Category: Law

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The Supreme Court determined that it was legal to ban people from sleeping on city streets. This will somehow cause the homeless problem to go away, at least if they are sleeping. I am not sure what happens to them when they are awake. This just moves them along during the night time hours. It reminds me of something the city of Coronado used to do with its homeless. They gave the homeless a bus ticket to San Diego. Problem solved. Until of course a few radio personalities found out about it. They, then, gave the homeless bus tickets to Coronado.

This law is a marketing ploy to give the illusion of action. The public sees the cops taking away the sleeping homeless and think something is being done. But where are they going? What’s to stop them from sleeping outside the city limits and coming back the next day? What happens to repeat offenders? Do they go to jail for illegal sleeping? Then the homeless will have both a home and plenty of food all on the tax payer dime.

This is a waste of time for everyone involved. More work for the cops and the courts. More hassles for the homeless. The public will only have temporary relief from the homeless on their streets. Drug addiction and mental illness will still drive people out into the streets because these are difficult problems that require a bit more thinking, more energy, more money and more time. The public is being tricked into believing something is happening when nothing at all is really changing. But it is a very good trick.

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Missouri Governor Mike Parson reduced the time for the son of Kansas City Chief coach Andy Reid DUI sentence. Parson said that Britt Reid had already exceeded the average DUI sentence which is his explanation for his action. My big question here was he looking at all DUI sentences or all DUI sentences which involved a collision and injury. Reid’s DUI involved a badly injured child which rightfully might have added to his final sentence. This clarification would be helpful in assessing Parson’s actions.

Regardless, Parson’s pardon of Reid annoys me. Britt Reid is well connected and wealthy. He may be worthy of sentence reduction but it looks terrible. How many deserving but less connected people failed to get a pardon for the DUI conviction?

It may not be fishy but it certainly looks fishy. Even if Reid was serving more time than the usual DUI perp, appearances matter. It looks unfair when someone with connections gets a lighter sentence because everyone knows then that the rich and the connected get breaks that the rest of us don’t. It isn’t a good look for the law.

Parson can deny that connections had anything to do with it but it would be a lie. Reid got brought to his attention because Reid’s father was Andy Reid. Reid could pay for lawyers to do all the right things to get their client off the hook. Even if everything Parson did was above board, and I have no reason to suspect otherwise, there is a perception problem about justice in this country and this just confirms that it is unfair.

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Amir Locke’s death has brought to light again the troubling practice of no knock warrants. https://www.startribune.com/amir-lockes-killing-prompts-new-scrutiny-of-states-no-knock-warrant-laws/600144103/

I am finding it difficult to understand why such a practice is much of an advantage to the cops. In fact, no knock warrants seems like an inherently dangerous practice for all parties involved. When police barge into a person’s home in a country where a significant portion of the population has a gun, the situation is rife for overreaction. Police are nervous to begin with. A no knock warrant is being used for a reason. The cops anticipate a potential difficult situation and hope to avoid that outcome by not knocking. I am assuming that one of the situations they are worried about is potential violence. But what is the reasonable reaction to having your house broken into in the middle of the night? You are waking up to chaos, people screaming, loud noises. You don’t know who is entering your house. You might feel threatened and pull out your weapon.

From the start this is a dangerous situation, how does not knocking give the cops any advantage. Yes, the person is surprised and will have a more difficult time escaping, but when the surprised person has a loaded gun that doesn’t seem all that helpful to me. At the very least, it gives the person a moment or two to wrap their heads around the fact that they have cops at their front door and to do the right thing. If the cops think the person is dangerous or might flee, then the cops should prepare for these situations. To not give this knock is an invitation for disaster as the Amir Locke incident has proven.