Tim Lynch (Author at The Cato Institute)

Hate Crime Law Kills One Bird with Two Stones (Scholar Comments)

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

The hate crime measure President Obama will sign into law today will be—and should be—challenged in the courts as an unconstitutional overreach of federal power.

In 2000, the Supreme Court struck down the Violence Against Women Act in United States v. Morrison, finding that Congress had overstepped its authority under the Commerce Clause. The new hate crime law will be invalidated for similar reasons.

In the meantime, the law will not prevent any violent crime from happening. Any depraved criminal who is prepared to murder another human being or commit arson is not going to suddenly drop his plan because the president approves new legislation. And hate crimes laws take the government too close to the notion of "thought crimes," because investigators will now have to dig into peoples' lives in order to gather "evidence" to prove the bias element in a court of law. That sort of investigative work is unnecessary because all violent acts are already against the law. This measure is about identity politics, not crime-fighting.

Get Serious about Decriminalizing Drugs; Others Are (Commentary)

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

The international war against the black market trade in narcotics seems to be at a tipping point, as a new approach is gaining traction globally: decriminalization. More and more policymakers are coming to the view that it is wrong to jail drug users as criminals. Last November, Massachusetts vot...

Pottawattamie County v. McGhee (Legal Briefs)

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

In 1977, county attorney David Richter and assistant county attorney Joseph Hrvol worked side by side with police to investigate and "solve" the notorious murder of a former police officer in Pottawattamie County, Iowa. The prosecutors fabricated evidence and used it to charge and convict Curtis McGhee and Terry Harrington, sending them to prison for 25 years. After the convictions were overturned for prosecutorial misconduct, McGhee and Harrington sued the county and prosecutors. The defendants in that civil suit invoked the absolute immunity generally afforded prosecutors to try to escape liability. After the Eighth Circuit ruled against them, the Supreme Court agreed to review the case. Cato joined the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the ACLU on a brief supporting the men unjustly imprisoned. We argue that prosecutors should be responsible for their role in manufacturing a false "case," just as police officers would be under the same circumstances. As the Court has held, prosecutors enjoy absolute immunity only during the prosecutorial phase of a case, not its investigatory phase. Were prosecutors to receive absolute immunity here, citizens would have no protection from or recourse against prosecutors who frame the innocent by fabricating evidence and then using that evidence to convict them.

Mexico Decriminalizes Drugs, U.S. Should Follow (Scholar Comments)

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Policymakers in Washington are losing their grip on international drug policy. For many years Washington was able to pressure other countries into taking the hard line, criminal approach to drugs. Now, despite Washington's objections, more and more countries are moving in the direction of liberalization and decriminalization.

Portugal led the way by decriminalizing all drugs in 2001 and now Mexico has taken a step in the same direction. Skeptics said there would be a spike in use and then a public health crisis. That has not happened.

As a result, policymakers in Europe and Latin America are increasingly willing to move away from the drug prohibition model. The Obama administration should welcome, not oppose, this trend.

How to Hate on Hate (Daily Podcast)

Wed, 27 May 2009 00:00:00 EDT