The Crime of the Moment
It looks like Seattle police may think the Sunday morning shooting deaths of four Lakewood police officers was the work of a guy who was reportedly out on $150,000 bail from another couple of crimes. However, the thing that everyone's going to be talking about is the fact that he had previously been sentenced to a 95-year sentence in Arkansas, but he was released early after his sentence was commuted by then-Governor and former---and presumably future---Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee. For Huckabee, this could be a Willie Hort

Thanks For My Friends
For the last twenty years or so, my wife and I have spent every Thanksgiving with my parents. However, my parents both passed away this year. Everyone says the holidays are hard times after a loss, and I've had two of them, so I've been a bit concerned about how this Thanksgiving would go. Fortunately, some good friends have invited us to join them for dinner. This year, my friends have helped me through a lot, and they're still helping. This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for my friends.

Keeping the Jury in the Dark
I'm guessing that most of you are neither lawyers nor career criminals, which means that, like me, your most significant role in the criminal justice system is probably going to be juror. As Norm Pattis explains, this means you're going to be kept in the dark: When we refuse to let juries know the truth about the consequences of a conviction in a criminal case we hamper a jury's ability to check the abuse of power. Juries that are not fully informed can't do their job. Withholding truth from juries is dishonest... We want juries to decide facts and facts a

Scattershot 2009-11-20
Random shots around the web: The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been returning overhead photos of the Apollo landing sites. Cory Maye is getting a new trial. Steve Landsburg slams Krugman and then praises Krugman. Sounds right to me in both cases. It just kills me that teachers grade students all the time, but their unions fight anything that sug

The Public Option to Healthcare Reform is Stupid
Putting a public option in the comprehensive healthcare reform bill is a stupid idea. Note that I'm not saying that the public option is a stupid idea, nor am I saying that comprehensive reform is a stupid idea. Either or both of those things could be stupid, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying it's stupid to have a comprehensive reform bill and a public option. Here's why: The stated purpose of the public option is to ensure that insurance companies offer quality healthcare by providing a competing option. If employees don't like any of their private choices, they can take the public option. Because of this, a public option is a complete solution