Tag: SCOTUS

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#BookReview: Secrets Of The Killing State by Corinna Barrett Lain

Utterly Horrific. The crimes of Josef Mengele (Auschwitz) and Shiro Ishii (Unit 731) during WWII will (hopefully) live on in infamy throughout human history as among the worst things governments have ever done. Sadly, even since then, humanity has shown its horrific side more times than any of us care to really think about, be it genocides in Myanmar and Rwanda, the continual sex trafficking that despite efforts has never been eradicated, the child sex scandals that have rocked so many once-trusted professions, and many, many other ways.

While none of the above should be downplayed in any way whatsoever, they *do* set the stage for the horrors of this particular tale in that we know that most of those involved in the above were the bad guys. They were monsters clothed in scrubs or robes or wearing ties. Here, the monster is… well, the government itself and the sheer ineptitude of its bureaucracies and even legislative and executive leadership – not to mention the judicial leaders that are *supposed* to alleviate some of the worst excesses of the legislative and executive branches, but as Barrett Lain shows here, rarely do when it comes to the mechanisms of putting condemned criminals to death via lethal injection in the United States.

What Barrett Lain lays bare here in this very well documented (29% of the overall text) expose are the true horrors of lethal injection – the very execution method *specifically created* to give the *illusion* (as Barrett Lain makes clear) of a “humane” murder. Except that, as noted often within this text, the particular mechanisms of how this is done in humans are actually so barbaric and horrific that they are actively outlawed for use in animals!

No matter your position on capital punishment, no matter how much you may think a particular convicted criminal (or even, as is so often the case in social media, people merely accused of various crimes and yet so many still clamor for their execution before even a criminal conviction, without any form of legal due process as guaranteed for all persons – not just citizens – in the US Constitution) “deserves” to die… you NEED to read this book.

Read this book, and consider your own conscience. Can you honestly say after reading this book that this particular method is truly reasonable in its actual application today? Can you honestly say after reading this book that you are 100% comfortable with your own loved one going through this exact process? Because as others have noted in so many other works about the other problems with the American retribution system, there are next to no actual guarantees that you or your own loved ones won’t face this fate at some point, no matter how good and righteous you may feel you are – there are simply far too many laws – even laws with felony penalties! – within the US now, to the point that *no one* can truly know when they are not running afoul of at least one of them in any given moment or action. Read this book, examine your own conscience, and truly ask yourself if you could do this job or ask your best friend to do it. Read this book, examine your own conscience, and ask yourself if you could bear to allow your children to witness this process.

Read this book, examine your own conscience, and write your own review.

As SCOTUS has decreed, as documented by Barrett Lain here, that the condemned must offer an alternative to lethal injection for their challenges to have even a possibility of even being heard, let me state clearly here now that I would vastly prefer a firing squad to the inhumane and downright barbaric practice of lethal injection. As for me, while I’ve been an advocate of permanently ending the death penalty in favor of life without parole for many years now, even I hadn’t been fully aware of just how utterly horrific this particular execution method – posed to the US public as the more “humane” option – truly is, and I for one now count as one calling for the end of this particular method even if capital punishment must be allowed to continue.

Read this book, examine your own conscience, and let the world know in your own review whether you agree with me or not.

Very much recommended.

This review of Secrets Of The Killing State by Corinna Barrett Lain was originally written on April 8, 2025.

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#BookReview: Let The Lord Sort Them by Maurice Chammah

Solid Examination Of The Topic Told Mostly Via The Stories Of Those Involved. To be a bit more precise, if the topic at hand is “the rise and fall of the death penalty” throughout the United States generally… this book doesn’t fare as well. While it does make various attempts to show national issues and trends in capital punishment, the subtitle here really should more accurately be “The Rise And Fall Of The Death Penalty *In Texas*” (emphasis mine)… which is 100% accurate as to what you’re getting into with this book.

Chammah does a solid job of using his case studies and biographies to show the different people involved in the various cases and how they came to be in the moments they found themselves, and while the stories *can* get a bit too muddled and choppy at times when a lot is going on at once, it really isn’t any different than a multi-POV fiction novel only sporadically popping in with certain characters’ perspectives, which is a storytelling strategy I’ve seen more than once – and thus this really wasn’t a problem for me, but could absolutely be an issue for some readers. He does a similarly solid job of showing the various cases and people that played into the rise of capital punishment in Texas and the broader national trends that were occurring at the same time… and the same with the fall, showing the various people and cases that were leading that effort in Texas and how broader national trends also came to bear there as well.

Overall though, this is a reasonably well researched book, clocking in at about 17% documentation, per a Twitter conversation I had with the author, as I read the Audible version of the book and had no easy access to a Kindle or print copy of the text for purposes of this review. (My local library system here in Jacksonville, FL did in fact have print copies available even at the branch barely a mile away from my apartment, but I was working on this review before I could get there and it did *not* have eBook copies available, unfortunately.) Far from the best documented I’ve ever seen, as I’ve read a few books approaching or seemingly even over 50% documentation, but also within the more relaxed 15% or so standard I’ve been trying to adopt these last few years.

For those interested in capital punishment and related issues, this is going to be a book you should absolutely check out. Even for more general audiences, this really is a solid look at this particular topic, and you’re going to learn some things from reading it – even I did, and I’m at least somewhat well versed in the topic already due to prior reading and activism.

Very much recommended.

This review of Let The Lord Sort Them by Maurice Chammah was originally written on April 1, 2025.

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#BookReview: Over Ruled by Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze

Brilliant Examination – Yet Outdated By The Author’s Day Job Just Before Publication. Define irony. One sense may be writing a book wherein you detail how one Supreme Court decision in particular a few decades ago allowed for an exponential growth in the number of laws and regulations Americans must abide by… and then just a handful of weeks before publication of the book you made this point in, joining with five of your eight colleagues in your day job in announcing that you collectively have… *over ruled*… that very prior SCOTUS decision in question. One might consider that a form of irony.

Beyond the discussion of Chevron though, Gorsuch and apparent longtime assistant Nitze do a truly admirable job here of showing just how much the laws and other edicts with force of law of the United States have grown in just the last few decades alone, primarily at the National level, but with brief examinations of the volume of State and local laws as well. Various case studies are used to illustrate various ways in which the explosion has occurred and how it has harmed every day working class Americans of nearly any imaginable stripe, and showing how many Americans can be in violation of some rule or regulation… and not even know it until cops raid their house with guns drawn in order to kidnap these “perpetrators”.

Indeed, some of the cases are quite sobering and harrowing indeed, including the one that opens the book – that of a Florida fisherman suddenly accused of tampering with evidence… due to a law that passed as a result of the Enron scandal. In other cases, Gorsuch and Nitze show various other “offenses”, including at least a few – such as civil asset forfeiture and occupational licensing – that will be on Gorsuch’s desk in his day job over the next couple of years, thanks in large part to the efforts of groups such as the Institute for Justice, which actively seeks to combat the very problem Gorsuch details in this book.

One thing that I can’t speak to that I normally do in this space is the length of the bibliography, as I read the Audible edition of this book on my way back home to Jacksonville, FL from my homeland north of Atlanta, GA yesterday. (Though I *can* note, from that, that it can easily be read at 1.5x speed on a 7 ish hr drive. 😉 )

Truly both a well written and genuinely important book for all Americans to read.

Very much recommended.

This review of Over Ruled by Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze was originally written on August 19, 2024.

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#BookReview: No Democracy Lasts Forever by Erwin Chemerinsky

Unoriginal Hyper-Leftist Wet Dream. In all honesty, had I known that Chemerinsky was the Dean of the Berkely School of Law, I probably would never have picked up this book to begin with. I would have already known most of what he was going to say… and now having actually read it, I can positively say that 95% of my assumptions would have been correct.

Basically, however you feel about the Citizens United ruling, recent SCOTUS decisions, packing the Court, the Electoral College, and the well-debunked “Russian Collusion” conspiracy theory from the 2016 Presidential Election is largely how you’re going to feel about this book. It honestly reads as little more than hyper-leftist dreams about everything that has gone “wrong” with America for the last decade or two. Thus, some of you are going to sing this book’s praises from the highest places you can as loudly as you can. And some of you are going to want to take a window to those places just so you can be assured that you will be able to defenestrate this book from those places.

Chemerinsky *does* get *close* to some genuinely good ideas, ideas that could *actually* solve a lot of the problems he names… and then quickly backs away from them, for the most part. His one consistent good idea is that the process of “Winner Take All” as it relates to Electoral College votes does in fact need to end – a stance I’ve had for much of my adult life, particularly my politically engaged adult life. The more interesting things that he addresses but then thinks *secession* is more viable are as they relate to the number of Congressmen. Chemerinsky correctly points out that the only thing limiting the size of the US House to 435 members is a US law passed less than a century ago – and laws can be overturned in a number of ways. Here again, one weakness of Chemerinsky is that in proclaiming the Constitution a threat – and even spending quite a bit of the text here decrying the SCOTUS as a threat – he openly advocates for SCOTUS to take action against this law. But even this idea is hardly original, as people across the political spectrum have been proposing it for many years already.

Another point Chemerinsky gets truly close to a near-original idea (it has been proposed by at least one writer) is when he proposes – briefly, before quickly retracting it and dismissing it as unworkable – that States be broken into “smaller States”. But if “Democracy” is truly the end goal, and Chemerinsky wants everyone across the US to be as truly even as possible, why isn’t he going full-bore here? As others have written, first, build the House up to its Constitutionally mandated maximum size – every Congressman represents exactly 35,000 people, the Constitutionally mandated minimum number of people per Representative. That gives us something like 11K US Representatives. Now, take Chemerinsky’s own note here that “smaller States” would each get 2 US Senators… and make every single one of those US Rep Districts its own State. That would mean that every US Rep represents 35K people… and every Senator represents 35,000 / 2 == 17,500 people each. Meaning that for every 35,000 people, on average 1 Congressman of some level represents just under 12,000 people. Which in some urban areas is considerably less than an entire block, and in some rural areas could be several hundred square miles of territory. But Chemerinsky doesn’t go here, instead he just continually reiterates hyper leftist talking points rather than seeking actual solutions to the problems he decries.

Ultimately, I deducted two stars from this book – the first is for the dearth of a bibliography, clocking in at just 12% of the text I read weeks before publication. Even being generous and lowering my 20-30% standard, as I’ve been trying to do of late, I just can’t justify allowing such a small bibliography against such grand claims. Even here, the bibliography itself is quite cherry picked and doesn’t show the full scope of what is going on through many of Chemerinsky’s claims, but I’ve never really addressed that issue in other reviews and won’t really address it here either.

The other star really was for the lack of objectivity and just how unoriginal very nearly everything about this book was. If you’ve seen nearly any left-leaning politician or activist speak in the last 20 years, they’re all saying much of the same things Chemerinsky is saying here – including more and more of them openly talking of secession, which would be ruinous on us all.

Again, at the end of the day your feelings about this book are largely going to hinge on just how ideologically aligned with extreme leftist US politics you are, so know that when making your decision to read this book. Some of you are going to LOVE this book, and others are going to HATE it, and it will largely be for exactly the same reasons.

Recommended.

This review of No Democracy Lasts Forever by Erwin Chemerinsky was originally written on July 31, 2024.

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#BookReview: The Shadow Docket by Stephen Vladeck

When The Pendulum Swings… Where Will Vladeck Be? This is one of those historical/ current event analysis books where, particularly in the “coming of age” of a novel (ish, as Vladeck shows) concept of the “shadow docket”, it will be interesting to see if the author is just as adamant against the idea when his own “team” is using it as heavily or moreso as he is when his political opponents do. Though to be clear, the history and analysis here, while necessarily hitting the current (post-Trump era) SCOTUS the hardest for doing this the most *because they have*, does an excellent job of showing just how we got to this point where it was even possible for this particular problem to exist at all. On that front… there isn’t a political “side” in current America or American history that is fully blameless in enabling or using this bad behavior, and Vladeck shows this quite well indeed and indeed seems to be a fairly objective-ish student and teacher of legal history. For such a dense overall topic, Vladeck handles the telling of the tale quite well, such that even people who have barely ever heard of the Supreme Court of the United States of America will be able to clearly see what the current problem is and how we got to this point and why both of them matter.

Indeed, the only real reason for the single star deduction is the slight lack of documentation, coming in at just 15% of the overall advance reviewer copy text rather than the more typical in my experience 20-30%. Though as I’ve been noting a few times on similar points of late, given just how many newer nonfiction books seem to be coming in within that 15-20% range, I may yet need to recalculate my seeming average.

Overall an intriguing tale, and one that every American truly needs to understand – and Vladeck does a remarkable job of making that particular task as easy as reading this particular book. Truly great work making such a dense topic so relatable and understandable, and very much recommended.

This review of The Shadow Docket by Stephen Vladeck was originally written on April 25, 2023.

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#BookReview: This Earthly Frame by David Sehat

Mostly Solid History Of Official Religious Life In The United States. Sehat manages to trace the history of official religious life in the US fairly well from its pre-Founding roots through its current fights over religious liberty. There are a couple of glaring weaknesses – the largest being his claim that Natural Rights theory originated in the Christian Church (it was actually created outside of the Church as a challenge to the Church’s position that rights come from God). But as with that particular case, most of these tend to only exist in areas where a rare person might actually know the particular topic particularly well – as this former Libertarian Party of Georgia official and candidate happens to do re: Natural Rights theory. 🙂 Otherwise, a solid if slightly dry – though nowhere *near* as dry as other treatises of its type – history that would be beneficial for many Americans (or those seeking to understand America) to read. Recommended.

This review of This Earthly Frame by David Sehat was originally written on February 18, 2022.

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#BookReview: The Genome Defense by Jorge L Contreras

Dense Yet Enlightening. If you’re like me and don’t like taking books across into a new month, I do *not* recommend trying to read this on the last day of the month while still working or having virtually any other obligation. Though its bibliography is a touch low at just 17% of this advanced copy (and it has numerous problems, at least in this form, of saying something like “the industry spent $ billions of dollars” without actually giving the number – a problem I’ve never noted before in any other such text), much of the reason for that is that the author himself conducted so many interviews and consulted the public court records so much, so at least there is that on that particular point. Beyond its sourcing though, this is truly a fascinating yet *dense* look at the particular issue of the AMP v Myriad patent lawsuit that eventually became a landmark Supreme Court of the United States case, detailing its full history and the personnel involved, at least insofar as their personal involvement with the case goes. (Vs other similar books looking at a particular issue like this, where full biographies of the personnel are given. Here, just enough biography is given to establish who this person is within context of this issue and their motivations surrounding it, without giving their full life stories outside of events connected to this exact case.) You may say to yourself “this is just 350 or so effective pages, that is an easy day’s read”. IT. IS. NOT. I cannot reiterate enough just how dense (yet truly readable and fascinating) this book is. Almost as though it seems to try to pack in double the amount of words of a book of similar length. Still, it is truly compelling, truly comprehensive, and truly well written, and for this it is very much recommended.

This review of The Genome Defense by Jorge L Contreras was originally written on October 1, 2021.

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#BookReview: Why The Innocent Plead Guilty And The Guilty Go Free by Jed S Rakoff

Excellent Examination Of US Judicial System. This is an excellent examination of the US Judicial system, from a former US District Court judge. Indeed, the *singular* outright flaw in the ARC copy I read was its lack of bibliography and citations, which I expect will be corrected in the published edition. For the most part, Judge Rakoff’s examinations and explanations ring true and he cites several well known works in the field, including Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow during the discussion of the problem of mass incarceration. My only quibble – and it is just a quibble, just as the comments I am about to refer to are almost asides themselves – are a couple of points where the Judge makes comments about a couple of cases of a more political nature. (Including Bush v Gore and Citizens United, among perhaps a handful of others.) Overall one of the better examinations of the breadth of the US Judicial system, and even its acknowledged origins as a set of essays isn’t really obvious or noticeable. Very much recommended.

This review of Why The Innocent Plead Guilty And The Guilty Go Free by Jed S Rakoff was originally written on February 18, 2021.

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#BookReview: Free To Believe by Luke Goodrich

Decent Start. Before I get into this review, it is probably important that you – *my* reader – understand the perspective I’m coming from. And that is that of the “Doorkeeeper” of Sam Shoemaker’s somewhat famous poem “I Stand At The Door“. So look that up and you’ll understand why I’m approaching the rest of this the way I am.

For those “deep inside”, they will probably rate this book around 4* or 5*. From that perspective, it is solid but might step on a few toes here and there – and they’re not always going to like its slightly-more-pragmatic-than-many-of-them approach to its reasoning.

For the “far outside” crowd, they’re probably going to rate this thing much closer to 1*, though the more objective among them might hit it at 2*. There are just so many issues with the book, and this crowd will likely judge them more harshly than I’m about to.

So that is the range I would expect depending on where a particular reader falls on the scale of “deep inside” Christendom – particularly its American version – vs “far outside” of it. Standing at the door, I note that I deduct 1 star immediately the instant I see prooftexting, which is the practice of citing random Bible verses out of context in support of some point or another.

The fact that the prooftexting herein is so rampant – from the ending of the first chapter until nearly literally the last words of the text – and so invidious – several times very obviously taking verses *far* from their original context and meaning by any even semi objective reasoning and often times taking as little as a single word from a particular verse – means that I can’t rate this any higher than 3*. And we haven’t even gotten to the other issues yet.

The other issues being factual errors and logical fallacies, mostly strawmen but also a few others. This, from a lawyer that boasts of his perfect US Supreme Court record! Factual errors include claiming that a factory is a “typical” work environment in the US. It hasn’t been for many years now. Similarly, the author claims that “many” doctors were practicing while abortion was still completely illegal in the US, pre-Roe v Wade, which was decided nearly 37 yrs before the publication of this book. How many professionals – of any stripe – do you know who are still working after 4o years?

The strawmen primarily involve abortion, gay rights, and public spaces – which form 4 of 7 chapters in the biggest section of the book. Here, it becomes evident – particularly in the author’s discussion of gay rights – that his closeness to the issue from his professional work becomes as much a hindrance to what he is willing to speak to as a help in pointing out various legal aspects of the circumstances.

It is because of these final two issues that I had to drop my own rating from 3* to 2*.

There is much good to be found here, and at minimum it can help even non-Christians see what prominent Christian legal scholars are thinking. But the issues are simply too rampant to allow me to rank it any higher. Recommended, but should be read with an eye to what is not said as much as what is.

This review of Free to Believe by Luke Goodrich was originally written on October 17, 2019.