AG Barr gives 'lunatic authoritarian speech'

Attorney General William Barr vociferously attacked Democratic lawmakers and federal judges and accused them of trying to limit Trump's presidential power, reported NPR.

During a sweeping speech at a conference of The Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization, Barr said Democrats "essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government."

Barr's speech drew swift criticism from legal experts, some of whom decried its ideas as "authoritarian" and "dangerous." It comes as Trump's use of presidential power faces intense scrutiny. Lawmakers involved in the impeachment inquiry are trying to determine whether the president abused the power of the presidency by seeking to trade military aide to Ukraine for a political favor.

The attorney general has long been a champion of expansive presidential power, commenting on that he "admires a muscular executive."

Neil Kinkopf, a law professor at Georgia State University, testified at Barr's confirmation hearing earlier this year that he opposed Barr's nomination over concerns about his views on executive authority. Kinkopf saw the speech in person, and said Barr's comments were "all very consistent with everything he's always said."

But putting it together in the way he did yesterday with the broad sweep, I think it makes it absolutely clear what some of us have always thought — which is that this is a person who holds dangerous views about the scope of presidential power," he added.

Barr described a "resistance" that began as soon as Trump was elected. "The fact of the matter is that in waging a scorched-earth, no holds barred war of resistance against this administration, it is the left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and undermining the rule of law," he said.

The attorney general expressed frustration that Trump has faced obstacles to implementing his policies, despite the fact that many of them were outlined for voters before they went to the polls. "While the president has certainly thrown out the traditional beltway playbook and punctilio, he was upfront about what he was going to do and the people decided they wanted him to serve as president," he said.

Kinkopf said he felt Barr was making "a very dangerous suggestion that dissent and opposition is somehow contrary to democracy — it's in fact the core and spirit of democracy."

Richard Painter, who was the top ethics lawyer for George W. Bush, described the remarks as a "lunatic authoritarian speech."

"While the attorney general is a political appointee of the president, the attorney general needs to maintain a posture of neutrality in ongoing investigations and particularly criminal matters," Painter told NPR.

And yet, Painter said Barr's speech was "extremely partisan, castigating the so-called resistance, characterizing all those who were concerned about the Trump administration as being part of the far left."

Barr said the powers of the executive in the U.S. have been encroached upon for decades by the other branches of government. "This process, I think, has substantially weakened the function of the presidency to the detriment of the nation," he said.

Painter, now a law professor at the University of Minnesota, says he has seen the opposite — an expansion of executive power under Trump and previous presidents, including Bush and Barack Obama. "President Trump has gone further than his predecessors on the policy side," he said.

Kinkopf also viewed Barr's claim as ahistorical. He said that while Congress strongly reasserted its role in the aftermath of Vietnam, presidential power has been steadily expanding for decades since then. "I think since 1981, it's been nothing but an upward line," he said. Claims that Trump's lawyers are making that he should be immune from criminal prosecution, Kinkopf added, are "virtually unprecedented."

Barr also dished out criticism of the federal courts, which have frequently issued injunctions that acted to freeze controversial Trump policies, such as the travel ban that restricted entry into the U.S. for citizens of certain countries.

"It is no exaggeration to say that virtually every major policy of the Trump administration has been subjected to immediate freezing by the lower courts," Barr stated. "No other president has been subjected to such sustained efforts to debilitate his agenda."

The attorney general criticized the courts for considering the president's motives when they assess the legality of a policy, saying this amounts to "attempts by courts to act like amateur psychiatrists."

"Well, if that's right, there is very little in the way of a legal constraint on the president's exercise of his powers," said Kinkopf. For example, if the president was motivated by a bribe to issue a pardon, there would be little mechanism to hold him accountable because it's well within his authority to issue a pardon. "The suggestion that we can't question his motives, that that's somehow improper, cuts to the heart of the rule of law."

He added that Trump is providing, in real time and on Twitter, clear statements about his motivations in a way that other presidents did not. "We have now a president who tweets his motives right in the middle of the night, constantly ... and so what's a court to do now that it has evidence that it never had access to before?

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Georgia executes man who sat on death row 25 years

The 20th Execution of 2019

Ray Jefferson Cromartie was sentenced to die for the murder of Richard Slysz, a food store clerk in Thomasville, Ga., in April 1994, reported The Marshall Project. His execution originally scheduled for October 30 was stayed at the last moment.

The day before Slysz's death, Cromartie went to the Madison Street Deli armed with a borrowed .25-caliber and found Dan Wilson washing pans. Cromartie shot Wilson in the neck and then tried to get into the deli's register. A surveillance camera captured the sound of the shots from the back of the restaurant and an image of Cromartie trying to open the register.

The next day, he asked his cousin if he heard about the shooting and took credit for it. Later that day, April 8, 1994, Cromartie and two others headed for the Junior Food Store. Cromartie and Corey Clark went into the store while Thaddeus Lucas waited in the car, believing they were there to steal beer.

Moments later, Cromartie shot Slysz twice in the head. Cromartie and Clark then tried and failed to open the register, so they left only with two 12-packs of Budweiser. A passing motorist saw them running from the store when they dropped one of the beers on the ground.

Cromartie was tied to the crime because he left behind a footprint and a thumbprint. Lucas and Clark testified against Cromartie. They were sentenced to prison, and Cromartie was sentenced to die.

His appeals over the years focused on several issues. His unsuccessful claims included certain jurors should not have been seated, evidence was suppressed and his lawyer failed to find it, false testimony was allowed and one of the jurors made her decision to vote for death after reading a particular Bible verse.

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GateHouse: Impeachment represents very different things in a divided country

Matthew T. Mangino

GateHouse Media

November 15, 2019

I grew-up in a small Italian community in western Pennsylvania. I was about 11-years-old during the televised Watergate impeachment hearings. Millions of Americans were enthralled by the hearings.

I remember “Briefcase Charlie.” He was the local barber who moved a television into his shop so that he, and his customers, could watch every minute of the hearings. About 10 days into the 51 days of hearings Charlie began carrying a briefcase to the barbershop.

Most of the time there was a lot more chirping than clipping, but people were genuinely interested in the proceedings. The three major networks and public television brought the hearings into everyone’s home, workplace and yes, even their barbershop.

There was no Fox News or MSNBC to parade an endless line of talking heads to tell viewers what they should be getting out of the hearings. There was Walter Cronkite, John Chancellor and Harry Reasoner, trusted news anchors who didn’t twist the news from any specific bias or on behalf of a political party.

That is the big difference between 2019 and 1973. Americans are not all watching the same thing. In 1973 there was a sense of community - a nation watching the impeachment hearings without a filter. The opportunity was there to make up one’s own mind.

Today, America is polarized and those interested in the impeachment hearings are not watching through the same lens - literally and figuratively. In a literal sense, viewers are watching the hearings through their favorite news lens - television (Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity) social media, podcasts, fake news or news prepared specifically for us based on our internet preferences.

The Washington Post characterized the cable news coverage after the first day of the Trump hearings like this - CNN and MSNBC focused heavily on the revelations made during the public hearing. Fox News, however, generally focused on the context for the hearing, disparaging Democrats and waving away the actual testimony.

The Post suggested, “What’s outlined is three hours not of coverage of the hearing but, instead, of framing of it.” CNN, MSNBC and Fox News anchors and guests interpreted for viewers what they just saw and heard for themselves.

In a figurative sense, most Americans don’t look at politics with an open mind, they are either “this” or “that.” Voters view issues through their own political lens. Political discussions play-out like this, “I support the Second Amendment, you don’t, so you’re a bad person.” We have become so polarized in this nation that we dwell on those things that divide us and ignore those that unite us.

There are 435 members of the House of Representatives and 100 members of the U.S. Senate. The primary goal of those 535 men and women is to get re-elected and keep their respective parties in power. Unlike those that John F. Kennedy wrote about more than a half century ago, there are no profiles in courage in modern American politics.

Politicians no longer even try to bring the country together. Instead of speaking to the entire country, politicians cater to their base. President Donald Trump talks to disenchanted white males and Nancy Pelosi panders to left-leaning progressives. Those in the middle are ignored and guess what - they are ignoring the process right back.

During the Watergate hearings, Sen. Howard Baker, emphasized that the only way the Republican Party could be “mortally wounded” by Watergate would be “for the public to think that we Republicans don’t have the courage, the stamina and the determination to clean our own house.”

Nobody is talking about cleaning their own house. Politicians, and their supporters, hoot and holler “drain the swamp,” “impeach him,” “lock her up” - those are not the rousing chants of statesmen, it is the divisive rhetoric of demagogues.

Maybe we shouldn’t wax eloquent about the comity of 1973 - there was certainly division in the country at the time - we should also not expect the same result as the 1973 hearings - a new president.
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010” was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.

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Former inmate released under First Step Act arrested for murder

Joel Francisco who served 14 years of a life sentence for selling crack cocaine and was released under the First Step Act has been arrested for murder in Rhode Island, reported CNN.

A landmark piece of criminal justice reform legislation, passed with the support of President Donald Trump and rare bipartisan backing, had made Francisco newly eligible for an older law that reduced the sentences for convicted crack dealers.

Behind bars, the former gang leader had made "significant efforts toward post-conviction rehabilitation" and had separated himself from the "proverbial 'herd'" while "committing himself to a law-abiding life," he wrote in an application for his release.

In February, with the approval of federal prosecutors and a district court judge, Francisco became one of the first federal prisoners to walk free as a result of the First Step Act.

Last month, he was handcuffed again, accused this time of stabbing to death 46-year-old Troy Pine at a Providence, Rhode Island, hookah lounge.

More than 4,700 inmates have been released from prison under the law since its signing late last year, according to the Department of Justice, and federal officials believe Francisco is the first among them to be accused of murder.

While an outlier, his case is raising questions and resurfacing concerns from detractors of the legislation.

"This case is upsetting but it's not a surprise," said Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican who was one of the bill's biggest critics on Capitol Hill. "Letting violent felons out of prison early as the First Step Act did leads to more crime and more victims."

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Thiel College-The Death Penalty

Thiel College-Comment Project No. 5

The neuropsychology issue raised in juvenile death penalty cases before the U.S. Supreme Court has jumped to non-death penalty cases like juvenile life without parole. Do you think brain development cases will further seep into juvenile criminal jurisprudence?  Explain your position in detail.

Will SCOTUS expand the ability of police to stop motorists?

Michael McGough, senior opinion writer for the Los Angles Times, formerly of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes:

The 4th Amendment prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures.” But the Supreme Court has interpreted that protection pretty loosely when it comes to traffic stops, for which the police need only “reasonable suspicion” that the law is or has been broken. (The same indulgent standard applies when police stop and frisk a pedestrian.)

This week the justices heard arguments in a case that could make it even easier for the police to stop — and potentially search — a car. Ominously, the majority seemed likely to give police an additional benefit of the doubt.

The case stems from a 2016 incident in which a sheriff’s deputy in Douglas County, Kan., spotted a pickup truck and decided to run the vehicle’s license plate through a state registration database. The search turned up the information that Charles Glover Jr., the owner, had had his driver’s license revoked.

The deputy stopped the truck, which was being driven by Glover, and cited him for the offense of habitually driving with a suspended license.

This might seem an easy case. But Glover challenged the legality of the traffic stop, claiming that the deputy had made an unreasonable assumption that the owner of the car (whose license had been suspended) was in fact the person driving the car. (It doesn’t matter that it turned out that the driver was the owner; an unconstitutional search or seizure is unconstitutional even if it turns out that the suspect committed the offense.)

A lawyer for Kansas, backed by the U.S. Justice Department, told the justices on Monday that it’s a “common-sense inference” that the owner of a car is also the driver. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. seemed to agree, telling Glover’s lawyer that “if they’re relying on common sense, they don’t have to give you anything more than common sense.”

But is it really common sense that a car is being driven by its owner? Lots of people lend their cars to friends or family members.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested that drivers whose licenses have been suspended might actually be less likely to be the driver of the car. Roberts pushed the opposite idea, that a driver with a suspended license would be more likely to drive anyway because he or she has “already broken the law in some sense.” Studies cited by Kansas in its appeal to the court suggest that many drivers with suspended licenses do continue to drive and are more hazardous on the road than are licensed drivers.

Even so, a significant amount of the time the driver won’t be the owner. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch suggested that the assumption that an owner of a car is the driver, or vice versa, may become less valid over time because “the next generation ... often rents cars.”

Why does all this matter?

It’s already far too easy for the police to stop cars either under the “reasonable suspicion” standard or on the pretext of some minor violation such as broken taillight. If the court rules for Kansas, police will be able to stop a car based on the status of the owner’s driver’s license — even though it may be the owner’s son or daughter (or neighbor) behind the wheel.

And remember: A stop isn’t just a stop. It can lead to a search of the passenger compartment for weapons that can also result in the seizure of illegal drugs that are in plain view. Subjecting a driver to that invasion of privacy because of someone else’s suspended license is not “reasonable.”

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Hate crimes on the rise, especially those against Latinos

Personal attacks motivated by bias or prejudice reached a 16-year high in 2018, the F.B.I. said, with a significant upswing in violence against Latinos outpacing a drop in assaults targeting Muslims and Arab-Americans, reported the New York Times.

Over all, the number of hate crimes of all kinds reported in the United States remained fairly flat last year after a three-year increase, according to an annual F.B.I. report. But while crimes against property were down, physical assaults against people were up, accounting for 61 percent of the 7,120 incidents classified as hate crimes by law enforcement officials nationwide.

State and local police forces are not required to report hate crimes to the F.B.I., but the bureau has made a significant effort in recent years to increase awareness and response rates. Still, many cities and some entire states failed to collect or report the data last year, limiting the conclusions that can be drawn from the F.B.I. report.

In addition, experts say that more than half of all victims of hate crimes never file a complaint with the authorities in the first place.

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