One night, late in April 1989, I sat in an apartment in Jersey City, discussing the Central Park jogger rape case with two friends. One of them, a black Haitian-American, expressed unease over the press and television coverage of the case, the use of the language of ‘wolf packs,’ ‘savages,’ ‘wilding,’ and all of theContinue reading “The Central Park Five: Justice Gone Wrong”
Category Archives: Law and Legal Theory
Protesting Gaza: After Gaol, A Day in Court
This morning, I reported to the New York City Criminal Court to be arraigned on charges of disorderly conduct (blocking traffic)–these stemmed from my arrest during a civil disobedience protest staged outside the Israeli mission to the UN on July 29th. My half-day in court was not as tedious and onerous as my day of imprisonment. ItContinue reading “Protesting Gaza: After Gaol, A Day in Court”
Causal Analysis, Moral Culpability, And Gaza
If X causes Y, and Y causes Z, then surely X is the cause of Z? So goes the intuition–very roughly–that the causal relation is transitive. It thus often underwrites arguments about moral culpability and responsibility–sometimes even in legal settings. If I am the cause for your actions, then I am culpable, by one reckoning,Continue reading “Causal Analysis, Moral Culpability, And Gaza”
A Day in Gaol, Part Deux: Notes on Police, Precincts, and Penality
Spending a day in jail has some social scientific value for the temporarily detained; it enables a closer, albeit short-lived, look at the systems of policing and criminal justice. And because I often expend much time on this blog railing against the excesses of the New York City Police Department, it makes especial sense forContinue reading “A Day in Gaol, Part Deux: Notes on Police, Precincts, and Penality”
Iraq and the Pottery Barn Rule: Don’t Break It Any More Please
As turban-wearing hordes ride down on their stallions from the hills, their sharpened scimitars gleaming in the bright Mesopotamian sunshine, threatening to add to the steadily growing mound of heads separated from their now-twitching bodies, should the United States saddle up, lock and load, and ride out to meet them? Should it crush its enemies, see them drivenContinue reading “Iraq and the Pottery Barn Rule: Don’t Break It Any More Please”
Programs as Agents, Persons, or just Programs?
Last week, The Nation published my essay “Programs are People, Too“. In it, I argued for treating smart programs as the legal agents of those that deploy them, a legal change I suggest would be more protective of our privacy rights. Among some of the responses I received was one from a friend, JW, whoContinue reading “Programs as Agents, Persons, or just Programs?”
Waiting for Jury Duty: Crowd Observation Notes
A curious fact about the crowd enduring the interminably long wait to be called for jury duty selection at Brooklyn’s State Supreme Court building today was how its interactions slowly began to resemble those of passengers on an airliner stranded on an airport tarmac. Before lunch, some folks had already dozed off (I had takenContinue reading “Waiting for Jury Duty: Crowd Observation Notes”
Photocopiers and the Failure to Agree on Meaning
Brett Weiner at The New York Times has put together an amusing Op-Doc titled “Verbatim: What is a photocopier“? As Weiner describes the provenance of the piece: In a deposition in Ohio, a lawyer became embroiled in an absurd argument about the definition of a photocopier….The dialogue was so sharp, inane and fully realized thatContinue reading “Photocopiers and the Failure to Agree on Meaning”
The Killing and Vigilante Justice
There are two instances of vigilante justice in The Killing‘s first season: Bennett Ahmed is brutally beaten by Stan Larsen and Belko Royce, and Councilman Darren Richmond is shot and critically wounded by Royce. Both victims were suspects in the murder of Rosie Larsen; both have been mistakenly accused, a fact that makes their fates particularly poignant.Continue reading “The Killing and Vigilante Justice”
The Killing as Cautionary Police Procedural
If Wikipedia’s entry for “police procedural” is any indicator, AMC’s The Killing is not commonly thought of as one. But despite being a traditional whodunit, it has many of the features of that genre; it depicts “a number of police-related topics such as forensics, autopsies, the gathering of evidence, the use of search warrants andContinue reading “The Killing as Cautionary Police Procedural”
Samir Chopra 