Equal Justice Under the Law
Dear Washingtonians:
Since we haven’t addressed the controversy before in themail, let me
summarize the facts that everyone has agreed on. On December 23, 2012,
David Gregory hosted Meet the Press on NBC. He interviewed Wayne
LaPierre, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Rifle Association. During that
interview, he displayed a firearms magazine clip that holds thirty
rounds, and promoted a federal law to make the possession of such a
magazine illegal. The NRA opposes such a law, and believes that passing
it would be useless and futile, as well as an imposition on Second
Amendment rights. But Meet the Press was broadcast from Washington, DC,
which already has a law that makes it illegal to possess a thirty-round
magazine. The law makes no exception for whether the clip is loaded or
not or whether the possessor has any intent of using it for an illicit
or licit purpose — say, at a shooting range, and it makes no exception
for television show hosts. So advocates of Second Amendment rights, as a
way of demonstrating what they believed was the absurdity of such a
proposed federal law, asked why David Gregory wasn’t being prosecuted
for breaking DC’s law. The Metropolitan Police Department investigated,
confirmed that NBC had procured the thirty-round magazine for the
program, that NBC staffers had checked with the MPD about the legality
of having it and had been told that it was definitely illegal, and that
David Gregory knew, or should have known, that he was doing something
illegal (even though knowledge isn’t a necessary element of the crime).
The MPD presented the case to DC Attorney General Irv Nathan, who on
January 11 wrote to NBC that he declined to press charges.
Nathan wrote, "Having carefully reviewed all of the facts and
circumstances of this matter, as it does in every case involving
firearms-related offenses or any other potential violation of DC law
within our criminal jurisdiction, OAG has determined to exercise its
prosecutorial discretion to decline to bring criminal charges against
Mr. Gregory, who has no criminal record, or any other NBC employee based
on the events associated with the December 23, 2012, broadcast. OAG has
made this determination, despite the clarity of the violation of this
important law, because under all of the circumstances here a prosecution
would not promote public safety in the District of Columbia nor serve
the best interests of the people of the District to whom this office
owes its trust. Influencing our judgment in this case, among other
things, is our recognition that the intent of the temporary possession
and short display of the magazine was to promote the First Amendment
purpose of informing an ongoing public debate about firearms policy in
the United States, especially while this subject was foremost in the
minds of the public following the previously mentioned events in
Connecticut and the President’s speech to the nation about them."
The reporting of this case by Emily Miller of The Washington Times
and William A. Jacobson in Legal Insurrection has been particularly
good. The editorial comments on Nathan’s decision have not been
favorable. Allahpundit, on Hot Air, wrote, "If they chose to prosecute
him, it’d be a case study in how silly strict-liability gun laws can be.
If they declined, it’d be a case study in how the elite get special
treatment. Essentially, the DA had to decide whether he wanted to
undermine public faith that his office treats perps equally or undermine
public faith in those precious, precious gun laws. Not surprising,
really, that he’d protect gun control at the expense of his own
integrity. This is Washington, after all, and Gregory’s puppet show was
in service to the gun-control agenda. Did you really think they’d lock
him up for grilling Wayne LaPierre a bit too theatrically?" Paul
Mirengoff at Powerline writes, "The AG has given a complete pass to a
party that scoffed at DC law. He has done so quite possibly because he
agrees with the scofflaw’s political message, and perhaps under some
influence from his personal acquaintance with the scofflaw. That’s life
in the big city, if the big city is Washington, DC." Blogger Ann
Althouse writes, "Why is the law important? If Gregory clearly violated
the law, but there is no interest to be served in prosecuting him,
doesn’t that prove that the law is not important? If the precise thing
that he did — which is clearly what is defined as a crime — raises no
interest in prosecution, how can we be satisfied by letting this one
nice famous man go? Rewrite the law so that it only covers the activity
that the government believes deserves prosecution, so there is equal
justice under the law." In a second blog post, Althouse says, "I’m not
saying I want Gregory prosecuted. I only want people to see how unfair
it is to have a law that seems ridiculous to enforce against him, when
that law is used against others. And Gregory richly deserves to be
slapped around on the blogs, because he’s making the argument — that’s
why he was waving that thing around — that there ought to be more
invasive gun laws. He wants the government to reach more deeply into the
ordinary lives of private citizens, and he’s entirely reckless about
what these laws would really mean to ordinary people, and it’s a
recklessness that thrives in the mind of someone who easily and
instinctively believed — correctly! — that the law did not apply to
him."
Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine that David Gregory and Irv
Nathan had not been family friends. But imagine that, instead of David
Gregory’s having displayed the thirty-round magazine during the
interview in order to promote banning it, Wayne LaPierre had brought a
high-capacity magazine to the NBC studio in order to demonstrate the
foolishness of a law banning it. Does anyone for a moment believe that
Irv Nathan would have declined to prosecute LaPierre because of his
First Amendment intent of informing the public?
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/01/david-gregory-will-not-be-prosecuted/
http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/01/david-gregory-and-wife-knew-d-c-attorney-general/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/4/if-youre-not-david-gregory/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/guns/2013/jan/11/miller-david-gregory-gets-scott-free/
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/01/11/surprise-david-gregory-wont-be-prosecuted-for-displaying-high-capacity-magazine-on-meet-the-press/
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/01/david-gregory-skates-past-prosecution.php
http://www.althouse.blogspot.com/2013/01/dc-attorney-general-confirms-that-law.html
http://www.althouse.blogspot.com/2013/01/if-there-were-equal-justice-under-law.html
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
###############
Washington Teachers’ Union Calls for Critical
Examination of DCPS Cheating Allegations
Nathan A. Saunders,
nsaunders@wtulocal6.net
Cheating is a flagrant disservice to District children, families, and
communities. Any teacher, administrator, or school official that is
associated with cheating, or encourages a dishonest academic
environment, must be held accountable. Furthermore, wrongdoers cause
educational dysfunction in schools where good teachers are adversely
affected when inflated test scores cannot be further sustained. With a
renewed focus of potential cheating in District of Columbia Public
Schools, elected officials must no longer teeter around the edges of
education reform without exercising their public responsibility to
provide proper oversight and protect public school students.
DC Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie’s insistence on critically examining
the methodology, results, and limited scope of the Inspector General’s
investigation is commendable and necessary. Additional witnesses,
including teachers and administrators, should have the opportunity to
participate and even be subpoenaed to provide sworn testimony where
appropriate. Other councilmembers must be equally diligent in analyzing
troubling components of the city’s education reform agenda.
DCPS teachers have been sacrificed, blamed, and vilified in a city
where students who enter the classroom every day are hungry, homeless,
and in many instances, educationally neglected in their homes. We must
move away from an atmosphere that places a strong emphasis on
high-stakes student testing and embrace an educational philosophy based
on genuine student learning, discovery and exploration.
###############
DC Parking (Meter) Fun
Gabe Goldberg, gabe at gabegold dot com
I live near Falls Church; I attended meetings in DC last Monday and
Tuesday evenings. Four consecutive parking meters I encountered were out
of order. Some were coin-jammed, some were blinking various distress
messages. Monday (the "night of three dead meters"), not being sure of
rules governing dead meters, I moved my car twice seeking a working
meter. When the third meter was broken, I parked there. Tuesday, the
first meter I encountered was broken, so I parked there. That night, on
the way back to my car about 9:00 p.m., I encountered a ticket writer.
I asked her the broken-meter rules. She said it’s okay to park at
dead meters, subject to posted time limits. Of course, the enforcement
person needs to see the meter’s broken, else ticket is written. And good
luck having it dismissed. I understand DC is replacing individual meters
with mid-block kiosks — but in the meantime, four consecutive broken
meters — though a small sample — sure indicates a severe problem.
A chronic problem has been the baffling complexity of multiple signs
combined with multiple on-meter stickers, requiring parsing
differing/contradictory clues. Which surely facilitates finding broken
rules to ticket. Though that, of course, could never be DC’s intent in
crafting Byzantine rules and arcane sign language. But a relatively new
problem is meter enforcement until 10:00 p.m. Perhaps DC hasn’t noticed
that now it’s dark during enforcement hours. So it’s impossible to read
on-meter stickers, and impossible to read meter time display through
hazy/scratched plastic lens covers. Even with a flashlight, some meters
can’t be read. And does everyone carry a flashlight? Maybe DC should
post them at street corners, or create "Flashlight Share" like ZipCar
and BikeShare.
So all in all, DC actively discourages evening street parking — which
sure makes me think twice about attending evening events in DC. Used to
be that many streets were well parked in the evening, with meters only
running until 6:30 or 8:00 p.m. With 10:00 p.m. enforcement, many
streets are empty. So instead of increasing city parking revenue people
are forced to pay garages or simply stay out of DC. Either way,
brilliant.
###############
[Re: Dorothy Brizill, "Conflicts of Interest," themail, January 9]
Thank you. I do not know any more than you have written about the issue
of the upcoming elections, but I support the principle of public funding
of elections. At the same time the public should have a right to decide
on what and how many offices it will fund, and the public should have
the ability to ensure the process is imbued with integrity. In other
words, it should not be left to city councilmembers to decide if they
have a conflict of interest with respect to their participation in any
way with the upcoming elections. We must stop running Washington, DC,
like a banana republic that has the smell of a corrupt officialdom.
###############
[Re: Gary Imhoff, themail, January 9]: There is no correlation with
biking and "less common sense." I am a healthy 69-year-old male who
still enjoys biking and skiing. I ski about twenty days a year. I bike
over one hundred days a year. I just finished 2012 with 6072 miles for
the year. I am on no medication except for vitamins, the daily baby
aspirin, and the occasional use of an NSAID. How can I choose an
activity that returns such pleasure and good health but not have good
common sense? I would say that I have enough common sense to know how to
eat, drink, and play safely and healthily.
And furthermore, I have several female bicycling friends who do not
think they have less common sense than non-bikers of the male or female
persuasion.
[Do you know any women who think that men have as much common sense
as women do? — Gary Imhoff]
###############
Why This Woman Bikes, and Others May Not
Carole Jacobs,
hattysue@yahoo.com
I am a woman in my sixties who bikes everywhere. If I need to go to
parts of the area that may exhaust my physical resources, I arrange my
wanderings to take advantage of being allowed to take my bike aboard
Metro trains during non-rush hours. Because I do not mind seeming dorky,
I have a milk carton on my bike rack, to carry anything that might not
fit in my backpack. The best thing about biking is that one never gets
stuck in traffic. Gridlock can be ridden around or, everywhere except
downtown, escaped from via the sidewalk. The bottom line is that from my
Point A on Capitol Hill to most Points B in the city and near-in
suburban destinations (e.g., Arlington Cemetery, Alexandria),
biking is the fastest means of transit.
I do use a Zipcar in direst extremity, but my threshold of tolerance
for being immobilized in a hunk of metal has become so low that my
average usage rate has fallen from once a month to a couple times a
year. The second best thing about biking is that it is fun, except in
the worst heat of summer. The worst thing about biking in streets
without bike lanes is the herds of motorists who do not notice anything
smaller than an SUV.
My guess is that most people of either gender who do not bike have
simply not tried it recently, at least for moderate distances.. The
runner-up reason, for woman and some men, would perhaps be fear of
arriving at one’s destination less than perfectly coiffed and turned
out. There are remedies to this disadvantage; I may walk in a bit
mussed, but the process of making myself presentable once I do arrive is
pretty quick. By contrast, the only remedy to being stuck in traffic is
abandoning one’s vehicle. Perhaps by way of demonstrating that you are
not so biased as you like to seem, you could try doing local errands on
a bike. You might find that you like it, and you would have the
secondary gratification of knowing that you are at least for that trip
not contributing to traffic congestion, particulate pollution, and
global warming.
###############
CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Martin Luther King Freedom Walk and Peace
Walk, January 19
Ann Loikow,
aloikow@verizon.net
Because of the inauguration, the District of Columbia’s annual
celebration of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., will be held on
Saturday, January 19, instead of on the official Martin Luther King
holiday, Monday, January 21, which is also Inauguration Day. Instead of
a parade, there will be a Freedom Walk and a Peace Walk. These events
are also officially part of the 2013 Presidential Inaugural activities.
The Martin Luther King Freedom Walk will begin at Landsburgh Park (in
the rear of the Police Station, DC Inspection Station, and Fire Station)
at M Street and Delaware Avenue, SW, (six blocks in either direction
from the Waterfront or Navy Yard Metro stations on the Green line).
Walkers will assemble between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. The Walk will depart at
8:45 a.m. and proceed over the pedestrian side of Frederick Douglass
Memorial Bridge, symbolizing Martin Luther King’s march from Selma to
Montgomery Alabama. It will end at the Black United Fund (2500 Martin
Luther King Avenue, SE), near from the Anacostia Metro Station (Green
line).
The 6th Annual Martin Luther King Peace Walk will begin outside the
Black United Fund with a 9:00 a.m. "End the Violence" program with
speakers and chorus and gospel singers. Between 10:00 and 10:15 a.m.,
after the Freedom Walkers arrive, the Peace Walk will leave the grassy
area outside the Black United Fund and proceed up Martin Luther King
Avenue, SE, to Shepard Park at Martin Luther King and Malcolm X Avenues,
SE.
Beginning at 10:30 a.m., there will be a preliminary program at
Shepard Park for those not in the Peace Walk, which will include gospel
singers, the African Heritage Drummers, youth presentations, and
speakers. The final Shepard Park program will begin at noon with a
welcome to the Peace walkers and include speakers on Martin Luther King,
Jr., and the example he set in working for freedom, peace, and justice,
both nationally and in the District of Columbia. All are invited to
participate in either one or both walks as well as the program at
Shepard Park. Dress warmly and bring snacks, as no food vendors will be
available. For more information, go to
http://mlkholidaydc.org/.
###############
Dr. Mohammad Akhter on the Affordable Care
Act, January 22
Ann Renshaw,
Milrddc@aol.com
The Chair of DC’s Health Benefit Exchange Authority, Dr. Mohammad
Akhter, will decode the intricacies of the Affordable Care Act and
responsibilities (and accountability) of the city’s Health Benefit
Exchange Authority at an Assembly of the DC Federation of Citizens
Associations on Tuesday evening, January 22, at 6:45 p.m. The meeting,
which is open to the public, will be held at All Souls Memorial
Episcopal Church Hall, 2300 Cathedral Avenue, NW, near the Woodley Park
Metro on the Red Line (see below).
The complex (and seemingly incomprehensible) national health care law
has already provoked serious discussion and debate on the future of
medical care. Dr. Akhter will face business, senior citizen, religious,
medical and general administrative questions about the city’s health
insurance exchange which is expected to be operational by Oct. 1, 2013,
as well as interpreting portions of the massive Affordable Care Act (e.g.,
income eligibility, incentives, health care cost containment, health
insurance plans, penalties and tax implications).
DC residents, businesses, medical/hospital representatives and
religious communities are urged to share their questions and concerns
about this new medical system which now impacts everyone’s life.
###############
themail@dcwatch is an E-mail discussion forum that is published
every Wednesday and Sunday. To change the E-mail address for your
subscription to themail, use the Update Profile/Email address link
below in the E-mail edition. To unsubscribe, use the Safe Unsubscribe
link in the E-mail edition. An archive of all past issues is available
at http://www.dcwatch.com/themail.
All postings should be submitted to themail@dcwatch.com, and should
be about life, government, or politics in the District of Columbia in
one way or another. All postings must be signed in order to be
printed, and messages should be reasonably short — one or two brief
paragraphs would be ideal — so that as many messages as possible can
be put into each mailing.
|
