Law and Legitimacy

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters traveled from Washington, D.C., to suburban Minnesota last weekend to attend a rally related to the police shooting of Daunte Wright.  She didn't need an investigation to conclude that this was yet more evidence on America's war on men of color. She couldn't sleep, she was so upset. And she had a message for the jurors in the Derek Chauvin trial: If we don't hear "guilty, g...

The unvarnished truth is that there is a steady rate of police shootings in the United States, roughly 1,000 per year. And, each year, roughly 51 police officers are gunned down in the line of duty.  On balance, when deaths are population adjusted, police officers are more likely to be killed doing their job than they are to be kill. Policing is dangerous. We are a violent people. We always have b...

Closing arguments have taken place in the Derek Chauvin murder trial in Minneapolis.  This is the most significant criminal trial in America since John Adams' defense of the British soldiers following the famed Boston Massacre trial in 1770.  The Rule of Law is on trial here. Do we assess the evidence against Chauvin under the rule of law, or do we let our judgment be moved by the agitation of tho...

When the Supreme Court opened its doors in 1790, there were six (6) justices.  The number of justices changed six times until the 1860s, and has been steady at nine (9) since then. The Constitution does not set the number of justices; Congress gets to do that. The last time there was a threat to increase the number of justices was when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt threatened to propose legi...

Don't get me wrong—I'm all in favor of vaccinations. But I hate the idea of vaccine passports.  Once we get accustomed to limiting access to public places, and goods and services, based on compliance with public directives about what's good for us, there's no telling where it will end. China uses a social scoring method to ration access to goods and services. Will we have "woke" ID cards to help a...

Derek Chauvin is sure to be convicted, right? I mean, isn't that what the press coverage says? Don't rely on the press.  I've had plenty of cases that were widely reported as they were conducted. I used to read the coverage. It felt like I was getting access to the thirteenth juror. Win the case in the press and you're all set, right? Wrong.  More often than not, I didn't recognize the trial in th...

Query: What scares you more? Speech you can ignore, or the censor who decides what you can see? The United States Supreme Court rejected a petition we filed on behalf of Alex Jones of Infowars on April 5, 2021.  It signals yet again that the Court is ripe to consider recognizing a hate speech exception to the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech. When Mr. Jones offered a reward on his wi...

The reparations bandwagon is gathering steam.  Are you ready to pay race-based transfer payments or to allocate public goods on the basis of race? What about equal protection of the law? The Age of Reparations is upon us. More than 150 years after the abolition of slavery, a century after the dismantling of Jim Crow, and 60 years after comprehensive state and federal civil rights legislation was p...

After two days of trial in the Derek Chauvin case, folks kept asking me: What's going on? Why isn't the defense objecting to the "expert" testimony of the mixed martial arts (MMA) fact witness, Donald Wynn Williams? I explore trial strategy and tactics in this podcast. I won't pretend to know what is on the mind of Derek Chauvin's lead counsel, Eric Nelson. But I will say this: Nelson is a pro. Od...

The truth is that I have issues with authority, and I am a contrarian.  That's why I write about law and legitimacy; it's also why I represent unpopular people. I suspect I'd do the same thing in paradise, should I ever get there. In this episode I peel back the curtain and give you a glimpse of why these issues are so important to me. This is a deeply personal and revealing piece, and I doubt I c...

Focus on the Causation.  Did police officers actually cause the death of Mr. Floyd? If so, how? And if officers did, were their actions justified?   No one has been charged with intentional homicide here. The legally significant questions are what did Mr. Chauvin know and when did he know it?   Mr. Floyd was complaining that he couldn't breathe long before Mr. Chauvin kneeled on him. Don't be surp...

Do you ever wonder about the difference between a police officer and a gang member?  Both might be armed with a gun. Both can ask for your wallet.  Odds are, you will give your wallet to both but feel differently about the reasons for compliance.  The small difference between complying out of fear and complying out of a sense of duty is Legitimacy . LAL #001 introduces the concept of Legitimacy an...