Civil forfeiture laws look a whole lot like legalized highway robbery. Because that’s basically what they are. And because of the fact that they constitute basically free money for federal and state governments, it’s highly unlikely for civil forfeitures to be overturned in court. But occasionally it happens. Take the recent, mind-numbing case of Straughn […]
Continue reading →Sarah Sands lived in the same complex with a convicted child molester, Michael Pleasted, who had a child-molesting criminal record dating back to 1970. Two weeks before he died, Michael Pleasted, aged 77, was charged with molesting two more boys. Sarah Sands killed him with a knife one night after coming to the conclusion that the […]
Continue reading →In light of the recent deaths of too many people whose mundane arrests escalated to violence, it seems a good time to reconsider our law enforcement strategy. I think Insight Policing might offer a possible alternative. Insight Policing trains law enforcement officers to determine the difference between criminal behavior and conflict behavior, so they can […]
Continue reading →Even though marijuana is technically legal in Colorado, the Colorado Supreme Court just ruled that employees can still be fired for using it: The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday affirmed lower courts’ rulings that businesses can fire employees for the use of medical marijuana — even if it’s off-duty. The 6-0 decision comes nine months […]
Continue reading →Ross Ulbricht created the most famous encrypted marketplace on the Dark Web, called the Silk Road. Through it, anonymous users could purchase nearly any illegal thing, but the site became famous for drugs. Sellers were rated (by discreteness of packaging, price, and quality), and it cost money (in Bitcoin of course) to be added to […]
Continue reading →Many individuals are being ticketed for feeding the poor in their cities. The story from San Antonio of Chef Joan Cheever is an illuminating example: On the night she was ticketed, Chef Joan Cheever’s menu included fresh vegetable soup, lamb meatballs over wheat pasta, braised Southern greens, and a salad with roasted beets. She plans […]
Continue reading →Many commentators have noted the police brutality angle of the Walter Scott shooting, but fewer have mentioned the reason that Walter Scott ran from the police in the first place. He was avoiding child support. Walter Scott had already been to jail for not paying child support, and he had lost his job when he […]
Continue reading →An interesting article in Slate presents a compelling argument concerning police body cameras: The theory behind the use of body cameras is that video evidence will provide us with some objective truth about what happens in violent encounters between civilians and police. But that is the wrong way to look at it. As the tapes […]
Continue reading →With the recent police shooting in South Carolina topping off a growing list of “justifiable” police homicides, many Americans have become painfully aware of the tyrannical reality of the police state. Many of the recent victims of police state brutality have a few things in common: they were black, they were originally stopped for misdemeanors, […]
Continue reading →Tyler Brockman, a police officer from Boone County, Kentucky, shot and killed a 19-year-old preschool teacher, Samantha Ramsey, when she was trying to leave a field party. He jumped on her hood and shot her four times through the windshield, to protect himself and the people down the road—all of whom were on the road, […]
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