Sunday Crime Stuff
The whole world doesn't revolve around prosecutors. Other good things to read today:
- Say hello to Prison Legal News, gathering injustice stories from all across the country.
- Republican maybe-candidate Fred Thompson writes there are too many federal crimes and criticizes the expanding prison population, but as Ilya at Volokh notes, he ignores the elephant in the room, the war on drugs.
However, there is a major elephant in this federalism room that Thompson doesn't mention. He is right to note the massive growth in the federal prison population over the last 20 years, but fails to point out that most of that growth is due to the War on Drugs.
- Don't miss the brief by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (pdf)filed in the Kimbrough case on crack cocaine penalties. It focuses on the racial impact of crack sentencing and how the disparity affects not only defendants but families and the community and undermines respect for law. [Hat tip to Peter Goldberger.]
- Also, via White Collar Defense Blog, check out the Federal Defender's amicus brief (pdf)in the Gall case on the reasonableness presumption of the federal sentencing guidelines.
< U.S. Attorney Vacancies: Do They Matter? | The Republican You Tube Debate > |