Blog
The Voice of The People: Jury Nullification—American Protest At Its Finest
One of the great things about jury trials is that the public—the citizens of a county—get to decide what conduct they believe is deserving of punishment. Towards this, there is a concept called “jury nullification” wherein the jury may believe the Defendant is...
The Violence of Language, or, How A Blog Is Like Graffiti
There is, recounted in Slavoj Zizek’s excellent 2008 book, Violence, a story of the food riots in Brazil, wherein the lower classes who lived in the favelas (slums, basically) of Brazil began to terrorize the middle class during a food shortage. Commentators...
Shame on the State, Part II: Why the “Community Caretaking Function” Is the Biggest Threat to Our Fourth Amendment Rights
It is not uncommon at a motion to suppress hearing based on an unlawful seizure of a citizen to hear the police officer state that he or she “was just checking on the [defendant.]” That is, the officer will suggest, that they stopped the defendant—not...
Just Walk Away, or, Cops Are Not Svengali’s: practical advice
While less a problem in rural areas, the on-street encounter with police is prevalent in urban areas. Consider the following: you are out on Fry Street talking to a friend of yours on the curb in front of [insert your favorite Fry Street bar]. A police officer...
The Law Of Truly Large Numbers: an exercise in thinking
I have been reading an excellent book by David J. Hand, The Impossibility Principle: why coincidences, miracles, and rare events happen every day, (2014), that discusses the mathematical framework of concepts that we commonly hold to be “miraculous” or “extraordinary”...
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