March 6, 2020
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Liberal billionaire John Arnold joins New York City to free violent suspects with arrest and release
Billionaire John
Arnold, who calls himself a “special interest pot stirrer,” has decided to join
New York City — which is suffering through a crime wave with its new arrest and
release program — to meddle in the issue of bail reform. As part of Arnold’s
scheme to remake the criminal justice system by releasing criminals before they
are tried, he created a “Public Safety Assessment” (PSA) tool, which is
basically a formula that is supposed to assess whether suspects are safe to be
released before their trials. According to Arnold’s website, it is “a risk
assessment tool that helps judges make accurate, efficient, and evidence-based
decisions about which defendants should be detained prior to trial and which
can be safely released.” New York City’s program differs insofar as the state
has simply barred police from detaining criminals for most offenses. But the
results are the same as criminals go free.Unsurprisingly, Arnold’s efforts at
releasing criminals have encountered a lot of resistance from law enforcement
professionals from across the country who are alarmed at what they are seeing
in municipalities that participate, and they just don’t want to take the risk.
Cartoon: Mike Can’t Get It Done
Mike Bloomberg
spent at least $7.7 million per delegate. In theory, if only he had spent $15.8
billion, he might have won the 1991 delegates needed for the Democratic
nomination.
Video: No more
Pocahontas, coronavirus and Jim Jordan's Congressman of the Year award
Elizabeth Warren
is out, the coronavirus spreads and ALG names Jim Jordan Congressman of the
Year.
Byron York: Primaries show Trump GOP strength
“The Democratic
Super Tuesday primaries made all the news, but many states had Republican
primaries, too. The results of those contests suggest President Trump is in an
extraordinarily strong position with GOP voters. His campaign believes the
turnout also indicates that the president's strength extends beyond Republicans
to independents, as well.Trump won the Texas primary with 94.1% of the vote. In
2004, the last time an incumbent Republican president ran for reelection,
George W. Bush, a former Texas governor, won the Texas primary with 92.5% of
the vote. This year, Trump won with 1,889,006 votes out of 2,007,314 Republican
votes cast. Democrat Joe Biden won Texas with 716,030 votes out of 2,075,862
Democratic votes cast.Winning a higher percentage of the Texas primary vote
than a former Texas governor indicates Trump's power in the party. And having
such a large number of Republican votes in an essentially meaningless GOP
primary, compared to Democratic votes in a hotly contested and enormously
consequential primary, also suggests Republican muscle.The story was similar in
other states… The bottom line is that, in a situation in which there was no
significant contest, Republican voters turned out in great numbers to support
the president.”
Liberal billionaire John Arnold joins New York City to free violent suspects with arrest and release
By Richard McCarty
Billionaire John Arnold, who calls himself a “special interest pot stirrer,” has decided to join New York City — which is suffering through a crime wave with its new arrest and release program — to meddle in the issue of bail reform.
As part of Arnold’s scheme to remake the criminal justice system by releasing criminals before they are tried, he created a “Public Safety Assessment” (PSA) tool, which is basically a formula that is supposed to assess whether suspects are safe to be released before their trials. According to Arnold’s website, it is “a risk assessment tool that helps judges make accurate, efficient, and evidence-based decisions about which defendants should be detained prior to trial and which can be safely released.”
New York City’s program differs insofar as the state has simply barred police from detaining criminals for most offenses. But the results are the same as criminals go free.
Unsurprisingly, Arnold’s efforts at releasing criminals have encountered a lot of resistance from law enforcement professionals from across the country who are alarmed at what they are seeing in municipalities that participate, and they just don’t want to take the risk.
One law enforcement professional who opposes the use of the hedge fund manager’s formula is Eric Siddall, the vice president of the Los Angeles Association of Deputy District Attorneys. "We're trying to use a method that hedge funds use to make money to make a determination of whether someone should be in custody or not… The problem is if a hedge fund makes a mistake, they lose money. If we make a mistake, someone dies," said Siddell.
For those unfamiliar with Arnold, he is the former trader who collected the largest bonus in Enron’s history and went on to found his own hedge fund before retiring at the age of 38. Maybe that’s why he thinks it’s safe to gamble with public safety.
Incredibly, the assessment tool assigned two armed robbery suspects the lowest risk score – a 1 out of 6. The two Indiana residents are alleged to have entered a New Orleans pharmacy early in the morning wearing gloves and hoodies, robbed the pharmacy at gunpoint, bound two employees with zip ties, and engaged in a shootout with police as they attempted to flee injuring an officer.
Fortunately, the PSA scores were completely disregarded and bail for each of the suspects was set at more than one million dollars. The assistant district attorney at the bail hearings asserted that the assessments were “unconscionable.” The district attorney followed up by calling the PSA’s score for one of the suspects “absurd” and stated that it “shows exactly why the skepticism” of the PSA “is both warranted and deserved.”
Two former sheriffs – David Clark, the former sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, and Bob White, the former sheriff of Pasco County, Florida – wrote an op-ed opposing the use of the PSA tool: “John Arnold claims to have cooked up a mathematical formula that can somehow predict whether a given criminal suspect will abscond or commit another crime — in other words, Mr. Arnold wants to play of game of Russian roulette but the gun is always pointed at your head, not his… Pre-trial release determinations are complicated and fraught with danger to the public. They are difficult decisions best made on a case-by-case evaluation of all the evidence and circumstances by an experienced judge who has heard arguments on all sides. You can’t leave those decisions to a mathematical formula.”
In addition, Gov. Susana Martinez (R-N.M.), a former prosecutor with more than twenty years of experience, issued the following warning about the PSA tool: “Here in New Mexico, we’ve been working hard to crack down on a catch and release revolving door criminal justice system – a problem that irresponsible interpretations and rules implemented by courts and the Arnold pretrial risk assessment tool have only aggravated. New Mexico implemented this pretrial risk assessment tool to devastating results.
Even a supporter of the PSA tool admits there are significant problems. Alex Bastian, a San Francisco assistant district attorney who is also a spokesman for the district attorney’s office stated, “We feel as though the calculations have not been done accurately on many occasions.”
Throughout Arnold’s career of gambling on natural gas prices, formulas may have been helpful to him in amassing his fortune, but neither human nature, nor justice, nor public safety can be reduced down to a simple formula utilizing only basic information about a suspect. That is why the decision of whether or not to release a suspect from custody should be made by an experienced professional – one who is not relying on a magic formula.
Richard McCarty is the Director of Research at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
Cartoon: Mike Can’t Get It Done
By A.F. Branco
To view a higher level resolution version.
Video: No more Pocahontas, coronavirus and Jim Jordan's Congressman of the Year award
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq4JCbzp_nU
ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured column from the Washington Examiner’s Byron York, incumbent President Donald Trump is still driving heavy turnout in meaningless Republican primaries this year with supporters itching to support the President:
Primaries show Trump GOP strength
By Byron York
The Democratic Super Tuesday primaries made all the news, but many states had Republican primaries, too. The results of those contests suggest President Trump is in an extraordinarily strong position with GOP voters. His campaign believes the turnout also indicates that the president's strength extends beyond Republicans to independents, as well.
Trump won the Texas primary with 94.1% of the vote. In 2004, the last time an incumbent Republican president ran for reelection, George W. Bush, a former Texas governor, won the Texas primary with 92.5% of the vote. This year, Trump won with 1,889,006 votes out of 2,007,314 Republican votes cast. Democrat Joe Biden won Texas with 716,030 votes out of 2,075,862 Democratic votes cast.
Winning a higher percentage of the Texas primary vote than a former Texas governor indicates Trump's power in the party. And having such a large number of Republican votes in an essentially meaningless GOP primary, compared to Democratic votes in a hotly contested and enormously consequential primary, also suggests Republican muscle.
The story was similar in other states. In Alabama, Trump won the Republican primary with 96.2% of the vote. In 2004, Bush won the Alabama primary with 92.8% of the vote. This year, Trump won with 695,469 votes out of 722,809 Republican votes cast. Biden won with 286,065 votes out of 452,278 Democratic votes cast.
In Oklahoma, Trump won the Republican primary with 92.6% of the vote. In 2004, Bush won with 90%. Trump won with 273,562 votes out of 295,409 Republican votes cast. Biden won with 117,552 out of 303,977 Democratic votes cast.
In Arkansas, Trump won with 97.1% of the Republican vote. In 2004, Bush won with 97%. Trump won with 237,863 out of 244,932 Republican votes cast. Biden won with 92,586 out of 228,476 Democratic votes cast.
In some states, there was greater Democratic turnout than Republican. In Tennessee, for example, Trump won the Republican primary with 96.5% of the vote. In 2004, Bush won with 95.4%. Trump won with 380,276 out of 393,969 Republican votes cast. Biden won with 215,005 out of 515,440 Democratic votes cast.
In other states, there are no 2004 numbers for comparison of Trump's performance; given Bush's dominance in the Republican Party, some states simply did not hold GOP contests that year. But Trump's performance Tuesday is still big.
Trump won the North Carolina Republican primary with 93.5% of the vote; the Colorado primary with 92.5% of the vote; and the California primary with 92.5% of the vote.
In a few states, Trump dipped below 90% of the Republican vote. For example, he won the Massachusetts primary with 87.7% of the vote. In that contest, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, the only Republican challenging the president, took 9.3% of the vote. Trump won Utah with 88.2% of the vote, with Weld taking 6.5% and former challenger Joe Walsh taking 2.2%. And Trump won Vermont with 88.7% of the vote with Weld taking 10.4%.
There were no competitive Republican contests in Minnesota, Virginia, and Maine.
The bottom line is that, in a situation in which there was no significant contest, Republican voters turned out in great numbers to support the president.
"There is unprecedented support and enthusiasm for President Trump in the Republican Party, and supporters are turning out in state primaries because they just can't wait to get involved in the process that will end with his re-election," said campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh in an email exchange. "The president has inspired record turnout and record vote totals, but it's not just Republicans who are fired up. Our data shows that a quarter of people who register for the president's rallies are independents or Democrats. The president has unified Republicans, but he's also attracting new voters to his side as well."
Finally, the Super Tuesday results represented a last nail in the coffin for Never Trump Republicans-turned-Democrats who hoped to use the GOP primaries to damage the president's prospects for reelection. Last September, anti-Trump activist and former Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol taunted Republicans who criticized GOP challengers for taking on the president.
"If you are confident, if you're Donald Trump, if these are just minor irritants, you know what — you beat them all, you crush them all in the primaries, and everyone says, 'Wow, look how strong Donald Trump is,'" Kristol told NPR. "If you're shutting down primaries, you're a little nervous about how the dynamic of these primary challenges could go."
One reaction to Tuesday's results might be, "Wow, look how strong Donald Trump is."
Kristol told NPR he thought it was "unlikely" that Trump could be defeated in the primaries. Still, NPR reported, the Never Trumpers' "secondary goal" is to "bruise Trump enough to hurt his chances come November 2020."
Now, Trump has indeed crushed his opponents in the primaries. And though he is certain to face formidable opposition in November, it will not come from within his party.
