Another Reason Why it's Good to be Rich

Robert H. Richards, IV

When most people are convicted of rape, they go to jail. This is especially true when the victim is the rapist's three year-old daughter. However, when you are a scion of a wealthy family, prison may be too harsh. Delaware Judge Jan Jurden recently sentenced wealthy du Pont heir, kiddie rapist, and father of the year candidate Robert H. Richards IV to probation, eschewing any jail time, because she was worried that Richards would "not fare well" in prison. It's good to be an old money white guy.

(Delaware Online)

The Return of the General Warrant

I am not a fan of Reason.com, but a good piece there by Andrew Napolitano on the NSA's ongoing attempt to eviscerate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on general warrants, and the Obama Administration's (further) complicity.

(Probable Cause is Too Hard for the NSA? Too Bad, cited in the blog, Fourth Amendment)

Can We Talk About Race?

As a white civil rights lawyer whose clients are predominantly people of color, I find myself confronting a complex web of race and class based issues and realities on a daily basis. Some of these appear obvious to me, while I am surely oblivious to others. However much I find myself thinking about race, class, and our respective places in and views about society, I rarely venture into concrete discussions about them. Sometimes because I am not certain it is my place, and other times to avoid an argument or being misunderstood. I have come to believe that these difficult conversations are not merely helpful, but are necessary.

Bryan Stevenson, the founder at the Equal Justice Institute advocates strenuously that we must seriously examine and confront our racial history. He explains that our refusal, or perhaps our inability, to acknowledge the true nature of slavery, and its aftermath of Jim Crow laws, segregation, and institutional racism, inhibit our ability to overcome existing prejudice and social injustice. In his speech at TED, on EJI's website and Facebook page, and even on the Colbert Report, Stevenson convincingly returns to the theme that our society is fundamentally out of balance, and that we are a fractured society where the less fortunate or disenfranchised are seen as a foreign entity rather than a part of us. This alienation facilitates social divisions and frustrates the reconciliation necessary to eliminate longstanding harmful and divisive viewpoints and unjust policies. In short, we cannot move forward until we admit to where we are and how we came to be here. That our own families may not have arrived here until the 20th century does not relieve us of our duty to inquire or to seek a deeper understanding.