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Grafton Thomas, the suspect in Saturday’s horrifying machete attack on Hasidic Jews in Monsey, New York, was arrested over the weekend and charged with five counts of attempted murder, a Class A-1 felony punishable by 15 years to life in prison, and one count of first-degree burglary, a Class B felony punishable by five to 25 years in prison. Yesterday he was charged with five federal hate crimes, each of which could result in a life sentence or the death penalty. A good question, rarely asked in cases like this, is why the federal charges, which are based on the same conduct as the state charges, are appropriate or necessary.

Thomas is accused of violating 18 USC 247, which makes it a federal crime to intentionally and forcibly obstruct “any person in the enjoyment of that person’s free exercise of religious beliefs” when “the offense is in or affects interstate or foreign commerce.” That crime is punishable by “imprisonment for any term of years or for life” or by execution if it involves “an attempt to kill.”

The criminal complaint filed by FBI Special Agent Julie Brown notes that Thomas attacked people who were attending a Chanukah party, which included “lighting candles and reciting prayers” (the blessings said while lighting the candles), at a rabbi’s home, which was next door to a synagogue and was itself considered a “place of worship.” Thomas’ violent invasion thus interfered with “the free exercise of religious beliefs.”

Did he do so intentionally? Brown notes that the victims were “members of the Hasidic community and were, thus, easily identifiable as adherents to the Jewish faith.” She also cites evidence discovered during a search of Thomas’ home that seems relevant to his motive.

A handwritten journal included the statement that “the ‘Hebrew Israelites’ took from the ‘powerful ppl (ebinoid Israelites),'” apparently a reference to the belief, promoted by the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, that African Americans are the true descendants of the ancient Israelites, while Jews falsely claim that lineage. Thomas wondered in his journal “why ppl mourned for anti-Semitism when there is Semitic genocide.” Brown says he “referr[ed] to ‘Adolf Hitler’ and ‘Nazi Culture’ on the same page as drawings of a Star of David and a Swastika.”

The complaint also notes internet searches recovered from Thomas’ smartphone. He searched for “Why did Hitler hate the Jews” on four occasions in November and December. He looked for “German Jewish Temples near me” on November 18, “Zionist Temples in Elizabeth NJ” and “Zionist Temples of Staten Island” on December 18, and “prominent companies founded by Jews in America” on December 27. The next day, Thomas viewed an article headlined “New York City Increases Police Presence in Jewish Neighborhoods After Possible Anti-Semitic Attacks. Here’s What To Know.”

The distinctive attire of Hasidim, Thomas’ private musings about Jews, and his internet history all reinforce the idea that he targeted Jews qua Jews, as opposed to attacking people at random. Brown therefore argues that there is probable cause to believe he intentionally obstructed their religious freedom.

What about the requirement that “the offense is in or affects interstate or foreign commerce”? Brown notes that the 18-inch Ozark Trail machete used in the attack was made in China. The Justice Department believes that sort of tenuous connection to interstate or foreign commerce is enough to invoke federal jurisdiction in cases like this.

In short, Brown’s complaint seems to include all the necessary elements to prosecute Thomas in federal court. Furthermore, those elements are different from the elements of attempted murder and first-degree burglary under New York law. That means the seemingly redundant cases probably would not be deemed to violate the constitutional ban on double jeopardy even if the Supreme Court had decided to abandon the “dual sovereignty” doctrine, which allows state and federal prosecutions for the same conduct even when the two levels of government define the offense in the same way. The Court has held that the same conduct—in that case, the illegal sale of morphine—can be charged as two crimes when the offenses include different elements.

But the fact remains that Thomas faces two prosecutions for the same actions: one in state court, where he faces up to life in prison, and one in federal court, where he also faces up to life in prison and could be sentenced to death. The New York Times reports that “the federal case is expected to take place before any state case.” If Thomas is acquitted in the federal case—say, because the jury has reasonable doubt about his motive—he can still be tried in state court. Even if he is convicted in federal court, he can be tried again in state court and potentially face additional punishment, assuming his federal sentence falls short of life.

Thomas is accused of serious crimes, and there might be a rationale for federal involvement if there were any reason to believe that New York would not take them seriously, especially if the state’s criminal justice system was rife with anti-Semitism. When Southern states let white racists get away with murder, federal prosecution was the only way to render justice and protect the civil rights of black people. But nothing like that is happening in modern cases where the Justice Department decides to prosecute violent criminals for hate crimes when they already have been charged under state law. It’s not as if Dylann Roof, Robert Bowers, John Earnest, or James Fields would have escaped justice without federal intervention.

The Justice Department is making a statement when it gets involved in cases like these: not just that it is wrong to assault or murder innocent people but that it is especially wrong when such violence is motivated by bigotry. In making that statement, it goes beyond punishing people for their actions and begins to punish them for their beliefs.

While racist or anti-Semitic statements are protected by the First Amendment, they are indisputably relevant in hate crime prosecutions. Hence Grafton Thomas’ anti-Semitic journals are an important part of the federal case against him, just as Dylann Roof’s racist manifesto and Robert Bowers’ anti-Jewish social media posts were important parts of the federal cases against them. The views expressed by such defendants could not be prosecuted as crimes in themselves, but in practice they lead to unequal treatment under the law, justifying additional prosecutions and enhanced penalties. Just as bigots should not escape punishment because the government shares their ideology, they should not receive extra punishment because the government abhors their ideology.

 

 

 

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Los Angeles’ ban on street vending officially ends tomorrow. But thanks to the way the city is handling the transition, there still will be lots of illegal vendors.

A year ago, Los Angeles (and the whole state of California) put an end to full bans on sidewalk vending, essentially decriminalizing those delicious bacon dogs available outside every club at two in the morning. But as with the state’s mess of a system for legal sale of marijuana, regulations and bureaucracy are going to make it far too hard for vendors to operate legally.

When Erick Galindo at LAist checked in with some local street vendors, he found that many of them do not realize how the new system works. They don’t understand that they have to buy a new permit with the City of Los Angeles on top of the expensive health permits and business licenses they may have already from Los Angeles County.

These new permits cost $541 a year. And no one has them yet.

The central problem should sound familiar to anybody trying to set up a pot dispensary in Los Angeles: The city itself wasn’t prepared to roll out the new system. Galindo was told there will be a six-month roll-out for vendors to get licenses. They’re even cutting the price to $291 for the first year to those who get them during the roll-out. People will be able to start applying for the licenses on Thursday.

Despite having an entire year to put this all together, Los Angeles is almost comically unprepared to hand out these licenses. Local activist Rudy Espinoza, who advocated for legalization of street vending, warned Galindo that “the street permit system is not ready”:

“They haven’t worked on it all year,” Espinoza said. “And so now, because the deadline is approaching, they’re working really hard to meet that deadline.”

Espinoza likened the department’s efforts to what he would do when procrastinating on a project.

“I mean, I’ve totally been there. But in this case, this project impacts thousands of people in L.A. We can’t afford to procrastinate on things like this,” he said.

At least the vendors will get a grace period, so it’s not quite as bad as how the city mangled the rollout of pot dispensaries. The local government has been inundated with applications for permits to open recreational marijuana shops—more than 1,600 of them—but it has licensed less than 200. As a result, the black market still dominates.

The high price of the new vending permit may lead to continued noncompliance. One taco stand owner told Galindo he’d have to raise his prices to pay for the permit and that he might just shut down his carts if it all gets too expensive. He can probably afford the loss: He’s a restaurateur who decided to branch out into food carts after street vending was legalized. But for smaller vendors, this is their livelihood. If they don’t have hundreds of additional dollars to shell out every year, Los Angeles’ new “legal” street vendor system will still be full of people operating under the threat of possible crackdowns.

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Three Chinese scientists have been convicted of “illegal medical practice,” reports the Xinhua news service. The heaviest sentence fell on He Jiankui, who now faces three years in prison and a fine of more than $400,000.

Back in November 2018, He announced that he had gene-edited several human embryos using CRISPR, with the aim of conferring resistance to HIV infection by disabling the CCR5 gene. According to Xinhua, three babies gene-edited by He have been born.

A specific mutation in the CCR5 gene found chiefly among folks of European descent, when homozygous, confers substantial resistance to HIV because it prevents the virus from entering immune cells. About 1 percent of Europeans are homozygous, meaning they carry a pair of protective CCR5 genes. Between 10 and 15 percent are heterozygous, meaning they carry only one of the protective CCR5 genes and are therefore not immune to HIV infection. The specific CCR5 gene mutation is very rare among other populations, including people of Han Chinese descent.

So what did He and his colleagues actually achieve? Earlier this month, MIT Technology Review obtained a copy of the unpublished article that He had reportedly submitted for peer review at various scientific journals. So far, all have turned it down. MIT Technology Review asked four experts—a legal scholar, an IVF doctor, an embryologist, and a gene-editing specialist—for their reactions to He’s paper.

First, the scientific problems. He and his colleagues claim that they successfully mutated the CCR5 gene in the implanted embryos but their mutation is not the same one found among Europeans who are immune to HIV. Before implanting gene-edited embryos, He’s team could have tested human cells to see if in fact their specific mutation resulted in resistance to HIV infection, but they did not.

In addition, He claims to have tested the embryos to make sure that all of their cells contain the mutation he was seeking to induce. But researchers who reviewed the paper point out that He’s tests could not rule out mosaicism—that is, a mixture of cells that contain the mutation and cells that do not. In fact, one of the children contains just such a mosaic of cells. If the children are genetic mosaics, then they are likely not resistant to HIV after all.

The good news is that a June report in Nature Medicine that suggested the CCR5 mutations might result in shorter lives for the gene-edited infants has been refuted and retracted.

Another issue: He claims that his team removed cells from the embryos to test for off-target mutations before implantation in the wombs of their mothers. CRISPR editing, especially the early cruder technique likely used by He, sometimes induces arbitrary mutations that could potentially result in other health problems. While the removed cells did not, according to He, exhibit any off-target mutations, those untested cells that actually grew to become the three infants could harbor them.

How big a problem are off-target mutations? Asked by Science shortly after He’s revelations last year, Harvard geneticist George Church observed, “Let’s be quantitative before we start being accusatory. It might be detectable but not clinical. There’s no evidence of off-target causing problems in animals or cells. We have pigs that have dozens of CRISPR mutations and a mouse strain that has 40 CRISPR sites going off constantly and there are off-target effects in these animals, but we have no evidence of negative consequences.”

Three ethical issues stand out with respect to He’s gene-editing efforts. First: Did the participants know enough to give their informed consent to the procedure? He recruited couples in which the male partner was HIV-positive. He may have told the prospective parents that his gene-editing technique was a way to insure that their children would not be born infected with HIV. But He’s unpublished article notes that his team used the well-known technique of sperm washing to remove HIV viruses before it was used to create embryos. In other words, the embryos were very unlikely to be infected even without gene-editing.

China bans assisted reproductive services for HIV-positive parents. To get around this ban, He may have supplied blood samples from uninfected men who pretended to be the intended fathers. MIT Technology Review speculates that the couples agreed to participate in He’s work not only to get around the ban, but also because it gave them access to fertility treatments that they could otherwise not have afforded.

He’s article claims that his proposed embryo gene-editing had been approved by an ethics panel at the Shenzhen Harmonicare Women’s and Children’s Hospital. But the hospital has denied giving such an approval.

Finally, He filed patent applications on his work. This presents a number of possible conflicts of interest, not least of which is that the patients who were recruited may not have known that He stood to benefit financially from his research. Dubiously, the author disclosure statement in He’s accompanying ethics paper claimed that “no competing financial interests exist.”

A year ago, in response to He’s activities, the World Health Organization (WHO) set up a global multi-disciplinary expert panel to examine the scientific, ethical, social, and legal challenges associated with human genome editing; the goal was to establish a system of “strong international governance” of such research and its clinical application. In March 2018, the WHO panel issued an initial report asserting that “it would be irresponsible at this time for anyone to proceed with clinical applications of human germline genome editing.” (Germline editing means introducing heritable changes to sperm, eggs, or embryos that can be passed along to future generations. The mutations engineered by He are likely heritable.)

More widespread furor over human genome-editing erupted when the Russian geneticist Denis Rebrikov announced in June that he was developing a plan to edit human embryos’ CCR5 genes to prevent HIV-infected mothers who do not respond to anti-retroviral treatments from passing the virus to their infants. When Rebrikov didn’t find any HIV-infected women who wanted to get pregnant and who also didn’t respond to antiretrovirals, he switched his goal to editing the embryos of deaf parents who are both homozygous for a specific mutation in the GJB2 gene. Opponents to Rebrikov’s plan counter that embryo editing is unnecessary since children with the GJB2 mutation do really well with cochlear implants.

Rebrikov responds, in Science, that deaf parents, properly informed of the risks, should make the decision. “How do they estimate the quality of life of their babies?” he asks. “Yes, hearing is not a life-or-death issue, but parents can say, ‘Well, we think that we very strongly want our child to have hearing.'”

At the August launch of a new global registry to track research on human genome editing, WHO director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted, “Some scientists have announced their wish to edit the genome of embryos and bring them to term. This illustrates how important our work is, and how urgent. New genome editing technologies hold great promise and hope for those who suffer from diseases we once thought untreatable. But some uses of these technologies also pose unique and unprecedented challenges—ethical, social, regulatory and technical.”

Does genome-editing of gametes and human embryos really “pose unique and unprecedented challenges”? Not especially so. Basically, researchers and regulators need to aim at ensuring the safety and efficacy of genome-editing. (One such safety benchmark might be the slightly higher risk of birth defects associated with using other assisted reproduction technologies.) Potential parents fully informed of the risks and benefits of genome-editing should be allowed to avail themselves of the technology.

One often-heard objection is that future generations can’t give their consent to being genetically engineered. That observation is just ethically nonsensical. No one has ever given his or her consent to be born, much less to be born with a specific complement of genes. In any case, it’s hard to imagine that children will feel morally aggrieved that their parents prevented them from suffering a debilitating genetic disease. And surely we don’t want the government bureaucrats making eugenic decisions about what sort of children parents must bear.

The reproductive risks of edited genes are essentially no different than the risks associated with naturally mutated genes. Recent research finds that on average, each person has around 70 de novo germline mutations that were not present in their parents’ genetic code. Just like engineered genetic corrections, these natural mutations will likely be passed down to future generations. Obviously, genetically corrected embryos should be checked before they are implanted to make sure that the desired changes have been made and that no especially harmful off-target mutations have occurred. But after that, gene-edited kids can be released into the wild human gene pool with no special worries about how they might affect future generations. There is no need to set up some kind of international genome-editing governance regime as envisioned by the World Health Organization.

He’s moral shortcomings should not be used as an excuse to delay what Abertay University bioethicist Kevin Smith hails as the “human germline genetic modification revolution.” Given that some folks are still spooked by He’s activities, Smith prudentially suggests that “we kickstart the next biomedical revolution by proceeding not immediately but within around 1–2 years to intervene in the human germline.”

 

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Virginia is the latest state to consider sweeping state-level housing reform. A new bill would legalize duplexes on residential land statewide, making the Old Dominion the third state, after Oregon and California, to essentially abolish single-family zoning.

Urbanists have praised the bill as a great way to produce more (and more affordable) housing in high-demand areas. Some conservative critics meanwhile warn that legalizing two-unit homes is just the opening shot in the war on suburbia.

“Across the country, there is a shortage of affordable units that is putting a squeeze on working families and contributing to rises in rents for existing units,” tweeted Del. Ibraheem Samirah (D–Fairfax), the duplex bill’s author. “Unfortunately, the kind of dense ‘middle housing’ that could be built to alleviate the shortage is banned on most lots.”

Samirah’s legislation, H.B. 152, is pretty straightforward. It would require Virginia’s local zoning ordinances to allow two-family homes on all land that’s currently zoned to permit only single-family homes. Localities would also be forbidden from demanding that new duplexes obtain special use permits or meet other conditions that aren’t also required of single-family dwellings.

The bill still allows counties and cities to determine setback, design, and environmental standards for new housing. It explicitly states that it would not prevent local authorities from permitting new single-family homes—they just can’t outlaw duplexes.

H.B. 152 is part of a package of housing bills introduced by Samirah, including one, H.B. 151, that would legalize accessory dwelling units (ADUs)—sometimes known as in-law suites or granny flats—on single-family lots as well.

California passed a bill this year that allows homeowners statewide to build up to two ADUs on their property, effectively eliminating single-family zoning. An Oregon bill similarly made it legal to build duplexes on single-family-zoned land in cities of 10,000 or more people, and four-unit dwellings on single-family plots in cities of 25,000 or more.

Legalizing duplexes across the state could see some especially high-cost areas add a lot of new housing, says Emily Hamilton, a housing policy researcher at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center.

“I think it will have the biggest effect in localities where a lot of single-family homes are being torn down and replaced by fancier, new, larger single-family homes,” says Hamilton, citing the Northern Virginia communities of Arlington, McClean, and Falls Church as examples. “In many, or perhaps most cases, rather than build a new very expensive single-family home, we’d see those [duplexes] built as homes.”

Building a duplex or townhome could allow a developer to sell each unit for less than a single-family home while still making more on the lot as whole, she points out.

Two-unit homes in high-demand areas would still be pretty expensive, Hamilton tells Reason. But they’d nevertheless be adding housing supply to these desirable neighborhoods, freeing up housing in less desirable areas for lower-income renters and homebuyers.

Supporters of the bill have touted other possible progressive outcomes from H.B. 152.

Alex Baca, a housing program organizer for Greater Greater Washington, told CityLab that zoning has been “a tool for wealthy white communities to maintain segregated neighborhoods” and that eliminating single-family zoning would be a boon to racial equity.

Samirah himself has called single-family zoning the modern equivalent of “redlining“, arguing the kind of middle housing his bill would legalize would be more affordable to lower-income people and people of color.

He has also pitched his duplex bill as an environmental measure, writing that “upzoning would make it easier to cluster around environmentally-friendly transit options.”

Some Republican officials and conservative media have seized on such statements to paint H.B. 152 as an assault on the suburban lifestyle.

Samirah’s bill amounts “a power-grab to take away the ability of local communities to establish their own zoning practices…literally trying to change the character of our communities,” Fairfax County Republican Committee Chairman Tim Hannigan told the Daily Caller.

That Caller article, written by Luke Rosiak, warned that H.B. 152 will “quickly transform the suburban lifestyle enjoyed by millions, permitting duplexes to be built on suburban lots in neighborhoods previously consisting of quiet streets and open green spaces.” In subsequent comments on Twitter, Rosiak denounced “soy boy urban (central) planners” who failed to appreciate either the “nature” and”rugged individuality” that current single-family zoning enables.

At Vox, Matt Yglesias chalks up the conservative reaction to Samirah’s bill to the left-wing language the delegate has used to pitch it.

“Rhetorical strategies designed to overcome left-wing opposition to useful market-oriented policies can backfire by provoking conservative opposition to them,” writes Yglesias. “It’s an example of how almost all politics is, at some level, identity politics.”

That kind of talk, he says, might be suitable for selling upzoning to Bay Area progressives, but it’s counterproductive in more purple Virginia.

It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not sure it’s right, given how readily people of all ideological stripes have seized on the “our communities are under siege” line to oppose legislation that increases density.

Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín, no one’s idea of a conservative, has dubbed California’s state-led upzoning efforts “a declaration of war against our neighborhoods.” Activists from San Francisco to Seattle have fought density-increasing bills on the grounds that they would allegedly displace, not help, low-income people of color.

Sometimes conservative-leaning upzoning opponents will even adopt progressive talking points to argue against greater density. Beverly Hills’ Republican mayor, for example, has called state-level upzoning proposals “a flawed Reaganomics trickle-down theory of market economics.”

That’s because self-interest, not ideology, explains most opposition to housing reform.

Local governments, whether controlled by Team Red or Team Blue, don’t like losing power. Homeowners who have a financial stake in limiting new housing supply don’t like to see land use decisions removed from a part of the government that they have more influence over.

If H.B. 152 were intended as a weapon to destroy Virginians’ cherished suburban lifestyle, Hamilton notes, it wouldn’t be a very good one.

“I don’t think the bills would be an effective war on suburbia,” she says. “It won’t make sense to tear down single-family homes in the vast majority of cases. It’s limited to very expensive localities where this makes sense.”

Indeed, by preserving design and setback regulations, Samirah’s legislation will leave localities with a lot of tools to thwart new duplexes and ADUs from being built.

But the bill’s potential to add more housing supply, and to enhance landowners’ property rights, still makes it a worthwhile effort. It’s also a sign that sensible housing reforms first adopted by a few select states may be starting to go national.

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