The Austin Chronicle is in a lather:
Judge Edith Jones: Blacks and Hispanics More Violent
Complaint filed over Jones's discriminatory and biased comments
BY JORDAN SMITH, 1:50PM, TUE. JUN. 4
A complaint filed today by several civil rights groups, including one funded entirely by the government of Mexico, alleges that federal Judge Edith Jones has violated her duty to be impartial and damaged the public's confidence in the judiciary, in statements she made in a public lecture – including that blacks and Hispanics are more violent.
Indeed, Jones also said that a death sentence provides a public service by allowing an inmate to "make peace with God."
Jones, who sits on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – based in New Orleans, its jurisdiction includes Texas – made numerous offensive and biased comments during a February lecture at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, according to the complaint filed pursuant to the federal Judicial Conduct and Disability Act. The complaint, filed by the Texas Civil Rights Project, Austin NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and the Mexican Capital Legal Assistance Program (among others) alleges that during her talk – billed as "Federal Death Penalty Review with Judge Edith Jones (5th Cir.)" – Jones violated a number of canons of the code of conduct for federal judges.
The lecture was not recorded, but witnesses recalled a number of Jones' controversial statements. The views she expressed included not only that minorities are responsible for more violent crime than are whites, but also that claims by death row inmates that racism or arbitrariness infected their prosecutions, or that they are actually innocent or even mentally retarded, are merely "red herrings," according to those who attended the lecture. She told the law students and other attendees that she thought the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling outlawing the death penalty for the mentally retarded did intellectually disabled individuals a disservice, and that to create such an exemption from execution was a "slippery slope," reads the complaint. "In describing … what Judge Jones said about these cases, I am not able to capture the complete outrage she expressed over the crimes or the disgust she evinced over the defense raised, particularly by the defendants who claimed to be mentally retarded," reads the declaration, filed with the complaint, of veteran Pennsylvania-based death penalty attorney Marc Bookman, who attended the lecture. "Judge Jones's disgust at how these defendants were 'using mental retardation' was very evident and very disconcerting," reads the complaint.
Here's my 2002 article on the Supreme Court's naive decision exempting from the death penalty killers with low IQs.
Further, Jones "denigrated" the system of justice in Mexico and said it was an "insult" when the U.S. considered laws in other countries when looking at the death penalty – presumably including in Mexico, where capital punishment was outlawed in 2005. Jones also told the audience that "any Mexican National would rather be on death row in the United States than in a Mexican prison," reads the complaint, and indicated that the U.S. provides Mexican citizens more legal protections than does their own system of justice. Moreover, according to the complaint, Jones referred to her personal religious views as justification for the death penalty. A killer is "only likely to make peace with God and the victim's family in that moment when the killer faces imminent execution," she said – a proposition that she said she found evidence for in an article she and her husband found online called "Hanging Concentrates the Mind." (Apparently by Rev. George W. Rutler, in the Catholic magazine Crisis, Feb. 8, 2013.)
Perhaps Samuel Johnson suggested this before 2013?
Moreover, according to the complaint, Jones asserted as fact the proposition that blacks and Hispanics are more likely to commit violent crimes.
When asked to explain her comments, "she stated that there was 'no arguing' that 'Blacks and Hispanics' outnumber 'Anglos' on death row and 'sadly' it was a 'statistical fact' that people 'from these racial groups get involved in more violent crime,'" reads the complaint.
According to a 2011 Obama Administration report:
Based on available data from 1980 to 2008—
Blacks were disproportionately represented as both homicide victims and offenders.…The offending rate for blacks (34.4 per 100,000) was almost 8 times higher than the rate for whites (4.5 per 100,000).
Back to the Austin Chronicle:
... Jones, 64, was appointed to the Fifth Circuit in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan. The UT Law graduate is an opponent of abortion rights and a supporter of efforts to streamline appeals in death penalty cases. She was twice mentioned as a potential nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court – first during the presidency of George H.W. Bush (who chose David Souter to fill the spot in question), and in 2005, Jones' name resurfaced as a possible nominee of President George W. Bush.
The supreme duty of contemporary Americans is to be ignorant.
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51 comments:
Isn't affirmative action premised on the notion that blacks and browns are dumber and need extra consideration?
and what about Sotomayor with her 'wise latina' comment?
I think the news blackout about black and Hispanic crime may be breaking down. Last night O'Reilly pointedly mentioned in a section of school violence that it was predominantly black school violence.
In a sense he had to. The video that ran over the commentary clearly showed that all the perpetrators were black. But O'Reilly didn't just note the racial angle in passing he emphasized it. And he argued with his whipping boy Alan Colmes when he tried to dismiss the racial angle as not real but only a proxy for poverty.
Colmes is very bright but he's saddled with presenting these ludicrous liberal arguments so he comes off as a boob.
Maybe O'Reilly is more than just a news-showman after all.
Albertosaurus
A civil rights organization founded entirely by the government of Mexico?
Who says the left has no sense of humor.
And she hasn't apologized and groveled yet? Provisional huzzah! to the lady.
On both a proportionate basis and an absolute basis, it is a fact (not simply an opinion) that minorities are responsible for the majority of crimes, particularly violent crimes. While liberals would like us to believe that the data is due to racism and discrimination, the facts speak for themselves. Some on the left think they are helping minorities when they push this agenda - others use the story line to further their own political careers. In reality, placing the blame where it doesn't belong harms honest, law abiding minority citizens as they are the primary victims of criminal minority types.
Would these same folks get their panties in a wad if I pointed out that most NBA players are minorities? They most certainly would find it unfair and objectionable if I brought a discrimination suit based on disparate impact because I was rejected by the NBA!
Gubbler - Affirmative action (along with disparate impact) tacitly assume that indeed blacks and hispanics are incapable of competing with whites on an even playing field. I know some blacks (John McWhorter) who voted for Obama on the premise that his election would show that the US had "advanced" to the point where racial preferences were not needed and blacks would be willing to compete on their own merits rather than demanding special favors.
The supreme duty of contemporary Americans is to be ignorant.
That's too easy. Our duty is different:
"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink."
Thanks.
The proles' duty is to be ignorant.
The Outer Party's duty is to practice doublethink.
But, is there an Inner Party who really understands how things work? Is there an O'Brien or a Mustapha Mond who can come on at the end and explain how 21st Century America really functions? If there is, is he employed in Washington?
Do you think Michael Bloomberg or Chuck Schumer or Ben Bernake or Valerie Jarrett really understand how domestic America works at an O'Brien / Mond level? I doubt it.
I wouldn't be astonished if Leon Panetta, say, really does understand a lot about America's role in the world, but it's probably safer for somebody with an Inner Party level of understanding to focus on the foreign side of things.
Isn't affirmative action premised on the notion that blacks and browns are dumber and need extra consideration?
Sir, why did you post this? If it's a genuine inquiry, it means you're too ill-informed to hang here. Otherwise - jeez - you must have something better to do, yes?
On the off chance it's the first:
In the minds of its proponents, AA was "premised" (we're talking about the '70's-80's now) on the notion that the SAT, primary determinant of admission to elite universities when race is not taken into consideration, is somehow biased against darkskins. A later "premise," which got traction in the early '90's, was that blacks and browns "learn differently" from whites and so are somehow disadvantaged by the nature of the school system under which whites, over time, become prepared to do well on the SAT. The main lie in all of this is an unstated one: since everyone (save Steve and his acolytes) start from the assumption that blacks suffer from no innate intellectual deficit, the actual answer for their poor showings on the SAT has to be a cultural rejection of the preparatory schooling that whites embrace. The pithy name for this attitude is "Uncle Tom Syndrome," which prevents blacks from doing anything which they know whites would like them to do. Somewhere in the mid-90's a black sociologist somewhere in Ohio adverted to this widespread attitude among blacks, but the idea was quickly buried because acknowledging it served nobody's political agenda, and today nobody talks about it, except for the Ohio State quarterback.
You maybe disliked the Chronicle's points of emphasis but I thought the blog post was relatively straight-up/non-latherly. Good to know the Mexican government funds a "civil rights group"... Judge Edith Bunker seems tough and as the blog noted, there isn't a recording of the alleged hatefacts and crimethink. Going after a federal judge is a different ballgame than going after a Richwine or Niall Ferguson or Rick Sanchez.
"But, is there an Inner Party who really understands how things work? Is there an O'Brien or a Mustapha Mond who can come on at the end and explain how 21st Century America really functions? If there is, is he employed in Washington?"
On the off-chance this is a genuine question:
On the same principle as "follow the money", ask yourself: what is the reward of the Inner Party in 1984? It's not wealth in any absolute sense, because they're worse off than average people before the Party came to power. The reward is in relative wealth, in status, and power.
You're a big "who, whom" guy. Who benefits from the state of our society?
Do you think Michael Bloomberg or Chuck Schumer or Ben Bernake or Valerie Jarrett really understand how domestic America works at an O'Brien / Mond level? I doubt it.
1. Important parts.
2. Not a whole lot. He knows PR and how to hornswaggle reporters and other pols.
3. Important parts, but from a vantage point different from Bloomberg's.
4. No.
===
While we are at it, keep in mind that O'Brien and Mond were the issue of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. Orwell had a much more varied occupational life and interesting experiences than Huxley, which certainly provided insights. However, both were journeymen writers without accomplishment in any other sort of endeavour. You do not think they could have been that insightful, do you???
Come on. That blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately represented is accurate. But that's not the only thing she said. The assertion that offenders would prefer to be under a sentence of death in the U.S. rather than a sentence of life in Mexico is appallingly removed from reality. (If you doubt it, give the condemned a choice in the matter.) And the assertion that death is healthiest because it brings the criminal to God is the pronouncement of a religious fanatic, not an unsentimental legalist.
I wouldn't be astonished if Leon Panetta, say, really does understand a lot about America's role in the world,
Why Panetta regarded so differently from Schumer? Panetta was actually a working (and very rank-and-file) lawyer for some years and has held appointive positions of consequence in Democratic administrations for eight years, but he is at base the same animal - a Washington pol, just one with better manners. Bernanke and Bloomberg are very different animals.
Completely offtopic but something I've always wondered about:
In the sentece 'This comment has been removed by the author' refer to the author of the comment or the author of post?
Here is the relevant Supreme Court opinion re: executing the mentally retarded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_v._Virginia
I cannot for the life of me figure out why it matters if somebody knows why they are being killed.
Art Deco, amusing that you'd relegate Huxley to the subterranean realm of beetle-browed ink-stained wretches, which I guess could work if you overlooked his various freakish health problems and famous acquaintances. He was from a prestigious and serious family and seemed as if he'd try to make the most of it, at least in the first half of his life. Personality-wise he would not be classified along a restless malcontent like Orwell (who was briefly Huxley's student at Eton). When Huxley temporarily lost his vision during WWI he taught himself to play piano from Braille-reading of sheet music, alternating between hands as necessary.
Look my Puritan ancestors let your ancestors come into this country not too much to ask that you might have to put up with some religious "fanaticism." And again whose fanaticism mos leftist consider genetic differences in IQ fanaticism so everyone on this board should shut up by your logic.
When Panetta was put up for CIA director it was a bit controversial (typically). He was well established as a Clintonian/Pelositan ward heeler but his military-spook connections were distant at that point. Of course then what's Obama do next, he subs in Panetta for SecDef...
Obama naturally reaches for the hack when the deadline's up to appoint someone (Sotomayor, Genachowski, Browner, Solis, Landesman, Wintour; arguably Biden as running mate intersects with the pattern). It really is like Bush's 4th term, only difference is the movie stars and rock singers are happier now.
Anonymous - 6/5/13, 5:23P
I am with you.
This lady may be right about some things but she is out there.
No way would I want her to judge me or anybody else.
I can understand a judge not wanting to be BSed -- but I don't think her objection to not executing the retarded is about fakers. I think she wants them to have the same possibility of moral and religious awakening that other condemned prisons might have.
I do not think the awakening she describes is limited to death row inmates, nor do I think that they all experience it.
I hope she has talked herself off the bench with this.
But, is there an Inner Party who really understands how things work? Is there an O'Brien or a Mustapha Mond who can come on at the end and explain how 21st Century America really functions? If there is, is he employed in Washington?
Of course.
Michael Bloomberg, Rahm Emmanuel, Richard Daley, the Clintons, William Kristol, Rupert Murdoch, HW and Jeb Bush, Haim Saban, Chuck Schumer, Lloyd Blankenfein, Dick Cheney. I could go on and on, but there are plenty of people who understand how the system really works, and they're profiting handsomely off of it.
In any organization, the people at the top generally know what's really going on and they use that information to their advantage.
There are plenty of Mustapha Monds out there. The idea that our society is just a product of random chaos and incompetence is an insult to the overclass.
But, is there an Inner Party who really understands how things work? Is there an O'Brien or a Mustapha Mond who can come on at the end and explain how 21st Century America really functions? If there is, is he employed in Washington?
Maybe he employs Washington.
It seems that Bilderberg and Google are merging this year, and talking big data, so they probably know exactly where things are at.
But, is there an Inner Party who really understands how things work?
This is a good question. It usually happens with paradigms that it takes one genius or more (a Newton or Einstein) to create the paradigm (sometimes with a lot of blowback), and those that follow are generally enforcers. Eventually the paradigm gets broken, but not easily.
Was there an inner party? Yes, it was the Frankfurt School. The members of that group were the Aristotle of PC. But they were not the enforcers, which are the media/academic/political/plutocrat complex. The role of this complex is analogous to the role of the Catholic Church in the heliocentrism debate.
I say that it is analogous because the Catholic view was pervasive at the time, and wrong. It was not just the Church who were invested in this belief, it was those in charge of the power structure in general who were also Christians. Likewise, there are a lot of people with a lot of investment in PC in the current power structure. A fair few of them know that the criticisms against PC are valid. They like power more than truth.
If there was an IP in the heliocentrism debate it would have been within the church and society power structure. Did they know that Galileo was really correct? I'm not sure. Certainly there would have been a large number of true believers who were not amateur astronomers and would side with the church. OTOH, it's very possible that the top leadership of the church would have been smart enough to know the truth, and that the truth represented a threat to their power (whether or not that was actually the case).
Nature hath no fury like an atheist scorned.
Sheesh.
The views she expressed included not only that minorities are responsible for more violent crime than are whites, but also that claims by death row inmates that . . . they are . . . mentally retarded, are merely "red herrings," according to those who attended the lecture.
I don't think you're allowed to suggest a given minority member may be retarded or not retarded. Best thing is to say there's no way to know.
It's odd her comments about race were actually the mildest yet that's what the race hustlers are whining about. I find her comments about retarded individuals offensive though.
Based on Holder's 2009 speech, I am sure he will come forward to thank her for her courage and tell the NAACP to withdraw its charges in the name of free and open discourse.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a blunt assessment of race relations in the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder Wednesday called the American people "essentially a nation of cowards" in failing to openly discuss the issue of race.
Eric Holder spoke to an overflowing crowd for Black History Month at the Justice Department Wednesday.
I do not think the awakening she describes is limited to death row inmates, nor do I think that they all experience it.
She didn't claim they all did. But it's been well documented that men facing a death sentence, when all the appeals are over and they know their time is running out, often try to make things right. Not just with their Creator, but with their fellow man by finally admitting to their guilt, which can mean a lot to the victims. That's much less likely with the lifetime convict who needs to maintain his innocence just in case of some chance of parole.
"Last night O'Reilly pointedly mentioned in a section of school violence that it was predominantly black school violence."
But he let idiot Alan Colmes say that poverty was the cause...although it's true that he (and whoever else he had on, I forget) ever so gently pointed out that this behavior didn't take place in white schools that weren't in great neighborhoods.
Bernanke understands how to maximize the resources he can obtain from money printing.
Very few people understand how to do it; it requires printing the maximum amount of money while causing the minimum amount of inflation.
It's a very important skill: the difference between being good at it and bad at it can be measured in the trillions.
I have a complaint about the Mexican Government interfering in US affairs.
Where do I file it?
Opposition to the death penalty always assumes either
a. every capital conviction is a priori technically flawed
or
b. on principle, no one should be killed judicially, no matter what - even if he's a serial killer caught on tape and freely confessing, etc.
or
c. government, being illegitimate on principle, is never intentionally just.
Although some convictions have been flawed, a. is clearly absurd.
And b. often goes hand-in-hand with the notion that extra-judicial killings (e.g., "stand your ground") are just peachy. An anarcho-totalitarian viewpoint, as is c.
Are death penalty opponents simply spooked by masochistically picturing themselves being tumbrilled to the gallows to the music of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique? Don't laugh - one of the seminal anti-capital punishment texts is Victor Hugo's 1829 novelette The Last Day of a Condemned Man, page after page of over-the-top emotionalism written by a bourgeois who never so much as jaywalked. (Note that Hugo doesn't stoop to tell his readers what his protagonist's crime is. It could be a rape-torture-murder of a child - it's not considered important. What's important is Hugo's imagining himself as the condemned man sitting in the wet, dark cell - trapped, TRAPPED! - awaiting - my word! - the icy hand of implacable Death!! etc.)
The only question in a capital case should be: guilty or not guilty? If guilt is established in court, then it's not inappropriate to muse on collateral benefits (psychological, spiritual, etc.) of punishing the convicted party.
"Isn't affirmative action premised on the notion that blacks and browns are dumber and need extra consideration?"
Why no it isn't Old Sport. Affirmative action was conceived as two-pronged government plan. The first prong intended to counteract "negative action" if you will, or in terms you may better understand, 'taxation without representation.'
The way this works is that throughout American history, all Americans were subject to taxes which went to social, engineering, leisure and etc. projects, that only SOME Americans were able to take advantage of.
The second prong is that in the English system of law (which is by-and-large the American system) the needs of the individual are minimized for the needs of the public, a good example of this would be eminent domain. The manner in which this relates is that the people who make the laws, us, (ostensibly) voted that the economy and the tapestry of this country is stronger by having all Americans involved, theoretically, in equal manner; ergo, a few people must be hosed in the meantime in order to make this happen in the long run.
I hope this is a help.
"I hope this is a help."
Try it in Detroit.
David:
You are beating up a strawman. Non-strawman reasons to oppose the death penalty include
a. If you think *too many* cases are decided wrongly (and clearly some are, and some innocent people are surely executed from time to time), you are likely to oppose the death penalty. Though I'm not sure sending the wrong guy to prison for 40 years is all that much better than just killing him.
b. If you think the threat of execution is being used to extract false guilty pleas (plead guilty and you'll be out in 10 years, otherwise we'll try to get you executed) you might oppose the death penalty.
c. If you think there's little or no deterrent effect of the death penalty, and you don't really care about retribution so much as preventing future crimes, you might oppose the death penalty on those grounds.
And so on. It works better to engage the other side's good arguments, rather than a caricature of their worst ones.
I can understand a judge not wanting to be BSed -- but I don't think her objection to not executing the retarded is about fakers.
Seventeen percent of Blacks in this country are retarded. Many more can pass as retarded if they tank their tests. We can't just excuse their crimes.
The views she expressed included not only that minorities are responsible for more violent crime than are whites, but also that claims by death row inmates that . . . they are . . . mentally retarded, are merely "red herrings," according to those who attended the lecture.
Great. So the position of the NAACP is "Now see here, colored people really ARE stupid and don't you try to say otherwise!"
Attorney General Eric Holder Wednesday called the American people "essentially a nation of cowards" in failing to openly discuss the issue of race.
What he means by a "conversation about race" is him calling you a racist, and you agreeing with him.
"Try it in Detroit."
Why, will I find smarter people there?
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act".
George Orwell.
he pithy name for this attitude is "Uncle Tom Syndrome," which prevents blacks from doing anything which they know whites would like them to do.
Thats Fear of Acting White. Can anyone explain how that fits together with another explanation. this from the mid 1990s onwards: Stereotype Threat.
"If negative stereotypes are present regarding a specific group, they are likely to become anxious about their performance which may hinder their ability to perform at their maximum level. For example, stereotype threat can lower the intellectual performance of African-Americans taking the SAT reasoning test used for college entrance in the United States, due to the stereotype that African-Americans are less intelligent than other groups."
How can Uncle Tom Syndrome and Stereotype Threat both be true at once? Is it a form of doublethink by academics, race hustlers etc or do some subscribe to one and not the other?
Why no it isn't Old Sport. Affirmative action was conceived as two-pronged government plan.
It's actually a three-pronged plan. The third prong is wedged in the ass of the white majority.
There are plenty of Mustapha Monds out there. The idea that our society is just a product of random chaos and incompetence is an insult to the overclass.
No. Knowledge is specialized, and no one controls more than small parts of it or the world around them. Our politicians influence the largest swath, but they tend to be people whose main skill is in the realm of public relations and salesmanship (Obama, Clinton). Business executives have important knowledge and skills, but are also vulnerable to fads (about which Scott Adams has made a comfortable living lampooning). Lawyers tend not to understand business and economics (Joseph Stiglitz has said that a great many of the debates you participate in in government reflect the cleavage in worldviews between economists and lawyers). Journalists tend to understand only those things that can be put in conversational and narrative form (and only their own beats).
Bernanke understands how to maximize the resources he can obtain from money printing.
I doubt he is making any money off it other than his salary.
When is she running for President?
If you don't way to pay attention to fictional societies, and you can't see the forest for the trees when it comes to your own, try looking at other systems.
We know a great deal about the Soviet Union. Far more than we ever knew, or at least were willing to publically acknowledge, when it actually existed.
In that society, how was control maintained? What made it in everyone's self-interest, at least in the short term, to maintain the system? How did these motivations differ, depending on the position of the subject in society? Who actually benefitted from the system, and in what ways? Who had control, how was it distributed, and how was it exercised?
>If you think *too many* cases are decided wrongly [...], you are likely to oppose the death penalty. Though I'm not sure sending the wrong guy to prison for 40 years is all that much better than just killing him.<
So if there's an arbitrary number of technical flaws in applying various laws (death penalty, life imprisonment, long sentences, and so forth), it's best to do away with the laws instead of to repair the technical flaws. The practical meaning of this is that unless the system is perfect, it has no right to exist. (Anyone can say "too many.") This is straight-up libertarianism, or anarcho-totalitarianism, right off the pages of a Walter Block book. Ditto your argument b.
c. revives a cliche false alternative deserving only the old cliche response: the death penalty surely deters the executed party from committing future crimes.
I have sympathy with the argument that death is final, therefore all ducks should be in a row before it's imposed. But as you point out, sitting in prison for 40 years (often a de facto death sentence in itself) is damn serious, too. Not everyone is cut out for working in the judicial system. The solution would be to quit it, not kill it.
Bernanke understands how to maximize the resources he can obtain from money printing.
Very few people understand how to do it; it requires printing the maximum amount of money while causing the minimum amount of inflation.
In order to pull off the trick, you need a recession and massive labor oversupply. Check.
the part in the start "entirely funded by the Mexican goverment" suggests the writer isn't totally point and sputtering. why add that detail? maybe just wishful thinking. the writer of this article or article like this who basically call people thought criminals for stating hate facts should be pubicly mocked on the street with smart phones. go up to the snarky hipster who wrote this and say "do all races have the same crime rates?".
I live in Austin, and I use the Chronicle to wipe my ass. They do, however, have excellent restaurant reviews.
The Austin Chronicle is free, which is about what it's worth.
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