Wednesday Writs: In Which Em Goes A’Linking

27 thoughts on “Wednesday Writs: In Which Em Goes A’Linking”

1. Speaking of Virginia, I can’t remember if you already covered this in an earlier WedWrit

   From AP, http://apnews.com/article/virginia-death-penalty-repeal-governor-c98c16a996037a4d1e1d497787b7e6f1
   Virginia Lawmakers vote to abolish death penalty. Governor Northam is expected to sign it this week.

   This is a bfd, and something I always thought Virginia would be among the last to do. It’s also the first real evidence of me of Virginia actually ‘blue-ing’ politically, rather than just being fed up with George W Bush, uninspired by Mitt Romney, and completely alienated by Donald Trump.Report

2. L5: The mental health argument by LE was a rather odious one, given how regularly police mistreat the mentally ill.Report

3. Not really a case law sort of link, but an important study of the legal system, of the “well duh” variety:

   https://www.npr.org/2021/02/24/970538084/how-judges-work-experience-can-impact-court-rulings-and-legal-precedent

   Shepherd concluded that judges appointed by former President Barack Obama with corporate backgrounds are 36% less likely to rule on behalf of employees. Obama judges who have a background as prosecutors are 50% less likely to decide in favor of employees in those cases compared with non-prosecutors, she reported.

   Report

   1. Ergo, judges should have a well rounded body of experience before putting on the robe. Makes sense. Perhaps that should be a pre-req?Report

   2. Note, however, that ideological self-selection likely plays a role here, so it’s hard to say how much of this is due to a causal effect of prior work experience.

      In particular, the fact that there’s a stronger effect for former prosecutors than for former corporate lawyers suggests self-selection as a bigger factor. Prosecutors and public defenders make similar amounts of money, so I would expect a large ideological difference between the two, on average. On the other hand, some left-leaning people might go into corporate law just because it pays so well.

      Furthermore, nothing here tells us which side is right. Maybe former public defenders are unfairly biased against employers.Report

      1. In fact, since the study is based on a sample of judges appointed by Obama, I’m fairly confident that it’s driven by the more left-wing judges being unduly biased against employers rather than the more moderate judges being unduly biased against employees.Report

4. L4: I was stunned by footage of the Merrick Garland hearing. Did everyone else know he’s white? That name – I just always assumed he was black.Report

   1. I assume you are trolling here . . . badly . . . what with all the video of him from his failed SCOTUS nomination running about . . . .Report

      1. No trolling. I never saw the footage.Report

         1. “Stunned”? Why? Mildly surprised that a questionable assumption you should have known better than to make — and should REALLY have known better than to ventilate in public — turned out not to be true, maybe. But “stunned”?
            And, yes, lots of people knew he was white.Report

            1. I stand by “stunned”. Merrick Garland. It did not occur to me that he’d be white.Report

               1. Again, why?Report

                  1. I don’t know. Maybe Merrick – Eric – I pictured Eric Holder? Or the name sounds Southern (I’m thinking of Garland County Arkansas), and Southern names are common among blacks? Maybe that’s why I was stunned. It just didn’t even occur to me.Report

                  2. I just always assumed that (((Abraham))) Lincoln had a yarmulke under that stovepipe hat.

                     Imagine my surprise.Report

                  3. Judy Garland.Report

                  4. Garland Greene.Report

                  5. Well done.Report

   2. Garland is a Jew, so his whiteness depends on a lot in a given moment.Report

      1. I knew he was white, but Jewish is news to me.Report

   3. His name never struck me as particularly black. With the obvious exception of African surnames, there are really only a handful of majority-black surnames in the US (90% of Washingtons are black!), and Garland isn’t one of them.

      Besides, if he were black, criticisms of the Republicans’ refusal to confirm his nomination would have focused almost exclusively on that angle.Report

      1. Good point.Report

5. [L8]: Doing Oregon proud, that fellow! Interestingly, Madras, the city where the arrest of the how-the-hell-is-this-dude-not-dead-already driver occurred, is the site of one of Oregon’s largest prisons.

   Seriously, how do you get a BAC that high? A breathalyzer can be distorted if you, I dunno, gargle with a double-shot of 100+ proof, but this was in the guy’s blood.Report

   1. If I’ve read the article properly, they’re asserting his BAC was at least 0.72%. That’s way up into “How can you still be alive?” territory. Literally — people are known to die from alcohol poisoning at 0.35%.Report

      1. Yep. 9x.08=.72…. insane he’s not dead.Report

   2. It’s like how you get to Carnegie Hall — practice. He’s probably been building up his tolerance for at least 10,000 hours.Report

      1. I wonder if alcohol tolerance is mediated by tolerance to higher BAC levels or by faster metabolism of alcohol that keeps BAC levels lower.Report

         1. My understanding is the former, though IANAD. But while .72 is bananas, it’s not uncommon to see BAC levels of drunk drivers that for the average person would mean “unconscious or dead”.Report

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