This is one of my favorite historical stories.

In 1938, a Polish Jew living in Paris, Herschel Feibel Grynszpan, learned that his family had been arrested and deported.

He entered the German embassy, claiming to be a spy with valuable information, and shot an embassy official, Ernst vom Rath. The Germans, of course, claimed that this was an enormous outrage--just part of the historical plot of the Jews to destroy the Aryan race.

They planned a series of pogroms in response, to be carried out by government agents out of uniform, encouraging the public to join in.

Threatening to prosecute people for accurately reporting information about the government violates the first amendment.

https://twitter.com/samstein/status/1886462626332364838

In The Florida Star v. B. J. F, 491 U.S. 524, 526 (1989), a rape victim sued a newspaper for printing her name, arguing that it violated a Florida law protecting her privacy.

When a public official is corrupt, you don't need to doxx them. Who they are is publicly available.

https://twitter.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1886420156416425986

And yet good reporters still often find out embarrassing, newsworthy stuff about these people.

The problem is that there's no good faith definition of "jurisdiction" under which illegal immigrants aren't subject to US jurisdiction.

They have to pay taxes. They can be convicted of crimes. They can be sued. They can be deported.

That's what jurisdiction is.

https://twitter.com/wanyeburkett/status/1882069509990654425

When you say we don't have "jurisdiction" over them you have to come up with some tortured definition where if you can imagine a law does not apply to illegal immigrants (or people here on a visa), that means no jurisidiction.

A quick and dirty explanation for why Shannon Stillwell was acquitted of the murder of Shymel Drinks in the YSL case (in my view).

1. The victim was killed with a .40 caliber, and there was no evidence that Stillwell ever owned a .40. The gang "expert," Viverito, tried to claim that she recognized the bottom of a Glock 27c in a video that Stillwell posted on social media, but she has no special expertise or training with firearms, and her whole basis is that she held one, once, at a gun store.

I want to talk for a minute about a very good, bipartisan bill that you should support: the SLAPP protection act.

A SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) is a weak defamation suit that you file, not to win the case, but to impose litigation costs. /1 So for instance, let's say you go to a restaurant and have a terrible experience. You write a review describing your experience, and the restaurant sues you. Now, you have to pay a lawyer 300 dollars an hour, or take your review down and apologize. /2

Last year my daughter was learning to ride a bike. A large dog, off leash, starts chasing her. She is terrified. It's jumping on her.

The useless piece of shit owner is like, trying to instruct his dog to stop, and I have to sprint up the street to try and grab the dog off.

https://twitter.com/CartoonsHateHer/status/1861039670651392449

The dude is giving these half assed apologies about how his dog isn't scary and won't hurt my kid. Which the dog has already fucking done.

My wife, always calm, gave the man a thorough talking to.

The case against Jackie Johnson is extremely dumb. When Ahmaud Arbery was murdered, she decided not to bring charges. For that she is being charged with obstruction and violation of oath of office.

She was dead wrong. But take ten seconds to think about this case. /1 The claim is that she was showing favor to Gregory McMichaels, a former investigator in her office, by not proseucting him.

But DA's use their discretion like this all the time, and in a hundred different ways. Veterans, young people, people with substance abuse. /2

Bad stuff I expect to happen:

Mifepristone ban
Tariffs
Nutty district and appellate judges
Ending support for Ukraine
Insane deficit spending
Conservative SCOTUS basically forever Bad stuff that could happen:

Repealing CHIPS act
Federal vaccine skepticism
Increasingly bold censorship efforts from State AG's

Ok, so let's go through the 2005 affirmance of Marcellus Williams prosecution.

According to the Supreme Court of Missouri, the evidence against Williams was:

1. His girlfriend
2. His cellmate
3. Items in the girlfriend's possession that belonged to the victim. Williams' defense was that his girlfriend was a prostitute turning him in for a 10k reward who had actually been the person to rob the victim, and that she had lied about him giving her a ride because his car didn't work.

The problem with having Tim Pool sue you is that Tim Pool uses Tim Pool's judgment to select his lawyer and that is not a recipe for success.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
I am not saying that Tim Pool is bought and paid for but I certainly might say pretty much whatever you wanted me to for 100k a video

There are not a lot of people who can just wander into a diner or a donut shop and instantly connect with the people there. Retail politics is hard! If I were going to offer some advice, try asking questions that have more open-ended answers. Not "how long have you worked here" but "what's the best donut here?"

Cities can be sued for the civil rights violations of their police officers when those violations are the result of a policy. Either official (mass arrest orders) or unofficial (looking the other way when bad stuff happens).

/1

ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/2…
In the 5th Circuit, several George Floyd protesters sued because they were beaten and shot with pepperball rounds. /2

A doctor and a lawyer are chatting at a party. But every few minutes, someone comes up and pesters the doctor about some ailment and asks for advice. After a couple of hours, the doctor, exasperated, asks the lawyer how it is that no one bothers asking HIM for advice? The lawyer takes a sip of his whiskey and a drag on his cigar before responding that that used to be a problem for him, but now he just bills people who ask him for advice at his hourly rate. Once that happened a couple of times, nobody bothered him again.

Ok so let's talk about mistrials and double jeopardy, since everyone is talking about it in the context of the YSL trial.

If a mistrial occurs, and the defense just DOES NOT OBJECT, the defendant can be retried. If it's defense requested, same deal.

/1 The only time that the defense can request a mistrial AND bar retrial is when they can get a judge to find that the State deliberately provoked the mistrial.

This is hard as hell because no prosecutor is going to admit that and the judge has to work with them every day.

/2

So let's talk for a minute about recusal motions in Georgia, how they work, and what the remedies are.

A valid recusal motion in Georgia must be:

1. Swift
2. Sworn
3. Sufficient

/1 The motion must be swift:

You have to file it within 5 days of learning whatever reason you have for wanting the judge recused.

/2

It appears that Georgia Rule of Professional Responsibility 3.4 (f) actually has a pretty major typo that changes its meaning.

They changed an "and" to an "or" that eviscerates the rule.

Left: Georgia Right: ABA

Under Georgia's rule, you can almost always request secrecy.

It makes total sense to say that you can tell employees not to tell people about things, so long as it's not adverse to their interests.

It makes no sense at all to say you can tell anyone to remain silent, so long as it's not adverse to their interests.

Let's take a breath and summarize.

Kenneth Copeland did not want to testify. His lawyer left town.

The State and a Judge took this opportunity to threaten to hold Copeland in jail for years if he refused to testify, and threatened to charge him with perjury if he deviated. This may surprise you, but it is relevant whether a witness has been threatened with criminal charges unless he testifies as the State insists he does. That is part of his feelings towards the parties. It is Brady evidence.

Let's go through some relevant law. First off, judges are not supposed to talk to parties without opposing counsel present except in a few, limited circumstances. Here's Uniform Superior Court Rule 4.1. I am not aware of any rule that permits a judge to meet ex parte with a witness.

See e.g. Arnau v. Arnau, 207 Ga. App. 696, 697 (Ga. Ct. App. 1993) (judge who met with expert presumptively prejudiced losing party even if testimony was cumulative).

People keep saying these charges never would have been brought against anyone else.

That's dumb.

If you become a national news story over something that is arguably criminal, there is a very good chance you will be charged. No matter who you are.

https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1796300677993373883

Like, remember that subnormal dude who slapped his kid at a restaurant last week?

Very good odds that he ends up catching a charge or a child services investigation. Not because of his politics but because he is in the public eye.

People often mess up hearsay but the rule is easy.

1. Out of court statement

That means any statement made by someone who is not in the witness chair

It also means statements by the witness that were made before they got to court. 2. For the truth of the matter asserted.

In other words, do you give a shit if the dude is lying?

If I said I am the world's greatest lawyer, you can't bring that in to argue that it's true.

But you can bring it in to show I'm delusional.