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Descartes and Diesel: An Homage To A Dead Police Dog
Nov. 20, 2015 (Mimesis Law) — I love dogs. That is especially true for police dogs. A French police dog named “Diesel” was killed during a police raid that targeted the suspected mastermind of the deadly terror... -
Judge Kopf Crosses (Crossfires?) Fault Lines
Nov. 11, 2015 (Mimesis Law) — In his absolutely superb law review article, a piece that every prosecutor and criminal defense lawyer should study hard, the brilliant judicial realist Alex Kozinski writes in regard to a... -
Death Comes for the Forgotten
Nov. 4, 2015 (Mimesis Law) — Death Comes for the Archbishop is a 1927 novel by the Nebraska author Willa Cather. It is on all the lists, such as 100 best English-language novels of the 20th... -
The Proper Response When an Offender Laughs at a Judge During Sentencing
Oct. 28, 2015 (Mimesis Law) — “Ruling upholds extra prison time for felon who laughed during sentencing.” So wrote the estimable Howard Bashman yesterday, linking to the opinion and the breathless news coverage. That got me... -
A Second Camel’s Nose Under the Sentencing Tent
Oct. 15, 2015 (Mimesis Law) — Coming soon to a federal sentencing court near you, Risk Prediction and the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015 (S. 2123)—Empirical Methods to Assess Risk to Reoffend. So? When... -
The Reality Of “Mules,” “Ghost Dope” And A “Fetid Feedlot On A Humid Day”
Sept. 28, 2015 (Mimesis Law) — As Scott Greenfield notes, Senator Charles Grassley, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is probably against eliminating statutory minimums. That’s too bad. They ought to go. But if Senator Grassley... -
Time To Get Judges Out Of The Public Defense System
Sept. 24, 2015 (Mimesis Law) — A trial balloon: Let’s transfer the entire federal public defense system (Federal Public Defenders and Criminal Justice Act Panel Attorneys) to an independent agency within the judiciary modeled after the... -
A Post Card And A Smoke Signal From Nebraska
Sept. 18, 2015 (Mimesis Law) — Please read this remarkable article from the Omaha-World Herald: Assistant U.S Attorney Post: Prosecutor rumored to be headed here has baggage from California, (September 17, 2015). Above all else, I... -
Why Do Federal Judges Send Criminals To Prison?
Sept. 9, 2015 (Mimesis Law) — I don’t know the answer to the titular question. I will try to briefly explain why this is a huge problem and why true sentencing reform needs to answer the...