Tag Criminal justice

Scalia’s epistemology

The late US Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia was infamous, among other things, for writing (in Herrera v. Collins, 1993, concurring): There is no basis in text, tradition, or even in contemporary practice (if that were enough), for finding in…

“The decision… gave rise to unfairness”

The appeals court has published its ruling in the Tommy Robinson case. The summary is particularly helpful but the full opinion is worth giving a good look as well. (Also see the discussions at Tim’s blog, here and here.) The appellate…

Another trial in Moscow

Shaun Walker reports from Moscow for The Guardian: A Moscow court has sentenced a former Russian economy minister to eight years in a high-security prison for corruption, in a verdict that is likely to send chills through the Russian elite……

Search for clues by all means, just not in the courtroom

The Guardian reported on the latest twist in the bizarre trial in Germany known as the NSU-Prozess: Nearly five years into the trial of a German neo-Nazi gang who went on a killing spree against immigrants, relatives of the victims have…

What did the groundhog see?

It’s Groundhog Day for the Russian opposition and its informal leader: Alexei Navalny said the verdict at the retrial was copied word for word from his first conviction… As the judge read out the guilty verdict on Wednesday, Navalny tweeted out pages…

Robert Amsterdam’s new client

​I learned of Robert Amsterdam when he was representing Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Yukos as their international lawyer. Amsterdam’s relentless criticism of Russia’s legal system, which he witnessed in action at the first Yukos trial in 2003-4, was spot on but…

Prisoner exchange

Vedomosti, the independent business paper, ran this headline today: “Savchenko’s release became Russia’s PR* defeat.” I disagree. Doing the right thing – in the simplest sense of right as good – can’t be bad PR. Even if the world thinks you are…