YES, YOU CAN BE TRIED TWICE FOR THE SAME CRIME: Despite the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Constitution, the federal government retains the right to try a person for a federal crime even after a full acquittal based on the same facts in state court (and vice versa). It’s called the dual sovereignty rule. Back when the federal criminal code covered very little, it was a minor footnote to the law. These days, with a federal crime for practically every state crime, it’s a two-bites-at-the-apple rule.

In doing some research for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights last week, I noticed that charges had been filed by both federal and state authorities in all the high-profile hate crimes cases I was looking at. I worried this sort of thing would happen back in 2009 when Congress was set to adopt the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. In the Pittsburgh synagogue case, there was even some turf fighting over it. These cases are real plums for ambitious prosecutors.

Sooner or later, somebody will be acquitted for good reason. Nevertheless, there will be an outcry for a re-prosecution. Indeed, this happened in the Trayvon Martin case. Fortunately for George Zimmerman the flesh wounds on the back of his head lent a lot of credibility to his claim of self-defense, so the federal authorities decided not to proceed. It makes me very nervous to think that in politically charged cases an accused will have to prove himself innocent twice (and may not always be as lucky as Zimmerman).

Of course, for many of the law’s supporters, the two-bites-at-apple aspect of the law is not a bug but its most important feature.

JOHN HINDERAKER:  More Democrats are keen on reparations.

I DEFINITELY KNOW THE FEELING ON THIS ONE: My gentleman friend had dinner a little while ago with two faithfully Progressive young schoolteachers. They could recite the Progressive line on just about every issue. But on one issue, they were decidedly conservative as well as quite upset: School discipline. Their classrooms were out of control, they said. And they were outraged that school administrators and education bureaucrats were not supporting teachers. Unruly students get sent to the principal and return shortly thereafter (with candy!).

This sounds like a good example of Robert Conquest’s rule that everyone is conservative about the things they know best. Put differently, Progressives feel they can fix age-old problems with ideas they came up with in the shower last Tuesday. But when it comes to dealing with problems in their own professions, they are much better able to see the nuance and complexity, which allows them to better understand and appreciate the traditions of that profession.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Joseph Lister (1827), Booker Washington (1856), W. Atlee Burpee (1858). If it’s yours too, you’re in very fine company.

WILL THE GRAND PROGRESSIVE COALITION MARCH TOGETHER FOREVER?: Despite all the internal contradictions, Progressives usually manage to keep their jerrybuilt identity politics coalition humming along. African Americans are expected to support lax immigration enforcement even though it drives down wages for low-skilled workers. Asian Americans are expected to just shut up about race-preferential admissions policies at competitive colleges and universities. Women, too, are expected to support “diversity” even when it means affirmative action for men.

But there are limits. And maybe with anatomical males competing in women’s athletics, the limit is starting to be felt.

THANK YOU:  The 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde glorified two-bit killers.  Kyle Smith now reviews The Highwaymen, starring Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson, which sets the record straight.

In 1967, many of the victims’ friends and family were still alive and had to watch as America swooned over merciless killers (played by gorgeous actors Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway) .  I hope some of them are still around to watch this story of the ex-Texas Rangers who stopped the Barrow gang’s rampage.

I send a giant “Thank You” to director John Lee Hancock and screenwriter John Fusco.  Score one for decency.

UNABOMBER ARRESTED: On this day in 1996, Ted Kaczynski, the Harvard-educated, former Berkeley math professor responsible for over a dozen bombs and three deaths, was arrested at his cabin in Montana.

TOM COTTON AND JOHN HINDERAKER ASK:  Why should the Southern Poverty Law Center be tax exempt?

THE MORAL PANIC CONTINUES:  Students demand that George Mason Law School fire Justice Kavanaugh as a visiting professor of law.

WOMEN CAN LEAD RIOTS TOO: On this day in 1863, about 5000 people, mostly poor women, led by Mary Jackson, Martha Fergusson, and Minerva Meredith, broke into Richmond, Virginia shops and seized food, clothing, shoes and jewelry.

“Bread riots” of this sort also broke out in other parts of the South during the last couple of years of the war, but the one in Richmond was the worst. “Bread or blood!” was their rallying cry.

All had not been well in Richmond. Union forces had blockaded the ports and had gained control of parts of Virginia. Farm output was low, since so many farmers and farm laborers were in the military. Richmond’s population had swelled as a result of war. And a late March snowstorm had turned the roads to mud, thus making it difficult to make it to town with what little food there was.

A few days earlier, Jefferson Davis, who no one ever accused of being overly diplomatic, had set people on edge by calling for a day of fasting and prayers. One man wrote in his diary,  “Fasting in the midst of famine! May God save this people!”

Davis was the one who ultimately brought the crowd under control. But it took a lot: Only when he got on top of a wagon and threatened to have the Confederate army open fire on the crowd did they disperse.

PRO-AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BALLOT INITIATIVE PENNILESS IN SEATTLE?: The plan to repeal Washington State’s Initiative 200, which prohibited discrimination and preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, or ethnicity in public education, public employment and public contracting, has hit a snag. The repealers evidently have no money. And they owe lots to the folks who collected the signatures to get them on the ballot.

I hope the new initiation–called Initiative 1000—fails. Efforts to repeal Proposition 209 in California have failed, which is a good thing, since Proposition 209 was initially very successful and continues to have some good effects.

GET USED TO IT, STUDENTS; THAT’S WHAT THEY ALL DO: Chancellor who bemoans income inequality and “taxing the poor” hikes parking fees on commuter campus by 150%.

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE MYSTERY?: Nope. A recent school discipline study looks at suspension/expulsion rates among various subgroups of Asian and Pacific Islander K-12 students in Washington State. To no one’s surprise, it finds the rates differ radically within the broad Asian/Pacific Islander category.

For example, it finds that ethnic Cambodian and Vietnamese students are suspended or expelled at rates 2 to 3 times that of ethnic Chinese students. The differences between Pacific Islander and Chinese students were even greater. Samoan students were suspended or expelled at more than 10 times the rate of Chinese students, and Guamanian/Chamorro students at almost 5 times the rate of Chinese students.

Does anyone believe that Washington State teachers are twice as biased against Samoan students as they are against Guamanian/Chamorro students? I doubt it. The real reasons for these differences are a good deal more complicated than that (and they are connected to differences in behavior).

We are not doing students any favors by blaming all this on teacher bias.  School discipline policy is not an issue that the nation can afford to screw up.

DEPARTMENT OF ODD FACTS:  The Wrigley Company (founded on this day in 1891) initially gave away chewing gum to anyone who purchased its baking soda.  But customers cared more about the gum than they did about the baking soda, so Wrigley switched to selling the gum outright.  And made a mint.

HEATHER MAC DONALD ON “WHEN PROSECUTORIAL DISCRETION IS WOKE”:  “Throwing out charges against Jussie Smollett is consistent with the social-justice narrative that a hate hoax can be true in a deeper sense.”

ERIC HOLDER:  America was never great.

HANS BADER:  “Harsh penalties deter crime, contrary to what this ‘expert’ says.”

Quoth Bader:  “[John] Pfaff poses the question, ‘How many studies show that severe sanctions are an effective way to deter crime?’  He answers his own question, ‘None.’  But there are many such studies.”

PUBLIC COMMENT ON IMMIGRATION DETENTION FACILITIES: A few years ago, the Commission on Civil Rights issued a report whose purpose was to expose (in the words of the then-Chairman) “egregious human rights and constitutional violations” that he believed were occurring in detention facilities.  Curiously, the draft of the report was mostly finished by the time the Commissioners got around to actually visiting any of those facilities. To the surprise of my colleagues, the facilities we saw were pretty nice (especially the privately run facility for women and their minor children). Since the report barely mentioned what we really saw, I wrote a detailed dissent that (in contrast to the rest of the report) I believe will be useful to anyone who wants an accurate assessment of what those immigration detention facilities are like.

The Commission now wants to reexamine the issue.  On Friday, April 12, 2019 from 10:00 to 12:30 a.m., the Commission is hosting a public comment session. According to the Commission’s announcement, it seeks comment “on the condition of immigration detention centers and status of treatment of immigrants, including children.” It further states, “The Commission seeks to hear from members of the public, including policy advocates, legal experts, affected persons, and other individuals who wish to speak on the issue.” Here is the link to the announcement.

Note that the Commission also welcomes submission of written material. The email and snail mail addresses for the submission of written material are available at the link above. The deadline for submission is May 13, 2019. If you believe you have something useful to say, especially if you have some first-hand knowledge, I hope you’ll consider submitting something. If you know someone who might want to comment (again, especially if that someone might have first-hand knowledge), please pass this information on to him or her.

I know there is lots of expertise and experience out there.  If this is an area you know something about (or you know someone who does), don’t let that knowledge go to waste.

PETER KIRSANOW, MEMBER U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS, WRITES TO SAN ANTONIO MAYOR:  Calls decision to exclude Chick-Fil-A from San Antonio airport “bigoted virtue signalling” and implies that Chick-Fil-A may be “the tastiest chicken sandwiches in creation.”

DROPPING CHARGES AGAINST SMOLLETT IS LIKE SPITTING IN THE FACE OF CHICAGO POLICE: My gentlemen friend is more pessimistic about the world than I am (and that’s saying something). He predicted that the police would be prevented from investigating the possibility that Jussie Smollett’s case was a hoax (wrong), that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel would cheerlead for Smollett no matter how obvious his guilt (wrong), and that Smollett would never be charged with a crime (wrong).   My reasoning in predicting the opposite was this: Why would Chicago’s leaders want people to believe that you can’t go out for a sandwich in one of Chicago’s toniest neighborhoods without being violently attacked by Trump supporting nut cases carrying nooses?

We never dreamed that charges would be suddenly dropped against Smollett, so we never discussed that possibility. Still, score one for my friend’s pessimism.

I take consolation in the fact that Emmanuel is spitting mad, Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson is spitting mad, the editors of the Chicago Tribune are spitting mad … and even Piers Morgan is unhappy.

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE METHODS CHAMPIONED BY THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION AREN’T WHAT THEY’RE CRACKED UP TO BE: And that actually understates it. Now that they are no longer required, I expect more and more schools to back away from them.

PEW POLL FINDS AMERICANS OVERWHELMINGLY REJECT RACE AS A FACTOR IN COLLEGE ADMISSIONS: I should have written about this three weeks ago, but I got too busy. But here’s the bottom line: 73% of adults say that race should not be a factor in college admissions. On the other hand 19% say it should be a minor factor and 7% say it should be a major factor.

When you break it down by race, you get this: Whites: 78% not a factor, 18% minor factor, and 4% major factor; Blacks: 62% not a factor, 20% minor factor, and 18% major factor; Hispanics: 65% not a factor, 22% minor factor, 11% major factor; Asians: 59% not a factor, 27% minor factor, 14% major factor.

This is consistent with past history. As Paul Sniderman and Thomas Piazza wrote in 1993 in The Scar of Race, “[The affirmative action agenda] is politically controversial precisely because most Americans do not disagree about it.” When the poll question is halfway clear, the answers are pretty consistent.

Before Grutter v. Bollinger was decided in 2003, I wrote an article entitled Strict Scrutiny, Public Opinion, and Affirmative Act on Campus: Should the Courts Find a Narrowly Tailored Solution to a Compelling Need in a Policy Most Americans Oppose? First, it argued (uncontroversially, I think) that when the public favors discriminatory laws, the public’s view should carry no weight at all in a court’s analysis. As every law student knows, strict scrutiny holds that a racially discriminatory law or policy can only be justified by a compelling purpose, and the law or policy must be narrowly tailored to serve that purpose. But next, it argued, a court should not be able to find a compelling purpose if the public favors race neutrality instead. If the public finds the reason for discrimination, how can a court find it compelling?

Obviously, my argument failed to convince Justice O’Connor.

OF COURSE THEY DO:  Media ignore Trump’s Executive Order on Campus Free Speech.

YES, EVEN THE MSM UNDERSTANDS THIS IS WRONG:  Chicago Tribune editorializes against letting Jussie Smollett walk:  Indefensible.

RAHM EMMANUEL BLASTS DECISION TO LET JUSSIE SMOLLETT WALK:  Calls it a “whitewash of justice.”