Category Archives: Justice

UPDATED: Conservatives Freaking Out Over Possible Cop Culpability (Depraved-Heart Murder)

Radio mouth Mark Levin kept insisting noisily that Maryland’s rookie prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, had presented no “new facts” in her case against the six police officers charged in Freddie Gray’s death.

While some charges seem excessive—you can, I am sure, prove depraved indifference, but how do you saddle the officers with an intent to kill?—I don’t understand why the facts have to be new in order to form a valid basis for prosecution.

The harshest charge—second-degree depraved-heart murder—was reserved for Caesar “Goodson Jr., the officer driving a transport van in which Gray was riding.” The other charges—“involuntary manslaughter, assault, failure to render aid and misconduct in office”—don’t seem excessive.

Here is the full list of charges in Freddie Gray’s death.

Mosby, Baltimore State attorney, provided the following facts, new and old (CNN transcript):

* No crime had been committed by Mr. Gray.
* Mr. Gray was then placed in a prone position with his arms handcuffed behind his back. It was at this time that Mr. Gray indicated that he could not breathe and requested an inhaler, to no avail.
* At no point was he secured by a seat belt while in the wagon, contrary to a BPD general order.
* Officer Miller, Officer Nero and Lieutenant Rice then loaded Mr. Gray back into the wagon, placing him on his stomach, head first on to the floor of the wagon. Once again, Mr. Gray was not secured by a seat belt in the wagon.
* Despite stopping for the purpose of checking on Mr. Gray’s condition, at no point did he seek nor did he render any medical assistance for Mr. Gray.
* Mr. Gray at that time requested help, and indicated that he could not breathe. Officer Porter asked Mr. Gray if he needed a medic, at which time Mr. Gray indicated, at least twice, that he was in need of a medic.
* Sargent Alicia White, Officer Porter and Officer Goodson observed Mr. Gray unresponsive on the floor of the wagon.
* Mr. Gray suffered a severe and critical neck injury as a result of being handcuffed, shackled by his feet and unrestrained inside of the BPD wagon.

In-between another stop or two was made to collect another offender.

I still think the injury to the spine occurred at the time of the arrest.

Meantime militarist Megyn Kelly is losing it. She’s been broadcasting desperate interviews, as meaningless and irrelevant as those she conducted with Bill Ayers, this time with a mystery cop she’s attempting to redeem. Other than to insist that Gray (who was obviously dying) was “acting normal,” the cop had no “new” information. And he lives under water. At least so the cop sounded.

UPDATE (5/2): The lawyers explain depraved-heart murder:

Tom Oster: “Depraved-heart murder arises from a theory of extreme recklessness, evidencing an indifference to human life. There doesn’t need to be an intent to cause death, merely a showing that the act that was done showed a ‘depraved’ or ‘extreme’ indifference to human life. Examples could be firing a gun randomly into a crowded street, or driving down a sidewalk.”

Figure that the distinctions between intent as recognized in criminal law (the Model Penal Code provides a good example) break down as Purpose (to cause the end result), Knowledge (that the result will occur), Recklessness (knowledge of a risk of the outcome, with depraved heart murder falling at the higher end of this threshold), Negligence (a reasonable person would know of a risk and exercise care to avoid it, involuntary manslaughter and “criminally-negligent homicide,” in jurisdictions which have this latter offense, generally fall into categories of greater or lesser negligence in homicide cases), and Strict Liability (no intent required, e.g., statutory rape is a strict liability crime usually with regards to the age of the victim).

Certain circumstances (read: collateral and predicate criminal offenses) can be inferred to demonstrate intent. Felony murder, for example, is a death arising from the commission of an inherently-dangerous felony (usually). Intent is inferred from the intent to commit the underlying felony (e.g., someone dies in the process of a kidnapping or robbery). Lesser criminal acts that cause death can demonstrate the intent required for involuntary manslaughter or criminally-negligent homicide (illegally barring the emergency exits of a building, resulting in people being killed in a fire, would likely result in an involuntary manslaughter charge, for example).

Incidentally, the feds, if they were to get involved (I don’t think they will unless the Maryland process sputters out), would have a potentially potent charge to lay. 18 USC 242, “Deprivation of rights under color of law,” applies when under color of law (read, a police officer or someone else acting as a government official or a putative government official), someone willfully subjects anyone to any deprivation of rights, privileges, or immunities under the Constitution or other laws (such as a false arrest, imposition of torture, etc.) If death results, it’s a capital crime (Maryland does not have a death penalty).

And this definition of Depraved-Heart Murder via Jerri Lynn Ward:

UPDATED: Gray Snapped His Own Spine. Yeah. Right.

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Justice, Race

Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, who when calm speaks in CAPS, was super-excited tonight. The cause for her excitement was a stupid report released by the Washington Post, according to which Freddie Gray appears to have broken his own neck and spinal column. Ridiculous.

The source of this nonsense was a “prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray,” and who was “separated from Gray by a metal partition and could not see him.”

That settles it, then. Mr. Gray severed his own spinal column.

“We disagree with any implication that Freddie Gray severed his own spinal cord,” said Jason Downs, one of the attorneys for the Gray family. “We question the accuracy of the police reports we’ve seen thus far, including the police report that says Mr. Gray was arrested without force or incident.”

I believe it is as I had surmised: The oafs likely dug their knees into the spinal column and snapped it.

The video “shot by several bystanders …shows two officers on top of Gray, their knees in his back, and then dragging his seemingly limp body to the van as he cried out.”

UPDATE (4/30): NO RESOLUTION, YET.

“Baltimore police,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “… have concluded their investigation into the death of Freddie Gray and turned the results over to the city’s chief prosecutor.”

Police officials also revealed that the police van carrying Mr. Gray after his arrest made a previously undisclosed stop before he reached the Western District police station and was taken to a hospital. Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Davis said a privately owned surveillance camera captured the stop. He offered no additional details, and it was unclear if that stop shed any new light on Mr. Gray’s injuries.

Based on an earlier police timeline, this stop occurred after one where Mr. Gray was placed in leg shackles because he was acting “irate” and before another where police moved Mr. Gray off the van floor and placed him in a seat. At a fourth stop, police picked up an additional prisoner before reaching the station.

Mr. Gray wasn’t buckled into his seat and wasn’t offered medical attention he requested, police have said.

MORE.

Freddie Gray’s Arrest Conjures Carol Anne Gotbaum’s

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Justice, The State

Freddie Gray, whose fatal injury in police custody led to his death, was clearly manhandled by the officers. Three to 4 oafs likely dug their knees into the spinal column of this slim man. Something bad happened to the vertebrae. The arresting oafs failed to immobilize Gray’s neck in the patrol wagon, even though he was already limp and listless. The affected vertebrae could have further snapped or moved by the van’s motion, resulting in the injury that killed Gray.

The reports on Gray’s injury conjure Carol Anne Gotbaum’s trauma. The petite 45-year-old who weighed 105 pounds was scrummed by meaty policemen in Phoenix’s Sky Harbor, tackled to the ground, and a knee jabbed into her skinny spine. She was then thrown in a holding cell, where she was shackled and chained to a bench. Minutes later Carol Anne Gotbaum was dead.

What a shame that nobody marched for Mrs. Gotbaum, too.

UPDATE II: Libertarian Anarchism’s ‘Justice’ Problem (The Great Clyde Wilson Weighs In)

Crime, Justice, libertarianism, Liberty, Natural Law, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, The State, The West

“Libertarian Anarchism’s ‘Justice’ Problem” is the current essay, slightly abridged on Praag.org. An excerpt:

To the extent the Constitution comports with the natural law—upholding the sanctity of life, liberty, privacy, property and due process—it is good; to the extent it doesn’t, it is bad. The manner in which the courts have interpreted the U.S. Constitution makes the Articles of Confederation, which were usurped in favor of the Constitution at the Philadelphia convention, a much better founding document than the Constitution.

THE SIN OF ABSTRACTION

Unless remarkably sophisticated and brilliant (as only Hans-Hermann Hoppe indubitably is), the libertarian anarchist invariably falls into sloth. Forever suspended between what is and what ought to be, he settles on a non-committal, idle incoherence, spitting venom like a cobra at those of us who do the work he won’t or cannot do: address reality as it is. This specimen has little to say about policy and politics for fear of compromising his theoretical virginity.

Suspended as he is in the arid arena of pure thought, the garden-variety libertarian anarchist will settle for nothing other than the anarchist ideal. And since utopia will never be upon us, he opts to live in perpetual sin: the sin of abstraction.

Indeed, arguing from anarchism is problematic. It is difficult to wrestle with reality from this perspective. This is not to say that a government-free universe is undesirable. To the contrary. However, the sensible libertarian is obliged to anchor his reasoning in reality and in “the nit and the grit of the history and culture from which it emerged,” in the words of columnist Jack Kerwick.

This mindset maligned here is not only lazy but—dare I say?—un-Rothbaridan. For economist and political philosopher Murray Rothbard did not sit on the fence reveling in his immaculate libertarian purity; he dove right into “the nit and the grit of the issues.”

And the “nit and grit” for this not-quite anarchist concerns the problems presented by the private production of justice.

COMPETING THEORIES OF JUSTICE

A belief in the immutably just nature of the natural law must elicit questions about the wisdom of the private production of defense, as this could, in turn, give rise to legitimate law-enforcement agencies that uphold laws for communities in which natural justice has been perverted (in favor of Sharia law, for example).

It’s inevitable: In an anarcho-capitalistic universe, fundamentally different and competing views of justice (right and wrong) will arise. And while competing, private protection agencies are both welcome and desirable; an understanding of justice, predicated as it is on the natural law, does not allow for competing views of justice. …

… The complete essay is “Libertarian Anarchism’s ‘Justice’ Problem.” Read the rest on Praag.org.

UPDATE I: The Great Clyde Wilson Weighs In.

Contra a few irate “readers” at WND, distinguished scholar and prolific author Professor Clyde N. Wilson had not the slightest hardship comprehending—even appreciating—the essay. He writes:

“A very fine column on anarchy and justice.”
Clyde N. Wilson.”

Jack Kerwick, Ph.D., provided good cheer with amusing comments about the creature, on WND, who had “graded” the essay (F) by passing it through some Internet auto-program, and who herself professed to read a dozen or so books a month.

Jokes aside, the essay raises theoretical questions that cannot be boiled down to, “Hey, this works here; and that has worked there; and these guys have proposed Y.” These are not questions of pragmatism, but of principle:

Does natural law comport with a vision of society where systems of law antithetical to natural law could arise and co-exist as a matter of principle? That’s the question. It’s a fundamental one.

UPDATE II: The great Clyde Wilson has been most supportive. He further wrote:

“The idiots are loud but soon forgotten. You have tackled something so basic that libertarians are reluctant to face it.
Best wishes, Clyde.”

Although it is a bit of inside baseball, I had imagined this essay was pretty basic. However, if “a,” “natural law” “to” and “the” are a some reader’s idea of five-dollar words; he or she should stay away from the Federalist Papers.