Supreme Court OK’s Longer Sentences for “Career Armed Criminals”

Bolstering the troubling trend toward more, and longer, mandatory minimum sentences, the Supreme Court today upheld the federal Armed Career Criminal Act, which allows prosecutors to seek longer mandatory sentences if a defendant has 3 or more prior convictions for crimes that are either violent felonies or serious drug offenses. In James v. United States, the Court upheld application of the law where one of the defendants prior convictions was for attempted burglary. As a consequence, James sentence was increased from not more than 6 years to a mandatory minimum of 15 years.

In Defense of Defense Lawyers

Randy Barnett, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, has an excellent op-ed piece in today’s Wall Street Journal. Barnett makes a great case for the critical role that defense lawyers play in protecting the rights of the innocent, and why that means that the rights of the guilty must be protected, too. Barnett’s work is always interesting, and his Journal piece especially so.

A God Awful Day

My apologies for not posting today. Sometimes the horror of life intervenes. My prayers are with those killed in the shootings at Virginia Tech today, and their families.

Another Reason to Be Disappointed in the Duke Administration

As if bowing to the wave of political correctness and abandoning their students to the public lynch mob last year were not enough, Duke University officialdom remains more or less unrepentant. The day after the charges against the Duke Three were dismissed, I received the following email from the Chairman of Duke’s Board of Trustees (I am a Duke alumnus):

Dear Member of the Duke University Community,

I write to you on behalf of the Trustees of Duke University.

Today the North Carolina State Attorney General announced that all remaining
charges against David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann have been
dropped and should never have been brought. This announcement explicitly and
unequivocally establishes the innocence of David, Collin and Reade, who with
their families have suffered an unimaginable year of accusation and public
scrutiny. They deserve our respect for the honorable way they have conducted
themselves during this long legal ordeal that ends with their exoneration.

The Attorney General determined that there was no credible evidence to support
the charges that were brought, with so many statements of certainty, by the
Durham District Attorney last spring. Many have suffered from his actions,
these three students and their families most of all. The Attorney General’s
investigation places responsibility for this miscarriage of justice with the
District Attorney, and we now look to the proceedings of the state bar to call
him to account before his peers.

Much as we wish that these three young men, their teammates and their families
and indeed the whole community of people who love Duke could have been spared
the agony of the past year, we believe that it was essential for the
University to defer to the criminal justice system. As imperfect and flawed as
it may be, it is that process that brings us today to this resolution.

Throughout the past year President Richard Brodhead consulted regularly with
the trustees and has had our continuing support. He made considered and
thoughtful decisions in a volatile and uncertain situation. Each step of the
way, the board agreed with the principles that he established and the actions
he took. As we look back and with the benefit of what we now know there is no
question that there are some things that might have been done differently.
However, anyone critical of President Brodhead should be similarly critical of
the entire board.

In closing, we express our relief for today’s outcome and recognize the
character that our three students, their teammates and all of their families
have shown over the past year. Furthermore, we hope that the resolution of
this unfair, divisive and painful episode can serve to unite us all. There is
much to learn from the events that we have lived through, and we intend to put
this learning to use. Duke is a great university that steps up to challenges
and opportunities, and together we will use this moment to make our community
stronger.

Robert K. Steel, Chair, Duke University Board of Trustees

So Mr. Steel and his colleagues wish this whole episode had not happened, and that the three young men are people of character. But where is the apology? Why not say “we’re sorry?” For throwing you to the media wolves. For the fact that our faculty bought into the portrayal of you as hooligans, and as a team out of control? For not doing the right thing, standing up and saying that our students are innocent until proven guilty, and until and unless guilt is proved in a court of law we stand behind them? Why not? Probably because that would take at least a small measure of courage. A lot of splainin’ to do, indeed.

What Really Happened at the Duke Lacrosse Party?

That is the focus of an article in the April 23rd issue of Newsweek. While largely a rehash of information available from other sources over the past year, the piece does provide some new details and is worth a read. One thing is clear – and was clear before the article – is that there is more than enough blame and shame to go around in this story, from Nifong, to the Duke faculty and administration, to the news media. One interesting point that the article makes, and that I would reiterate, is that the “behavior” by the lacrosse team that has been nearly universally labeled as “reprehensible” even if not criminal, i.e., having a party where underage men drank beer and hired strippers, was hardly a unique occurrence at Duke, or, for that matter, on any other college campus in America. And I would hope that everyone – even the moron Terry Moran – would agree, that drinking beer underage and paying money to a stripper, hardly excuses or justifies the making of false rape allegations.

Prosecution Will Not Seek Death Penalty in the Rafael Robb Case

Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor, who evidently intends to prosecute the case himself, announced on Thursday that the Commonwealth will not seek the death penalty in the case of Penn professor Rafael Robb, who is accused of brutally bludgeoning his wife to death. Interesting decision. Castor said that its not a death penalty case because there are no aggravating factors present. Not that I am a cheerleader for the death penalty, but the brutality of the killing would seem to me to be an aggravating factor. Unless Castor knows something of which I am not aware.

Terry Moran Should Apologize

In a post on his blog, ABC’s Terry Moran has posted one of the most insipid, offensive analyses of the dismissal of the charges against the Duke Three that I have seen. Moran’s analysis, in a nutshell, is that the three lacrosse players are not entitled to the sympathy that has been directed toward them because, he claims, they are white and affluent, becauase their behavior on the night in question was reprehensible even if not criminal, and because other criminal defendants are exposed to the same injustices every day. I was inclined to post a detailed refutation of Moran’s idiocy, but then I saw John Podhoretz’s post on National Review’s “The Corner.” Podhoretz does a fine job of shredding Moran’s “analysis.” So, in the last few days, we have learbed a few things. That Crystal Mangum is a liar and that Mike Nifong was her enabler. That even left wing talk show hosts like Don Imus can say stupid racist things. And that even jerks like Terry Moran can get jobs with a network news outfit. Moran owes an apology to the Duke lacrosse players. Just don’t wait for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to force the issue.

Update (4/14/07 at 6: 11 PM EDT): Will Bunch, who writes the “Attytood” blog for the Philadelphia Daily News, posted this takedown of Moran yesterday. By my estimation, the overwhelming majority of commentators, bloggers and blog commenters agree that Moran was out of line. I would suspect that the idiot posted his dreck solely for the purpose of generating controversy and getting people ton read his sorry blog. Of course given that Moran is generally an idiot, its always possible that he really believes the pure nonsense that he wrote.

Philadelphia Lawyer Faces Additional Charges

Philadelphia lawyer Larry Charles, about whom I posted previously when he was found naked with a 14v year old girl in a room in the Criminal Justice Center, faces charges for assaulting 5 other women, the Inquirer reported this morning. Mr. Charles was found in a Bucks County motel, apparently having suffered a drug overdose.

Nifong’s Non-Apology

Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong today issued what in his mind passes for an apology to the three Duke University lacrosse players who he had indicted, and planned to prosecute based upon the lies of Crystal Mangum, and whose lives he tried so hard to destroy. Nifong, of course, couches his not so mea culpa with such phrases as “to the extent that” and continues to try and defend his actions in the Duke rape case, claiming that

If I did not want to subject … my own performance to such scrutiny—if, in other words, I had anything to hide—I could have simply dismissed the cases myself … The fact that I instead chose to seek that review should, in and of itself, call into question the characterizations of this prosecution as `rogue’ and `unchecked.’

Listening to Mr. Nifong one feels as though perhaps one has fallen through the looking glass. Joe Cheshire, the lead attorney for David Evans, apparently would agree with my assessment:

It’s not an apology. It’s an excuse. It’s an attempt at an excuse,” Cheshire said. “It’s not an acceptance of responsibility. It’s a self- serving attempt to excuse bad behavior.

Perhpaps Mr. Nifond should try again.

The Duke University Administration and Faculty Have a Lot of ‘Splainin to Do

By now, if you are reading this post, you know that all of the charges against the three Duke University Lacrosse players indicted for rape and other alleged misdeeds have been dismissed, and that none other than the Attorney General of the State of North Carolina have pronounced the Duke Three innocent. The legal case – or at least the criminal phase of the case – is over. To me, the huge looming question at this point is what Duke University will do. Last spring, in the initial aftermath of the purported incident that gave rise to the indictments, the Duke officialdom did very little to distinguish itself or of which to be prod. Read more below the fold