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If you were a kid with a lunch debt in Warwick, Rhode Island, the public schools planned to serve you a cold sun butter and jelly sandwich.

Such tactics, often called lunch shaming, aren’t unique to Warwick. Several schools around the country require kids without money for their meals—including those on the free/reduced lunch program—to be publicly marked with special wristbands or otherwise singled out for negative attention.

A Warwick restauranteur, Angelica Penta, raised $4,000 in donations to reduce the kids’ debts, but the school system refused to take the money. Since the check wasn’t enough to cover the entire balance—a whopping $77,000—officials wouldn’t accept it at all, saying they couldn’t choose which students would have their debts erased. They instead suggested that Penta set up a program where students could apply to have their accounts reduced or expunged.

“Every idea I had got shut down,” Penta tells the local NBC affiliate.

Fortunately for the students, the CEO of Chobani announced this week that his yogurt company will donate another $47,460 to the cause. The remainder will come from a GoFundMe started by Cait Clement, who lives down the street from Penta.

“It’s kind of crazy how two moms who just couldn’t fathom kids going hungry just kind of, you know, in two different platforms, are making it happen,” Clement tells Newsweek. “I never ever thought it would go this far.”

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California’s largely incompetent and heavily taxed roll-out of legal recreational marijuana sales continues to not pay dividends.

This week Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration cut $223 million out of the state’s projections of tax revenue from marijuana sales through June 2020.

At this point, that’s not a surprise. Between its extremely high tax rates and its foot-dragging in vendor licensing, California has done such a terrible job implementing marijuana legalization that it made only half the taxes over the first year that the authorities projected—$345 million rather than $643 million. The Golden State has made it such a nightmare for consumers to buy legal recrational marijuana and for vendors to sell it—so much so that the state still has a massive black market. In some communities, according to the Associated Press, half of all marijuana purchases still take place illicitly.

This isn’t entirely due to the state’s huge excise taxes, but Sacramento still deserves a good chunk of the blame. It set high tax rates, then gave cities and counties the authority to charge additional taxes and to control the local licensing. And some cities have done an awful job of actually letting legal marijuana sales happen. Los Angeles, for example, has been so bad about licensing vendors that illegal dispensaries continue to operate, prompting the possibility of an expensive police crackdown that will perpetuate the drug war rather than end it.

And that’s just in the communities that are allowing vendors. The state law also gives municipalities the authority to say no. Those cities’ citizens can still grow their own or buy it elsewhere, but towns can stop marijuana shops from opening entirely.

Newsom is aware of this issue, and he has complained that such cities are depriving the state of tax revenue. Oh, and depriving citizens of the ability to buy marijuana legally. But, really, you know this is all about the money.

There is a bill to cut state-level taxes for a few years, which lawmakers hope will incentivize the development of legal marijuana businesses and reduce the need for black market sales. That legislation, AB 286, passed through the Assembly’s Business and Professions Committee at the end of April and has been referred to the Appropriations Committee.

While cutting pot taxes would be a great idea, Newsom and the California legislature are so hot to find more sources of revenue these days that we should be skeptical about the bill’s future. Newsom has said that he wants harsher enforcement against people selling weed on the black market. Sacramento wants its pay day, even if it means perpetuating the drug war.

Below, ReasonTV explores how California’s mishandling of marijuana legalization has kept a thriving black market intact:

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Generally speaking, it’s better if cops refrain from firing off 76 shots from a moving car in a heavily populated residential neighborhood. But that’s what two of them did last July, according to an investigation by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

A newly released letter from the D.A. recaps the events that transpired when officers Sean Staymates and Kevin Pedersen pursued 50-year-old Eliuth Penaloza Nava.

The story begins when one of Nava’s brothers called emergency services to say that Nava was high on drugs, possibly hallucinating, and driving around in a white truck with a gun and knife. After Staymates and Pedersen located the truck and began to approach it, Nava started to drive away. Both officers then exited their vehicle with their weapons drawn and pointed them at Nava, shouting: “Stop the truck!” Nava fled while the officers reentered their vehicle and pursued.

Pedersen saw Nava reach toward the floorboard and told Staymates that he believed Nava had a gun. Nava pointed the gun toward the officers as he drove, and the cops started firing. Pedersen later said that he saw Nava lower his gun each time they fired—and that he continued firing to keep Nava from shooting random residents. At one point, Staymates began shooting with his patrol rifle.

The chase ended when Nava pulled his truck up to the front of his home. The officers continued shooting at either the truck or Nava after he opened the door. They later said that they could see him moving inside but could not see both of his hands to be sure that he was unarmed. Nava was seriously wounded, and the two officers pulled him out of the vehicle.

Paramedics arrived and attempted to stabilize him. Nava was declared dead after being transported to a local hospital. His gun turned out to be a CO2-powered air pistol; it lacked the orange tip that would indicate that it’s a fake.

Footage of the officers shooting through their own dashboard was captured by their body cameras.

The officers will not face criminal charges. But the D.A. writes that the decision to fire 76 shots from a moving car in a residential neighborhood “was alarming and irresponsible.” The D.A. also recommends that the police department “fairly take any and all appropriate administrative actions and remedies.”

The Anaheim Police Department has confirmed that Pedersen has been fired. Staymates is on paid administrative leave.

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There’s been an enormous amount of ink, digital and otherwise, spilled over AG Barr’s testimony last week (was it really just last week?!)before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the question of whether he intentionally misled the Committee (and/or the public) by his statements and actions in connection with the Mueller Report or even, perhaps, committed perjury or some other impeachable offense.

One issue that popped up during the hearing, though, hasn’t received the attention I believe it deserves.

Mueller, as everyone knows by now, chose not to make a charging decision—one way or the other—in regard to a possible obstruction-of-justice charge against the President because “a federal criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President’s capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct,” (Mueller Report, Vol II p. 1) and because of “concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor’s accusation of a crime, even in an internal report, could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice.” (Id., p. 2)

Barr, of course, went on to make such a decision:

After reviewing the Special Counsel’s Report on these [obstruction of justice] issues, . . . Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence . . . is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense … without regard to the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting President.”  [Barr’s March 24 Letter to Congress, p. 3, emphasis added]

As Sen. Harris (D-CA) pointed out during her questioning (after having wrung from Barr an admission that he had not looked at any of the underlying evidence before making his charging decision), one example of possibly obstructive conduct by the President involved the “events leading up to and surrounding the termination of FBI Director Comey in March 2017″—events analyzed in great detail in the Mueller Report (Vol. II pp. 62-77). Deputy AG Rosenstein was, as the Report makes clear, a key participant in those events, meeting with the President and/or senior Administration officials on numerous occasions to discuss Comey’s termination (as well as authoring the memo that was initially used by Trump to justify Comey’s firing).

Rosenstein, therefore, would likely be an important witness if there were an obstruction-of-justice charge brought against the President. How could Barr have allowed Rosenstein to participate in a charging decision in a case in which he would potentially be a witness?!?

Here’s the colloquy between Harris and Barr on this point:

HARRIS:
[Y]ou said that you consulted with [Deputy Attorney General] Rosenstein constantly with respect to the special counsel’s investigation and report.  But Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein is also a key witness in the firing of FBI director Comey. Did you consult with DOJ ethics officials before you enlisted Rod Rosenstein to participate in a charging decision for an investigation the subject of which he is also a witness?

BARR:
My understanding was that he had been cleared already to participate in it when he took over the investigation.

HARRIS:
You don’t know whether he’s been cleared of a conflict of interest?

BARR:
He wouldn’t be participating if there was a conflict.

HARRIS:
So you are saying that it did not need to be reviewed by the career ethics officials in your office?

BARR:
I believe–I believe it was reviewed and I would also point out–

HARRIS:
And what was the finding?

BARR:
–this seems to be a bit of a flip-flop because when the president supporters were challenging Rosenstein–

HARRIS:
Sir, the flip-flop I think in this case is that you are not answering the question directly. Did the ethics officials in your office in the Department of Justice review the appropriateness of Rod Rosenstein being a part of making a charging decision on an investigation which he is also a witness in?

BARR:
As I said my understanding was, he had been cleared before I arrived.

HARRIS:
And–and the findings of whether or not the case would be charged on obstruction of justice? He had been cleared on that?

BARR:
He was the acting attorney general on the Mueller investigation.

HARRIS:
Had he been cleared . . .

BARR:
I am informed that before I arrived, he had been cleared by the ethics officials.

HARRIS:
Of what?

BARR:
Serving as acting attorney general in the Mueller case.

HARRIS:
How about making a charging decision on obstruction of justice, that is the underlying offenses which include him as a witness?

BARR:
That’s what the acting attorney general’s job is.

HARRIS:
To be a witness and to make the decision about being a prosecutor?

BARR:
Well, no, but to make charging decisions.

Barr was pretty obviously unprepared for this line of questioning, and his answers were not very persuasive (to put it mildly).  I’m no expert in prosecutorial ethics, but it doesn’t seem too complicated: prosecutors should recuse themselves from participating in cases (including participating in the decision about whether or not to charge someone with a crime) in which they might reasonably expect to be called to testify as a witness.  No?

Barr’s defense—that Rosenstein had “already been cleared” to serve as Acting AG in connection with the Mueller investigation—is laughably inadequate. At the time that Rosenstein may have been cleared to serve as Acting AG—in Feb. 2017, when AG Jeff Sessions recused himself from overseeing Mueller’s probe—there was no obstruction-of-justice investigation underway, and Rosenstein had not participated in any events that could be relevant to such an investigation and to such a charge; the possibly obstructive conduct in connection with the firing of FBI Director Comey took place a month later, in March 2017.  The idea that the earlier clearance somehow carried over to cover Rosenstein in connection with possibly obstructive conduct that had not yet taken place is absurd on its face.

It’s hardly the most egregious example of misconduct that has emerged from Trump’s White House and the other institutions of the Executive Branch.  But one does wonder: How could Barr, undeniably a smart guy and an outstanding lawyer—have blown it on this one?  His reputation has suffered badly as a result of his recent conduct and testimony; on this one, though, doesn’t he owe us an explanation (or an apology)?

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Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature from the Institute for Justice.

Friends, administrative procedure can be tricky. It’s even trickier if the gov’t can mislead you about the law and then argue that it is your responsibility to know better. Last week, relying on an IJ amicus, the Texas Supreme Court unanimously reversed a lower court ruling dismissing Patricia Mosley’s argument that she should not be expected to know which of two conflicting procedural rules to follow when appealing an administrative judgment against her. After all, the government itself did not know the right answer and provided her with wrong guidance. The Texas Supreme Court held that tossing Patricia’s case, when she properly relied on the government’s guidance, “violates the most rudimentary demands of due process.” Click here to read the opinion. And click here for an even more fiery concurrence: “People already have plenty of reasons not to trust their government. Apparently now the government agrees it shouldn’t be trusted.”

New on the podcast: A special Seventh Circuit extravaganza recorded before a live student audience at the University of Chicago Law School at the invitation of UChicago chapter of the Federalist Society. Featuring: Tacy Flint of Sidley Austin, Will Baude of UChicago Law, and Jim Pfander of Northwestern Law. Click here for iTunes.

• Two provisional Passaic County, N.J. corrections officers are frequently absent from work, incompetent, and insubordinate. They’re fired. A state commission orders the county to rehire them on a provisional basis. The county accedes but only if the former officers promise not to sue. Instead, they sue. The commission removes them from its list of officers eligible to be rehired. One issue remains on appeal: Did they have a property interest protected by the Fourteenth Amendment in being on that list? The Third Circuit says no.
• There’s no way Virginia corrections officials didn’t know keeping death row inmates in solitary confinement between 23 and 24 hours a day could cause serious emotional and psychological harm, says the Fourth Circuit. And though conditions for inmates have since improved, officials haven’t promised not to revert back. So, over a dissent, the district court did not err by ordering them not to.
• Michigan automatically suspends driver’s licenses for unpaid court debt. A district court suspended this program because it did not include an ability-to-pay hearing before the license was yanked. Sixth Circuit: The state suspends licenses regardless of indigency, so no need for a hearing to establish that someone is poor. Dissent (with an exclamation point!): How does this policy make it more likely the state will recover the money it seeks?
• Man waiting at a St. Louis traffic light is gunned down by unidentified occupants of another vehicle. Can the man’s widow recover $250k from his insurance policy, which covered him in the event of an accident with an uninsured motor vehicle? The Eighth Circuit, interpreting state law, says no. The man’s death was caused not by an uninsured vehicle but by gunfire.
• Kansas City, Mo. police receive call about a burglary in Suite 200 of a building. For good measure, they enter and search Suite 201, too, despite no signs of entry. The same day, officers respond to a robbery call at a store on the first floor of the building, and while there they notice Syn brand incense, which they seize. Surprise! The same guy both owns the store and rents Suite 201, and he is fed up with KCPD’s searching and seizing his property. And his Fourth Amendment claims may proceed to trial, says the Eighth Circuit.
• Springfield, Mo. prohibits women from exposing their nipples (in public) but not men. Unconstitutional gender discrimination? Eighth Circuit: Female nipples may not be freed. (The courts have cleaved on this issue.)
• In January 2019, the Department of Homeland Security implements new policy of returning many Central American asylum applicants to Mexico while an immigration judge resolves their claims. District court: This policy is unlawful. Ninth Circuit (motions panel): Actually, the gov’t is likely enough to win that we shall allow the policy to proceed pending appeal. Concurrence: In practice, though, it seems likely this policy is returning people to Mexico even though they’ll be persecuted there. Concurrence in result: There is no statutory basis for DHS’s policy, and the merits panel should recognize the government’s position as “baseless arguments in support of an illegal policy.”
• California law allows union organizers onto agricultural land before/after work and during lunch breaks to tout the benefits of unionization. Is this physical invasion a Fifth Amendment “taking” of the owners’ property rights? Ninth Circuit (over a dissent): No. Plaintiff: What about a Fourth Amendment “seizure” of our property? Ninth Circuit: Also no.
• Last year, it took the D.C. Circuit 250 pages to conclude that the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whose sole director does not serve at the pleasure of the president, is constitutional. This week, the Ninth Circuit declines to “re-plow the same ground” and reaches the same conclusion in a mere 10 pages.
• Sports Illustrated publishes article detailing how Oklahoma State football booster threw gobs of money at players for “jobs” they didn’t really do. Booster: You’ve painted me in a false light! Tenth Circuit: These hours of recorded interviews with the players who received said gobs of money suggest otherwise.
• Miami officials have plausibly alleged that Bank of America and Wells Fargo refused to loan money to black and Latino homebuyers on the same terms as comparably situated white borrowers, instead lending to minorities only on predatory terms, resulting in disproportionate defaults and financial harm to the city in the form of lost tax revenue. So says the Eleventh Circuit, permitting the city’s suit against the banks to proceed past a motion to dismiss.
• Allegation: Detainee suffering from alcohol withdrawal pulls away from Birmingham, Ala. jail officers trying to take him to cell. He’s tased, falls to the floor motionless, urinates on himself. He doesn’t respond to order to roll over and be handcuffed. He’s tased again. He dies. Eleventh Circuit: His son can sue the officer for excessive force. But no suing the officer’s superiors for inadequate medical screening procedures, allowing insufficiently trained officers to make decisions affecting medical care. (The local press interviewed a former chief deputy: “People die in jail just like anywhere else. This wasn’t due to anything other than poor health and habits but, as you would expect, there is always an ambulance chaser with a dream of winning the lottery at taxpayer’s expense. God bless him.”)

City officials in Dunedin, Florida want to foreclose on Jim Ficken’s home over $29k in unpaid fines for overgrown grass. While Jim was out of town tending to his late mother’s estate, the man he hired to cut the grass died unexpectedly. Jim cut the grass (which must not exceed 10 inches) as soon as the issue was brought to his attention, but by then he’d been racking up fines of $500 per day for weeks—without any notice at all. Jim, who’s nearly 70 and living on a fixed income, can’t pay, so officials are planning to take his house to settle the debt. This kind of thing is not unusual in Dunedin, whose code enforcement revenues have jumped from $34k in 2007 to $1.3 mil in fiscal year 2018. This week, Jim joined with IJ to sue the city. Click here to read more.

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