Happy Wet Soggy Halloween

It's always fun driving on US1 after a rainstorm. Sheesh.

Anyway, eat some candy today, and let's hope it dries up for tonight.

Here are a couple stories to get your Monday going:

1. Leonard Pitts thinks the Fourth Amendment should still have some teeth:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . — Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

Just in case you forgot.

There has been, after all, an appalling amount of forgetting where that amendment is concerned. And New York City has become the epicenter of the amnesia. Yes, the “stop and frisk” policy of questioning and searching people a cop finds suspicious is used elsewhere as well. But it is in the big, bruised apple that the issue now comes to a head.

Federal agents recently arrested a New York City cop on charges of violating the civil rights of an African-American man. Officer Michael Daragjati allegedly stopped the man in April and threw him against a parked van to search him. No drugs or weapons were found, but Daragjati reportedly became angry the man questioned his rough treatment and requested the officer’s name and badge number. So Daragjati ran him in on a charge of resisting arrest. Later, talking on the phone to a friend, he bragged that he had “fried another nigger” and that it was “no big deal.” This was overheard by the feds, who had him under surveillance in a separate investigation.

Let no one fix his or her mouth to pronounce themselves “surprised.” Blacks and Hispanics have complained for years about the selective attention they get from police. Giving cops the power to randomly stop and search pedestrians they find suspicious could not help but exacerbate the problem.

Last year, about 600,000 people were stopped and frisked in New York. Though blacks and Hispanics account for just over half the city’s population, they represent about 85 percent of those stopped. The Center for Constitutional Justice, a civil rights group, says drugs or weapons are turned up in less than two percent of those stops.

It bears repeating: less than two percent.

2. Can lawyers be ineffective during the plea process? Seems like the answer is obviously yes, but the Supreme Court will hear oral argument on the question today:

Anthony Cooper shot a woman in Detroit in 2003 and then received laughably bad legal advice. Because all four of his bullets had struck the victim below her waist, his lawyer said, Mr. Cooper could not be convicted of assault with intent to murder.

Based on that advice, Mr. Cooper rejected a plea bargain that called for a sentence of four to seven years. He was convicted, and is serving 15 to 30 years.

At least Mr. Cooper heard about his plea offer. Galin E. Frye’s lawyer never told him that prosecutors in Missouri were willing to let him plead guilty to a misdemeanor and serve 90 days in prison for driving without a license. When Mr. Frye did plead guilty after the offer expired, he was sentenced to three years.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the two cases, which ask how principles concerning bad legal work at trial should apply to plea bargains. The question is of surpassing importance, since a large majority of criminal cases are settled at the plea stage.

3. The U.S. jails way too many people:

As a means of controlling crime, America’s prisons are notoriously inefficient and only minimally effective, often creating hardened criminals out of first-time offenders. The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, yet 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. In the past generation, the imprisonment rate per capita in this country has multiplied by five. There are 2.3 million Americans in prisons and jails. Spending on prisons has reached $77 billion a year.

Congrats to Judge Kathy Williams

Her investiture was just spectacular. The speakers were really good -- Her friend Cathy Dee, Michael Mullaney, Reuben Cahn, Michael Caruso, Judge Seitz, Judge Moreno, and others. And Judge Williams' remarks showed why she was a great trial lawyer and leader. Here are some pictures from the event:

At Kathy Williams' investiture

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Judge Gold's speech for Judge Hoeveler receiving the Ned Davis award

As I mentioned before, Judge Gold's speech at the Federal Bar dinner last week was fantastic, and I got a copy of it, which I reproduce below:

William M HoevelerSpeech

Congrats to Judge Bob Scola

Judge Scola was just informally sworn in. Here he is celebrating with his wife Judge Jackie Scola and Chief Judge Fred Moreno. Congrats!

Maple Agriculture Protection and Law Enforcement

Not enough federal crimes for you? Check out the MAPLE Act which makes it a felony to sell fake maple syrup. Apparently, having a federal misdemeanor for this offense wasn't enough. From the LA Times:

"Vermont iconic maple syrup -- painstakingly produced, and prized across the nation and beyond -- is one of our state's fine, high-quality, natural products," Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy said in introducing the legislation. A growing number of people are claiming to sell genuine Vermont maple syrup when "they are in fact selling an inferior product that is not maple syrup at all,'' he said, adding that the misrepresentation undermines a key part of Vermont's economy.

"We are very proud of the high-quality maple syrup produced in Vermont," independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a news release. "Some of us think it's the best in the world. We think it is terribly wrong for people to produce a phony product and call it Vermont maple syrup."Leahy, who as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is well positioned to advance the legislation, introduced it in the wake of a recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigation that found a Rhode Island man had been selling cane sugar-based syrup as maple syrup.

Under existing law, fraudulently representing something as maple syrup is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year behind bars.

"Too often, those who are willing to endanger our livelihoods in pursuit of their profits see fines as just a cost of doing business," Leahy said in the statement. "We need to make sure that those who intentionally deceive consumers get a trip to jail, not a slap on the wrist."

Some quick hits for Monday afternoon

1. Justice Stevens has written this interesting review of William J. Stuntz's intriguing book, The Collapse of American Criminal Justice. It starts out this way:

William Stuntz was the popular and well-respected Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law at Harvard University. He finished his manuscript of The Collapse of American Criminal Justice shortly before his untimely death earlier this year. The book is eminently readable and merits careful attention because it accurately describes the twin problems that pervade American criminal justice today—its overall severity and its disparate treatment of African-Americans.

2. Magistrate Judge Seltzer is skeptical of this skeptic (via Sun-Sentinel):

Pena, 49, and Randi, 83, have remained high-profile figures in the world of skepticism for decades, and Randi is famous around the world for debunking people who profess to have paranormal powers. He runs the James Randi Educational Foundation dedicated to skepticism.The deal to get Pena — whose full name is Deyvi Orangel Pena Arteaga — out on bond was worked out at the last minute Thursday night by Assistant U.S. Attorney Bertha Mitrani and Pena's defense attorney, Susan Dmitrovsky.U.S. Magistrate Barry Seltzer asked the attorneys if there was any paperwork — a passport or travel visas — to show Pena was who he said he was."Do we have anything to confirm this his true identity?" the judge asked. "I can't release a defendant unless I have some idea who he is."Mitrani said she and the federal agents working on the case had not had time to check for immigration records, but that she was comfortable Pena was his actual identity and that he would not try to flee the country if released on bond."We are going to verify and vet the information he gave us," Mitrani told the judge.

3. The NY Times has this piece on Justice Thomas. From the intro:

Justice Clarence Thomas was sworn in to the Supreme Court 20 years ago today. After two decades on the bench, he remains a legal outlier even on the conservative court. The results he reaches are often radical, and where his ideas come from even more so.

He favors cutting back the authority of the federal government and letting states “decide for themselves how to safeguard the health and welfare of their citizens.”

He believes that “the Constitution left religion to the states” and that the First Amendment’s prohibition against Congress’s enacting laws on the establishment of religion “was intended to protect” the right of states to do as they please.

He wants to roll back what most Americans consider racial progress because the “Constitution abhors classifications based on race” and even when the government uses them to solve problems and confer benefits, “it demeans us all.”

Extreme as those views are, the most extreme part of Justice Thomas’s record is not what he decides, but how. Justice Antonin Scalia told a biographer of Justice Thomas, Ken Foskett, that Justice Thomas “doesn’t believe in stare decisis, period.”

Federal Bar Gala

It was a nice evening last night at the Biltmore. Brett Barfield was sworn in for a second term, and Bernie Pastor is President-Elect. Judges Williams and Scola were toasted. And Judge Hoeveler received the Ned Davis Award, which was presented in a moving speech by Judge Gold. It was a huge turnout, and Brett has really done a fantastic job with the organization. It's an exciting time in the District...