Carlin, McCord, Ciamerella, & Kris: Sedition In Real-Time

Carlin, McCord, Ciamerella, & Kris: Sedition In Real-Time

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

It is a wonder of these incendiary times that even as impeachment of a president moves to its ripest phase, trial in the Senate, the acts of sedition that prompted it still go on behind the scenes with no intervention – an epic failure of authority, if there ever was one. And further irony, if ever there was a trial that cried for witnesses, the impeachment case being brought by Mrs. Pelosi is such a hash of fraud, incompetence, and chicanery, that it begs for summary dismissal — so that these seditious caitiffs will not have to answer to the nation.

I speak of the “whistleblower” scheme cooked up by a network of officials who have actively plotted to overthrow the president for three years, as laid out at The Last Refuge website Sunday night: Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson in league with former colleagues from the Department of Justice National Security Division and the Lawfare org — a group dedicated to weaponizing law, in service to the political Left.

As I have averred in this blog as far back as October, Mr. Atkinson’s previous job before being appointed ICIG was counsel (lawyer) to the Department of Justice’s Chief of National Security. During the first half of the election year 2016, that was John Carlin. Mr. Carlin’s job was not just to sign-off on FISA warrants, but to actually write them. It also happens that Mr. Carlin had previously served as chief of staff to Robert Mueller, when Mr. Mueller was FBI Director.

Mr. Carlin signed-off on a March 2016 warrant against Carter Page, under suspicion of being a Russian Spy, when in fact Carter Page was a CIA informant who had been operating in Russia for years to uncover Russian adventures against the USA. CIA Director John Brennan inserted Mr. Page into the Trump campaign to open up Mr. Trump’s campaign to FBI surveillance, since the CIA has no law enforcement powers. The FISA Court’s Two-hop Rule allows a second hop to anyone who communicated with the initial subject of a warrant, which might have achieved surveillance of everyone in the Trump campaign, including the candidate himself. It also would have allowed access to all communications going back for years. This part of the scheme was probably green-lighted by White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice for Mr. Brennan, with President Obama’s approval, for the purpose of helping Hillary Clinton win the election.

John Carlin resigned in September of 2016 when faced with the prospect of having to sign a second fraudulent FISA warrant. He was replaced by DOJ attorney Mary McCord. Among other things, Ms. McCord was involved in engineering the case against General Michael Flynn, as well as the continuing surveillance of the Trump campaign. She resigned in April of 2017. A month later, Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (acting for recused AG Jeff Sessions). Mary McCord then moved to a job at the elephant’s graveyard of federal officials under suspicion of malfeasance: the Georgetown University Law School. Meanwhile Michael Atkinson, who had continued as counsel under Ms. McCord, was shifted to his new job as ICIG.

Since then, somehow, Mary McCord landed a gig as an outside lawyer for Adam Schiff’s House intelligence Committee, to which she remains attached to this day. She is also associated with the Lawfare org that has supplied several other lawyers to Mr. Schiff’s committee and Jerrold Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee. Did Ms. McCord organize the “whistleblower” complaint and coordinate its transmission through Mr. Atkinson’s IG office, with CIA agent Eric Ciaramella acting as the spearpoint for the operation? Did Mr. Ciaramella have direct contact with Ms. McCord in the process? Did Ms. McCord have any part in actually writing the “whistleblower’s” highly legalistic complaint? Did Ms. McCord play any part in the backdating of official forms submitted for the “whistleblower’s” complaint — especially the crucial matter of changing the provision that disallowed second-hand “hearsay” evidence from such a complaint? Isn’t it a pity that the Senate phase of this impeachment may conclude with no testimony from these people?

An additional insult to the public interest went down on Friday when FISA court presiding judge James Boasberg picked one David Kris, former DOJ National Security Division chief (preceding John Carlin under President Obama), to “assist” in reforming FISA court procedures lately discredited by multiple acts of fraud and seditious abuse. Mr. Kris’s conflicts of interest in this endeavor are so rich and dark that they would embarrass a Gestapo Gruppenführer. In October, 2019, he tweeted “Trump has to go.” He was a loud critic of the report issued by Rep Devin Nunes, former chair, now ranking minority member, of the House Intel Committee — a report subsequently proven factually correct about the deceit surrounding RussiaGate — and a fervent supporter of Adam’s Schiff’s dishonest and factually erroneous minority report. He is one of the most active contributors to the Lawfare blog.

The appointment of Mr. Kris has provoked vehement objections for these obvious reasons, yet who and where is the authority to adjudicate it? Apparently in Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who is the only person with any supervisory role over the FISA court. Maybe someone should ask Justice Roberts how this appointment can possibly stand.


Tyler Durden

Mon, 01/13/2020 – 15:30

Tags
Politics

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An “Unprecedented Divergence” Has Opened Between Stocks And Earnings

An “Unprecedented Divergence” Has Opened Between Stocks And Earnings

Yesterday, when looking at the composition of the ongoing market meltup, Morgan Stanley flagged just how uneven the leadership distribution has become highlighting the “other 1 percent”, namely the handful of tech names that have been responsible for the bulk of the S&P’s move higher in 2019, and noting “that in a world of low growth, limited pricing power and now rising costs, it’s clear that bigger is better and scale matters.” As a result, “currently, the top five companies in the S&P 500 (the other 1 percenters) make up 18% of the total market cap.“

As Morgan Stanley’s equity strategist, Michael Wilson, writes today “this is the most extreme this metric has ever been, including the tech bubble of the late 1990s. This doesn’t have to correct itself immediately but it is an unsustainable development in our view especially if net income concentration doesn’t keep pace.”  We also know how this “unsustainable development” came to be: as he cautions, “this divergence is the result of the extraordinary liquidity being provided by the world’s central banks, which is flowing to the most liquid and largest names in the S&P 500. This also recalls 1999, when the Fed expanded its balance sheet at the end of the year and early in 2000 as a precaution against Y2K disruption.“

In other words, not only is it “not different this time“, but the entire market is stating to resemble the euphoria last seen just before the dot com bubble. And we all have the Fed to thank for it.

Again.

It gets better: with Michael Wilson clearly getting very angry client emails, especially following his downgrade of the “tech” sector last summer (take one look at the Nasdaq since last July to see why said clients may be mad), the MS strategist decided to take out his frustration at the Fed, pointing out what has been obvious to our readers ever since, oh… 2009, to wit: “we continue to view central bank activity as an important driver of asset prices in the near term given the lackluster improvement in earnings revisions.” Well, about time, Michael, about time. What next: you will admit to reading tinfoil fringe blogs that have blamed the Fed of doing just the for the past 11 years?

So what finally sparked Wilson’s Eureka moment? It appears, the answer is the chart below, which shows that “an unprecedented divergence has opened up between the y/y change in the S&P 500 and earnings revisions breadth.”

But what if it’s just sour grapes, and S&P earnings are indeed set to blast off? After all, as we showed yesterday, the market is already pricing in the biggest economic recovery (or at least ISM surge) since the financial crisis.

Indeed, Wilson gives some credence to this view, noting that “as for earnings, our work is also starting to show some signs of bottoming in the growth rate for the S&P 500 while small/mid caps are still struggling with deteriorating  operating leverage. We will be looking this earnings season for signs of stabilization in margins and areas of pricing power and positive operating leverage. The equity market continues to pay up for quality and is fading cyclicals relative to defensives again as this ratio tests its 200 day moving average.” “In short”, Wilson summarizes, “as equity markets make new highs every week, there is still a defensive undertone that suggests the recovery will be much more modest than 2016-17 and in line with our economists’ forecast.”

Ok, fine: while economic data may have indeed bottomed, does that suggest a meteoric rise in S&P earnings to justify the unprecedented multiple expansion observed in the past year? The answer it appears, is probably not, and Wilson explains why below:

As we head into earnings season,negative revisions have abated which is natural at this time of the quarter. Exhibit 3 shows that revisions during each quarter last year got progressively worse which led to progressively smaller beats (Exhibit 4).

Based on the sharp decline of 4Q EPS estimates during last quarter, we expect a beat of approximately 2 percent when 4Q earnings season is finished. This would leave 4Q flat y/y based on the current -1.8% estimate. Hardly exciting, but that would be a slight uptick from 3Q when y/y EPS came in at -0.8% which supports the view that the earnings recession is behind us, at least for the large caps.”

So yes, some good news: after four quarters of declining earnings as the WSJ noted earlier today, earnings are finally bottoming out. Now if only that justified a 30% S&P surge in 2019. To that point, Wilson still thinks 2020 bottom up consensus EPS forecast for the S&P 500 of +9.5% growth is too high “and these numbers will come down.” The question is how much down, and just how much pain will there be as the “Unprecedented Divergence” shown above finally closes.


Tyler Durden

Mon, 01/13/2020 – 15:16

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Dismissing Her Political Opponents As Mentally Ill, Yale Psychiatrist Diagnoses Alan Dershowitz

Yale forensic psychiatrist Bandy Lee, who famously diagnosed Donald Trump with narcissistic personality disorder, is now suggesting that Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, a conspicuous critic of claims that the president is guilty of obstructing justice or other impeachable conduct, suffers from the same mental disorder. Not only that, Lee says on Twitter, but “just about all of Donald Trump’s followers” suffer from a “shared psychosis”—a pseudomedical conclusion that nicely illustrates how Lee and like-minded Trump critics try to shut down political debate by portraying their opponents as mentally ill.

Dershowitz made that point in a recent Gatestone Institute essay. “Her resort to diagnosis rather than dialogue is a symptom of a much larger problem that faces our divided nation,” he writes. “Too many Americans are refusing to engage in reasoned dialogue with people with whom they disagree.”

Unfortunately, Dershowitz seems to be doing something similar by complaining to Lee’s employer about her diagnosis of him.

Dershowitz notes that Lee’s habit of bludgeoning her opponents with the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) flies in the face of the APA’s Goldwater Rule, which says “it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.” Lee argues that the Goldwater Rule should not prevent psychiatrists from bringing their expertise to bear on important issues of the day—in particular, Trump’s presidency, which she views as an existential threat to humanity. Yet the rule, a response to similar psychiatric critiques of 1964 Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, was meant to discourage passionate partisans like Lee from casting their political opinions as professional medical judgments, which is exactly what Lee is doing.

The basis for Lee’s diagnosis of Dershowitz shows how casually she tosses DSM labels around. In lieu of an “examination,” she cited a July 18 Fox News interview in which Dershowitz responded to Virginia Giuffre’s claim that Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who committed suicide in jail last August after he was arrested on federal charges of sex trafficking minors, forced her to have sex with Dershowitz, who represented Epstein in a 2006 Florida case involving underage prostitution.

“I’ve had sex with one woman since the day I met Jeffrey Epstein,” Dershowitz said, referring to his wife. “I challenge David Boies [Giuffre’s lawyer] to say under oath that he’s only had sex with one woman during that same period of time. He couldn’t do it. So he has an enormous amount of chutzpah to attack me and to challenge my perfect, perfect sex life during the relevant period of time.” Dershowitz averred that David Boies “has a terrible reputation for sexual activities.”

Boies’ sex life, of course, is logically irrelevant to the merits of Giuffre’s charge against Dershowitz, or of Dershowitz’s counter-charge that she is guilty of defaming him. But if it is true that Dershowitz was faithful to his wife “during the relevant period,” then it must be true that Giuffre is lying or mistaken. Showing little interest in what actually happened, Lee latched onto Dershowitz’s use of the word perfect to describe his sexual fidelity, which she cited as evidence that he caught a mental disorder from the president.

“Alan Dershowitz’s employing the odd use of ‘perfect’—not even a synonym—might be dismissed as ordinary influence in most contexts,” Lee tweeted. “However, given the severity and spread of ‘shared psychosis’ among just about all of Donald Trump’s followers, a different scenario is more likely. Which scenario? That he has wholly taken on Trump’s symptoms by contagion. There is even proof: his bravado toward his opponent with a question about his own sex life—in a way that is irrelevant to the actual lawsuit—shows the same grandiosity and delusional-level impunity. Also identical is the level of lack of empathy, of remorse, and of consideration of consequences (until some accountability comes from the outside—at which time he is likely to lash out equally).”

Contrary to Lee’s implication, Dershowitz’s use of perfect predates by more than two months Trump’s dubious reliance on that adjective to describe his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the conversation at the heart of his impeachment. “I guess she believes he caught the contagion from me,” Dershowitz writes. More to the point, Lee is pretending that her assessment of Dershowitz’s character (which includes the assumption that Dershowitz did in fact have sex with Giuffre) is an objectively verifiable scientific conclusion. While that is very much in the spirit of the DSM, the APA at least expects psychiatrists to actually meet and examine people (and get their permission) before publicly issuing such a diagnosis.

Irked by Lee’s departure from the Goldwater Rule, Dershowitz sent a copy of his response essay to the deans of Yale’s medical and law schools, where Lee works. He tells me he “asked Yale to determine whether her diagnosis of me violated the academic standards of the university.” Now Lee, who does not hesitate to use her position and psychiatric expertise to stigmatize people who disagree with her, is portraying herself as a brave dissident, which is pretty funny given the dearth of MAGA hats at Yale and the accolades she gets on Twitter.

“Alan Dershowitz has now taken his grievance to the deans of Yale Law School and Yale School of Medicine,” Lee writes. “Fortunately, I am less afraid of power than I am of truth. I have considered the costs; if he expects me to cower and to compromise, I will not.”

Noting Lee’s complaint about his complaint, I suggested to Dershowitz that contacting Lee’s employer looks like an intimidation tactic. “I merely informed Yale of the facts and asked them to determine whether she broke any university rules,” he replied by email. “It’s their decision how to proceed. I don’t think she has a free speech right to defame me.”

While Lee’s implicit endorsement of Giuffre’s claim against Dershowitz might be viewed as defamatory, since it concerns a factual issue, her diagnosis of him is simply a personal opinion dressed up as a medical judgment. The diagnostic entity known as “narcissistic personality disorder” is nothing more than a constellation of unappealing, harmful traits (grandiosity, attention seeking, self-centeredness, “exaggerated self-appraisal,” etc.) that the APA has decided to give that name. Asking whether Dershowitz (or Trump) really suffers from that “mental disorder” is the same as asking whether they have those traits. One might ask the same thing about Lee, and “there is even proof,” based on her public statements, that she possesses at least some of those qualities.

As with DSM labels generally, there is no objective test that can confirm or disconfirm the diagnosis that Lee has applied to Trump and now Dershowitz. It would therefore be impossible to prove that Lee is making an objectively false statement about them. Notwithstanding its baleful effect on the quality of political debate, Lee’s promiscuous use of psychiatric labels does a public service by exposing the pseudoscientific pretensions of her profession.

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Dismissing Her Political Opponents As Mentally Ill, Yale Psychiatrist Diagnoses Alan Dershowitz

Yale forensic psychiatrist Bandy Lee, who famously diagnosed Donald Trump with narcissistic personality disorder, is now suggesting that Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, a conspicuous critic of claims that the president is guilty of obstructing justice or other impeachable conduct, suffers from the same mental disorder. Not only that, Lee says on Twitter, but “just about all of Donald Trump’s followers” suffer from a “shared psychosis”—a pseudomedical conclusion that nicely illustrates how Lee and like-minded Trump critics try to shut down political debate by portraying their opponents as mentally ill.

Dershowitz made that point in a recent Gatestone Institute essay. “Her resort to diagnosis rather than dialogue is a symptom of a much larger problem that faces our divided nation,” he writes. “Too many Americans are refusing to engage in reasoned dialogue with people with whom they disagree.”

Unfortunately, Dershowitz seems to be doing something similar by complaining to Lee’s employer about her diagnosis of him.

Dershowitz notes that Lee’s habit of bludgeoning her opponents with the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) flies in the face of the APA’s Goldwater Rule, which says “it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.” Lee argues that the Goldwater Rule should not prevent psychiatrists from bringing their expertise to bear on important issues of the day—in particular, Trump’s presidency, which she views as an existential threat to humanity. Yet the rule, a response to similar psychiatric critiques of 1964 Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater, was meant to discourage passionate partisans like Lee from casting their political opinions as professional medical judgments, which is exactly what Lee is doing.

The basis for Lee’s diagnosis of Dershowitz shows how casually she tosses DSM labels around. In lieu of an “examination,” she cited a July 18 Fox News interview in which Dershowitz responded to Virginia Giuffre’s claim that Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who committed suicide in jail last August after he was arrested on federal charges of sex trafficking minors, forced her to have sex with Dershowitz, who represented Epstein in a 2006 Florida case involving underage prostitution.

“I’ve had sex with one woman since the day I met Jeffrey Epstein,” Dershowitz said, referring to his wife. “I challenge David Boies [Giuffre’s lawyer] to say under oath that he’s only had sex with one woman during that same period of time. He couldn’t do it. So he has an enormous amount of chutzpah to attack me and to challenge my perfect, perfect sex life during the relevant period of time.” Dershowitz averred that David Boies “has a terrible reputation for sexual activities.”

Boies’ sex life, of course, is logically irrelevant to the merits of Giuffre’s charge against Dershowitz, or of Dershowitz’s counter-charge that she is guilty of defaming him. But if it is true that Dershowitz was faithful to his wife “during the relevant period,” then it must be true that Giuffre is lying or mistaken. Showing little interest in what actually happened, Lee latched onto Dershowitz’s use of the word perfect to describe his sexual fidelity, which she cited as evidence that he caught a mental disorder from the president.

“Alan Dershowitz’s employing the odd use of ‘perfect’—not even a synonym—might be dismissed as ordinary influence in most contexts,” Lee tweeted. “However, given the severity and spread of ‘shared psychosis’ among just about all of Donald Trump’s followers, a different scenario is more likely. Which scenario? That he has wholly taken on Trump’s symptoms by contagion. There is even proof: his bravado toward his opponent with a question about his own sex life—in a way that is irrelevant to the actual lawsuit—shows the same grandiosity and delusional-level impunity. Also identical is the level of lack of empathy, of remorse, and of consideration of consequences (until some accountability comes from the outside—at which time he is likely to lash out equally).”

Contrary to Lee’s implication, Dershowitz’s use of perfect predates by more than two months Trump’s dubious reliance on that adjective to describe his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the conversation at the heart of his impeachment. “I guess she believes he caught the contagion from me,” Dershowitz writes. More to the point, Lee is pretending that her assessment of Dershowitz’s character (which includes the assumption that Dershowitz did in fact have sex with Giuffre) is an objectively verifiable scientific conclusion. While that is very much in the spirit of the DSM, the APA at least expects psychiatrists to actually meet and examine people (and get their permission) before publicly issuing such a diagnosis.

Irked by Lee’s departure from the Goldwater Rule, Dershowitz sent a copy of his response essay to the deans of Yale’s medical and law schools, where Lee works. He tells me he “asked Yale to determine whether her diagnosis of me violated the academic standards of the university.” Now Lee, who does not hesitate to use her position and psychiatric expertise to stigmatize people who disagree with her, is portraying herself as a brave dissident, which is pretty funny given the dearth of MAGA hats at Yale and the accolades she gets on Twitter.

“Alan Dershowitz has now taken his grievance to the deans of Yale Law School and Yale School of Medicine,” Lee writes. “Fortunately, I am less afraid of power than I am of truth. I have considered the costs; if he expects me to cower and to compromise, I will not.”

Noting Lee’s complaint about his complaint, I suggested to Dershowitz that contacting Lee’s employer looks like an intimidation tactic. “I merely informed Yale of the facts and asked them to determine whether she broke any university rules,” he replied by email. “It’s their decision how to proceed. I don’t think she has a free speech right to defame me.”

While Lee’s implicit endorsement of Giuffre’s claim against Dershowitz might be viewed as defamatory, since it concerns a factual issue, her diagnosis of him is simply a personal opinion dressed up as a medical judgment. The diagnostic entity known as “narcissistic personality disorder” is nothing more than a constellation of unappealing, harmful traits (grandiosity, attention seeking, self-centeredness, “exaggerated self-appraisal,” etc.) that the APA has decided to give that name. Asking whether Dershowitz (or Trump) really suffers from that “mental disorder” is the same as asking whether they have those traits. One might ask the same thing about Lee, and “there is even proof,” based on her public statements, that she possesses at least some of those qualities.

As with DSM labels generally, there is no objective test that can confirm or disconfirm the diagnosis that Lee has applied to Trump and now Dershowitz. It would therefore be impossible to prove that Lee is making an objectively false statement about them. Notwithstanding its baleful effect on the quality of political debate, Lee’s promiscuous use of psychiatric labels does a public service by exposing the pseudoscientific pretensions of her profession.

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How George Soros Corrupted Philadelphia’s Justice System

How George Soros Corrupted Philadelphia’s Justice System

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

Philadelphia is one of the least safe big cities in the US. How did it get that way?

Social Justice Warriors

Thanks to George Soros, Larry Krasner was elected District Attorney in Philadelphia.

Krasner is Self-Proclaimed Social Justice Warrior.  Consider the case of Michael White, a 22-year-old black college student who admitted killing Sean Schellenger, white. Numerous witnesses and a cellphone video confirmed what happened.

Krasner initially charged White with first-degree murder and denied his request for bail. But under pressure from leaders in Philadelphia’s African-American community, Mr. Krasner downgraded the charge to third-degree murder. Then, days before the trial, Mr. Krasner dropped the murder charge entirely.

White was then acquitted. How’s that for justice?

Please consider Philadelphia’s Top Prosecutor Pursues ‘Social,’ Not Actual, Justice

Mr. Krasner is one of a new crop of “progressive prosecutors” who have won election in liberal cities. They include San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin, who was raised by Weather Underground radicals Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn because his own parents were in prison for participating in the murder of police officers. Mr. Krasner was a virulent critic of law enforcement before running to become the city’s top prosecutor. During a 30-year career as a defense lawyer, Mr. Krasner gained notoriety for filing 75 lawsuits against Philadelphia police. In a 2017 campaign video he said “policing and prosecution are both systematically racist,” and he called poverty and crime consequences of “mass incarceration.”

Mr. Krasner’s candidacy was laughed off until George Soros dumped $1.7 million into the campaign. At his primary election night victory party, Mr. Krasner smiled while his supporters chanted, “No good cops in a racist system!” and “f— the FOP!” (the Fraternal Order of Police)

​Mockery of Justice

Attorney William McSwain has convincingly argued that Mr. Krasner has created a dangerous “culture of disrespect for law enforcement.”

Radical prosecutors like Mr. Krasner make a mockery of justice. There’s nothing progressive about public servants who shirk their duties, and nothing just about allowing violent criminals to roam free.

Violent Crime in Philadelphia​

As you might expect, Violent Crime in Philadelphia is high and on the rise.

Philadelphia consistently ranks above the national average in terms of crime, especially violent offenses. It has the highest violent crime rate of the ten American cities with a population greater than 1 million residents as well as the highest poverty rate among these cities. It has been included in real estate analytics company Neighborhood Scout’s “Top 100 Most Dangerous Cities in America” list every year since it has been compiled. Much of the crime is concentrated in the North, West, and Southwest sections of the city.

Violent Crimes and Murders

The above Wikipedia snip on Philadelphia triggered further inquiries.

Let’s investigate violent crimes and murder rates.

Most Dangerous Cities Population 25,000 and Above

Please consider Neighborhood Scout’s Most Dangerous Cities – 2020

  1. Detroit, MI: Chance of being a victim 1 in 5,000

  2. Memphis, TN: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 5,100

  3. Birmingham, AL: Chance of being a victim 1 in 5,200

  4. Baltimore, MD: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 5,400

  5. Flint, MI: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 5,500

  6. St. Louis, MO: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 5,500

  7. Danville, IL: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 5,500

  8. Saginaw, MI: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 6,000

  9. Wilmington, DE: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 6,100

  10. Camden, NJ: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 6,200

  11. Pine Bluff, AR: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 6,200

  12. Kansas City, MO: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 6,300

  13. San Bernardino, CA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 6,500

  14. Alexandria, LA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 6,800

  15. Little Rock, AR: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 6,800

  16. Cleveland, OH: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 6,900

  17. Milwaukee, WI: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,000

  18. Stockton, CA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,000

  19. Monroe, LA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,100

  20. Chester, PA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,100

  21. Rockford, IL: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,100

  22. Myrtle Beach, SC: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,200

  23. Albuquerque, NM: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,300

  24. Shawnee, OK: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,300

  25. Pontiac, MI: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,400

  26. Kalamazoo, MI: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,500

  27. Farmington, NM: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,600

  28. Springfield, MO: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,600

  29. Anchorage, AK: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,600

  30. Oakland, CA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,700

  31. Indianapolis, IN: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,700

  32. East Point, GA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 7,800

  33. Compton, CA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 8,200

  34. Battle Creek, MI: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 8,300

  35. East St. Louis, IL: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 8,300

  36. Canton, OH: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 8,300

  37. Elkhart, IN: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 8,400

  38. Newburgh, NY: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 8,400

  39. Riviera Beach, FL: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 8,400

  40. Wichita, KS: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 8,400

  41. Jackson, MI: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 8,400

  42. New Orleans, LA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 8,500

  43. Trenton, NJ: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 8,500

  44. Jacksonville, AR: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 8,500

  45. Nashville, TN: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 8,700

  46. Lansing, MI: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,000

  47. Daytona Beach, FL: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,000

  48. Albany, GA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,100

  49. Harrisburg, PA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,300

  50. Tulsa, OK: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,300

  51. Beaumont, TX: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,300

  52. Hartford, CT: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,300

  53. Desert Hot Springs, CA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,300

  54. Buffalo, NY: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,400

  55. Scranton, PA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,400

  56. Gadsden, AL: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,500

  57. Chattanooga, TN: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,500

  58. Muskogee, OK: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,500

  59. Houston, TX: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,600

  60. South Bend, IN: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,600

  61. York, PA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,800

  62. Homestead, FL: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,800

  63. Fall River, MA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,900

  64. Chicago, IL: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,900

  65. Lubbock, TX: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 9,900

  66. Jackson, TN: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,000

  67. Washington, DC: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,000

  68. Pueblo, CO: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,100

  69. Springfield, MA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,100

  70. Dothan, AL: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,200

  71. North Las Vegas, NV: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,300

  72. Florence, SC: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,300

  73. Lake Worth, FL: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,300

  74. Holyoke, MA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,300

  75. Levenworth, KS: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,500

  76. Richmond, CA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,500

  77. South Salt Lake, UT: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,500

  78. Miami Beach, FL: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,500

  79. Schenectady, NY: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,500

  80. Baton Rouge, LA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,600

  81. West Palm Beach, FL: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,800

  82. Sumter, SC: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,800

  83. Dayton, OH: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,900

  84. North Charlston, SC: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,900

  85. Odessa, TX: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 10,900

  86. Philadelphia, PA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 11,000

  87. Lawton, OK: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 11,000

  88. Brockton, MA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 11,300

  89. Salisbury, MD: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 11,300

  90. Modesto, CA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 11,300

  91. Niagra Falls, NY: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 11,300

  92. Kankakee, IL: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 11,300

  93. Chicago Heights, IL: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 11,400

  94. Oklahoma City, OK: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 11,400

  95. Santa Monica, CA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 11,400

  96. Akron, OH: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 11,600

  97. Lauderdale Lakes, FL: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 11,600

  98. Tacoma, WA: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 11,600

  99. Albany, NY: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 11,600

  100. Wheeling, WV: Chance of being a victim: 1 in 11,600

States With 5 or More of Top 100 Violent Crime Cities

  • California: 8

  • Michigan: 8

  • Florida: 7

  • Illinois: 6

  • New York: 5

  • Pennsylvania: 5

  • Oklahoma: 5

Top 10 Murder Rate Cities

  1. East St. Louis, IL: Murder Rate (.87 per 1,000 residents). 17.5X U.S. Average, No. of Murders: 23

  2. St. Louis, MO: Murder Rate (.62 per 1,000 residents), 12.3X U.S. Average, No. of Murders: 187

  3. Gary, IN: Murder Rate (.53 per 1,000 residents), 10.6X U.S. Average, No. of Murders: 40

  4. Chester, PA: Murder Rate (.53 per 1,000 residents), 10.6X U.S. Average, No. of Murders: 18

  5. Baltimore, MD: Murder Rate (.51 per 1,000 residents), 10.3X U.S. Average, No. of Murders: 309

  6. York, PA: Murder Rate (.45 per 1,000 residents), 9.1X U.S. Average, No. of Murders: 20

  7. Petersburg, VA: Murder Rate (.44 per 1,000 residents), 8.9X U.S. Average, No. of Murders: 14

  8. Birmingham, AL: Murder Rate (.42 per 1,000 residents), 8.4X U.S. Average, No. of Murders: 88

  9. Detroit, MI: Murder Rate (.39 per 1,000 residents) 7.8X U.S. Average, No. of Murders: 263

  10. Danville, IL: Murder Rate (.39 per 1,000 residents) 7.8X U.S. Average, No. of Murders: 12

Illinois Shines

Illinois really shines here. It claims the number 1, number 10, and number 20 murder spots, the latter Alton, IL.

The site shows the top 30. I only listed the top 10.

Danville, Illinois

Danville is my home town.

It is number 7 on the list of most crime ridden cities and number 10 on the murder rate list.

How to Reduce Crime Stats

One way to reduce violent crime is to not convict anyone of anything in the name of “social justice”.

This is the method preferred by George Soros and Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner.

As a side note, these crime stats gave me another reason to share my previous post, Escape Illinois: Get The Hell Out Now, We Are


Tyler Durden

Mon, 01/13/2020 – 14:55

Tags
Law Crime
Social Issues

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Buying A Home Is More Affordable Than Renting In Just Over Half Of The US

Buying A Home Is More Affordable Than Renting In Just Over Half Of The US

In ATTOM’s latest annual report on the state of the American housing market, the company, which maintains a popular proprietary service for housing-market data, found that owning a median-prices three-bedroom home is more affordable than renting a similar property in just over half of the more than 850 counties examined.

However, there’s a clear split between urban/suburban markets, and their rural counterparts: Typically, home ownership is more affordable than renting in lightly populated markets, while renting is more affordable than owning in major cities and their surrounding suburbs.

The annual report used wage data from the BLS, along with recently released data on fair-market rent data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The study also incorporated ATTOM’s proprietary data about publicly-recorded home sales. The ultimate conclusion was that, in 455 of 855 US counties analyzed (roughly 53%), home ownership is more affordable than renting.

The gist is that home ownership is a more financially sensible option than renting in a slim majority of American markets.

“Home ownership is a better deal than renting for the average wage earner in a slim majority of U.S. housing markets. However, there are distinct differences between different places, depending on the size and location from core metro areas,” said Todd Teta, ATTOM’s chief product officer. “For sure, either buying or renting is a financial stretch or out of reach for individual wage earners throughout most of the country in the current climate. But with interest rates falling, owning a home can still be the more affordable option, even as prices keep rising.”

Though this isn’t true for the 136 counties with populations greater than 500,000 people. In 69% of these counties, renting is the more “affordable” option.

That’s hardly a surprise. As we’ve explained many times in the past, millennials, now the generation that represents the greatest share of workers in the American labor force, are fueling an unprecedented boom in the American rental economy.

And this doesn’t apply solely to homes. The “renting revolution” is sprawling to include furniture, clothes and even video game consoles.

In 36 of the 43 counties (about 80%) with a population of at least 1 million or more people, renting is the more affordable option, the author of the report explains. These counties include LA County, Cook County (Chicago), Harris County (Houston), and Maricopa County (Phoenix), as well as San Diego.

In a comparison between home prices and average rents, the study found that the former is rising faster than the latter in 67% – or 575 – of the 855 counties examined by ATTOM’s staff. This ncludes Harris County, San Bernardino, Bexar County (San Antonio), Wayne County (Detroit) and Philadelphia. That figure is slightly better for average rents, which are climbing faster than median home prices in 280 counties (or just 32% of those examined).

Moving on to the subject of wage growth, the study found that home prices in 66% of the markets examined are rising faster than average weekly wages. Meanwhile, average weekly wages rose faster than home prices in about 34% of the counties examined.

The takeaway is clear: Young people who are hoping to own their homes – long seen as a critical component of building long-term wealth – are better off living in more suburban and rural parts of the south and Midwest. Though well-paying jobs are typically scarce in these regions, as more companies migrate to these typically low-tax states, that could soon change, too.


Tyler Durden

Mon, 01/13/2020 – 14:35

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Dems Get Taste Of Own Medicine After Furious Sanders Fires Back At CNN’s ‘Ludicrous’ Sexism Claim

Dems Get Taste Of Own Medicine After Furious Sanders Fires Back At CNN’s ‘Ludicrous’ Sexism Claim

The establishment is in full panic mode over Bernie Sanders, whose rise in the polls has been accompanied by not one, but two Monday morning media hit pieces.

First, as we reported earlier, Democrats have been riled by Sanders’ attacks on Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren – recently saying that President Trump will ‘eat Joe Biden’s lunch’ if he is the nominee.

Second, Sanders took flack after it emerged that campaign volunteers have been telling potential voters that Warren is trying to capture upper-income Democrats and would not attract new voters to the party.

In response, CNN (on the eve of a CNN debate) reports in a thinly-sourced article that Sanders told Warren in a private 2018 meeting that a woman can’t win in 2020 against Donald Trump – based on the accounts of four people “two people Warren spoke with directly soon after the encounter, and two people familiar with the meeting.”

That evening, Sanders expressed frustration at what he saw as a growing focus among Democrats on identity politics, according to one of the people familiar with the conversation. Warren told Sanders she disagreed with his assessment that a woman could not win, three of the four sources said.

Sanders denied the characterization of the meeting in a statement to CNN. –CNN

Sanders hit back, telling CNN “It is ludicrous to believe that at the same meeting where Elizabeth Warren told me she was going to run for president, I would tell her that a woman couldn’t win.”

“It’s sad that, three weeks before the Iowa caucus and a year after that private conversation, staff who weren’t in the room are lying about what happened. What I did say that night was that Donald Trump is a sexist, a racist and a liar who would weaponize whatever he could. Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course! After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016.“

Needless to say, there aren’t a lot of hot takes floating around which are supportive of this unbelievable, second-hand claim. 


Tyler Durden

Mon, 01/13/2020 – 14:15

Tags
Politics

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2FKoCbc Tyler Durden

Some Controversial Kentucky Pardons Are Being Used to Push for a ‘Victim’s Rights’ Bill

Outrage over some controversial pardons by Kentucky’s former governor is being used to resurrect a “victim’s rights” law that the state’s top court struck down last year.

After losing his reelection bid in November, Republican Gov. Matt Bevin approved more than 650 pardons and commutations before leaving office. Many of these were perfectly normal expressions of the governor’s power. Some, for example, benefitted people who faced or already served heavy sentences for drug-related offenses. Some commuted the sentences of men on death row to life in prison.

But some others were highly controversial and led to calls for investigations. A convicted murderer pardoned by Bevin was a member of a family that had raised more than $20,000 for Bevin’s re-election campaign at a fund-raiser. Another pardoned prisoner had been convicted of raping a 9-year-old; Bevin raised public ire by saying he didn’t believe the evidence against the man because the child’s hymen was still intact. (A popular myth holds that this proves no sexual intercourse occurred.)

Now a Republican state legislator is channeling public anger to try to pass a “Marsy’s Law” to designate certain “rights” for crime victims.

Marsy’s Laws are named after Marsalee Nicholas, a woman killed by her ex-boyfriend in 1983 after he was released from jail on bail. They have been pushed into law in several states, in campaigns funded by Nicholas’ wealthy brother. They purport to expand the legal rights of people who are victims of crimes, granting them legal standing to demand protection from criminal defendants, restitution from criminals, notifications of court proceedings, and a say in parole hearings for those serving time.

Kentucky voters passed a version of Marsy’s Law as a ballot initiative in 2018. But last June the state’s top court tossed the law out because the wording of the statute wasn’t included on the ballot. Instead, voters were simply asked, “Are you in favor of providing constitutional rights to victims of crime, including the right to be treated fairly, with dignity and respect, and the right to be informed and to have a voice in the judicial process?”

Lawmakers promised to try to bring the law back before the Assembly, and last week State Sen. Whitney Westerfield (R–Crofton) announced its resurrection in an op-ed for the Courier Journal. The piece doesn’t actually mention Bevin’s pardons and commutations, but it notes that Westerfield has updated the version passed in 2018 to “ensure victims have the right to be heard in and notified of the consideration of any pardon, commutation of sentence or granting of a reprieve.”

The problem with Marsy’s Laws is that they do a whole lot more than just notify crime victims of proceedings involving those charged and convicted of crimes. By giving victims a version of legal “standing” during the investigation and trial of crimes, these laws have the potential to tilt the balance against the defendants and violate their constitutional rights by treating them with the presumption of guilt rather than innocence. Allowing the alleged victim to have a say in a defendants’ bail, for example, treats the defendants as though they’re guilty when they haven’t even been convicted.

As such, defense attorneys and the American Civil Liberties Union are largely opposed to these laws. David M. Ward, president of the Kentucky Association of Defense Lawyers, warned back in 2018:

The reason we have the procedural protections for the accused that we do is that our criminal justice framework rests on the presumption of the accused’s innocence and the fact that, occasionally, people that are accused of a crime are not guilty. Identifying a “crime victim” at the outset of the proceeding presumes just the opposite. Take for example one category of cases—those involving self-defense. Do we really want a system where a person who claims this fundamental right of self-protection must defend themselves not only against the power of the State but also against the legal onslaught mounted by a victim who later, after a trial, turns out to be anything but?

Marsy’s Laws sometimes allow alleged “crime victims” to control how much information about themselves is made public. In some states, police who shot people in the line of duty have used Marsy’s Laws to conceal records about those violent encounters—including the officers’ names—by identifying themselves as crime victims.

These laws also make it harder for prisoners to seek out appeals. This can have any number of potentially bad consequences for somebody trying to prove his or her innocence. As Matthew Harwood wrote in Reason,

Under the version of Marsy’s Law passed in Florida last year, people convicted of noncapital crimes have only two years to complete all appeals, while those on death row have five years. The new limits are based on the victim’s right to proceedings free of unnecessary delays. Under prior law, by contrast, there were limits on how long it could take to file a post-conviction action, Miller said, but there were no limitations on how long the post-convictions could last once initiated.

“For all of my clients, we got involved in the case one or two decades later,” says the Innocence Project’s [Seth] Miller, whose organization has gotten 18 people in Florida released from prison. “Is this going to be used by victims of crimes to prevent us from pressing post-conviction motions based on newly discovered evidence of innocence, because it’s outside an arbitrary time frame set out in this new constitutional provision?”

But it’s hard for politicians to go wrong telling voters that they’re protecting the rights of crime victims, even if parts of the proposal replicate laws already on the books and even if it completely upturns the concept of presumed innocence.

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Contempt for Renters Leads to Second-Class Search and Seizure Protections

Add Pottstown, Pennsylvania, to the list of jurisdictions getting slapped over officials’ efforts to bypass search and seizure protections by mandating regular inspections of rental units. Last week, a Pennsylvania court vacated earlier rulings in favor of local officials and said trial should continue on plaintiffs’ claims that their rights are violated by invasions of their homes without cause or consent.

That’s potentially good news for the people of Pottstown, but also for tenants and landlords everywhere. Recent decades have seen creeping efforts by local governments to treat those who rent homes by choice or necessity as second-class citizens denied the full protections for their privacy embodied in the Fourth Amendment and similar state provisions.

What’s at stake is ably summarized in the Pennsylvania ruling. “In June 2015, the Borough enacted a number of housing ordinance amendments. At issue here, the amendment included provisions requiring each owner of rental property to permit inspections of all rental units every two years,” the three-judge panel of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania noted in the January 6 opinion. “If voluntary access for an inspection is denied, the ordinance allows the Borough to apply for an administrative warrant… The record does not disclose what criteria, if any, the Borough must satisfy in order to obtain such a warrant.”

So far as anybody can tell, the criteria boils down to “let’s print another sheet of paper with the word ‘warrant’ on it.” That loose standard—if it can even be called a standard—raises real concerns when it acts as a skeleton key for government officials to enter people’s homes and look through their living spaces and private possessions.

“Tenants also point out that each inspector is instructed to share with police any observation of an item in a rental unit that the inspector, in his total discretion, considers an indicator of criminal activity…thus allowing police to obtain information about the contents of a dwelling without the need to obtain a search warrant based on individualized probable cause,” the court adds.

Pottsville’s rental inspections not only evade the protections intended by the Fourth Amendment and the arguable even more protective Pennsylvania constitution, but may even do so deliberately. How convenient it is for law enforcement to have colleagues acting as their eyes and ears, but subject to fewer restrictions.

Unsurprisingly, Pottstown tenants Dorothy and Omar Rivera, and their landlord Steve Camburn, objected to the cause-less search and filed suit in 2017 to prevent the invasion of their home. They were joined by Kathleen and Rosemarie O’Connor, who live next door to their father, Thomas O’Connor, in a second family home that the city treats as a rental unit. The plaintiffs are represented by a team led by the Institute for Justice.

Fighting coerced, cause-less inspection of rental units isn’t new for the Institute for Justice. It challenged Yuma, Arizona over a similar law in 2002, and forced the city to make search warrants conditional on probable cause. The group is currently fighting similar inspections in Zion, Illinois, and Seattle, Washington, as well.

“Seattle’s law is being challenged as more and more cities adopt similar, proactive programs to help improve rental inspections,” Curbed reported of the challenge to that city’s cause-less searches. “Detroit and Syracuse, New York, have recently passed similar ordinances.”

So have other local governments.

“If there is one thing every American understands, it’s that government officials don’t have the right to enter our homes unless they have a warrant or there’s a true emergency,” ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Claire Guthrie Gastañaga objected after Hampton, Virginia, adopted a similar rental inspection requirement in 2013. The ACLU earlier threatened legal action against Virginia officials in Chesterfield County, deterring them from adopting similar inspections.

Most of these rental inspection laws couch their rationales in public health language. They’re full of concern about code compliance and maintaining safe and hygienic conditions for tenants. Sure, tenants could take concerns up with their own landlords, or file complaints on their own initiative, but much of the push behind rental inspections drips with contempt for the agency of mere renters.

“By relieving tenants of the burden of having to force reticent landlords to make needed repairs, systematic inspections can help ensure that a locality’s rental housing stock is maintained and that residents live in healthy conditions,” ChangeLab Solutions, a public health nonprofit, claims in A Guide to Proactive Rental Inspection Programs published in 2014.

“Often, the most vulnerable tenants don’t complain,” the report continues. “Some tenants are unaware that they have a right to safe and habitable housing. They may not know about existing tenant protections or code enforcement programs. Or they may have language barriers or disabilities that make it difficult to navigate the code enforcement system. Many tenants may be afraid to complain about their housing for fear of increased rent or landlord retaliation (such as eviction). Residents may be undocumented or have limited income that hampers their ability to move.”

The ChangeLab Solutions report notes that some tenants may have privacy concerns and wish to deny entry to inspectors. It recommends administrative inspection warrants as a means of breaching such barriers.

As befits laws that were born in contempt for those who sign leases instead of deeds, penalties for noncompliance are often levied on landlords, leaving them to find a way to coerce resistant tenants into admitting inspectors, or else join those tenants in fighting intrusive officials.

Many landlords do give in and act as proxies to twist tenants’ arms into allowing government officials to search their homes without probable cause. But lawsuits across the country, including the one proceeding in Pottstown, show that other owners prefer to join with their tenants to preserve search and seizure protections against intrusive officials who treat privacy concerns with disdain.

Rental inspections are supposed to be about public health. But nothing is healthier than a public dedicated to preserving its own privacy and liberty against snoopy officials.

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Some Controversial Kentucky Pardons Are Being Used to Push for a ‘Victim’s Rights’ Bill

Outrage over some controversial pardons by Kentucky’s former governor is being used to resurrect a “victim’s rights” law that the state’s top court struck down last year.

After losing his reelection bid in November, Republican Gov. Matt Bevin approved more than 650 pardons and commutations before leaving office. Many of these were perfectly normal expressions of the governor’s power. Some, for example, benefitted people who faced or already served heavy sentences for drug-related offenses. Some commuted the sentences of men on death row to life in prison.

But some others were highly controversial and led to calls for investigations. A convicted murderer pardoned by Bevin was a member of a family that had raised more than $20,000 for Bevin’s re-election campaign at a fund-raiser. Another pardoned prisoner had been convicted of raping a 9-year-old; Bevin raised public ire by saying he didn’t believe the evidence against the man because the child’s hymen was still intact. (A popular myth holds that this proves no sexual intercourse occurred.)

Now a Republican state legislator is channeling public anger to try to pass a “Marsy’s Law” to designate certain “rights” for crime victims.

Marsy’s Laws are named after Marsalee Nicholas, a woman killed by her ex-boyfriend in 1983 after he was released from jail on bail. They have been pushed into law in several states, in campaigns funded by Nicholas’ wealthy brother. They purport to expand the legal rights of people who are victims of crimes, granting them legal standing to demand protection from criminal defendants, restitution from criminals, notifications of court proceedings, and a say in parole hearings for those serving time.

Kentucky voters passed a version of Marsy’s Law as a ballot initiative in 2018. But last June the state’s top court tossed the law out because the wording of the statute wasn’t included on the ballot. Instead, voters were simply asked, “Are you in favor of providing constitutional rights to victims of crime, including the right to be treated fairly, with dignity and respect, and the right to be informed and to have a voice in the judicial process?”

Lawmakers promised to try to bring the law back before the Assembly, and last week State Sen. Whitney Westerfield (R–Crofton) announced its resurrection in an op-ed for the Courier Journal. The piece doesn’t actually mention Bevin’s pardons and commutations, but it notes that Westerfield has updated the version passed in 2018 to “ensure victims have the right to be heard in and notified of the consideration of any pardon, commutation of sentence or granting of a reprieve.”

The problem with Marsy’s Laws is that they do a whole lot more than just notify crime victims of proceedings involving those charged and convicted of crimes. By giving victims a version of legal “standing” during the investigation and trial of crimes, these laws have the potential to tilt the balance against the defendants and violate their constitutional rights by treating them with the presumption of guilt rather than innocence. Allowing the alleged victim to have a say in a defendants’ bail, for example, treats the defendants as though they’re guilty when they haven’t even been convicted.

As such, defense attorneys and the American Civil Liberties Union are largely opposed to these laws. David M. Ward, president of the Kentucky Association of Defense Lawyers, warned back in 2018:

The reason we have the procedural protections for the accused that we do is that our criminal justice framework rests on the presumption of the accused’s innocence and the fact that, occasionally, people that are accused of a crime are not guilty. Identifying a “crime victim” at the outset of the proceeding presumes just the opposite. Take for example one category of cases—those involving self-defense. Do we really want a system where a person who claims this fundamental right of self-protection must defend themselves not only against the power of the State but also against the legal onslaught mounted by a victim who later, after a trial, turns out to be anything but?

Marsy’s Laws sometimes allow alleged “crime victims” to control how much information about themselves is made public. In some states, police who shot people in the line of duty have used Marsy’s Laws to conceal records about those violent encounters—including the officers’ names—by identifying themselves as crime victims.

These laws also make it harder for prisoners to seek out appeals. This can have any number of potentially bad consequences for somebody trying to prove his or her innocence. As Matthew Harwood wrote in Reason,

Under the version of Marsy’s Law passed in Florida last year, people convicted of noncapital crimes have only two years to complete all appeals, while those on death row have five years. The new limits are based on the victim’s right to proceedings free of unnecessary delays. Under prior law, by contrast, there were limits on how long it could take to file a post-conviction action, Miller said, but there were no limitations on how long the post-convictions could last once initiated.

“For all of my clients, we got involved in the case one or two decades later,” says the Innocence Project’s [Seth] Miller, whose organization has gotten 18 people in Florida released from prison. “Is this going to be used by victims of crimes to prevent us from pressing post-conviction motions based on newly discovered evidence of innocence, because it’s outside an arbitrary time frame set out in this new constitutional provision?”

But it’s hard for politicians to go wrong telling voters that they’re protecting the rights of crime victims, even if parts of the proposal replicate laws already on the books and even if it completely upturns the concept of presumed innocence.

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