When I approached a red light downtown yesterday, a group of young men gave me hope about the economy and about people generally. They purchased a bunch of bottles of water and ice, placed it all in a cooler and were selling cool water bottles for $1 each. I made a rough calculation that they […]
Prison is one of the main ways criminals are punished in the United States. Traditionally, upon being determined guilty in a court of law a criminal may be sentenced to a definite time in prison. Although there may not be agreement about the objective of prison, the use of imprisoning criminals for justice is universally […]
A conflict of interest, sometimes referred to as a competition of interests, is when a person acting in an official capacity has more than one loyalty and serving one loyalty may work a detriment to others. A loyalty may originate from oath, blood relations, financial interest, reciprocity, or a myriad of other interests. A conflict […]
One challenge of collecting data on officers accused of misconduct is how the data might be used. There is a difference, for example, between the quantity of reports and the quality of reports. An officer may have numerous reports on file making the quantity of reports high. However, once the quality of the reports is […]
It is not enough to only know about law enforcement misconduct. Transparency in government is only as powerful as the citizen’s right to give the data voice, meaningful voice. The third law of motion applies to the government as much as any other discipline. For every action, there is an equal and opposite action. When […]
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died in Minneapolis, Minnesota after a white police officer, knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes while he was handcuffed face down in the street. Two other officers further restrained Floyd and a fourth officer prevented onlookers from intervening. Social media video of Mr. […]
Prowess is mastery. For the chef, it may be sharpening their knife every time it is used. For the attorney, it may be improving the inflection in their voice so that their argument is more readily heard. For the parent, it may be changing how they teach something so that their child can learn it […]
Today, at least in the United States, there is a prevailing perception that decisions are weighed out by consulting the head and the heart. What is meant by the heart is emotion or feeling. But emotions, feelings, and appetites flow from the gut rather than the heart. Personal decisions are made out by consulting at […]
If I was going to launch a website titled fixedlaw.com, it would concentrate on attorneys (the people part of attorneys), technology, and community. During the pandemic of 2020, the global response was some form of quarantine and social distancing. Community took a hit. Like a small plant growing out of a crack in concrete, the […]
The political genius of the founders of the United States is that they juxtaposed two competing concepts in their mind at one time. One concept is that base human nature can be observed and it should be woven into the structure of government rather than rejected. The other concept is that it is possible to […]