Joel Mathis

Radley Balko notes that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is refusing to hear the habeas corpus petition of a man who has established his innocence in the sex crimes for which he was convicted. Why the rejection? Because the dude filed his petition after the deadline. Balko: By the panel’s reckoning, adherence to an arbitrary deadline created by legislators is a higher value than not continuing to imprison people we know to be innocent. The circuit court's decision is horrifying -- but its logic isn't that surprising. Why? Because that's the exact same logic that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has used. Remember this? This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is "actually" innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based o

This Ralph Reed -- remember him? -- post at The Corner , about Elena Kagan's radical tendencies, deserves a thorough fisking. But there's one point in particular that I found interesting. And by "interesting" I mean "dishonest." In response to questions during her confirmation as solicitor general, Kagan argued the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, like freedom of speech, enjoys “strong but not unlimited protection.” This is a dangerous view of the law when it leads to the creeping erosion of the Bill of Rights. Why is this dishonest? Because if you check what Kagan said at her solicitor general hearings, it's clear that she was citing DC vs. Heller , the 2008 case that upheld gun rights. This is a fuller and untruncated quote of what she said : Once again, there is no question, after Heller, that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to keep and bear arms and that this right, like others in the Constitution, provides