Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Around the Blogs 8-23-06

Joel Jacobsen at Judging Crimes (#152) has a nice take on how defense attorneys see the judicial decision making process. Four things, it turns out, determine the outcome of a case: who the judge is, how like the victim the judge is, how unlike the defendant the judge is, and then the facts of the case. I'd like to claim this is too cynical to be true, but I've known a judge or two in recent years that this does directly apply to (and have heard almost complete "ditto"s about from those who practice in front of them) . . . . Michael O'Hear at Prawfblawg talks about the proposal in WI to criminalize first-time DUI there. The "criminalization" trend is certainly bothersome these days, but he's right in noting it's come up more for political than policy or safety reasons there. He got a good discussion going, so be sure to read the comments, too. (And that thing about getting good discussions going? . . . .)

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