While poking around the web looking for information on "free-speech zones" (trying to figure out how on earth they pass muster under the First Amendment), I happened upon numerous references to this: In May of 2003, the Department of Homeland Security issued a terrorist advisory to local police departments warning them to be on the lookout for people who “expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the

If Alan Keyes can move to Illinois from Maryland just to run for senate, can I move to Illinois from Texas just to vote against him?

The two questions the U.S. Government has asked the Supreme Court to answer in Fanfan and Booker are: (1) Whether the Sixth Amendment is violated by the imposition of an enhanced sentence under the UnitedStates Sentencing Guidelines based on the sentencing judge’s determination of a fact (other than a prior conviction) that was not found by the jury or admittedby the defendant. (2) If the answer to

The criminal "justice" system can provide only the vaguest approximation of real Justice. Think of who makes the laws, and who enforces them. The system is designed to make the people with power feel like they're being protected from those who scare them -- those who are different than them. When true Justice is the result of a criminal case, it is mere coincidence. A wiser lawyer

I wrote this back in April: Before the war, the conventional wisdom was that Saddam Hussein thought that the American people didn't have the political will to go to war in the middle east. Bodies would start coming back in bags, and we would collectively realize the cost of war and reconsider the benefit. I hope Saddam was right -- that once it sinks in that 680

Lately I've been fielding lots of calls from people whose loved ones might be affected by the Supreme Court's decision in Blakely v. Washington. In a nutshell, Justice Scalia wrote in Blakely that, under Washington state's sentencing guidelines, it was unconstitutional for the judge to increase Mr. Blakely's sentence above the punishment authorized by the facts found by the jury. The consensus in the federal criminal law

My intent is for this blog to be a place for me to discuss the criminal justice system and related topics. "Related topics" is a pretty broad category because it's hard to imagine a topic that doesn't somehow relate to the defense of people accused of crimes. So I'll probably talk about whatever I feel like talking about here.