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President of Guatemala Calls for Drug Legalization

Back in November I wrote about what appeared to be the support of Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina for Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s military offensive against drug cartels. Now however,...

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Beat a Defenseless Inmate, Win an Award

Marinate on the absurdity of this (h/t Radley Balko): A defenseless inmate was beaten by Tioga County Jail’s top administrator, David Monell, after being pepper-sprayed and handcuffed to a wooden bench...

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A Good Day for Gun Rights

A Maryland federal judge today held that the state law regulating the issuance of handgun permits violates the Second Amendment. Over at The Volokh Conspiracy, David Kopel provides the details: At...

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An Unlikely Voice Advocates for Drug Law Reform

That’s the topic of my latest post over at Examiner. Check it out here.

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Too Much Plea Bargaining

Using the Supreme Court’s two decisions handed down today regarding plea bargaining, Cato’s Tim Lynch takes the opportunity to zoom out and look at the pervasiveness of plea bargaining in general, and...

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Sen. Schumer’s misguided campaign against synthetic marijuana

That’s the topic of my latest post over at Examiner. Check it out here. Sen. Charles Schumer’s (D- N.Y.) crusade against synthetic marijuana, which he sees as an “emerging drug crisis,” not only misses...

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Wanted: Prosecutorial discretion in federal drug cases

An opinion handed down on March 31 by U.S. District Court Judge John Gleeson in the case of U.S. v  Dossie bemoans the practice of federal prosecutors filing mandatory minimum charges against obvious...

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Mandatory Minimum Absurdity in Florida

Courtesy of Families Against Mandatory Minimums: FAMM (Families Against Mandatory Minimums) President Julie Stewart today called on Florida lawmakers to repeal the state’s “10-20-Life” automatic prison...

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Obama’s newly released strategy for drug policy is neither new nor a strategy

Last week the Obama administration unveiled its 2012 Drug Control Strategy, touting it as a new way forward for U.S. drug policy. Yet, the administration’s report dismisses the possibility of...

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Drug Court Mythology

After the recently concluded Summit of the Americas in which President Obama admitted that the topic of drug legalization was a legitimate one, only then to dismiss the proposition out of hand,...

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Down Goes Texas Drug Warrior

Good news out of Texas last night [h/t Eric Sterling]: Former El Paso, TX city council member Beto O’Rourke has defeated U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, an eight term Democratic congressman, for the...

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Cop: “Your First Amendment rights can be terminated…”

WOW! MSNBC’s Bob Sullivan wrote about the video this morning at Redtape Chronicle: “Your First Amendment rights can be terminated,” yells the Chicago police officer, caught on video right before...

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Shameless Self-Promotion Alert

Can’t get enough of us here at Spatial Orientation? Of course you can’t! Your humble spatial cadets will now be generating content for the fantastic, up and coming web-based newspaper, the Independent...

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Stay Classy Miami Police

A U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Agent was indicted for sexually abusing three women while they were in custody at Miami International Airport: Federal prosecutors say 47-year-old Paulo Morales was...

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(In)Justice Continues To Be Served In Florida

Just when Florida criminal justice policy and sentencing outcomes seem to have reached a zenith of ridiculousness, the Sunshine state continues to disappoint. The culprit once again is Florida’s...

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Video Shows New Jersey State Police Officer Beating Disabled Man

Here’s the story: On an early May morning in 2009, after the State Police had searched through the night trying to find two burglary suspects in Warren County, they stopped a car James Bayliss, then...

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What Impact Does Capital Punishment Have On The Homicide Rate?

Unfortunately, research shows that we just don’t really know — as pointed out in this Bloomberg piece [h/t Sentencing Law and Policy]: That’s the conclusion of the National Academy of Sciences, which...

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The War on Drugs and Marijuana Law Reform Are Anything But Peripheral Issues

To understand why the War on Drugs persists, one has to journey deep inside the prohibitionist mind. During a discussion about marijuana on CNN, talking head LZ Granderson hoped he wasn’t going to have...

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There’s No Business Like Drug Business

The New York Times has an outstanding article detailing the vast activities, reach, and profitability of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel. It gets my highest recommendation, so be sure and check out the...

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Video Shows Henderson Police and Nevada Highway Patrol Joining Together To...

As a one time resident of Las Vegas, I try to stay up to date on the criminal justice goings on in my former home of Clark County. Luckily, the police watchdog blog Clark County Criminal Cops monitors...

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Crime Continues to Decline Though Uncertainty Remains As to Why

Chart Created By Craig D. Schlesinger and Brad R. Schlesinger Last week the FBI released its preliminary crime statistics for the first six months of 2011. The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) figures show...

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Louisiana Taking Steps To Reform Its Dysfunctional Criminal Justice System

Per capita, Louisiana locks up more of its people than any other state in the country — and the world for that matter. You know you’re doing something wrong when you have five times the amount of...

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High-Level Catholic Priest Convicted in Philadelphia

Somewhere, or nowhere, Christopher Hitchens is smiling. WSJ reports: A Philadelphia jury delivered a sharp rebuke of the Catholic Church’s handling of allegations of sexual abuse by its priests,...

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Police Officer Safety At Generational Highs Despite Claims to the Contrary

Back in April, The New York Times ran an article purporting what they considered to be a disturbing new trend of increases in the number of police officers being killed. The article points out how 72...

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Man Exonerated For Wrongful Conviction After Serving 20 Years in Prison

Thanks to DNA evidence, federal prosecutors acknowledged that Kirk Odom is in fact innocent of the rape he was convicted of [h/t Wrongful Convictions Blog]. The Washington Post has the story: Federal...

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Confronting An Anti-Medical Marijuana Zealot

Below is a Students for Sensible Drug Policy video that I helped make of my current boss, Eric Sterling, confronting Rep. Frank Wolf, the leading vocal member of Congress in supporting DEA raids on...

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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s Drug War Remarks Belie His Solutions

As recently reported, New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie did what so many politicians are still unwilling to do: He called the War on Drugs a failure. In a speech at the Brookings Institution,...

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Newark Mayor Cory Booker Sounds Off on the War on Drugs

During a chat on Reddit, Booker launched into a screed against the drug war, calling it “big overgrown government at its worst.” Here’s more from the Huffington Post: “The so called War on Drugs has...

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Florida Supreme Court Upholds Constitutionality of State’s Controversial Drug...

Dating back about 400 years is the bedrock common law principle of criminal law that a crime essentially consists of two elements — the guilty act itself (actus reus) and the guilty mind of the...

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California Police Fire Rubber Bullets and Sic Dog on Protesting Crowd

Words cannot describe what was captured on camera. Carlos Miller has the details and the highly disturbing video is below: Anaheim police killed two men, shot multiple rounds of rubber bullets and...

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Marijuana Prohibition Loses Ground to Federalism

As a constitutional republic, the US system of government is designed on the principles of federalism. In our federalist system the federal government is one of enumerated powers and those powers not...

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The Environment is Another Victim of the War on Drugs

When the topic of drug policy is debated and discussed, the conversation is typically centered on the criminal justice aspect of drug prohibition – and for good reason. As a result of drug prohibition...

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New Research Disputes Perception that Marijuana Dispensaries Facilitate Crime

Image via bangstyle.com That is the topic of my latest post up at the Independent Voter Network. Here’s a taste just to wet your beak: While prohibitionists are concerned that liberalizing marijuana...

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The War on Drugs is an Epic Failure

As we draw closer to election day where the fate of three state marijuana legalization initiatives will be decided, it is always a good time to reiterate and remember just what a disastrous policy the...

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The War on Drugs is an Epic Failure Part II

Another graphic documenting the grisly reality of the failed drug war [h/t Radley Balko]:

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Drug Dogs In The Supreme Court

On October 31, the Supreme Court is set to hear the case of Florida v. Harris, which raises the question of whether a positive alert from a drug dog is sufficient to establish probable cause allowing...

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Bal Harbour, Florida Police Department Epitomizes Perverse Use of Civil Asset...

Image via Albany Times Union My latest piece over at Independent Voter Network looks at civil liberties violating civil asset forfeiture laws and the perverse incentives these laws create for police...

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Colorado and Washington State Vote to Legalize Marijuana

Image via MarijuanaMajority.com Back on January 11, I wrote an article about the prospects for drug law reform this year which stated that ”…2012 may have the potential to be a banner year for drug...

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Happy 79th Anniversary to the End of Federal Alcohol Prohibition

Image via Wikipedia On this day 79 years ago the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified, repealing federal alcohol prohibition and ending this countries failed experiment with that absurd...

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More Asset Forfeiture Abuse in Florida

I previously covered an instance of civil asset forfeiture abuse in Bal Harbour, FL. Recently, there’s been allegations of abuse of state forfeiture funds by the South Miami Chief of Police. The Miami...

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“Prisoners held in solitary confinement in Florida state prisons can be there...

Image via Mother Jones That is what the ACLU told the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights via submitted testimony for a hearing on solitary confinement in the Americas. The full scope of the...

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Florida Lawmaker Apparently No Fan of Exonerating the Wrongfully Convicted

The New York Times It’s no secret that Florida has a problem with wrongfully convicting people sentenced to the death penalty. This is evidenced by the 24 death row inmates that have been exonerated...

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Drug Type and Quantity as Sole Determiner for Defendant Culpability at...

Carolina Academic Press Over at Sentencing Law and Policy, Thomas Jefferson School of Law Professor Alex Kreit has been blogging for the past few weeks about his new casebook, Controlled Substances:...

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How Blind Partisan Loyalty Leads to Drug Policy Incompetence

Sodahead.com This paragraph was written at The Washington Post: Drug policy has improved during the Obama years. The president and his key drug policy advisers have largely abandoned the harsh...

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Important New Paper From ACLU Looks at Impact of Solitary Confinement on...

Image via ACLU The paper opens thusly: Most death row prisoners in the United States are locked alone in small cells for 22 to 24 hours a day with little human contact or interaction; reduced or no...

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“Criminal Justice” in Oil Pastels

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Park Ranger ‘Stunned’ Man Would Walk Dogs Without A Leash

So much so that she just had to nail him with an electric-shock weapon (h/t Matt Welch): A Montara man walking two lapdogs off leash was hit with an electric-shock gun by a National Park Service ranger...

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Drug Policy Budget

That’s the topic of my latest piece at Examiner. Check it out here.

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Defensive Gun Use in America

That’s the topic of a new white paper just released by the Cato Institute. The whole paper can be read here or you can listen to Clayton E. Cramer, one of the authors, discuss the report in a Cato...

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Misguided fears over widespread drug use and abuse

My latest article over at the Examiner looks at new research on the causal relationship between liberalizing drug laws and rates of drug usage. Check it out here.

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