Much Ado About Something

Nathan Cofnas’s Newsletter

Former West Virginia Sheriff’s Office Deputy Indicted for Alleged Deprivation of Rights of Inmate

Photo by Denis Oliveira

A deputy with the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office was charged yesterday in an indictment with one count of alleged deprivation of rights under color of law arising out of his alleged sexual assault of a female inmate in his custody.

According to the indictment, on July 29, 2025, Cass Aaron Close, 56, violated the civil rights of the victim when he sexually assaulted her. At the time of the assault, Close was on duty as a Kanawha County Sheriff’s deputy and the victim was in his custody at the Kanawha County Judicial Annex. If convicted of all the charges, Close faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.

U.S. Dept of Justice, August 19th, 2026

Well, we are starting out rather cheerful today. If you remember, we talked about this as it related to another prison on the other side of the country: FCI Dublin in California. There was the same sort of alleged conduct: guards and staff sexually assaulting women prisoners. However that was more systemic than this. Or is it? Here Cass Close1allegedly pulled a female inmate — held on the seventh floor — out of her cell multiple times over the course of one day, took her to his office, and forced her into sex acts while she remained in ankle shackles. Then it is alleged that he pushed her against a wall at one point2 and also photographed her genitals.

Initially it was a state law claim, but (surprisingly) Trump’s DOJ stepped in to take over the case. They charged him under 18 U.S.C. § 2423 which is the standard when the Feds want to charge a state actor with abuse while in their job. A deprivation of rights is an extreme case of abuse, however, where the state actor has to be acting under color of law and with the mental state of “willfully.” U.S. federal mens rea concepts are patterned after traditional common-law categories, rather than the hierarchical delineation of the Model Penal Code.4

These are allegations, but there have been others made from other inmates, leading to a more systemic argument that this abuse is prevalent and accepted, at least at the operational level of these prisons. I’d argue that this is likely not the last we have seen of this, but it will not get the attention it deserves because it speaks about (1) women; and (2) prisoners. I am interested to see the defense’s arguments here, because victim blaming will be at a premium. We’ll update this as we get more information.

Beating a Dead Horse

Photo by Helena Lopes

For those of you who do not know, Jason Arday, a Cambridge University professor, was found dead last week. I will not write a full synopsis of the case or why it matters really, but just more on the absurdity of the reactions to it. Please check out Nathan Cofnas’s Substack post about Arday if you’d like more details.

DEI Fraud and Cover-Up at Cambridge

“Wouldn’t it be the most ridiculous story ever told, if the boy who couldn’t read and write at 18 gets a PhD before he’s 30…

a month ago · 1817 likes · 700 comments · Nathan Cofnas

The basic storyline goes like this:

Magnificent black man beats all odds and becomes a Ph.D.-holding Cambridge professor for DEI purposes. Arday did nearly impossible feats of strength both in academia and athletics. Cofnas is a fellow at Cambridge and speaks out about DEI hires, then is fired following mass protests. Cofnas then has tips from anonymous Cambridge sources stating that Arday, at the very least, plagiarized most of his work including his dissertation. Cambridge does nothing when faced with this, and they, Arday, and Arday’s supporters cry foul for Cofnas’s “pulling of the wool” from their eyes. Arday then resigns the day Cambridge institutes a formal investigation.

I don’t know the concrete facts here, because of the amount of conjecture from both sides, but it seems as if Arday did, in fact, plagiarize some of the work. This notwithstanding, his other studies were done with a lack of neutral and randomized subjects. This much seems apparent. Arday was hired to meet a quota, and he did.

But who does the blame lie with? Blaming Arday for the entire scenario is too easy, and also misses the point. Sure, was he a part of the fabrication and cause of the alleged issue? Absolutely. But for what it’s worth, Cambridge University had supposed fair warning about these fabrications before hiring him to represent a politicized hire. Cambridge was blinded by the prospect of filling the quota, which is all it was. You can say that they defended him, tried to protect him, but if you remove the position he rapidly ascended to, Arday is likely still alive. Cambridge could have denied Arday a position following a simple review of his work, which would have likely infuriated Arday and those who blindly follow the self-serving need for racial-tokenism, but would have not led to this fall from grace. Put succinctly: Arday was the sacrifice that Cambridge University was willing to make for their own purposes.

This is somewhat bulwarked by Ghent University’s Rector Petra de Sutter’s faux pas with an AI-generated speech. Petra suspended Nathan, a researcher for Ghent, on the 20th of this month.5This comes after Petra was found to have used an AI-generated speech, first delivered in September 2025 and exposed in January of this year. It was riddled with incorrect quotes and hallucinations of quotes by Albert Einstein, among others. Ghent then corrected this, but those corrections were also incorrect. Only after this was pointed out did Ghent put a disclaimer on their website. In that same AI-generated speech, she called out the specific dangers of using AI and “blindly trusting it.” You really can’t make this stuff up.

Better Late Than Never

Photo by Wassim Chouak

Nearly three decades on, the family of one of the most influential figures in hip-hop is publicly bracing for disappointment as the long-delayed murder case proceeds (Aug 19). Duane “Keffe D” Davis is alleged to have killed Tupac Shakur in 1996, and was arrested in 2023. In a 2008 police interview, Davis admitted to being in the car that pulled alongside Shakur and Death Row Records co-founder Marion “Suge” Knight. In the interview, Davis stated that he could not get a clear shot on Shakur, so he passed the gun back — first to Deandre “Big Dre” Smith, who refused it, then to his nephew Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson — who fired the shots that fatally killed Shakur.

The Shakur family is not otherwise impressed. Sekyiwa Shakur says her family has “low expectations” given the amount of time that has passed and their history with the American criminal justice system. This comes on the heels of prosecutors arguing in trial that the 2008 interview did not give Davis immunity, even though investigators told Davis that his statements could not be used against him in that interview. This begs the question, why are we only now getting to this nearly 20 years later?

Shakur and Christopher Wallace, the Notorious B.I.G. were both killed around the same time in 1996 and 1997 respectively. Both represented, at least in part, America’s self-made stars from the newly blossoming hip-hop genre. Both also represented the anger that black America had toward the powers that be, Shakur more so. Neither case was very thoroughly investigated back then, which perpetuated the East vs. West rivalry mentality. Both were ascendant stars and both were fairly young (20s) when shot and killed. Prosecutors state that Davis’s motive was retaliation for Shakur and his posse attacking Anderson at the MGM Grand.6 Anderson died not long after, in 1998, after being shot and killed in an unrelated gang incident.

“I believe Tupac’s murder could have been solved--and it still could be… All the clues are right there. What the investigation lacked was input from detectives who understood the gangs involved and how they operate and who all the players are. I believe justice could still be served.”

Timothy M. Brennan, Los Angeles Times (September 7, 2002)

Brennan and Robert Ladd were the Compton, CA investigators assigned to Tupac’s murder and listed Anderson as a primary suspect back in 1997. Unfortunately, he would never see justice served, as Brennan died in 2021. Yet another example of justice that apparently moves too slowly.

Karmelo’s Judge

Karmelo Anthony (no not that one) was recently sentenced in June 2026 to 35 years in prison for the killing of Austin Metcalf at a Frisco, TX track meet in 2025. Judge John Roach, who presided over the trial, was recused from the case and the hearing on whether Karmelo should get a new trial. Central to this case is Judge Roach’s statements after the trial to the effect of “the jury did the right thing.”

“Yes, they did because they were picked based upon the law, they listened to the facts, it happened in this courtroom, and they got a verdict…”

John Roach, WFAA-TV (June 11, 2026)

Karmelo’s defense team criticized this as an extrajudicial statement, which is a big no-no in being a judge. Judges typically cannot opine on the verdict of a case they presided over, which is a safeguard to keep judges neutral. The motion for a new trial stems from a supposed agreement between the prosecution and defense to not use character evidence of either Karmelo or Austin, and focus on what happened in the tent. Now, Karmelo’s new defense team says that the agreement pressured Karmelo to not testify in his own defense. Within this character evidence, there were allegations about Austin that he had a history of bullying, violence, and a previous case of spraying racist graffiti. However, on the other hand, the character evidence for Anthony is not great either. The day of the murder, Anthony’s girlfriend broke up with him and reported to school officials that he was stalking her, and a text from Anthony that day said he was “lowkey on the verge.” Anthony also had a history of getting into fights and was obsessed with guns and knives.7 As a Rule of Evidence, if someone introduces a self-defense claim and states that the victim themselves were violent (and caused the reaction from the defendant), the prosecution can rebut that with character evidence of the defendant’s violence. So if there is a retrial, this one may not bode well for Anthony’s legal team.

“No matter what judge is presiding, no matter what lawyer is presenting the case, the facts are the facts.”

Jeff Metcalf, Austin Metcalf’s father

That’s it for this week! Thanks for reading -HJRC

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Say that four times fast.

Investigators later found hair matching hers in a box at that location.

“Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. . . if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.”

*Edit note: There are varying levels of this crime e.g., depravation without injury, with bodily injury and then this subsection Close was charged on.

(in order of increasing culpability) Negligently, Recklessly, Knowingly, Purposefully

This is reported by Michael Shellenberger on his Substack, Public News. (Not including a link because nothing is free to read there)

This was retaliation for Anderson and his gang attacking Trevon Lane, a Death Row associate, and attempting to steal his chain.

Text messages investigators found include that [Anthony] said ‘When I stab somebody, I’m gonna lick their blood off the blade.’”

Weekly To-Do Newsletter (Week of August 14th)

J.R. — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 22:01:22 GMT

Welcome back to Much Ado About Something. I’m trying something new to get the creative juices flowing again — a weekly newsletter on what’s going on in the world, plus my take on it. Every Friday (or Saturday), I’ll bring you the news, my take, and some final thoughts to chew on. Break out the keys, because we’re about to drive this baby!

Boebertin’

Tyler Boebert, 21, the son of U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), was arrested August 9, 2026, in Garfield County, Colorado, and charged with three felony counts of sexual exploitation of a child — including intent to distribute sexually exploitative material — and two felony counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The Garfield County Sheriff’s Office led the investigation, with felony charges reviewed and approved by the 9th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.

According to the arrest affidavit, the investigation began in 2024 after a Safe2Tell report flagged sexually explicit videos involving minors posted to Instagram. Investigators say a video recorded January 21, 2024, depicts Boebert, then 18, with a 17-year-old girl. The girl told investigators Boebert made the recording and sent it to her phone; Boebert has claimed it was made without his knowledge.

Boebert was released the same day on a $10,000 bond, with his next court appearance scheduled for August 19. Rep. Boebert issued a statement saying:

“I love my son. We take these allegations very seriously and pray for everyone affected during this challenging time.”

This is not Tyler Boebert’s first brush with the law: he pleaded guilty in 2024 to attempted identity theft tied to a separate February 2024 arrest in Rifle, Colorado, and was on probation at the time of the new charges.

This is a black eye for Boebert. After Lauren’s vaping/handjob saga a while back, a few voices quietly called for her resignation. Those voices have gotten louder now, understandably. Still, I’d be surprised if she actually resigned. Could better parenting have prevented this? Sure. But Tyler was 18 at the time (he’s 21 now), so this isn’t really a parenting failure — it’s more a product of the world we live in, combined with, in my view, an unusually broad Colorado law.

The biggest issue here is that the minor says she didn’t know about the recording, even though it reportedly ended up on her phone after the video was made. This arrest is part of a larger sting operation involving extortion of minor couples and other minors; given the Boebert1 name, it’s likely a mix of Tyler’s own missteps and sheer notoriety that landed him a warrant. Remember, he was already on probation from a prior conviction at the time of the new charges.

But back to that broad law — is it meant to reach people like Tyler? He’s charged under Colorado’s sexual exploitation of a child statute, and it’s written with predators and distribution rings in mind: the law calls this kind of material a “wrongful invasion of a child’s right to privacy” that leaves a “permanent record” re-victimizing the child every time it’s viewed.2 That’s clearly aimed at people running exploitation for profit — not, on its face, an 18-year-old and his 17-year-old girlfriend.

Colorado’s sexual assault statute has a close-in-age defense for gaps like 17 to 18. But Tyler’s charges aren’t sexual assault charges, so that defense doesn’t apply — and neither does the juvenile “sexting” carve-out, since he was 18, an adult, at the time the video was made. Still, reading the statutory language and legislative history, it doesn’t seem like lawmakers intended these charges to reach an 18-year-old in a situation like this — the law reads like it’s aimed at commercial CSAM production by predators, not this. I could be wrong, but it looks like a viable as-applied constitutional argument for Tyler’s attorneys to raise. We’ll see.

WNBA: For Women?

Former NBA center Enes Kanter Freedom formally declared for the 2027 WNBA Draft on August 10, 2026, submitting a signed letter to Commissioner Cathy Engelbert stating his “voluntary decision to enter the player pool” and affirming that he meets the league’s age and eligibility requirements. He joins former NBA player Royce White, who made a similar declaration earlier in August. Both men are using the move to challenge the WNBA’s current eligibility language, which they argue does not clearly define who qualifies as a woman.

The WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement states that “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA,” but critics — including Kanter and White — contend the wording is too vague to prevent a legal or procedural challenge like theirs. In response, Commissioner Engelbert said in a memo obtained by ESPN that “preserving the integrity of our game and ensuring fair competition will always remain among the league’s highest priorities,” and the league has convened a task force of team presidents and general managers to review the policy. The WNBA also said it would not be “used as political pawns.”

The controversy follows comments earlier this year from Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham on ESPN raising concerns about biological differences in women’s sports, which helped fuel the current pressure campaign. The WNBA is expected to consider amending the CBA’s eligibility language during the offseason to close the gap Kanter and White say they’ve identified.

This, too, is an interpretation problem: the phrase “who are women” is vague because plenty of people identify as women today without female chromosomes. But what exactly does Kanter want the language changed to — “biological women”? It seems like it shouldn’t need defining, but here we are.

My issue with all of this? I made this same argument in a law school class back in 2021, and I still believe it: if you want true equality, there shouldn’t be sex-based divisions in sports at all. When I ask people who advocate for transgender athletes in women’s sports if they’d support that, I get blank stares or “that’s too extreme.” But why? If bodily distinctions don’t matter, why not go all the way? That contradiction runs through a lot of this movement — and it’s exactly why I don’t buy it: sports being fair requires admitting that men’s and women’s bodies are physically distinct, and that men hold a real advantage in strength and physicality. Divisions based on sex have to stay if fairness is the actual goal.

So which do we actually want — equality or fairness? I’d argue the “equality” being pushed here isn’t equality in the sense that some right was taken from anyone. It’s a subjective inequality — one group demanding access to something another group sees as essential to its identity. That’s been the pattern of this whole movement, if you’ve been paying attention. Is it really progress if it only benefits one group?

Bye Karol!

President Trump announced that Karoline Leavitt, 28, will step down as White House press secretary at the end of August 2026. Leavitt cited family priorities, saying she could not “be the best mom my two young children deserve” while managing the role’s demands; she had returned to briefings after the May 2026 birth of her daughter, Viviana, and also has a two-year-old son. Leavitt was the youngest person to hold the White House press secretary position.

This is unsurprising. The White House press secretary job is the poster child for “don’t shoot the messenger.” It’s not breaking news, but it’s interesting to speculate about her other reasons for leaving. Trump was apparently surprised by how swiftly she resigned. That lends some credibility to reports linking Karoline to the Trump decoy plane incident — the now-confirmed episode where Trump was secretly moved off Air Force One in Ankara last month amid an Iranian security threat, with staff reportedly left aboard the decoy aircraft. What better way to realize your own value than having your boss decide you’re expendable enough to be blown to smithereens, just months after your second child was born?

Karoline may also be banking on the exposure from this role to fuel a future political run once her kids are out of diapers. She ran unsuccessfully for Congress in New Hampshire in 2022, so maybe this is the break she needs before trying again — though the timing still feels sudden. Maybe the kids head to daycare and she’s back on the trail in a few years. My son was born around the same time as her daughter, and I love being with him, but it’s a lot. Then again, toddlers and geriatric patients aren’t all that different in behavior, so going from the White House press room to changing a crying toddler’s diapers might not be that much of a career change after all.

What The Flock

Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based company behind automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras used in more than 5,000 U.S. communities across 49 states, announced new privacy and accountability measures on August 13, 2026. The changes include cutting default data retention from 30 days to 7 days (with an “evidence mode” allowing longer retention for specific cases), requiring officers to enter a case number to justify most searches, making its “Audit Assistance” tool — which flags abnormal search patterns and can lock out users pending administrator review — mandatory rather than optional, and giving communities more control over which outside agencies can search their camera data.

The changes follow a string of misuse incidents, including a Milwaukee police officer who reportedly used the system to secretly track a romantic partner’s location 124 times, along with other reported resignations and arrests tied to officers using the cameras to stalk former partners. Camera vandalism and city contract cancellations over privacy and immigration-enforcement concerns have also increased in 2026, after reports that Flock data had been queried by ICE and CBP; the company halted a related federal pilot program in 2025.

Flock said in a statement:

“A search without a reason is a search that shouldn’t happen in the first place, and now Flock’s system automatically treats it that way.”

So someone blatantly misuses your technology, and your response is essentially, “Whoopsie — we should’ve made that automatic lol”? Does that mean Flock just assumed people were fine being surveilled by off-duty cops? It’s tone-deaf, considering police and cameras haven’t mixed well since Rodney King was beaten on camera back in the ‘90s. Either Flock’s engineers didn’t think this through when they built it, or they didn’t care — both options are pretty baffling.

I made this point about a year ago, and this only reinforces it: the potential for misuse far outweighs the efficiency gains of police surveillance. Combine the militarization of police forces with cameras that are nearly everywhere, and nowhere is safe. If I had to predict the future, I’d guess this isn’t the last we’ve heard from the Flock — there may be a Supreme Court challenge coming down the pipeline. The Fourth Amendment protects our expectation of privacy from state action, but that protection isn’t absolute, and the Court has historically tended to side with police over citizens.

Kyllo v. United States is a rare exception involving new technology. There, a Scalia-authored majority held that police couldn’t use thermal imaging to detect heat from marijuana-growing equipment inside a home without a warrant. Scalia wrote:

“Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a ‘search’ and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant.”

Maybe Flock cameras will get the same treatment someday. But AI-equipped cameras are already becoming normalized — even my own Ring doorbell has the feature. That kind of public availability could actually work against a Kyllo-style challenge, given Scalia’s own reasoning. It’s an open question.

And just like that, we’re done. Thanks for reading — I hope you enjoy these weekly threads. Now, a word from our sponsors.

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J.R. — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 21:06:10 GMT

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Ibn Rushd

J.R. — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 13:01:46 GMT

Averroes is our next topic in the Pursuit of Justice series here at Much Ado About Something. Averroes is distinctly not a part of Western political thought, but he should be. Averroes left no memoir or autobiography, so much of his life is vague and from other people’s perspectives of the time. I picked Averroes because he was a philosopher that I did not have much experience with, but established a premise for Islamic thought through interpretation of Aristotle and Plato, much like Thomas Aquinas. Averroes belonged to an influential Andalusian family, famous for its judicial power and for its scholarship in the religious sciences. This propelled him to stardom within the Muslim and even Christian world, becoming chief physician and on the tongue of every theological harlequin of the Medieval age. However, this notwithstanding, Averroes suffered an unexplained fall-from-grace, being exiled at the end of his life to die alone. His story and and investigation into how he got there deserves to be told.

Without further ado, let’s set the background.

Enjoy - JR

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Abū al-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd

Abū al-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd (in the West and for our purposes, “Averroes”1) was born in Cordova2 in 1126. To set the stage a bit, there is a sort of friction between our philosopher and his environment - a resistance - worth noting. This resistance came between he and the rulers at the time, the Almohad Caliphate. In understanding that resistance and friction, we inexplicably get tied up in trying to figure out why Averroes was exiled and disgraced. To understand that, we of course, need to set the stage a bit.

Backdrop

Starting after his death in 632 C.E., the other Abrahamic-prophet-not-named-Jesus was taking the Christian world by storm - literally. The Holy Land had been taken by the Rashidun3 Caliphate soon after Muhammad’s death in the Seventh Century. Abu Bakr4, the father-in-law of Muhammad and close companion, was elected as the first caliph and oversaw the conquest of the Arabian Peninsula (632-634). He was then succeeded by Umar, who provided for rapid expansion in expanding into the Iranian Plateau, the Levant, two-thirds of the Byzantine Empire and nearly the entire Sasanian Empire by 644. After he was assassinated, which would become a theme, Uthman5 led the total conquest of the Iranian Plateau and continued warfare against the Byzantines. After Uthman was assassinated in 656, he was succeeded by Ali6, which triggered a civil war in the Islamic State, the First Fitna.

The First Fitna was an intra-group struggle to fill the political vacuum Uthman’s assassination left. Led by Mu’awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, those who had followed Uthman wanted justice for his death, rejected Ali’s suzerainty and waged war against Ali to prevent his ascendence. After a stalemate and inconclusive arbitration, a faction of Ali’s supporters, the Kharijites, became hostile to both sides of the Fitna. This led to the assassination of Ali in 661 by a Kharijite dissident.7 Faced with a much easier path to establishing a caliphate, Mu’awiya took the fight to Iraq and forced Ali’s son, Hasan, to abdicate.8 This ended the First Fitna, and consolidated power under Mu’awiya as the Umayyad Caliphate, which would reign from 661 to 750. This caliphate would conquer Al-Andalus, and when it was supplanted in 750, would establish a separate caliphate in Hispania via Cordova in 756. Their leader, Umayyad Abd ar-Rahman, then proclaimed himself Emir and started construction on The Great Mosque of Cordova9, which still stands today.

The Great Mosque of Cordoba

Flash forward to the turn of the 11th Century - the First Crusade had concluded with a victory for Jesus (1069-1099). However, that would soon change again within the next century. By this time, there had already been two Muslim Caliphates we talked about previously.10 These caliphates represented, you guessed it, a divine ruler ordained by God to smite everyone who didn’t believe them.11 But these caliphates were distinctively different from Christian kingdoms at the time because of the their emphasis on multiculturalism, science, and the arts that Europe had turned away from.

The caliphate refers not only to the office of the caliph but also to the period of his reign and to his dominion —in other words, the territory and peoples over whom he ruled. The office itself soon developed into a form of hereditary monarchy, although it lacked fixed rules on the order of succession and based its legitimacy on claims of political succession to Muhammad. The caliphate was constrained by neither any fixed geographical location or boundaries nor particular institutions; rather, it was coterminous with the reign of a monarch or a dynasty.
The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought, Pg 82 (2013)

Our boy Averroes12 (1126–1198 C.E.) was located in what is referred to as a ‘parallel Caliphate’ - the Almoravid Dynasty, who currently ruled the caliphate that was established in the Eighth Century. This operated autonomously from the other Abbasid Caliphate13 in Baghdad.

In the early part of the eleventh century, the Almoravid congealed the tribes of Western Africa, the Sahara and the Maghreb. They established Marrakesh, a major city to this day and continued to occupy a large part of the Iberian peninsula. This isn’t that bad of a glow up for what was first considered simple nomadic Berber tribes.

As soon as the Almoravid got to the scene though - they were replaced. At the beginning of the Twelfth Century the Almohad, with Mahdi Ibn Tumart, began to slowly chip away at the Almoravid. It was not until after Tumart’s death in 1130 that the Almohad Caliphate started to take preeminence over the Almoravid.

The Almohad caliphate and its ruling dynasty, known as the Mu'minid dynasty, was founded by Abd al-Mu’min, the successor of Tumart. Ibn Tumart’s death was kept secret for three years following his death in 1130, in order to substantiate and consolidate power under Abd al-Mu’min, the new caliph. After 1133, the caliph quickly expanded his power over the Maghreb, from the Atlas to Rif mountains. The Maghreb, or Northwest Africa, is a fascinating place that most of us in the West never see or hear about. The countries of Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, and Morocco span this beautiful part of Africa juxtaposition-ed14 with the Sahara Desert in the West. These places had been cultivated by the Greeks and Romans prior to Islamic rule. This shaped the parallel caliphates of the era and the people that were part of their empires.

Béjaïa, Algeria

Mahdia, Tunisia

In line with Ibn Tumart’s legacy, the Almohad philosophy and interpretation of Islam was counterbalanced to the long-standing and Almoravid favored Islamic school of thought, the Maliki school. The biggest difference separating the Maliki School of Islamic law from others was its emphasis on not only the teachings of Muhammad, but also the legal rulings of his direct successors, Abu Bakr, Uthman, Umar, and Ali. In contrast, Tumart’s teachings emphasized strict monotheism via tawhid.15 This adherence was based on god being one being, and not operating through multiple avatars. This is not unlike the Christian theological schisms that arose around this time and prior to Islam in relation to the Trinity.16

In 1143 the Almoravid Ruler, Ali ibn Yusef, died and was succeeded by his son Tashfin ibn Ali. This ended up being the break that the Almohad needed. Galvanizing the other tribes that had been loyal to the Almoravids, the Masufa and Zenata, the Almohads easily captured Tlemcen in 1144. Tashfin fled to Oran, which was promptly laid to siege and captured in 1145. Tashfin was killed while trying to escape. In 1147, the capital of Marrakesh was captured by the Almohads and the last heir was put to the sword. The Almohad had arrived.

It was not until 1147 that the Almohads began to expand into our hero’s territory: Al-Andalus. That’s where we pick up with and his story on the next publication of the Pursuit of Justice.

Thanks for reading!

See you next week.

-J.R.

This is scholarly incorrect - and a bastardization of his name in the latin context

Present day Spain

Rashidun meant “Rightly guided” caliphs, coming from Sunni Islam. Sunni Islam subscribes to the belief that Muhammad’s trusted circle (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali) were the ones who rightfully assumed his nascent caliphate. Meanwhile, Shia Islam, believes that solely Ali to be the legitimate caliph. Ibadi Islam only regards Abu Bakr and Umar as the rightfully guided caliphs. This runs parallel to the schisms that were taking place in Christendom at the time.

The only caliph not assassinated

Son-in-law of Muhammad

Another son-in-law of Muhammad

Supposedly both leaders were supposed to be assassinated, but the belligerents got their wires crossed, and only Ali ended up dead.

This abdication was more of a term of the treaty that would end the fighting and allow for the successor of Ma’awiya to be chosen by a council, and not by Ma’awiya himself.

This is one of my favorite examples of the unique Islamic architecture from the Islamic Golden Age. I really wanted to go when I was traveling to Spain, but alas, I ran out of money.

The caliphate (al-khilāfa) is the term denoting the form of government that came into existence in Islamic lands after the death of the Prophet Muhammad and is considered to have survived until the first decades of the 20th century. It derives from the title caliph (khalifa, pl. khulafa’ or khalā’if), referring to Muslim sovereigns who claimed authority over all Muslims.

This is a nutshell explanation of most monotheistic religions.

Averroes is the sort of bastardized latin version of his name - I don’t include that here.

They overthrew the Ummayyd Caliphate.

Totally not a word.

Literally “oneness” or “to make one” in terms of Allah.

See Filioque clause and the East-West Schism; e.g., John Romanides and Michael Pomazansky’s works criticizing this clause.

Am I Write or Am I Wrong?

J.R. — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 22:41:10 GMT

If you’d like to know how I write things like this, look no further. I am attempting to do so right now, which operates without a plan or real concept of what I want to write. It’s not an idea per se, but rather a feeling.

I’ll explain: I don’t necessarily sit down with an outline, topic or even slight conception of what to write when I do write. This is especially true with my fiction work in my other publication. Instead I sit down and wait for the idea or concept to come to me. Then I just write and see where it goes.

Oh the feeling? Right, well, it’s an overwhelming feeling really. Overtaken with any other sort of emotion that’s not in line with my usual mundane homeostasis. It’s a feeling that makes me want to jump out of my skin. It’s a feeling that I must satisfy at that very moment. It’s a feeling that demands to be heard.

I won’t sugar coat it: it’s a feeling that previously could not be satisfied with simple writing alone. I know because I tried just about anything else to quench it. The irony is those experiences trying to put out a wildfire with a garden hose actually led me back to writing.

I’m tryin’ to right these wrongs, but it’s funny them same wrongs helped me write this song now…
Kanye West - Touch the Sky

So I write. I think for a second and just start writing. Sometimes I go with it and follow whatever funky path it’s asking me to reconcile with today. Other times, I research, form an opinion and it just comes flowing. I don’t know why, I don’t ask questions of it anymore - it’s better than the alternative.

There are revisions sometimes, but other times I just throw it together and wish it the best of luck. My least favorite thing is criticism, especially of my own making. Sometimes I can’t bear to read my writing’s contents for extended periods.

When I’m done writing, I might not read it again for another year. Sometimes if I worked really hard on it, and I’m proud of it, I’ll read it again in six months. To me, it’s enough to get the feeling out.

I’ve been writing for most of my life. I think I tried to write my first fantasy novel in 3rd grade. I only got a few pages in, but I had a concept and an idea. That was enough in those days.

The first teacher I had that gave me some hope in writing was my 7th grade teacher, Mrs. Loyd. I wrote a lot that year, and I wrote from a place that allowed me to have a voice in a time that I didn’t think I really had one. I had just moved my whole life from the inner city to the rural country, watching my mother die from a years-long cancer battle. Often I felt like the small kid that everyone felt sad for, often tucked behind a responsible adult - as if being shielded from a feeling that I already knew existed: emptiness. From 2004 onward I felt like a diseased child that everyone felt said for. The token child of an ill parent.

Then Mrs. Loyd in 7th grade allowed me to express myself for the first time through my writing. Many times those stories I authored were funny or had an absurdity to them - a twist to make sure that adults didn’t worry too much about me and my self deprecation. For the most part, it was just me. It was historical fiction, non-fiction, and fantasy. Writing was something I could do to escape my fears about what was next.

I stopped writing a lot in high school, but that was renewed when I had to take writing in college, in a completely different setting. I don’t remember my professor’s name, but I do remember his criticism and inspiration. I started journaling, and then started to open my writing to talk about my feelings of Arkansas and the past that I was trying to reconcile. That was when I started to feel anger in my writing.

This anger stayed, and I learned how to deal with it through writing. After another great upper level writing course, I ceased to write much in my spare time. The anger was still there during that time, but substances usually soothed them for me. I also felt like I was fully formed, and was no longer the little boy who had to be hid. I did not need writing in those days.

When I went to travel around in 2017 I started reading and writing every chance I could. That and listening to music were the only things I could do on 4 hour train or 18 hour plane rides. I wrote essays from my phone for law school, which were more inspiring writings than anything of substance.

Finally when I got to law school, Professor Hurst, my legal writing professor challenged me in a way that no one had before. I had to learn an entire new way of writing, being concise and deliberate. No longer could I just put something down on paper and leave it there for others to figure out: I had to show the reader what I was seeing. Most importantly, I had to explain why I was right to a judge that was overworked and had little or no time to read my rambling nonsense.

This last official writing lesson I got gave me the love for analytical writing that allowed me to write legally and coherently. Now it wasn’t writing into the void - writing became a competitive venture. I knew I was likely not smarter or more intelligent than most of my peers. But I also knew that I could outwork them. Reading the law and writing about it was the way I could become unique and valuable to a potential employer and set myself apart from the sea of mundane uniformity.

There was still a steep learning curve when I arrived as an attorney. But I ended up authoring a few winning appeals and many motions, petitions and affidavits. However, writing became less enjoyable and more like, well, work. I started to think that even if my writing was good, no one really cared.

But then I took a forced sabbatical and the rest is history, as they say. Thanks for reading.

P.S. these are some pictures I took a long time ago and edited a bit. So no copyright infringement suckers.

Parallel to the Magnolia

J.R. — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 22:26:40 GMT

Everything is green right now, Arkansas in mid-June.

The sun and humidity feel like drinking your own sweat out of a funnel. For me, I lose most of my body weight every summer in the amount I sweat. This year, even more so; I am working the farm.

When I was little, I wanted to be a paleontologist- study and dig up dinosaur bones. After I got older that changed, but my fascination with dinosaurs never did. Now, I look up at my own freaky-deaky chickens, realizing that they once were dinosaurs too. Mr. Clucker, Stormy, Salt and Pepper - those are my roosters. Weirdly enough I hatched them myself. My first time incubating chicken eggs. Still not sure how I did it, but there they are: tiny little dinosaur freaks.

I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised - I was able to welcome a human child into my life, my son, about a month ago. He’s happy and healthy, and we survived. Making chickens doesn’t sound that complex comparatively.

I sit up and look across the yard. The Magnolia tree is blooming, as it erupts out of the ground like a giant’s bouquet. When I was little I would spend many hours with the Magnolia tree in my Aunt Joan’s garden. It was my hiding spot. I felt comforted when I saw the full almost synthetic-looking emerald leaves. Nature gave me a space to run to.

Yes, the Magnolia tree. Maybe there’s a life lesson in there, but for today, I’m just parallel with the Magnolia. Maybe I’ll think of something enlightening in the future to write, but all I can do is look at the Magnolia. Look at the Magnolia and smile.

Picture Me Rollin'

J.R. — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 23:00:32 GMT

It is hard to start this article, because I don’t necessarily know what to say first. A win for free speech? A generous subversion by Mr. Polis? Years of prosecution and investigation for nada?1 Whose legacy really matters here?2 Does any of it even matter? As I sit on the plane thinking of the ways to posture this article for some sort of critical analysis, I’m at a loss. More than anything though, when we consider the amount of manpower, litigation, and press this case has received, it feels like this has all been a huge waste of time and money. This case really highlights the policy and political differences between the judiciary and executive branches, especially on the state level and even within a one party-dominated state like Colorado. But before any of that, let’s get to the recap.

Tina Peters sentence is commuted, eligible for parole this month.

Is TP free?3 Not necessarily. She just doesn’t have to spend more time in prison. Polis skipped the board review for parole and sent Tina’s ass home alla parole. Overnight, her mortality rate improved dramatically, for reasons we’ve talked about before. But while on parole, she will have to check in with a parole officer and complete conditions of her release in order to reintegrate into society.4 Parole could be revoked and she could be re-incarcerated. Maybe that’s the carrot/stick that is more advantageous here in Polis’ view. Either way, he likely won’t be governor by the time she slips up on parole. So its for the next gov to have to deal with.

Look, this may be unpopular but what Polis did was the humanitarian thing to do objectively. She’s a 60+ citizen and doesn’t seem to be a great shape in prison. This is the smart personal move for Polis to make too. He takes heat off of himself from Donny, who uses the DOJ as his personal hit squad. In comparison, the Democrats can only really send out a memo saying they dislike what Polis did. Polis is also a multimillionaire, and Trump could destroy him financially - far worse than end Polis’ political career in a party that is out of touch with prominent parts of America anyway. Polis just survives the next few years here.

Polis also realizes that if something happens to Tina while in the Colorado prison system, he would be in for a far higher retribution from Trump and the MAGA crowd. There was an increasing likelihood that something would happen, given that Peters had already been involved in a scuff up5 and her attorney had lamented on her fragile mental state previously. The high profile nature of the case also makes her a targeted prisoner. I’m giving Polis the benefit of the doubt that he understands that Tina being seriously injured or killed, accidentally or purposefully, is bad for the state of Colorado as a whole.

Procedurally and legally? It undermined the legal process being fully played out. Flat out. Especially because he commuted the sentence AFTER the appeals ordered the trial court to resentence. That decision would have allowed for the legal process to play out. Freedom of speech does matter, but that reasoning of why Polis commutated Peters’ sentence is disingenuous given the appeals court already handed the win to her on the free speech basis anyway.

To the next few points, and mostly about whose legacy it will affect the most, here’s the immediate rundown. Polis got censured by his own party, so his political career will not be going past the governorship of Colorado.6 Peters will be getting out, after saying she was misguided7 in her actions per the statement issued. It’s not clear if that allows her to come back to the MAGA fold, but whatever consequence would come because of that pales in comparison to her spending another night in prison.

For Rubinstein, the 21st Judicial DA Office and Colorado voters, it echoes a similar commutation in 2022 by Polis, which saw a man driving an 18-wheeler recklessly, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries, have his sentence reduced before courts could weigh in on it. For taxpayers, a rough estimate of the cost borne on an TP investigation could be in the six-digits, since this was straddled by multiple law enforcement agencies - Federal and State. Polis can argue that this cost is offset by releasing Peters8 but there will still be costs borne upon the taxpayers for her supervision.

For the MyPillow CEO, this is just all pretty embarrassing given that his actions in distributing “proof” of election fraud9 got Peters caught, and now Peters is recanting. It’s just not a good look for him.

But for us, well…we played a little bit of a predictor here. I do hate to say that I told you so, but I did…a year ago:

Polis should possibly commute the sentence, or at the very least, get the CDOC to work faster on moving TP to a DOC facility. I think this is a political savvy move, because the more time that TP sits in a jail, the more likelihood the Trump admin uses her as leverage with the possibility of something truly bad happening. And that’s not dramatics, that’s statistics. You are far more likely to die in jail, nearly three times more likely to die from suicide, than outside of it.
…
Either way, it is a black eye on Polis and a sort of a kick in the face to everyone who prosecuted, jured, witnessed and presided over TP’s case if she doesn’t make it to CDOC custody unharmed.
To me, the back and forth, posturing, and playing “Who’s a liar” … someone’s Grandma is rotting in a jail awaiting processing to a CDOC facility. Polis, if you don’t think that Trump and Republicans aren’t already looking at this in the same way, political, you must be out of your mind and still in the woods.
- The Case of Pardon II, Much Ado About Something, March 12th, 2025

If you remember, my bigger concern at in March 2025 was that she was sitting in a smaller jail and had not been put in CDOC custody at the time, even though the time ordered in jail by the judge had already elapsed. She was then moved to a more secure prison, but then the incident with the inmate while in CDOC custody happened.10 High profile prisoners, believe it or not, are more at risk for fatal injuries while in prison than those who are not notorious themselves.11

Polis capitulated like I thought he would. The only thing that was surprising was how well the appeals court decision set up the template for Polis’ inevitable out. This wasn’t the level of say, the Kim Kardashian call-to-action, but it did give him a legitimate basis to commute the sentence.

I Feel Protected

It’s important to note that there are exceptions to the protected speech rule. That is to say, the First Amendment does not protect certain other types of speech as much as others. You can see some of this distinction in Counterman v. Colorado that I did back in 2024.12 What is also important to note is that the court of appeals did not say an exception applied, they just sent it back down to the trial court to do the factual weighing.

But let’s look at those exceptions and pontificate a bit - play as the illustrious friend-of-the-devil advocate. Incitement of violence is one, but it is governed by “imminent lawless action”13 which is likely unworkable in this situation. False statements of fact is another, and this would be the most likely category. But As far as precedent, the Court has struggled to define exactly what statements of false fact are not protected. However, to that end, most false statements that are material are punishable by some criminal or civil sanction.This subscribed punishment is considered constitutional by the obvious nature of its existence in the U.S. So there’s no explicit bright-line rule, but you can probably see that anything that is court/gov related is going to be a crime. Peters actually believed these facts as it was related to the election prior to any court intervention. Commercial speech, obscenity, pornography and intellectual property speech are not relevant. Fighting words depends on context here, and I’m not sure it would be considered reasonable to deign Peters’ words as a true threat of violence, and rather would be considered “hyperbole” which is protected.14

If it had been reargued and the trial court had decided that those exceptions did apply, it’s possible that this could have lead to landmark First Amendment litigation. In essence, Polis either intentionally or accidentally, deprived us from having the Supreme Court’s conservative majority grapple with false statements and the First Amendment - at least with criminal sentencing. This possible outcome could have been a reason Polis overextended himself here to make sure that this would not be appealed to a higher court.15

There is something that the case says about the American public’s state of mind these days and the inconvenient truth thereafter:

Due Process is just too slow for our fast-paced and instantaneous world.

In the majority public’s view, TP has been guilty as soon as she was connected to Donald Trump. This makes it hard for the American conscious to go back and readjust our feelings. We miss many red flags with this case in the beginning. I’m not saying Tina was right about the election by any means, but we should be plenty skeptical when the same people who have been the bad actors distribute the information about how they are not, in fact, the bad actors. That’s just logical. Maybe I’m the illiterate and uninformed one, but I never saw the physical evidence that the elections were not fraudulent - just statements from those who would have something to lose if the same elections they insisted were not tampered with, were in fact tampered with. Sure, there are independent people who do this research, but most of those are tied to government organizations either with funding or direct appointment power. So what exactly is independent in the swathe of confirmation bias we swim in each and every day?

Due Process ain’t sexy. It’s not satisfying. It isn’t fun. But it is necessary. If Constitutional Amendments were people, Due Process would be an old battered patriarch of the other amendments: pivotal to survival, but increasingly under attack. More than anything, the pause before seeking retribution allows for conscious decisions to be made.

A Few Notes On This

The crucible of this Due Process conundrum is the inability of politicians, and by metaphor the American people, to have a civil discourse about what is really going on. The absolutism of both sides disallows for a free speech-John Stuart Mill-type debate. At the very least, discourse would have encouraged a little bit of tolerance in consideration with the type of punishment that was dished out Peters’ way.

A relevant parallel to this instantaneous need to have an answer is the Iran “war”. Its not really a war, according to the U.S. Constitution, because congress never voted to declare war. This act was done unilaterally by Donald and his admin, which reflects the results based instantaneous gratification we love. The fact that Congress has yet to get it together on the basis I stated above means that there are enough people who support “swift” action to sink any sort of opposition. More than anything, it satisfies the base of Trump supporters by giving them results, even if the results are somewhat axiomatic to the base itself. Delusion will do that.16

So then, what do we do about Due Process? The need for efficiency is counter to the procedural and substantive safeguards that Due Process provides. But its not necessarily incompatible. You can’t waive it and nor would we want people to do so. In Peters’ case, this has played out in a six-year saga, from investigation to commutation. Maybe the problem is not necessarily efficiency, but the way we safeguard Due Process. By refining the process of trial court judgements, we could make a more efficient judicial system, with less appeals and time spent appealing judgements in order to “get it right”. Is it possible to have a tribunal of judges at the trial court level to ensure that Due Process is followed?17

In this scenario, jury trials18 are still allowed but they are all immediately reviewed by the judge tribunal. A simple majority wins, but if they get deadlocked, then an actual appeals court can take it up. The tribunal reviews all of the evidence, context, and credibility of witnesses. If you disagree, you can appeal it to the appeals court and argue your points.

I’m not sure the answer here is more technology. Artificial Intelligence may be able to help speed the process, but it also prone to make more mistakes now while in its nascent stages. I don’t think a clerk that is powered by AI is a good idea. However, I do think using AI to streamline questions about the judicial process is one way to take a significant workload off of clerks and judges around the country. Judges need more time in order to be able to sift through and rule on court dispositions, to be able to think and come to the best answer that reflection gives.

Also, the commutation of sentences by Governors should be prohibited unless you’ve exhausted all other remedies as a criminal litigant.19 Congress would have to pass the law, giving it checks by three branches of government. This fits within the constitutional mandate of the separation of powers doctrine since Congress would legislate, the judiciary would enforce, and the governor would have a basic veto power if the courts got it terribly wrong.

These are suggestions.

Maybe your’e a lobbyist, politician, or someone involved in government. Maybe you like my writing.

Maybe you like these ideas and want to use them.

Maybe you tweak some things to great initial success, but then results inevitable backlash because of the human condition.

Whatever you do, don’t mention me. Thanks.

Tina Peters ultimate triumph over the judicial system here should reflect an impatient, appearance-obsessed, and ultimately impotent criminal-political process. Does this mean we need not prosecute political crimes? No. But political prosecutions have to have the homogeneity of consensus of American society, especially when nationally connected to the American consciousness. This is the only way that true justice will be able to be done, when a majority of people agree that this was the right decision.

As for Peters, she is still a felon and that will likely never come off her record. She will still be guilty of high crimes, and misleading the public in contrivance of her oath of office. This is well deserved. But the entire process - from start to finish - has been a mar on the United States collective faith in its institutions.

- Thanks for reading!

Thanks for reading Much Ado About Something! Maybe you want to share this article. Maybe you like my writing. Maybe.

What The Hell Am I Doing

J.R. — Mon, 25 May 2026 17:03:11 GMT

BABY, how’d you end up here….Oh BABY, how’d you end up hereeeeeeee

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - This Ain’t It

How did I end up here again?

ReBrand

J.R. — Fri, 08 May 2026 18:43:35 GMT

Well, I’m back to writing on my laptop. Waiting for Claude to close. Ah, that’s better. Now let’s go to our AI safe space. Picture a good memory or scene from your life, then go there. Better? Glad you feel better and very glad you could make it! Robots make tedious work easier, but are never a substitute for creativity. Now let’s get on with it!

The seasons of change are upon us, y’all. I say seasons because change is constant, it just appears in different forms, sometimes in the multiple. AI has changed everything. The U.S. constitution was changed by a little Trump ad-lib with his war powers.1 I went from a service-driven occupation to opening a retail store in my home-town. Now I spend a majority of my time digging out live bait from various aqua apparatuses and boxes. Life is strange sometimes.

So too are we changing here at Much Ado About Something. The change will be rather subtle, but also means we are shifting away from being a predominately criminal justice type publication. Instead, it will be a more even-keeled look at whats going on in the world.2 We will still talk about the intersections of criminal wrongdoing, justice, and everything else related, so don’t worry. Much of what now is happening at the national level as far as criminal justice goes defies logic and reason, so we will try to focus on more local stories going forward. The name is not changing, however.

The reasons I am doing this re-brand are two-fold: (1) criminal justice was something I lived and breathed, but since my absence of practicing on the attorney level, I have done other things; (2) I own this publication and can generally do whatever I like with it - you, dear reader, do not need to read it if you do not like it.

As to the first point, I still feel very passionate about criminal justice, but I have other things I care about too. It shouldn’t be a surprise to any of you that I feel like the writing I do can’t be hemmed in within one topic. I created this back in 2023 trying to sort out my life and criminal prosecution. The person that pointed me towards this website is also partly responsible for my inevitable convictions at trial. If I had taken the plea offered, I would likely be practicing again. Within that influence of that person, I found there to be a lot more that goes into criminal prosecution and the process, as most of it did not center on the criminal justice apparatus itself. Toxic masculinity, wealth disparities, ego, and feeling “special” all led me to the convictions I got in late 2023.

Now, three years later, I’ve had the ability to look back on my actions and problems to discuss them with more latitude. Watching my old friends fade away and taking up the mantle of fatherhood has helped me really look in the mirror at who I am and what I stand for. Maybe this applies to you, maybe it does not. However, the need to dictate my writing to what “sells” or gets me a 1000 likes and reshares is exactly what I am against. I already do that in my own life as a business owner.

I’ve also always known life is short, as I experienced in my first decade+ on this earth. But what I’ve grasped even more in living this life is that parts of your life are also transitory. Many of the iron-clad things you believe in or trust in are shattered when you least expect them, giving way to the cliche of raw-sewage that is “life is messy.” Relationships, paragons, pillars, vibes, ideals and ideas are all somewhat wistful when it comes to father time. Some of those things I felt would never fade did indeed fade as time went on and I continued to change. Heartbreaking as it is, that’s “show business baby” as they say. It just part of living.

So now that I have a bit more downtime at my job because of the retail hours I work, I’m hoping you will come along with me as I write about a more eclectic blend of things like current events and politics, legal news, building a small business, parenting, and - some - pop culture. Will there be analysis? Sure. Will the Pursuit of Justice continue on? Yes. Can I promise you an article each week? Probably not. But as far as I’m concerned, there’s a lot more of my body of work to read now, so enjoy.

I have not actively written for a while now, but I do want to shout out the people who have in the interim found my stuff here and have engaged with me by subscribing, liking, and sharing my work. Knowing that someone actually likes what I have to say is a big boost for my mental health, because talking to a blank wall does get somewhat boring after a while.

For those of you who have been day-one subscribers, you know that you are the OGs. Your vibing with my writing has propelled me to more writing, some of it warranted, some of it not. Thank you for the support.

That’s all I have to say for now, but I will see you soon. Be on the lookout for what is next.

- All the best

HJRC

1089

J.R. — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 16:09:50 GMT

I’ve got a few ruminations about age, as well as mortality. My prose is simple here: age and experience is what you make it. For example, someone may be younger but have a deeper understanding of bits of life than someone far older than they are. Conversely, those who may be much older may have emotions/reactions that are far more juvenile than their age. This doesn’t make either “special” but rather, makes age contextual.

In these years of my life, I have learned that although I should fearlessly advocate for what I believe in, it’s okay to have a bit of caution when determining what those things are. Things that please people for the sake of just that, people pleasing, should be dealt with in caution or not at all. To the same end, recognizing that others are not ourselves, and being aware that we do not dictate the universe or their behavior, is a way to caution our own behavior.

Overall, the lesson I have learned and would espouse here is one of humility. Humility to ask questions to things you don’t know. Humility to take a back seat and find the things you can control, but nothing more. After 2018, I was still quite arrogant in the ways I thought about the world, that it owed me something. I made recordings at that time to that effect. In 2021-2022 that reached its apex. Post 2023, however, I gave up that idea. The world owed me nothing, and I had to act accordingly. There is no better lesson of humility than that.

Now in 2026, I work towards realizing that better for myself and my children. I am committed to continuing to humble myself and learn more, each and every day. There is still so much out there to witness and believe in.

- Thanks for reading!

JR (square root of___)

Crimes Against the Homeless: John Taylor pleads guilty

J.R. — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 02:46:53 GMT

John Taylor, the man indicted by the grand jury in the 2024 Grand Junction CO shooting of two unarmed men, David Doolin and Robert McCall, has pled guilty to two counts of manslaughter.

In Taylor’s own words, he took the plea in order to avoid uncertainty in trial and the possibility of being convicted of second degree murder, which he was initially charged with. For more facts and analysis into this, see my previous articles on the subject.

From a source close to the case, it has seemed to them like Taylor really took the plea without taking real responsibility for the acts. Whether or not that will continue after a two months stint in jail for sentencing, remains to be seen. Previously, Taylor was scheduled to take a plea in earlier 2025, which was vacated after Taylor decided to plead not guilty and set for trial. Taylor also paid his high cash bond of 50k after turning himself in when initially charged. So he has not spent much if any time in jail up to this point.

And heeeeeeeressss the analysis part.

The logical reality likely hit John Taylor and his attorneys: if a grand jury doesn’t believe the self-defense angle in the killings, chances are likely slim of an actual jury believing his defense. Manslaughter is still a heck of a crime to plead to, but it doesn’t carry the mandatory minimums that second degree murder does. The other part - evidentiary - is that Mr. Taylor would have to likely testify as the only witness to what actually happened. If he’s not believable or more importantly, likable, there’s really no good trial strategy to save him from the higher conviction.

The only other witnesses that may be called are those who didn’t actually witness the struggle and shooting. Which means a lot of their opinions or evidence would be calls for speculation and in turn, inadmissible. Trial here would be a trap if Taylor is not believable.

More importantly, if he doesn’t show remorse and take actual responsibility for the killing of two humans, then what does that really say about the whole situation?

“If the roles were reversed and my son was holding the gun, he would have been arrested on May 15 and would still be in jail.”
-Brandy Buchanan, victim Robert McCall’s mother

This quote speaks to the truth set in motion by John Taylor’s actions in May 2024: because the homeless don’t conform to an accepted lifestyle we condone, they are expendable. Any indifference Taylor has shown is more a reflection of society’s reaction to the homeless epidemic than a problem with just a single man. This indifference is palpable. Some of us feel it every day. When we drive past someone struggling and asking for cash in the intersection. When we decide to not volunteer at the local soup kitchen. When we don’t try to understand why someone could possibly choose a different or unregulated path in life. Different than our path of calm and typical conformity. We subliminally choose to not find common ground and instead mark the people not in conformity as “other.” We do it every day.

Sentencing is set for April 2nd, 2026.

Whosa-whatsit

J.R. — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 15:28:56 GMT

Well, Tina Peters is at it again. The woman the west loves to hate (other than my wife) had her buddy Donny T dial up a fast one on CO. The Dept of Justice (DOJ) inquired into the case, and the federal bureau of prisons has requested she be transferred to their custody. I feel like I had said something like if this was going to happen…a while ago. Anyway, let’s roll the retrospective.

The Name’s Peters…Tina Peters

I wrote a grueling two part segment about this earlier, which boiled down to stating “this isn’t going to go well for anyone involved” which pretty much sums up the “I told you so” moment here. Tina Peters was the election-fraud- investigation-gone-awry scapegoat way back in 2020/2021. There was claimed electioneering by Peters and her other major friends: Donald Trump and MAGA. This electioneering has been refuted and debunked by the same administration/establishment that was accused of doing it. If that sounds like a weird sentence, it should be.

Peter’s was convicted of seven crimes (four that were felonies) in extremely similar fashion to my own case. In fact, I was asked if my case had “something to do with” TP’s own case. I’ve not contacted Peters - nor do I think it likely appropriate to do so. But I did think that the confinement of a sixty-nine year old woman, who could die in jail, was a political dynamite-keg. I’m not saying she’s right by any means, but I’m also not saying the system can be necessarily fair. That lack of control with how this all is going to go means this could result in worse things for both sides.i guess we’ll have to see.

The problem is, where does the power lie that gives Polis the power to transfer custody to the federal government if they ask? Although not a Supreme Court precedent, there is discussion about the jurisdiction of the courts in more than few cases. Generally, the discussion has deferred court jurisdiction over the matter unless there is a writ or an interstate compact allowing the transfer. Even then, this is usually only temporary or supersedes the states control because of some cognizable interest. So, is it just up to the executive-in-chief to do so?

Update: I wrote most of this a while ago, but now Trump has pardoned Peters (no legal authority) and shamed my old boss and Jared Polis (“rot in hell”) to free TP. Let me be clear though, I’m not sure this is the case to continue to grandstand on “injustice” for the Trump admin. It supposedly found and posted to the internet a bunch of data that wasn’t even relevant to election fraud. It really only undermined elections on both ends of the political spectrum and cost the state of CO millions in federal tax dollars. Plus it involved the “MyPillow” CEO, which is just kind of funny to see when you read through a serious indictment as this.

All in all, to answer my above question, there is no executive authority to transfer prisoners. It just doesn’t exist. Whether the Trump admin knew that and decided to strong arm the state of CO or found some weird loophole of interpretation, I can’t say. But what I can say, is this is probably not the hill that republicans would like to die on in the name of “injustice.” Factoring in the recent veto (and possible override) of the Southeast Colorado federal project to provide clean water, Trump may have lost the most here.

- thanks for reading!

The Prison No One Wanted

J.R. — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 00:43:50 GMT

Franklin County, Arkansas is not far from where I grew up. It contains Charleston, which is a quaint town itself on the outside of a larger metropolitan area, Fort Smith. For reference, here’s a map:

It also contains part of the Arkansas river and another town called Ozark, home of the Hillbillies. Thats not a derogation but the actual mascot btw. The overall county is rural, but sits at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. It is the county in between sprawling and rich Northwest Arkansas (home of Walmart headquarters) juxtaposed with the Oklahoma-Arkansas border to the west. It’s very picturesque with rolling, green hills and friendly cows. People who live there take pride in their communities and local schools. Most people living there are blue collar and poorer than both Washington and Sebastian Counties that it borders. I have spent a lot of time there, in my own teenage years full of antics and failed camping trips. I drove back through it the other day to get back to Logan County, where I now live. I wave at the cow statute with my kids as we take highway 217 back to rest our bones. They laugh and giggle, expressing joy in the amount of green they see and whimsical statutes of cows on display.

But Franklin County is also the planned site for a brand new mega-prison for the Arkansas Dept of Corrections. This prison would sit in the idyllic green pastures that we see now. It has been sponsored by Sarah Huckabee Sanders (daughter of former governor Mike Huckabee and Trump’s press secretary in his first term) who is steadily pushing the prison on people that do not want a prison nearby. I’m sort of smoke-and-mirrors fashion, no one let legislators of these areas know in advance of this plan.

The justification? Not enough prison beds to house the second or third largest incarcerated population per 100k people in America, right alongside neighbors Mississippi and Louisiana.

These people that we will be locking up … can either be in this prison, in this facility where they are guarded, or they can be in your community. Right now, that’s our alternative.
- Governor Sarah Huckabee-Sanders

This song and dance is not new, as an age old solution to the problem of incarceration and recidivism that has plagued the Natural State for decades. The problem seems to be one of “sacrifice the few to save the many” in the eyes of the executive leadership. Instead of focusing on other types of measures, it’s full steam ahead to make a new prison racked with allegations of corruption and malfeasance.

But wait, why wouldn’t we want a prison nearby? The unfortunate thing is no one wants to live next to potential danger, which a prison presents. It’s also usually done via the government, which raises taxes for the local community. But whether there are an actually statistically significant amount of prison breaks or not, the perception of a prison via the fear it creates among the local populace likely takes the metaphorical piece of cake here. With this, it lowers property values and generally damages local economies from the lack of new business it attracts. Prisoners and criminals are the “other” to an otherwise functions society.

Dollar Dollar Bill Y’all

Public corruption in Arkansas isn’t new, and the blame has been shared over the years by both parties. Bill Clinton, king of scandal, was our governor before running for president in the 90s. However, this time it seems like a more ostentatious and overt approach to the Franklin County prison by the political cogs. The consulting firm to build the prison is from way out in California, and one of the two officials assigned to the project Joe Profiri had an “oopsie” moment as deputy director of corrections for Arizona, when an alleged software problem resulted in “hundreds of inmates being locked up beyond their discharge dates.” He ended up being fired by the Arkansas Dept of Corrections in 2024, but stayed on in a custom made position by Huckabee-Sanders in the governor’s office.

This led to the prison project being reported to Joe solely, rather than the Board of Corrections, in exchange for a 189k salary. Opponents of the prison allege that Vanir Construction Management, the California based consultancy team, has been working illegally on the project via taxpayer money. Due to more than a few “oopsie” emails, backdated before the prison plan was even approved, to Vanir it hardly seems like taxpayer money is being used effectively to protect Arkansans from those big bad criminals; the criminals seem to be the ones orchestrating the project here.

Arkansans still don’t have a good estimate for what a 3,000-bed prison will actually cost. The original $425 million estimate was quickly found to be implausible. The estimate shot to $825 million only after the Legislature demanded more information.
Arkansas Times, September 10th, 2025

Last night I heard from a local political candidate that the prison may cost $1.3 - 1.9 billion. If true, that would easily eclipse these previous estimates by a significant margin. Not to mention, the site is not even suitable for the type of prison that they have planned. Prisons, since they basically are like a fetid animal shelter for humans, require the bare minimum for survival: water, food, energy, and people to work in the facility. The proposed site has none of these, in effect, to provide the bare minimum for a 3,000 bed prison facility. The site is rural, and most of the area is made up of rocky, clay soaked soil. If opened, we could see egregious humanitarian violations committed, all because of politicians fattening each other’s pockets.

The irony of all of this is the words by Joe and his accomplices in this project. They emphasized that a suitable location would include community buy-in, compared to the current situation that has been outright rejected by the Charleston community at large. The distaste for the facility is palpable, which local candidates use as a political springboard for upcoming primaries and elections.

The Political Levers Be Losin’

In 2023, Sanders helped pass state laws that would have redirected control of the Dept of Corrections to Sanders, the “Safer, Stronger Arkansas" legislative package. This usurped control of the Dept of Corrections via the Board. Suit then ensued against Sanders for this overreach. On November 4th, a Pulaski County Judge ruled the law unconstitutional because it conflicted with the Arkansas Constitution. This will likely go to the AR Supreme Court, which will be an interesting decision given the political ramifications of the law.

Sanders also lost a previous ruling in Oct when the same judge stated Sanders couldn’t deprive people of their state representative by postponing a special election for late Gary Stubblefield’s spot in Senate District 26…where Franklin County is located in part. The planned postponement would occur in June 2026, well after a proposed funding bill for the prison would likely be considered.

Collective Few

The title of this article is a little misleading, mainly because there are people who want this prison: the rich and not particularly smart. But this type of shoddy political levering also echoes how most distinguished and powerful Arkansans feel about their rural counterparts in years past. For example, Sanders dad, Mike Huckabee, referred to governing Arkansas and the system by which he was elected as a “banana republic.”

Most people outside of the US have never heard of Arkansas, but it is a good illustration of the microcosm between the have and have-nots in this country. The seemingly blind-siding of the rural Arkansan community by those in wealthier metropolitan areas is sort of like hillbillies fighting over who has more teeth in their head. What I mean is, we’re all hicks here. Rarely do you find an Arkansan outside of the state that has transplanted for good in another state and everyone in the state generally supports one college team (Go Hogs) as there are no professional sports teams. Everyone generally knows each other. The divide between us is really not that big, which makes situations like this mega-prison even more…awkward.

It underlines the all-too-common propensity of authority to throw their common man under the bus for a few bucks. Ironically, we treat prisoners and criminals the same way, as the “other” I alluded to in the beginning of this.

If the project does get funded, then that only exacerbates malcontent among an already betrayed rural populace. If it doesn’t get funded, the legislature has done its job in checking the executive branch’s power. Good job. Want a cookie? Either way, it’s a black eye on Huckabee-Sanders in her ruling of the banana republic.

Thanks for reading!

-JR

Why We Should Care About Facts

J.R. — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 02:55:13 GMT

Recently, I was reminded about terrible and misleading writing on this platform. It had to do with polygraphs and mixed bad writing with some cop-hater anger. We don’t love the police here, as you can see by the last few articles on this publication. But I’ll be damned if someone undercuts actual investigative journalism because they write like my fourth grader (or worse, a law student).

It ended with the author Ad Hominem’n me to death while I was trying to stress the importance of admitting that the “lie detectors” they relied upon were, in fact, pseudoscience. This author had actually pointed it out in his own replies to my comment, which was a bit painful to watch. I’m not saying I’m smart or anything by any means, but I try to be fair with my approach to serious shit like a prisoner being raped. If that makes me a “bootlicker” then so be it. Just know I’ve tried to back my words with evidence that is not faulty. Polygraphs are a bit like drug-sniffing dogs, which are also under scrutiny.

But back to the bad writing. The clickbait “gotcha” grab for likes is, for lack of a better word, lazy. It is also incredibly prevalent. This feeds into disinformation because it jumps to conclusions that may not be there, angering people and threatening others’ livelihoods. For a few likes. It’s kind of cheap and dirty really, like a pimping of facts for those who need to feel empowered.

We Need to Acknowledge When We Have Inaccurate or Misleading Sources

No one likes doing it, but admitting fault is just part of writing. Part of life. My words are likely to be incomprehensible sometimes because of my typos. I admit that. If you don’t want to read the stuff I write, don’t read the stuff I write. I’m obviously okay with continuing to just dribble away on my own time. Writing is expression of humankind and we are full of faults. My typos are just pissing a few people off into unsubscribing, but aren’t leading to the fallout from possibly false accusations.

How can we expect transparency from our institutions when we won’t even give it to ourselves and others?

Let’s dispel a few things okay? Polygraphs haven’t worked for years. There is no way to tell that someone is “lying” unless you actually know the facts that they are lying about. This is why my lie in my criminal case was so dumb, because it was easy to tell I manipulated facts by finding the actual facts from other sources. In short, I lied and they knew because they knew the truth. If this wasn’t already self-evident, you’re welcome.

PolyGraphical

Since reporters and journalists can’t do it themselves, I guess we will educate the masses here. It would be awesome if a polygraph did actually tell fact from lie, but it doesn’t. It does measure physical symptoms of nervousness and anxiety, which could be an instance of lying but doesn’t take into account other reasons for these reactions. Polygraphs measure the amount of stress a person is experiencing, which can be affected by anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder(PTSD), nervousness, fear, confusion, hypoglycemia, psychosis, depression, substance-induced states (nicotine, stimulants), substance-withdrawal state (alcohol withdrawal) or other emotions.

There is also a strong indication that polygraphs can be tricked by “countermeasures.” Aldrich Ames, CIA turned KGB operative, states his handler told him to:

"Get a good night's sleep, and rest, and go into the test rested and relaxed. Be nice to the polygraph examiner, develop a rapport, and be cooperative and try to maintain your calm".

"There's no special magic... Confidence is what does it. Confidence and a friendly relationship with the examiner... rapport, where you smile and you make him think that you like him".

So the real deception is just buttering up the tester or person working, which ultimately is the same tactic used in literally all other instances of avoiding charges in the American criminal justice system. Not groundbreaking either.

Results, Results, Results

Polygraphs have been used with mixed results since 1939. Sometimes they did predict innocence, as is the case with Jere Snodgrass of Michigan and Jerry Watkins of Indiana; but, because of their own unreliability or other external factors, they ended in convictions. Other times they led to wrongful convictions (some estimates of 20-23) simply because of reliance on the weight of polygraph evidence. The most famous is Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, which there is a Bob Dylan song about. Floyd Fay is well known as the one where the prosecutor told Fay to prove he was innocent with a polygraph, which he failed. Fay and his attorney found the real culprits that led to Fay’s exoneration. This stretches to 2005 with Grand Rapids, MI suburban regular Lisa Hansen, who was accused of low level embezzlement when an envelope at her job at the bank went missing. They used a polygraph and she failed, but took a plea anyway at the advice of an attorney. After finishing her sentence in 2006, they found the missing envelope.

As far as states that have produced the most exonerated persons, New Jersey ranks at the top. But Nebraska has had its own black eye in convicting six defendants with polygraph results, all serving a combined 87 years in prison for their wrongful convictions.

According to the highest court in the US, they also don’t pass muster. The commentary was especially exacting in 1998 with the US Supreme Court case United States v. Scheffer. The majority stated that "There is simply no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable [...] Unlike other expert witnesses who testify about factual matters outside the jurors' knowledge, such as the analysis of fingerprints, ballistics, or DNA found at a crime scene, a polygraph expert can supply the jury only with another opinion." The Supreme Court summarized their findings by stating that the use of polygraph was "little better than could be obtained by the toss of a coin."

The Polygraph is Unreliable, and Any Revelation Regarding Its Testing Should Be Supported By Other Credible Evidence

It’s crazy I have to spell this out for y’all, but I do. There’s so much other research out there debunking polygraphs, so look for yourselves. Ultimately if it sounds too good to be true, it is. Confirmation bias is real, and some people are out there just for likes.

Not me tho! I just got my first comment last week on one of my posts. Feeling pretty authentic actually.

Anyway, do your own research. You might find you know more than me or anyone else on this platform. If you do, send me an invite and probably follow you because facts and evidence are cool in this dystopian beam-gazed hodgepodge we call Earth.

Until next time

-JR

Existential Dread Title Goes Here

J.R. — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 03:10:57 GMT

When I was younger I wanted to be famous; now that I’m older I wish I were nameless.
The world is aimless; no one gives a f*ck.
Time is of the essence;
I was running out of luck.

This post will be short - finite and finitó. I will take this time to reflect a little bit on being a criminal. It’s pretty boring honestly. I do the same things you do, day in and day out: I go to the grocery store; I drop my kids off at school and tell them to have a good day; I come home and feed my dogs; and I arrive at my job, wondering what the day will bring - only difference is no one will hire me because of my criminal record. Most people can’t believe it, but the ones that already wrote me off as a privileged caucasian male can’t get enough of it. I’ve been put in my place.

But I’m the villain in this story; the exception to the rule.

Whenever I interact with someone I knew from my past, I cringe internally when I think if this person has searched my name lately and knows that I am…a criminal. That behind their eyes there is a knowing smile. That we are not equal. That I f*cked up and stuck my neck out for someone who I haven’t talked to since. How dumb am I? I must have it written on my forehead.

How much do you know about me? I’m someone’s brother, son…someone’s father. I’m trying to find a purpose but I can’t. That there is shame and misgivings in every action. That I am joined by hundreds of millions of other Americans living with the same shame. That millions of Americans are living institutionalized at this very moment. That the cost I am still paying off shook my family and my career to the core. That no one is coming to save me or my privilege.

Do you see me?

…Or do you see a criminal?

But you know I’ve been trying.

https://youtu.be/xPhQD70a8KQ

thank you for reading

(Shouts out Loyle Carner for this song and album)

-HJRC

Add a Little Happy Cloud

J.R. — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 01:28:34 GMT

If you haven’t noticed by now, I’ve gotten’ back to writin’ again. I can’t take any more of these hacks-called-writers, myself included. Someone has to up the ante. Some of the writing here is just bad. Some of it is just fodder for the internet. Most of it now is like a hyper-realized Twitter or X or whatever. So I guess I need to start writing to get that “thought” and other thoughts out, like this one.

Body-Cams Bring Us Closer to “Minority Report”

Boy, do I hope this is cohesive (tells AI to make this cohesive). Police use of body worn cameras have been standard practice for the last decade +. We have watched multiple people die on them (George Floyd, Eric Garner, Tyre Nichols to name a few) which has resulted in a combined four convictions, with all officers in the Floyd case being convicted to some degree, none being indicted for killing Eric Garner, and the Tyre Nichols officers getting a new trial set for next year sometime. Derek Chauvin walks free in 2037 while the rest of the officers involved already getting out of prison this year or early next.

The biggest benefit has been in evidentiary modes I would assume. It makes telling the jury an interesting and attention-grabbing story easier for prosecutors. Prosecutors don’t need to talk to the officer on direct examination nearly as long, which has been killer for boring prosecutors in the past.

“So Officer Kip, what did you see when you got to the home?”
- Kip, a bald police officer from Baraboo, Wisconsin with a mustache and a bad penchant for chewing gum at inconvenient times -
“Yeah, I saw a guy. He was moving around.” -CHEW-
“Did you see anything else?” -Prosecutor, nervously sweating
“Yeah” -CHEW- “a woman. She was laying down.”

In direct examination you can’t lead the witness, so really, after this description anything else would be a leading question. What a disaster!

With a body cam, this now goes like this.

“So Officer Kip, what did you see when you got to the home?”
“Yeah, I saw a guy. He was moving around.” -CHEW-
“Did you see anything else?”
“Yeah” -CHEW- “a woman. She was laying down.”
- Judge, who looks visibly pained:“For fucks sake, play the video please.”

So from an evidentiary standard, it makes the process a lot easier for juries, prosecutors and judges to get through. Too bad the only people who are paid for their time are the latter two.

So insofar as the purpose for bodycams, the DOJ states it is to maintain legitimacy in the eyes of the public as it relates to law enforcement procedures and use of excessive force. The guy who invented policing as we know it, Sir Robert Peel, seemed to think this was important or something. But did he ever think the police would be so militarized in a short 150 years?

I’m doing this differently since getting unfettered and total rejuvenation from writing on my phone. I’m gonna take a page from Aquinas, and just do counterarguments and see how I fare. You can decide who wins.

Counter Argument:

But we are better off with them than without, no? This is the best way we know how to ensure accountability.

Okay first off, you sound like my Russian friend and that guy is a lunatic. But yeah, I guess this is a solid point. What I would say to that is it makes things that bodycams don’t capture (e.g., slight movement or facial expressions), that a witness testifies about, in fact ~~unbelievable~~ to a jury or even worse, the court of public opinion. What I mean is, if the camera never captured it, and I have a bias against cops or criminals, who am I going to actually believe? My eyes or the person’s testimony? Most people would say that if they didn’t see it (because of camera position or other limitations) it just didn’t happen.

Think about it. The cam is strapped on someone’s head or chest, thus allowing them to manipulate the position whether accidental or not. If there was a weird orb camera thing that floated around, I suppose that would give you the complete picture. But until we decide to sanction that in our environs, that’s just not available.

Body camera technology does also carry with it some latent risk associated with this previous caveat. What’s the risk you might say? A false sense of security. This becomes even more difficult when you realize that Deep Fakes are only one evil genius away from an actual manipulation of crime video by AI. We are lulled into this sense of accountability and “change” when we should have been reforming the immigration code all along. Zing!

Ultimately, the argument that “this is all we have, so it must be good” is unavailing because it doesn’t challenge us to take steps beyond the tip of the iceberg. I’ve always felt like the British and Euro CCTV fixation was a step too and their current Orwellian power slide into thought-police type behavior does prove my point, at least for the time being. So that to say, you can have body-cams in America, but there also needs to be substantial measures taken to address policing in general. But what does that look like?

I have a few ideas:

Join the chat

Address educational and ethical requirements for police in America.

I know a lot of police officers and law enforcement, and the really good ones that are there for the right reasons are typically extremely educated (in their craft and beyond) and have no agenda. Here, I will use a comparison that I know: attorneys. We have rigorous requirements for ethics and education, yet we never are the ones with guns. Sure, a good attorney can ruin your life allá Daniel Petrocelli v. OJ, but it’s not the same thing as ending someone else’s with a bullet. Why do we not put the same safeguards up for law enforcement?

That feel when you do what the prosecutors failed to

Address inequality and actual systemic issues in communities.

The unfortunate part of this is that this is typical window dressing by AOC and her conglomerate democrats, which hasn’t been solved. We can agree that far more black men have been killed by other black men than police officers. In 2019, 88% of black firearm homicides were committed by black perpetrators. For what it’s worth, in the same period, 79% of white victim homicides were perpetrated by white people. During that same period, 17-29 unarmed black men were killed by police. For perspective, in 2023, 22,828 people were murdered in the U.S. As i’ve stated before, the biggest threat to men (and women) in our society is other men with a gun. This becomes disproportionate when you talk about race and black homicides.

But this being said, it doesn’t mean radical change like defunding police has to be sought. Incremental change, like reforming criminal codes or changing political roles to appointed ones has the tendency to reform these spaces a lot quicker. The supplanting of white voices with those of color to encourage change goes a long way too. Maybe even working together across party lines would help (what an idea!). These are just broad strokes, but body-cams don’t obviate the necessity of reform.

Re-establish the credibility of law enforcement and the judiciary

Peel would likely agree here. As I said before about the “fear” vs actual crime rate way long ago, trust is in the mentality. Most people, at least from my view, are apathetic to change because it seems futile from the beginning. It makes us have major disdain for those who also scream at us for the same. This kind of apathetic thinking is why our faith in the judiciary has sank to record lows.

Americans’ confidence in their nation’s judicial system and courts dropped to a record-low 35% in 2024.
The result further sets the U.S. apart from other wealthy nations, where a majority, on average, still expresses trust in an institution that relies largely on the public’s confidence to protect its authority and independence.
…
The decline in confidence in the U.S. judicial system not only means the U.S. ranks below other rich nations, it is also among the steepest declines Gallup has measured globally on this metric.
Few countries and territories have seen larger percentage-point drops in confidence in the judiciary (over a similar four-year span) than the U.S. These include Myanmar (from 2018 to 2022) overlapping the return to military rule in 2021, Venezuela (2012-2016) amid deep economic and political turmoil, and Syria (2009-2013) in the runup to and early years of civil war, and others that have experienced their own kinds of disorder in the past two decades.
Gallup, 2024

So we are more like Venezuela, Syria, and Myanmar than we appear, at least in this metric. All three were ruled by authoritarian governments during those times, which in turn seeped into the judiciaries role to bulwark against executive overreach. Whether this is reality or just a collective psychosis doesn’t matter really here, because the perception is what is damaging. This perception breeds political deadlock, a TikTok generation plussed out on vibes, and the ultimate continuation of the CJS meat-grinder on American society. But is this what America will ultimately fall to?

Guess so, still incredible in escrow.
Madvillan - Meat Grinder

Look, I’m lucky to not have seen the inside of a prison cell, but I don’t falter in knowing there are some people who may have wanted me there. When my wife was also charged with a felony earlier this year, this fear of the proverbial CJS boogie man kept me up at night. It still does. But my case is not entirely unique, and to claim so would do injustice to the preceding paragraphs. I just experienced the same fear that millions of Americans fear from a system they feel like hasn’t given them a fair shake - at all.

But maybe that’s just a sentiment. The perception of the judiciary and actual behavior are a bit different. The fact that the Supreme Court didn’t have an ethics code was somewhat perplexing, but no one seemed to complain for the previous 200 years of existence. Then again, lobbyists didn’t exist in the 1800s and corporate profits were not what they are now. Maybe we just assumed they would do the right thing and that’s the difference.

Subversion is Submission

Say whatever you want about CCTV, at least that doesn’t hide the fact you are under control intimately by the bobbies. Body cams can be, in this way, used to usher in a new era of mass surveillance. As pointed out below, this is lacking in the accountability dept. I posit that it acts somewhat like an opiate for the masses, for a time, until the dissatisfied masses will require more accountability and thus, more cameras. It’s the easiest solution.

Remember the orb thing I fantastically described earlier? Yeah that thing would be terrifying if it became a normal thing in society. More than that, constant surveillance makes us less accountable to each other because we don’t need to trust institutions when we supposedly see everything.

So the sum of this work is this: bodycams are cool, but you need to enact reform and policy too to really take accountability.

Not sure if this shows up, but NSFW video probably so open appropriately.

Thanks for reading!

-HJRC

Bring The Pain

J.R. — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 02:26:57 GMT

As the “shadow docket” moves to on the merits, will there be Trump gloating?

This is another little blurb from my phone, because I’m working on important things for you all on my laptop. Whether you like this, hate this, or feel indifferent, this is the format I actually have time to publish. So while my children scream to the CoComelon gods all the way from the back of the house to my doorway, take the time to feast your eyes on these HOT TAKE(s). Enjoy!

Winner-winner SCOTUS Money-Ball Hitter

Well, Donny T had quite the string of wins this year, but all of them were on the emergency docket or “shadow docket” that decides quick decisions on injunctions that the lower courts have set. Those pesky District Courts have been issuing all sorts of restraints on the executive orders Trump has issued, and the United States Supreme Court (USSC)has reversed nearly all of them that have been appealed. These aren’t your run of the mill type cases, and the USSC doesn’t give the long flowing opinions we know and love in any of their orders. But Donny T has reaped the rewards of allowing for his administration to continue its agenda, thanks in part to the high court.

Here’s the wins from the White House:

To be clear, the Abrego-Garcia saga has been a big loss for taxpayers, not really a big win for anyone. On average it costs the government about 13-17k USD to deport someone. When you factor in the extenuating circumstances, appeals, and now criminal charges brought against Kilmar (in Federal court) this likely balloons to more of upwards of 50k. Those fancy drinks in El Salvador with Chris Van Hollen didn’t help either.

But I digress. The emergency term is ending, but the USSC will start to take a look into the merits of many of the cases they granted emergency relief for. This starts with the Transgender Military Ban in November for briefing and argument.

Importantly, the Court will look at Lisa Cook’s future at the Federal Reserve in January. This will be interesting as the Court declined to issue an emergency order in that case and set for briefing instead. The Fed’s independence is a good thing or bad thing depending on how you interpret the terms “stability” and “democracy.” Hint: the two are mutually exclusive here.

But with the left, there’s a sinking feeling on the left that Trump may continue to win these cases. But if anything, this Court seems to be going forward on the basis that too much court is bad….mmm-kay.

If you have been to court in the last few years, you probably agree with me. The SCOTUS universal injunction decision was right, and I read that opinion by CB to really feel the whole grasp of how dumb the counterarguments were. I’ve never understood the jurisdictional nature of being able to control a law nationally from the Middle District of Tennessee. That sort of flies in the face of Federal Civil Procedure and then some. That law change was notable so I paid attention. I can’t say the same for other decision but the general consensus is the courts are doing too much.

The legal analysts seem to look at this as the Court restraining judicial legislating and taking a step back. The sad truth is that judicial legislation, or legislating from the bench, seems to be the only way to get laws passed these days. Lawyers know it. The American people know it. Even Congress knows it. But also remember these people, US District Court Judges, aren’t voted in - they are appointed. So is the economy and law in this country made by those who we don’t vote for or did I just take that Mike and Ike lookin’ thing that was neon red?

But since we are talking about Kilmar…I had to tie in some CJS content!

Is it me or do courtroom sketchers get worse every 10 years?

So KAG really is in jail right now because people are afraid he will get deported again if he’s set free…

A federal judge in Tennessee agreed Monday to keep Abrego Garcia behind bars at the request of his own attorneys. They had raised concerns over what they say were “contradictory statements” by the Trump administration over plans to remove Abrego Garcia from the country.
-AP News

So, this is kinda a cluster but I just want to highlight that this is by far the EASIEST defense attorney job one could ever have. “Yeah, your honor, we think our guy is innocent and jail lowers his life expectancy, but could you just keep him there for a bit longer? Plz and thanks.” I’m hoping they are appointed and not paid, because I wouldn’t want to pay a guy or gal who is supposed to get me out of jail to tell the judge to keep me in jail. I mean, how do you even bill that with a straight face? Who knows though, clients have told me the federal prison system is where you wanna go. Maybe they have fancy drinks there too.

Alrighty! That’s enough out of me. Whether you sit on both sides of the aisle or are a deprived lunatic that only adheres to one extreme side, just know while we debate the politics of the left or right, the government is still shut down and your favorite congressperson is ordering filet mignon.

Hiiiii Steve “Steve-O” Scalise

Thanks for reading!

-HRJC