Carissa Byrne Hessick

I mean the Daniels case. And we will have to agree to disagree about the business records charges in that case.

But at least some of the criticisms of the Comey indictment can be made about the NYS prosecution of Trump for the Stormy Daniels payments.
There were clear political reasons to bring that case, the underlying actions were far from egregious, and reports from the Manhattan DAs office were troubling

It's tempting to focus only on Trump's public statements to Bondi and others, directing them to indict Comey and the public reports about how career prosecutors warned against bringing the charges against Comey.

These facts all look really horrible, and there are many reasons to criticize this case

Whatever ends up happening in the James Comey prosecution, our country needs to grapple with the fact that public confidence in the impartiality of criminal prosecutions has been terribly damaged over the past few years.

Voting ends Oct 9

vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting...

I’m sure that bodes well for getting a conviction at trial

"When I eventually encounter the gang, I'm faced with a 14-year-old girl in pink leggings and Crocs. "I'm not claiming to be innocent because I'm not," she tells us. "I've threatened people and I've hit people, I'll admit to that." "The second you get into one bit of trouble with the police, you fall into it too deep and you can't get out," she adds. She says an injury forced her to give up sport and that behaving badly offers an alternative energy release. "I found that I get the same adrenaline boost from being in trouble with the police and being missing and stuff." But there's little remorse. "I regret what I do, but I don't say sorry," she says to cheers from the rest of the gang. She seems bright but deeply troubled. She admits drinking and she's vaping while we talk. Muhammad had already told us he had experienced racist abuse - something the girl firmly denies being involved in. One of her friends chimes in. "I know what we're doing is wrong but we're teenage kids, we're going to have a bit of fun," she tells us. "I'm sorry for most of the people we have damaged, but I have no sympathy… it's just one way of taking my anger out.""

Oddly striking how this teenager, in accounting for her admittedly criminal behaviour, frames it as self-care. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I’m writing a book & it’s keeping me busy!

Given what’s been happening in DC, I would think no one in DOJ should feel particularly confident about whether a grand jury will indict anyone right now.

Your Guide to the 2025 Prosecutor Elections - Bolts Most of November's prosecutor races feature just one candidate, as usual. But key races will shape the politics of criminal justice, from Philly to Seattle — plus a wild card in New Jersey.

I decided to look at all 66 prosecutor elections this fall.

Why? Prosecutors have huge power over sentencing, charging, second chances, and even immigration implications.

Here's everything you need to know, from East to West Coast. New from me:

Thanks, Jane!

I enjoyed reading through @cbhessick.bsky.social's latest "Prosecutors and Politics" study. Surprising to learn that most media coverage about prosecutors is neutral in tone (only 6% of 2020 coverage about prosecutors was negative). Is that still true in 2025, in today's era of weaponized justice?

Just posted my new paper (coauthored with Andy Hessick), called Facts, Policy, and Discretion, which is is forthcoming in the @ucdavislaw.bsky.social law review

We address an important error that I keep seeing in criminal justice cases about the nature of discretion papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Yup. I think we write symposium papers more quickly, and sometimes include summaries of prior work. Because they're written quickly, I think the summaries tend to be less carefully caveated than our primary work.

I’ve been wondering whether we could check professors’ symposium pieces to see a) what their priors are and b) how they perceive the core of their arguments when stripped bare of our ordinary hedging and careful language

Calling it: Grand Jury Bluesky will be the worst Bluesky so far.

Tagging in some folks @steveleben.bsky.social @coreyryung.bsky.social to make sure they see the post . . .

Curious whether anyone could tell me more about this statutory restriction on plea bargaining in Kansas.
The conventional wisdom is that the parties will always evade plea bargaining prohibitions. I'm curious whether that has been the experience in KS with this limited carveout

Screenshot of 2 paragraphs from linked WSJ article. Text: “In a Fox News interview in May, she made the claim that since Trump had taken office, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had seized more than 21 million fentanyl pills, and “that’s 21 million lives saved, in my opinion.” Critics seized on it as a dubious claim, given that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in May said synthetic opioids including fentanyl were involved in 48,422 deaths in 2024 and 76,282 deaths in 2023. Two days later, Bondi said the fentanyl seizures had saved 119 million lives, which would be roughly one-third of the 340 million people living in the U.S. In a cabinet meeting, she revised her statement again, this time claiming the seizures had saved 258 million lives. McGavick posted on social media an equation intended to show that the number of seized pills could hypothetically kill 258 million people.”

These 2 paragraphs are bananas. Truly incredible stuff c/o US Attorney General Pam Bondi.

US Justice fires nine more employees from Jack Smith's team, sources say U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday fired at least nine more Justice Department employees who worked for Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate President Donald Trump's retention of classified records and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to five people familiar with the matter.

DOJ has now fired 26 people who worked on Jack Smith's team. Pure political vengeance against professionals committed to the rule of law.
www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...

I'm a professor at the flagship university for the fourth whitest state in the US. Over 80% of our students are white.

The biggest barrier to access here is that due to lack of state funding, we have top 10 highest tuition per capita of public unis in the country.

We also have a food pantry.

this is all downstream of people finding it aversive to change their mind

I increasingly feel certain that the thing that has driven politics insane is the growing ability of people to find ways to validate their beliefs, no matter how incorrect and irrational. It started in right-wing media but has become central to all political discussion.

(Teaching kids how a sports bracket works = important knowledge)

That’s awful. From what I can tell, at least some teachers here are using the week to have fun activities—a science-related scavenger hunt for the middle school kid and a double-elimination pool noodle fencing tournament for the elementary school kid.

we call this "fighting antisemitism"

Is that somehow related to Pinker’s essay? Or the question of whether to frame criticism of Israel in terms of antisemitism?

👀

I always get caught off guard by Memorial Day weekend. It's somehow not on my list of summer occasions.