Monday, April 17th, 2006,
by Fred (,
courts, crime, law, Missouri, sex offender registry
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Missouri legislators are considering a bill designed to limit a form of corporate welfare, tax increment financing, which allows developers to use the future property taxes, sales taxes and other taxes that their projects will generate. But critics of the bill say it doesn’t go far enough.
Since the law was passed in 1982, cities across the state have set up hundreds of TIF districts that have diverted hundreds of millions of dollars to developers. County governments, school districts, library boards and ambulance districts are among the entities that forgo revenue.After hours of debate over several days, the Senate decided to leave intact the vague definition of “blight” that has allowed the program to spread. Areas can be declared blighted based on factors such as defective street layout and obsolete platting.
But under the bill, vacant fields or farmland in the St. Louis region would no longer qualify. The region is defined as the city of St. Louis and St. Louis, St. Charles, Jefferson and Franklin counties.
Statewide, undeveloped or vacant land would be ineligible if the project consisted solely of homes or apartments. The idea is, schools can’t afford to lose property taxes from new subdivisions full of children who need educating.
TIF and its necessary partner, eminent domain, have created huge problems in St. Louis County. Local municipalities have created hundreds of TIF districts, exempting the regions from taxation. Meanwhile, a fragmented sales tax system has left many municipalities dependent upon economic development projects to fund local government, so the municipalities heavily recruit developers, which requires even more TIF districts and eminent domain abuse. It’s a vicious cycle that will only be circumvented if the government limits (or, better yet, eliminates) TIF.
This bill certainly doesn’t go far enough. Developers, as always, have the upper hand, claiming that the projects will go to Illinois or Kansas instead. But does anyone really believe that Home Depot would shun Missouri if TIF was not available? Should taxpayers really be subsidizing this development? No and no.
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Wednesday, April 12th, 2006,
by Fred (,
courts, crime, Duke, lacrosse
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The embattled Duke lacrosse team is rolling out the Kobe Bryant defense
By releasing embarrassing details about the stripper who claims she was raped at a party held by Duke University’s lacrosse team, the players’ attorneys are employing the same strategy used successfully to defend NBA star Kobe Bryant against rape charges: publicly attack the accuser’s credibility.”This is what the defense does, is try to smear the victim in the public and make it impossible to get a jury,” said Eagle County, Colo., District Attorney Mark Hurlbert, who charged Bryant.
No one has been charged in the Duke case, and defense attorneys said District Attorney Mike Nifong should drop the investigation after DNA test results revealed no connection to the stripper on Monday. But Nifong has said all along that he didn’t need a match to pursue the case against the players, and experts agree.
It’s too early in the process to draw any conclusions. The lack of DNA evidence proves next to nothing. It’s the CSI Effect again - we’re so conditioned by the TV police procedurals to expect DNA evidence that we consider lack of DNA evidence proof of innocence. But there is no DNA evidence in the vast majority of crimes, and most sexual assault cases are prosecuted the old fashioned way, with witness testimony and medical evidence from a rape kit.
So nothing that has come out to date proves these loutish youth are innocent. But neither does it prove they are guilty. But attorneys for the not-yet-defendants are pulling no punches, pointing out the victim’s 2002 misdemeanor charges stemming from an incident in which she stole the taxi of a man to whom she was giving a lap dance.
Given Nifong’s position, defense attorneys have stepped up efforts to portray the accuser as a liar whose story doesn’t add up.
Over the weekend, they told reporters that photos taken at the party show the woman was injured even before she arrived, and impaired, too. And while answering questions about their clients’ legal troubles — about a third of the current team has been charged in recent years with public urination, underage possession of alcohol and disorderly conduct — they have suggested that the woman’s own criminal past undermines her credibility.
I don’t buy the victim’s defenders’ arguments that if the perpetrators’ and victim’s races were reversed, the boys would already be in jail. But we sure do love us some athletes in America, and it’s certainly true that these frat boys are getting preferential treatment because they are jocks. Just like they got preferential treatment on their drunken, louytish behavior in the past. Just like Kobe Bryant was able to beat his accuser into submission because he had an army of supporters who backed him because he can shoot a jump shot.
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Thursday, March 2nd, 2006,
by Fred (,
courts, DUI, St. Clair county
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Missouri legislators sure do like spitting into the wind. First, Rep. Rob Schaaf (R-St. Joseph) proposes a blatantly unconstitutional bill that would let police search a sex offender’s house without a warrant anytime a child goes missing within 3 miles of the offender’s home:
[Rep. Rick Johnson, D-High Ridge] asked Schaaf why police shouldn’t continue being required to ask a judge for a warrant if they wish to search a sex offender’s home.
Schaaf said that process often leads to delays. More fundamentally, he said, judges would require probable cause, which his bill does not demand.
“When you are a convicted felon, you give up a lot of rights,” Schaaf said in an interview. “I’m willing to give up their rights in order to protect children who have gone missing.”
Last I checked, the Fourth Amendment generally continues to apply even to convicted felons. The police can still talk to a sex offender without a warrant, and finding a compliant judge doesn’t seem all that hard.
Now the Missouri legislature is considering a “Yay Christianity!” resolution that purports to establish that voluntary prayer in public schools is not an unconstitutional commingling of church and state. The resolution provides that:
Whereas, our forefathers of this great nation of the United States recognized a Christian God and used the principles afforded to us by Him as the founding principles of our nation; and
Whereas, as citizens of this great nation, we the majority also wish to exercise our constitutional right to acknowledge our Creator and give thanks for the many gifts provided by Him; and
Whereas, as elected officials we should protect the majority’s right to express their religious beliefs while showing respect for those who object; and
Whereas, we wish to continue the wisdom imparted in the Constitution of the United States of America by the founding fathers; and
Whereas, we as elected officials recognize that a Greater Power exists above and beyond the institutions of mankind:
Now, therefore, be it resolved by the members of the House of Representatives of the Ninety-third General Assembly, Second Regular Session, the Senate concurring therein, that we stand with the majority of our constituents and exercise the common sense that voluntary prayer in public schools and religious displays on public property are not a coalition of church and state, but rather the justified recognition of the positive role that Christianity has played in this great nation of ours, the United States of America.
Luckily, the resolution does not have an enabling clause, so it cannot even do what it purports to do. However, such claims are not inconsequential, for they reinforce two widely held and interrelated beliefs: (1) America is a Christian nation, and therefore (2) laws that permit the majority to publicly celebrate their beliefs are appropriate. It is not at all clear that these statements are true.
It is likely true that most of the Founding Fathers believed in God, but it is not at all clear that they believed in a Christian God. Jefferson, for example, created his own New Testament, excising all references to miracles, from turning water to wine, to the resurrection. He clearly thought government and religion were to be kept separate, writing in Notes on Virginia that
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg.
Like Jefferson, Thomas Paine was a Deist. In The Age of Reason, he wrote that
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
During the Adams administration (Adams was a Unitarian), the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship Between the United States and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary. The treaty stated that:
Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Does any of this prove anything? Not really - there is evidence that some other founders were Christians. But many were not, and evidence suggests that the early Americans did not consider the US a “Christian Nation”.
Even if most Americans are Christians, does it necessarily follow that public exercise of Christian faith in governmental institutions is appropriate? I don’t think it does follow. America, whether it be a Christian nation or not, is clearly a secular nation. A separation of church and state, even if more clearly expressed in Jefferson’s writings than the First Amendment, strengthens both institutions. This thought was expressed by Ulysses S. Grant in his State of the Union address on December 7, 1875:
As this will be the last annual message which I shall have the honor of transmitting to Congress before my successor is chosen, I will repeat or recapitulate the questions which I deem of vital importance which may be legislated upon and settled at this session:
First. That the States shall be required to afford the opportunity of a good common-school education to every child within their limits.
Second. No sectarian tenets shall ever be taught in any school supported in whole or in part by the State, nation, or by the proceeds of any tax levied upon any community. Make education compulsory so far as to deprive all persons who can not read and write from becoming voters after the year 1890, disfranchising none, however, on grounds of illiteracy who may be voters at the time this amendment takes effect.
Third. Declare church and state forever separate and distinct, but each free within their proper spheres; and that all church property shall bear its own proportion of taxation.
It’s time for the government to stop tilting at these particular windmills.
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