Category: reason

Body camera footage released Thursday shows a Chicago police officer shooting a 13-year-old boy who appeared to have his hands up. The victim, identified as Adam Toledo, was killed on March 29.

“Hey, show me your fucking hands!” the officer yells as he chases the teen down an alley. Toledo complies and is then shot. “Look at me, look at me. You all right?” the officer says. Toledo was later pronounced dead.

The video, embedded below, is graphic.

????WARNING GRAPHIC????

Bodycam footage of the police-involved shooting that killed Adam Toledo.

HE HAD HIS HANDS UP!

I will not be posting the rest of the video.

I am disgusted. pic.twitter.com/POTEmysDWY

— Natasha ⚯͛ (@ndelriego) April 15, 2021

Early that Monday morning, police were called to address eight gun shots—detected by the Chicago Police Department’s ShotSpotter technology—that went off in the Little Village neighborhood. Ruben Roman, 21, was seen on surveillance firing the rounds; when police arrived, Roman was arrested while Toledo fled.

Prosecutors initially suggested Toledo had a gun in his hand when the officer shot him, but the state’s attorney’s office walked that back today.

“An attorney who works in this office failed to fully inform himself before speaking in court,” said Sarah Sinovic, a spokesperson for the Cook County state’s attorney, according to Chicago’s WGN-TV. In a bond hearing for Roman, that attorney erroneously claimed that the cop told Toledo “to drop it as [Toledo] turns towards the officer. [Toledo] has a gun in his right hand.” That isn’t what the body camera footage shows.

In a press conference, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said that “there is no evidence whatsoever that Adam Toledo shot at the police.” She added that the officer “sprang into action to try to revive” the boy, and she asked for the city to remain calm.

The shooting follows Sunday’s fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. In that case, Officer Kim Potter says she mistook her taser for her gun before delivering the fatal shot. She immediately resigned and now faces second-degree manslaughter charges.

In 2020, 55 unarmed people were shot and killed by police, according to The Washington Post.

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From the Florida Supreme Court today, an order signed by Chief Justice Canady and Justices Polston, Lawson, Muñiz, Couriel & Grosshans,

The Business Law Section of The Florida Bar recently adopted a policy regulating the composition of faculty at section-sponsored continuing legal education programs. Subject to certain exceptions, the policy imposes quotas requiring a minimum number of “diverse” faculty, depending on the number of faculty teaching the course.

The policy defines diversity in terms of membership in “groups based upon race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and multiculturalism.” The stated goals of the policy are “eliminating bias, increasing diversity and implementing tactics aimed at recruiting and retaining diverse attorneys.”

The Court recognizes and is grateful for the Bar sections’ important contributions to the legal profession in our state. And the Court understands the objectives underlying the policy at issue here. Nonetheless, certain means are out of bounds. Quotas based on characteristics like the ones in this policy are antithetical to basic American principles of nondiscrimination. Cf. Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 334 (2003) (“To be narrowly tailored, a race-conscious admissions program cannot use a quota system ….”); Regents of University of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 307 (1978) (numerical goal or quota “must be rejected” as “facially invalid”). It is essential that The Florida Bar withhold its approval from continuing legal education programs that are tainted by such discrimination.

Accordingly, rule 6-10.3(d) of the Rules Regulating the Florida Bar, which governs course approval for continuing legal education, is amended [to add the text,] {“The board of legal specialization and education may not approve any course submitted by a sponsor, including a section of The Florida Bar, that uses quotas based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, national origin, disability, or sexual orientation in the selection of course faculty or participants.”} …

Justice Lawson, who joined the majority opinion, adds this:

I write separately to further express my support for what I view as the well-intended motivation underlying the decision of The Florida Bar’s Business Law Section to adopt a policy aimed at meaningfully broadening participation in the instructor pool for its educational offerings.

At this Court’s direction, both the Bar and the State Court System have for many years worked diligently to assure a system of justice that is fair for all and that treats all individuals as equal under the law. This Court is steadfast in its firm commitment to these ideals. I believe that these ideals are best advanced when individuals with very different backgrounds and experiences work together. This is because our experiential differences often result in starkly different modes of thought and perception—including deeply divided perceptions surrounding concepts as facially straightforward as “fairness” and “justice.”

It is when those who perceive and think differently come together in an environment of mutual respect and genuine concern for the well-being of others that we can best gain the understanding necessary to fully advance the ideals underpinning our judicial system. It is essential that we continue this work, and I am grateful to the Bar and its sections for their continued pursuit of these core ideals that are central to further advancing the cause of freedom for all, secured for all through the rule of law.

Justice Labarga dissents:

Because I do not believe that the enactment of a rule specifically addressing this issue is necessary, I dissent. I believe that a simple letter directed to the Business Law Section, communicating that such action may be in violation of United States Supreme Court precedent, would have sufficed. See e.g., Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 334 (2003); Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 307 (1978).

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An international team of researchers led by the Salk Institute biologist Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte report in Cell that they have created the world’s first human-monkey embryos. Their goal is not to generate half-monkey, half-human servants; it is to figure out how human and animals cells interact, with the goal of eventually growing human transplant organs in animals like pigs and sheep.

The researchers injected human pluripotent stem cells into already growing monkey embryos and then traced how human cells developed and migrated as the chimeric embryos grew for 20 days in Petri dishes. In the mixed embryos, 3 to 7 percent of the cells were human.

The National Institutes of Health human stem research guidelines currently prohibit research in which human pluripotent stem cells are introduced into non-human primate blastocysts. Over the years, a number of state and federal bills have been introduced to ban this type of research. That is among other reasons why the laboratory work for this research was conducted in China.

Some bioethicists have expressed concerns about the research.

“My first question is: Why?” asked Kirstin Matthews, a fellow for science and technology at Rice University’s Baker Institute, when interviewed by NPR. “I think the public is going to be concerned, and I am as well, that we’re just kind of pushing forward with science without having a proper conversation about what we should or should not do.”

One often-mentioned worry is that human neurons could possibly get installed into an animal’s brain and somehow make its consciousness more humanlike. Another fear is that human cells that produce sperm and eggs could migrate into the testes and ovaries of monkeys, who might then mate and create a human fetus. Surely such possibilities require further ethical reflection, but the mixed cells in these experiments got nowhere near such possibilities.

As the researchers conclude, “this line of fundamental research will help improve human chimerism in species more evolutionarily distant that for various reasons, including social, economic, and ethical, might be more appropriate for regenerative medicine translational therapies.” Translation: This research aims to help scientists figure out how to grow fully human organs in other animals, such as pigs and sheep, that are not as evolutionarily close to us as monkeys. Given the ongoing and persistent transplant organ shortage, let’s hope this work succeeds.

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As America exits the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for goods and services is surging—and triggering worries about inflation.

The consumer price index for March showed a 2.6 percent increase over the same month last year. That’s the largest year-to-year increase in prices since the summer of 2018, and significantly more than the 1.4 percent year-to-year increase that was being reported just two months ago. Meanwhile, the White House Council of Economic Advisors warned this week that “measured inflation” is likely to increase over the next few months. And the price of gasoline—perhaps the most obvious signal of rising prices, at least for those of us who don’t hold advanced degrees in economics—has been steadily marching upwards since the start of the year.

Should we be worrying about a return to the rampant inflation of the 1970s?

For now, the fear is probably premature, says David Beckworth, a former Treasury Department economist now affiliated with the Mercatus Center, a free market think tank at George Mason University.

“The economic indicators aren’t flashing any red alerts right now,” Beckworth tells Reason, “but the political economy is more worrying.”

One of the best indicators of future inflation is the “breakeven inflation rate,” which measures the difference in yield between bonds that are pegged to inflation and those that are not over the same period of time. The five-year breakeven inflation rate—in other words, how inflation investors are anticipating over the next five years—has been increasing, but it currently sits just slightly higher than its post–Great Recession average.

So if runaway inflation is on the horizon, investors aren’t anticipating it. Even if inflation spikes in the short term, they don’t appear to expect historical highs over the course of several years.

The rising CPI might not be a major cause of concern, either. It’s a backward-looking economic indicator—comparing prices today to what they were a year ago—so it’s capturing some of the economic weirdness that the pandemic created last spring, when prices fell as demand sank and much of the country entered lockdown.

The biggest contributor to the rising CPI in March was the surge in gasoline prices, which were up 22 percent from last year. But that says as much about last spring’s drop in gas prices—due to a sudden glut of supply as many people stopped traveling and commuting—as it does about where things sit now.

For a similar example, think about the markets for airline tickets and vacation rental homes. Many Americans had travel plans cancelled last summer, and that backlogged demand will likely be unleashed in the coming months as an increasingly vaccinated population reunites with far-flung families and friends. A sudden increase in demand in markets where supply can’t rapidly grow to match it is a recipe for higher prices. But that’s a short-term situation that will work itself out, not a long-term increase that could wreck standards of living and retirement plans.

“We think the likeliest outlook over the next several months is for inflation to rise modestly due to the three temporary factors we discuss above, and to fade back to a lower pace thereafter as actual inflation begins to run more in line with longer-run expectations,” the White House economists conclude.

That’s the economic side of the inflation situation. It should provide some comfort. The political side is a different story.

“What ultimately will cause inflation to take off is a sustained increase in the growth of government spending,” says Beckworth. “If we do these big spending packages and there’s not an immediate increase in inflation, it enables us to be more complacent about future government spending programs.”

The federal government pumped $1.9 trillion into the economy in March. While that was a one-time infusion of newly printed money, the Biden administration is also proposing permanent increases to the baseline federal budget and pushing for a $2.3 trillion infrastructure package that is likely to be at least partly financed with deficit spending.

Even without those spending increases, deficits are set to grow in coming years, largely because of entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare that run on autopilot.

And all that is happening at a time when both major parties have abandoned any pretense of concern about overspending. The alarm bell of a rising CPI might be the only real check on the political incentives that keep the cost of government growing—and pave the way for more substantial inflation down the road. And the alarm bell isn’t ringing. Yet.

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To avoid a murder or manslaughter conviction, Derek Chauvin needed to undermine at least one of the two pillars supporting the prosecution’s case: that the former Minneapolis police officer used excessive force against George Floyd, and that Floyd died as a result. Barry Brodd, the defense’s use-of-force expert, took aim at that first claim on Tuesday, but his testimony was unconvincing and in some respects utterly implausible. While forensic pathologist David Fowler did a better job of contesting the second claim in his testimony yesterday, even his account is consistent with a causal link between Chauvin’s actions and Floyd’s death.

The defense rested its case today without putting Chauvin on the stand, and closing arguments are scheduled to begin on Monday. Chauvin’s testimony could have illuminated his reasoning when he kept Floyd pinned facedown to the pavement for nine and a half minutes, although it would have left him open to a potentially brutal cross-examination focusing on the justification for that prolonged prone restraint. But even the defense’s medical testimony left little doubt that the use of force against Floyd, whether or not it was legally justified, caused his death.

The prosecution’s medical witnesses all agreed that Floyd’s death was properly classified as a homicide, even when they differed on the details. Fowler, by contrast, said he would have listed the manner of death as “undetermined,” noting Floyd’s heart disease, his drug use, and even his possible exposure to carbon monoxide from a patrol car’s exhaust while he was pinned to the pavement. Fowler, who worked for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Maryland prior to his retirement, thinks Floyd died from “a sudden cardiac arrhythmia” unmediated by the impeded breathing that the prosecution identifies as the primary cause.

Yet if Floyd was exposed to vehicle exhaust, which Fowler said may have contributed to his cardiac arrest, it was only because of the prolonged prone restraint, which was also responsible for the “stressful situation” that Fowler said was another factor. So Fowler’s account is consistent with the proposition that Floyd would have survived this encounter if Chauvin had handled it differently, meaning that Chauvin’s actions were the but-for cause of Floyd’s death.

“In my opinion,” Fowler said, “Mr. Floyd had a sudden cardiac arrhythmia…due to his atherosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease…during his restraint and subdual by the police.” He added that “his significant contributory conditions,” in addition to heart disease, included the fentanyl and methamphetamine Floyd had ingested and “potentially carbon monoxide poisoning” from “exposure to a vehicle exhaust.”

During cross-examination, prosecutor Jerry Blackwell questioned the latter suggestion, noting that there was no evidence concerning how much carbon monoxide Floyd might have inhaled and that the autopsy report said nothing about this possibility. He also asked Fowler, “How do you know the car was even on?” Fowler said he reached that conclusion by observing what appeared to be water dripping from a tailpipe in video of Floyd’s arrest. But he agreed that he never confirmed the impression that “the vehicle was running” with anyone who would have known.

Chicago pulmonologist Martin Tobin, whom the prosecution called back to the stand today as a rebuttal witness, disagreed with Fowler’s suggestion that vehicle exhaust could help explain Floyd’s death, saying that theory is inconsistent with testing of Floyd’s arterial blood. He also took issue with Fowler’s statement that he could not find research to support Tobin’s conclusion that the pressure Chauvin exerted on Floyd would have compressed the lower part of his throat, further impeding his breathing. Tobin said there is “extensive” research on that subject “in the physiological literature.”

Fowler questioned the prosecution’s claim that “positional asphyxia” killed Floyd, saying “there is no evidence right now” that “the prone position by itself” is “a significant issue.” But in addition to lying on his stomach, Floyd was handcuffed behind his back, and he was pressed against the pavement by the weight of Chauvin’s body and equipment. Chauvin had one knee on Floyd’s neck and the other knee on his back or arm, while Officer J. Alexander Kueng applied pressure to his back and Officer Thomas Lane held his legs. According to the prosecution’s witnesses, all of those factors would have made it harder for Floyd to breathe. And as Blackwell noted, Floyd had just struggled with Kueng and Lane when they tried to force him into their patrol car, and that exertion likely would have increased his need oxygen. During his testimony last week, Tobin gave a detailed explanation of how the prone restraint would have impaired Floyd’s ability to get enough oxygen to stay alive.

Notwithstanding his disagreement about the manner of death, Fowler’s medical conclusion is pretty close to what Hennepin County Chief Medical Examiner Andrew Baker said last week, when he testified that the use of force against Floyd fatally interacted with his “very severe underlying heart disease.” But Baker, like the other medical experts who testified for the prosecution, is confident that “law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression” caused Floyd’s “cardiopulmonary arrest,” which is why he described the incident as a homicide. “I would still classify it as a homicide today,” Baker said.

Baker did not mention asphyxia in his autopsy report. But as Blackwell noted, citing a forensic pathology textbook, “the majority of cases where someone dies of asphyxia are very subtle,” and “no traumatic manifestations are visible at all,” meaning “there isn’t necessarily any physical evidence on autopsy of what it is that caused the low level of oxygen.” And during his testimony, Baker did not rule out the possibility that impaired breathing contributed to Floyd’s death, saying, “I would defer to a pulmonologist.”

Tobin, the prosecution’s pulmonologist, concluded that “Floyd died from a low level of oxygen” caused by impeded breathing, which ultimately “caused his heart to stop.” Tobin said even a perfectly healthy person would have died in these circumstances.

All of these scenarios—including the one described by Fowler—are consistent with the allegation that Chauvin killed Floyd. The relevant question is not whether other factors may have played a role in Floyd’s death but whether he would still be alive but for Chauvin’s actions.

In addition to faulting Chauvin for the prolonged prone restraint, the prosecution noted that neither he nor the other officers performed CPR after Floyd became unresponsive and no longer had a detectable pulse. Fowler acknowledged that “immediate medical attention for a person who has gone into cardiac arrest may well reverse that process.” He said “as a physician, I would agree” that Floyd should have received aid right away.

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“We are now firmly in the window when past justices have announced their retirement, so it’s officially worrisome that Justice Breyer has not said yet that he will step down. The only responsible choice for Justice Breyer is to immediately announce his retirement.” So declared Brian Fallon, executive director of the progressive activist group Demand Justice. Fallon’s outfit has clearly set its sights on the 82-year-old jurist, launching a new pressure campaign last week under the none-too-subtle slogan Breyer Retire.

Is Breyer actually planning to step down anytime soon? Probably not, at least judging by the fact that Breyer just finished hiring a full slate of four clerks for the Supreme Court’s 2021–2022 term, which begins in October. Typically, a justice who is nearing retirement does not do so much staffing up for the future.

Of course, Justice Anthony Kennedy did announce his retirement after he hired a full slate of clerks, so there is a recent precedent for Breyer doing the same thing now. On the other hand, as the legal writer David Lat has observed, “I do think Justice Kennedy was especially likely to try and cover his tracks; if Justice Breyer has hired four clerks for OT 2021, I think it’s most likely because he expects to be on the Court at that time.” Lat, a savvy court watcher, thinks that Breyer’s hiring spree means there is now “a 70-30 chance that Justice Breyer remains on the Supreme Court for at least one more Term.”

Breyer recently disappointed progressive activists in another big way. In a Harvard Law School speech earlier this month, the justice came out firmly against court packing, telling those who would rejigger the size of the Court for the purpose of gaining a short-term political advantage to “think long and hard before embodying those changes in law.”

In my recent feature story, “Don’t Pack the Courts,” I noted that President Franklin Roosevelt’s famous 1937 court-packing scheme failed in large part because so many of his fellow Democrats opposed it. FDR’s “most effective adversaries turned out to be members of Roosevelt’s own party,” I wrote, “such as the legendary progressive jurist Louis Brandeis, who deftly maneuvered behind the scenes to ensure the bill’s ultimate defeat. Like so many others at the time, Brandeis was frankly aghast at FDR’s blatant power grab.”

Perhaps Breyer is gearing up to play the Brandeis role today.

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