Author: Matthew Clemente

Feel Good Friday: Saul Goodman

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Feel Good Friday: Saul Goodman

Recently, NPR’s Fresh Air interviewed Bob Odenkirk who plays the most popular fictional lawyer currently on television–Saul Goodman of AMC’s Breaking Bad.

Here is a description of the interview:

“When the going gets tough, you don’t want a criminal lawyer — you want a criminal lawyer.”

That’s how meth dealer Jesse Pinkman describes the fast-talking, sleazy Saul Goodman on AMC’s Breaking Bad. Played by Bob Odenkirk, Saul knows how to bend the law, or break it, depending on his clients’ needs. He helped Walter White — a high-school chemistry teacher turned meth cooker — launder money, stay out of prison and get connected with a meth drug lord.

Now, in the final season, even Saul is scared. Walt has plenty of drug money stashed away, but he’s murdered a drug lord. Worse still, a DEA agent (who happens to be Walt’s brother-in-law) may be on to him.

Before Breaking Bad, Odenkirk was best known as the co-founder and co-star, with David Cross, of the HBO sketch-comedy series Mr. Show.

Breaking Bad begins the second half of its final season on Sunday. Odenkirk tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross about Saul’s comb-over, the character’s penchant for long-winded speeches, and his own thoughts on playing the most comedic character in a serious drama.

The Daily Show on Stop-and-Frisk Decision

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The Daily Show on Stop-and-Frisk Decision

Last night, the Daily Show discussed the recent federal court case finding NYPD’s stop-and-frisk tactics unconstitutional and NYC’s response to the decision.  As we covered on Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin held that the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk tactics violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable search and seizures and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. 

Here is how The Daily Show describes its “coverage” of the story:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks New York’s stop-and-frisk program is being unfairly stopped and scrutinized even though it’s done nothing wrong. 

Eric Holder Announces Support of Sentencing Reform

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Eric Holder Announces Support of Sentencing Reform

Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder made a speech at  American Bar Association’s annual meeting announcing his support for sentencing reform measures that would mitigate the harsh effects of drug laws and mandatory minimums. 

Here is an introduction to a New York Times article and video about the speech: 

In a major shift in criminal justice policy, the Obama administration moved on Monday to ease overcrowding in federal prisons by ordering prosecutors to omit listing quantities of illegal substances in indictments for low-level drug cases, sidestepping federal laws that impose strict mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related offenses.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., in a speech at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco on Monday, announced the new policy as one of several steps intended to curb soaring taxpayer spending on prisons and help correct what he regards as unfairness in the justice system, according to his prepared remarks.

Saying that “too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for no good law enforcement reason,” Mr. Holder justified his policy push in both moral and economic terms.

“Although incarceration has a role to play in our justice system, widespread incarceration at the federal, state and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable,” Mr. Holder’s speech said. “It imposes a significant economic burden — totaling $80 billion in 2010 alone — and it comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate.”

Federal Judge Finds NYPD’s Stop-and-Frisk Unconstitutional

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Today, U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin held that the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk tactics violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable search and seizures and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. 

Below is the beginning of a WNYC story about the case: 

U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin issued her long-awaited opinion finding that the New York City Police Department had violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments in the way they have conducted stop-and-frisks. 

“Targeting young black and Hispanic men for stops based on the alleged criminal conduct of other young black or Hispanic men violates bedrock principles of equality,” she wrote in her strongly-worded ruling.

In her opinion, which can be read in full below, Judge Scheindlin writes:

“To be very clear: I am not ordering an end to the practice of stop and frisk. The purpose of the remedies addressed in this Opinion is to ensure that the practice is carried out in a manner that protects the rights and liberties of all New Yorkers, while still providing much-needed police protection.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, reacting Monday afternoon at a press conference, was visibly angered by the judge’s decision. “The judge ignored the realities of crime,” he said, “like the fact that our police officers on patrol make an average of less than one stop a week.”

More on Bloomberg’s reaction.

The judge specified a number of steps the NYPD must take to reform stop-and-frisk. It must revise its policies and training procedures, especially its “over-broad definition of ‘furtive behavior.’ It must change the written documentation police must produce after stops. and it must institute a one-year body camera pilot program involving one precinct in each borough. . . . 

 

READ THE “REMEDIAL OPINION”

Judge outlines what NYPD needs to do next.

 

READ THE RULING

Ruling: Judge finds NYC stop-and-frisk policy violated rights.

 

Raisin Outlaw Takes on Raisin Monopoly?

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Raisin Outlaw Takes on Raisin Monopoly?

NPR’s Planet Money recently ran an interesting story about Marvin Horne, a raisin producer who is taking on the Raisin Administrative Committee, a government agency that controls the production of raisins. The dispute gave rise to the recent Supreme Court case of Marvin D. Horne, et al., Petitioners v. Department of Agriculture.

Here is an introduction to the story: 

In most industries, competitors getting together to restrict the supply of a good would be illegal. But in the raisin world, it’s the opposite. Competitors have to work together. They all decide as a group how many raisins to release to the public. What can get you in trouble in raisins, is going against that group.

Raisin farmer, Marvin Horne, is a raisin rebel, a raisin outlaw. He refused to follow the rules of the Raisin Administrative Committee and found himself under surveillance by Rocky Pipkin’s detective agency. Now he’s being sued by the federal government for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

On today’s show, the upside-down world of raisins.