The news lately seems full of injustices, particularly against people of color (POC). First, another police shooting out of San Francisco has rocked the news waves. Stephon Clark, aged 22, was shot primarily in his back in the backyard of his grandmother. Accusations of a police cover-up and protests in the street have heightened tensions. On the other coast, the police of Asheville, North Carolina released body camera footage of a police officer assaulting a man after the man had been allegedly jaywalking. The video shows the police officer choking the man and hitting him in the head multiple times.

Police violence has become a pretty regular story – so much so that you can feel immune to it. But out of Texas, one story makes it pretty clear that the justice system has a problem with race and POC, after Crystal Mason, a convicted felon, received a jail sentence for voting in the 2016 election. On November 8, 2016, she went to her local precinct. She was told her name was not on the voter roll, so the staff gave her a provisional ballot. In February 2017, she was arrested while she was meeting with her probation officer. In Texas, it is legal to vote in a general election – even with a provisional ballot – until any jail sentences have been fully served. This includes parole, probation or suspension. She had no idea she was not allowed to vote. Her lawyer argued her vote was cast in good faith, but she was sentenced to five years in jail for voting illegally. As a note, Ms. Mason’s vote was never even actually counted.

This is an extreme sentence in light of the other individuals who have been convicted of voter fraud in their states. In Wisconsin, 52-year old Robert Monroe (a white man) was convicted of 6 counts of illegal voting, and sentenced to one year in jail. Chad Gigowski, another white male, was convicted of voting twice on the same day in two different locations back in 2012. He served six months in jail. In Texas, of 38 prosecutions for illegal voting between 2005 and 2017, only one has ever resulted in a sentence exceeding 3 years. This involved a state official who voluntarily and knowingly registered non-citizens to vote.

In 2015, everything changed with the new attorney general, Ken Paxton. An extreme conservative, Mr. Paxton has made examples out of individuals accused of voter fraud – who also happen to be more frequently minority women. Maria Ortega was a permanent resident and mother of 4 who illegally voted in the 2012 and 2014 elections. She had been brought to the country as an infant, but acquired only a sixth-grade education. She believed that because she owned property, could serve in the military, get a job and pay taxes, that it also entitled her to vote. Unfortunately, a jury convicted her of two charges, and she was sentenced to eight years in prison.

And as if it were not obvious enough that some serious disparities are occurring in our justice system, Ethan Crouch, the ‘affluenza teen,’ was tried in the same Texas county. Crouch was drunk and high when he crashed his truck into another vehicle on the side of the road. He killed 4 people and injured nine others. At trial, it was asserted that he suffered from ‘affluenza’ – or being so wealthy and spoiled that he could no longer tell the difference between right and wrong. He avoided jail time, and on probation was filmed drinking alcohol, a violation of his terms. After that, he and his mother ran off to Mexico, where he was caught and sent back to the U.S. For his trouble, he was given 720 days in jail. For those of you keeping count, after killing 4 people, wounding 9 others, violating his probation, and avoiding arrest, Mr. Crouch serves a whopping 2 years in jail. Ms. Mason, a convicted felon for a non-violent crime (it was tax tampering), is sentenced to 5 years for casting a vote that did not even count… for a candidate who didn’t even win. But sure. Justice is blind, right?

Long before body cameras became widely used across the country in police departments, individual citizens often took it open themselves to film police interactions. With the ubiquity of cell phones with cameras built in, these recordings became more and more common, and proved to be crucial evidence in many cases.

Most courts have agreed that citizens are perfectly within their rights to record police on their cell phones, as long as they are not obstructing the police and preventing them from doing their job, or placing the police, themselves or others in harm’s way. Most Circuit Court of Appeals across the country have affirmed that the First Amendment extends to people who have used their cell phones to record police interacting with a third party. The First, Third, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits have all issued rulings along these lines which means about 60 percent of the population is protected. The Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on this issue, but that is likely to change soon — the Eighth Circuit just came down with an opposite ruling, leading to a split in the circuits.

In the Eighth Circuit case, a man named Matthew Akins has had multiple encounters with law enforcement. He has attempted to film them making traffic stops and arrests. Usually, Akin would be standing on public property like a street or sidewalk. His filming was done on behalf of the activist group he founded in 2010 called Citizens for Justice. While he had filmed, he had been threatened multiple times, his employer was hassled and the police ordered him to stop filming on multiple occasions. He had charges filed against him, most of them later dropped. As a result of all this activity, Akins sued the County Prosecutor, alleging that his 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 14th amendment rights had been violated. The trial court ruled that no citizen or member of the press had the right to record the activities of public officials on public property, which was affirmed by the Eighth Circuit. If you think this ruling is a head-scratcher, you are not alone. After all, citizens of the Eighth Circuit do not have the same rights as their fellow citizens under other jurisdictions. It is notable that the Court did not go through its own argument to support the denial of the right to film; rather, it simply affirmed the district court by saying it had “thorough and well-reasoned opinions.”

Akins has indicated that he will file a motion for rehearing, and if this unsatisfactory, he will proceed to the Supreme Court. When there is a split in the Circuits, the Supreme Court has a good reason to weigh in. Additionally, the environment of police departments and the communities they are required to protect has been fraught in recent years, with cameras revealing systemic abuse and certain attitudes. It would be an appropriate time for the Supreme Court to clarify the issue, although it seems to the average person that anyone would have the right to record the actions of a state agent under the First Amendment if they are on public property. Perhaps it is even more interesting that it is the Eighth Circuit – where Ferguson, Missouri is located. This is certainly an issue to keep an eye on in the upcoming months.

Man’s best friend has begun to play a huge role in law enforcement and criminal investigations. On any given day, you could see a drug dog, a bomb dog, a cadaver dog, and a dog that will protect its handler at the expense of your arm, leg, or otherwise. But what kind of role do dogs play in the justice system, particularly when it comes to evidence?

Dogs can be crucial when it comes to finding a victim or a body. Cadaver dogs sniffed out four missing young men in Pennsylvania this month – buried over 12 feet in the ground. While it was a good find, the dogs had help as the investigators had narrowed the perimeter of search to the property owned by the folks who eventually confessed to the four murders.

The use of dogs for sniffing out drugs can be somewhat more problematic. Studies have shown that only 44 percent of a dogs’ positive signals actually led to the discovery of drugs or drug paraphernalia. Likely, that is because a dog is trained to signal when they pick up the scent of a drug. Very often, that is all that remains of the contraband – the scent. Regardless, the use of drug dogs to allow a more invasive search of someone’s vehicle or person came before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 in the case of Florida v. Harris. The issue in the case was whether law enforcement’s assertions that the dog is well-trained to signal the existence of a drug is enough to establish probable cause to search a vehicle under the 4th Amendment of the Constitution.

In the case, a Sheriff and his drug detection dog, Aldo, were on patrol, when the officer stopped someone for expired tags on his vehicle. The defendant refused a search, and thus, Aldo was deployed. He signaled at the driver’s side door handle. The officer then searched the vehicle, finding 200 pseudoephedrine pills, 800 matches, and various other items that are consistent with the production of methamphetamine. About two months later, the same defendant was stopped by the same officer, using the same dog who alerted to the same place – but this time, no drugs were found. Harris moved to suppress the evidence, which was denied.

At oral arguments before the Supreme Court, the defendants relied on studies showing that drug detection dogs were largely ineffective, while the prosecution said that ‘false positives’ mean nothing, arguing that the drugs could have been there previously, or just extraordinarily well-hidden. In fact, the Attorney General of Florida wrote, in his reply brief, that it was similar to walking into a room after someone made popcorn – but there was no bag or other evidence that popcorn had been cooked. This did not change the fact that you still smelled popcorn.

In a unanimous opinion, the court held that the dog’s certification and continued training are an adequate indication of his reliability, sufficient to presume the alert is enough to provide probable cause to search further, particularly under the ‘totality of the circumstances’ test. However, the court did reserve future issues, such as where the dog’s reliability could be questioned when there are specific grounds present to the case at hand.

Overall, the court appears to be sympathetic to a well-trained, certified drug-sniffing dog when it comes to 4th Amendment rights. However, it has trimmed up the ability of officer’s to use the dog in the Rodriguez matter, wherein Justice Ginsburg wrote that without reasonable suspicion to begin with, extending a traffic stop to conduct a dog sniff is against the Constitution’s prohibition on unreasonable seizures. There will likely be several more ‘dog’ cases in the future. Just remember – if you are pulled over and asked to search your vehicle, it is within your rights to say no.

In light of Kathy Griffin’s latest ill-advised photo shoot of her posing with a fake decapitated head with signature Trump hair-style, several debates and questions have arisen concerning ‘hate speech’ in this country, and whether or not it can be criminalized.

First – in the United States of America, there is absolutely no ‘hate speech’ exception to the First Amendment. This country is unique in that the right to free speech is one of the most important and fiercely protected Constitutional rights. Other countries, like the United Kingdom, do allow crimes to be prosecuted on the basis of words. (Or images). That’s why you get so many crazies on your Facebook news feed spouting off horribly racist things and why we have such a variety of ‘news’ shows on YouTube. The exceptions to the First Amendment are few: ‘fighting words’ are not protected. Fighting words are words designed to incite a fight, and are typically face-to-face personal insults directed at a specific person. But these words are not always racial or religious abuse – and sometimes it doesn’t even cover these kinds of statements. Take the R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul case before the Supreme Court, for example. The city tried to punish fighting words that were bigoted in nature, and SCOTUS held that this would be constitutional, even though a broad ban on all fighting words is permissible.

Another exception is actual, true threats, or words that are likely to incite imminent illegal conduct. Such as threatening to kill someone because he’s gay or Muslim, or intentionally inciting others to harm someone because they are Jewish or white. However, under no circumstances is it ‘hate speech;’ – it’s just because it’s illegal to make these kinds of threats of violence. Other kinds of speech are unprotected, such as libel or defamatory speech, or anything that is obscene (a discussion warranted for another time).

With that said, some actions that have an element of hate in them are crimes and carry heightened penalties – hate crimes. Lately there has been an increase in reported hate crimes – up 67% against Muslim Americans in 2015. Hate crimes are traditional offenses with an added element of bias (usually motivated by race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity). As with the examples above, hate crimes are already a crime. The element of hate is simply an aggravating factor that often affects the sentencing of the crime.

The structure as it is now punishes bad behavior better than bad beliefs. The physical intimidation or assault is punished, and the hate element is simply an aggravating factor. After all, we do not live in an Orwellian world (yet), so not only are thought crimes nonexistent, they are pretty hard to regulate.

Kathy Griffin waving a disembodied prop of a Trump-esque head might be hateful, but it’s completely protected. As with anything, the devil is in the details. Introducing a hate speech exception into the First Amendment would be no different. It would involve an examination into the kinds of speech deemed ‘hateful.’ What perspectives and opinions does the government have an interest in suppressing and limiting? What points of views should be protected? How on earth are judges supposed to distinguish the two? America was founded upon the notions of free speech, free debate, and using parody (even if it’s shocking and offensive) to make a point. Trying to whittle that down into ‘acceptable’ points of view in the melting pot of society would be not only impossible, but would probably result in some pretty heated debates on its own.

One of the most hot-button issues in Los Angeles and the U.S. lately has been the topic of immigration. Economic concerns are always viable, but the focus on developing stricter immigration laws has been on the risk of crime and preventing criminals from crossing our borders. But how big of a threat are undocumented immigrants when it comes to increasing criminal activity in the country?

According to the American Immigration Council, and FBI data, while the number of undocumented immigrations increased from 3.5 million to 11.2 million between 1990 and 2013, the rate of violent crime actually fell by 48% during the same time period. To put this into further context, another study by Bianca Bersani, a professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, finds that 17% of all first-generation immigrants who are 16 have committed a crime in the past year, while about 25% of native-born 16 year olds have. An second-generation immigrants commit crimes at about the same rights as native-born citizens – but the issue is really crimes committed by undocumented, first-generation immigrants – at least, according to the White House. After all, the White House plans to publish a list of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants in the sanctuary cities across the country. He also has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to create an office called VOICE – helping ‘victims of immigrant crime.’

But other studies reach similar conclusions about the reduced rate of criminal behavior amongst undocumented immigrants: Among people aged 18-54, 1.53% of the native population is incarcerated versus .85 percent of undocumented immigrants. Anecdotally, some opponents of Mr. Trump’s immigration policy argue that areas with high numbers of immigrants actually tend to have lower rates of crime, although it is difficult to prove this assertion. In fact, the only place where Mr. Trump might be correct is in looking at crimes related to poverty and theft when looking at potential increases in crime committed by undocumented immigrants. But the violent crimes are largely committed by the native population.

The rhetoric of fear concerning immigration deals with the threat of terrorism, too – two bans on residents traveling from certain countries emphasize this belief. Perhaps Mr. Trump’s information is more accurate in this realm? Not exactly. Thankfully, deaths due to foreign-born terrorism are incredibly rare, and aside from the attacks on 9/11, foreign-born terrorists have killed about one American per year. Americans are actually more likely to die from an animal attack than a foreign born terrorist.

Of course, these statistics do not mean that immigrants do not commit any violent crimes, and one common example used by anti-immigration advocates is the story of Kathryn Steinle’s murder, committed by a man who had been deported from the U.S. to Mexico five times. And the Federation for American Immigration Reform compiles a list of serious crimes committed by undocumented aliens. In 2016, the examples of crimes occurred at the rate of about once a month, with a significant number of immigrants belonging to gangs. Additionally, the Department of Public Safety in Texas has tracked an increase in drug smuggling, although these cases are likely committed by individuals with no intention of remaining and immigrating into the country. So, statistically speaking, these stories of crime, while tragic, are exceptions to the rule, and should not be heavily depended upon in developing and crafting policy for immigration.