I read the Cosby opinion from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, it's pretty persuasive

Bruce Castor publicly announced that he would not prosecute Cosby as a way of forcing him to testify in the civil case, unable to assert any Fifth Amendment rights
Then ten years later, Castor's successor went ahead and prosecuted Cosby, based on incriminating testimony that Cosby had given in the civil case

We really don't want a world where prosecutors can bait-and-switch defendants on their Fifth Amendment rights
Also people want to blame Bruce Castor for this but his actions look reasonable in retrospect

The most recent prosecutors used a confession that was very shaky on due process, rather than the evidence available to Castor at the time
People criticizing Castor need to explain how exactly he was going to obtain a conviction of Cosby without Cosby admitting to key elements of the underlying offense

If the answer is "impossible" then Castor made the right call

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More from @willchamberlain

29 Jun
Stuck in an elevator, is it 1927?
UPDATE: I am no longer stuck in an elevator, thank you @ArlingtonVaFD
The tyranny of Big Elevator demands a response
Read 7 tweets
27 Jun
One big lesson of January 6th is that federal criminal law is pretty draconian, as a general matter
It’s not that the federal prosecutors are being uniquely harsh to the 1/6 defendants

It’s that being indicted on federal charges sucks a lot more than people suspect
Layperson: “This is an outrage!”

Lawyer: “Welcome to federal criminal law.”
Read 5 tweets
18 Jun
A big part of law school is learning how much you don't know about the law

It's just a massive field of human endeavor, it's impossible to master it all, at best you can become an expert in specific areas
Some legal questions you know the answer to because they are basic or because you've worked in the relevant area

Most legal questions you either need to research or refer to a specialist - and that's as a credentialed lawyer!
Good lawyers know *how* to find answers to legal questions, and how to make sure they get it right

They also are good at evaluating who really has expertise in an area
Read 5 tweets
18 Jun
About That Revolver Story Claiming FBI Agents/Informants Are the Unnamed "Co-Conspirators" in Jan. 6 Indictments redstate.com/shipwreckedcre…
I think this is an important one to get right

While it's likely that both Oath Keepers and Proud Boys were infiltrated by the FBI (they have a history of doing these things), @shipwreckedcrew is very persuasive in explaining that the unindicted co-conspirators wouldn't be feds
It's really easy to get the law wrong, I'm a lawyer and have done it plenty, and so I get why Darren/Tucker got out ahead of their skis

That's why it's important to check this stuff with people experienced in federal criminal procedure (which I am not)
Read 4 tweets
17 Jun
No more boomer Presidents
Bush, Clinton, and Trump were all born in 1946

Biden was born in 1942

All too old
I'm listening to Trump on Hannity, and it's just old man patter

Biden randomly screamed at a reporter today

There's a reason major corporations have mandatory retirement for their executives at 65
Read 6 tweets
7 Jun
We've spent well over a year fighting about masks and social distancing and vaccines

But whatever "mistakes" were made by elected officials on those issues absolutely pale in comparison to the completely catastrophic error that was subsidizing gain of function research
Big Pharma gets endless hate

And yet it was our NIH that funded the research that killed half a million Americans

And the Big Pharma companies that created the vaccines that stopped the bleeding
It turns out that the profit incentive helps scientists stay focused on creating things that people need

And that the lack of a profit incentive leads scientists to build entire bureaucracies around research that could wipe out millions of people
Read 4 tweets

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