The Color of Law and the History of Race Discrimination in Housing
I spent a long plane ride across the country reading Richard Rothstein’s “Color of Law,” at the recommendation of two FaceBook friends and a guy who just happened to overhear a conversation at Cville Coffee. It is subtitled “A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.” Its starting point is Justice Roberts’ opinion in […]...
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First Step Act may shorten some federal sentences
Perhaps the single most common call that I get is from relatives of federal inmates, repeating some rumor about a new bill coming through Congress to give inmates a time cut. Sometimes they call, CERTAIN that some bill has already been passed to reduce the amount of time inmates serve from 85% to 65%. I’ve […]...
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Senators Introduce Federal Anti-Lynching Bill
The three African-American Senators – Kamala Harris, Tim Scott, and Cory Booker – have introduced a bill to make lynching a federal crime. The bill has been co-sponsored by 16 other Senators, including Virginia’s Tim Kaine. See the New York Times story on the bill here. The bill is quite simple – it defines a […]...
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James Fields — Murder or Manslaughter?
James Alex Fields is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Heather Heyer, for driving his car into a crowd of people on August 12. The defense has suggested that the defense will be that he was acting out of fear for his life — that he felt threatened by Antifa protesters a few […]...
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Fields Jury Will See Instagram Posts About Using a Car as a Weapon
Today it was announced that Judge Richard Moore is going to allow the prosecution to introduce Instagram posts made by James Fields in May, 2017, in which he apparently reposted a meme that involved an image of a car plowing into a group of protesters. The Commonwealth argued that it showed premeditation — that he […]...
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Can a School System Prohibit Confederate Flag T-shirts?
In Charlottesville and Albemarle County right now, activists are trying to get local school boards to adopt policies that would prohibit Confederate flag T-shirts. Can they, consistent with the First Amendment? A group called the Hate-Free Coalition is arguing that the Supreme Court’s decision in Tinker v. Des Moines School District — which struck down […]...
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Can Jason Kessler be retried? Or, a primer on Double Jeopardy
Immediately after the Albemarle County Circuit Court judge presiding at the perjury trial of Jason Kessler dismissed the case because the Commonwealth failed to prove that the crime happened in Albemarle County, I was asked whether there were any other options for Commwealth’s Attorney Robert N. Tracci — could the case be revived and re-tried? […]...
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What does it mean to say that the Commonwealth has failed to prove venue?
Jason Kessler claimed that on January 22, 2017, as he was collecting signature on a petition on the Charlottesville Downtown Mall, he asked Jay Taylor to sign, and Taylor then attacked him. On March 3, 2017, after surveillance video was discovered that proved that Taylor did not assault Kessler, and that Kessler in fact assaulted […]...
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Criminal Intent in Assault Cases in Virginia
In Charlottesville right now, people are poring over videos of fights from August 12, trying to figure out who should be charged with what kind of assault. I’m not going to talk about any particular case, but let me lay out a few of the principles. And let me say in advance that these concepts […]...
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Virginia law on burning crosses and tiki torches
The alt-right demonstrators who keep coming to Charlottesville like to march around carrying tiki torches. Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy has called on the Commonwealth’s Attorney to prosecute them under Virginia’s cross-burning statute. But the United States Supreme Court says that fire and hate, without a direct threat, is not prosecutable under this statute....
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