesale revision Establishment Clause rulings.

Lots of people hate "The Family Circus" with a passion:

 

 

I'm to the right of Ghandi, but more libertarian (anarchist).  Eric Muller supplied to link to the Political Compass.

 

The number one factor in determining whether a domestic violence defendant in Forsyth County gets jail time is whether he has been able to hire an attorney or relied on a court-appointed attorney to defend him, according to comments attributed to the local DA in a Winston-Salem Journal editorial.  According to the statistics, for similarly situated defendants the one with court-appointed counsel is far more likely to get jail time than the defendant who hired his own attorney.

When I first heard that I thought it was a pretty sad commentary on the kind of defense that indigent clients get.  The answer may be that a privately retained attorney works harder because he or she is better paid.  That may not be all there is to it though.  I have handled hundreds of indigent cases since I went into private practice.  There is a glaring difference between clients who hire you and those you have been appointed to represent: initiative.  Here's what I mean: every client should expect to meet with the attorney before court.  When I have a client who is in jail, I try to get over to the jail ASAP to see them to learn about the case.  Often the clients in jail will call before I have even found out that I have been appointed.  On the other hand, clients who are not held in jail often make no attempt to meet with me before their first court date.  They are given my name address and phone number (all I get is their name and docket #), but only a minority of non-jail clients will call me.

That could explain some of why apparently similarly situated defendants get different treatment.  A client who is paying an attorney is more likely to follow the attorney's advice ("seek counseling," "be prepared to make restitution").  This could be one of those situations where correlation is does not indicate causation.  There is a correlation between appointed attorneys and bad outcomes, but it may not be true that appointed attorneys cause the bad outcome.  It may be that appointed attorneys get clients who lack either the motivation or the resources to do the kind of things that tend to convince judges to show mercy.

A caveat about statistics here: I have previously heard the DA's office talk about statistics that show something, but when asked to provide the actual numbers, the answer is something like "well it's anecdotal."  Anecdotes are not statistics, so if the DA is relying on anecdotal evidence, forget everything I just wrote.