Quo Vadis, Legal Realism?

"Yes, there's a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and yes, Stephen Miller is on watch at the White House. Yet this is no moment for complacency. Too many times, in too many places, it's Criminals 1, Victims 0. Let's consider five illustrative news items, just from September 2025: First, on September 6, the world learned of the murder of Iryna Zarutska, tragically slain in a viral video by someone who looks just like Decarlos Brown. Brown had been arrested 14 times before and been in and out-mostly out-of various facilities."

"Second, on September 16, a New York City judge ruled that Luigi Mangione, accused of shooting a health insurance executive, will be convicted of, at most, second degree murder. So even though Mangione appears to have stalked, ambushed, cold-bloodedly killed, and then cooly fled, the calculated assassination is now being treated as a crime of impulsive passion. Third, on September 19, Anibal Hernandez Santana allegedly fired three bullets, from a school zone, into a TV station in Sacramento. In California, a state that emphasizes gun control, Hernandez Santana was... immediately released on bail. The FBI then locked him up, no doubt to the relief of liberal locals, who now have at least one reason to like Kash Patel."

A sequence of September 2025 cases illustrates repeated failures to hold dangerous individuals accountable. A viral murder involved a suspect with 14 prior arrests and extensive time outside custody. A judge reduced an apparent calculated assassination to at most second-degree murder. A man allegedly firing bullets from a school zone was released on bail before FBI detention. An accused rapist with prior arrests was declared incompetent to stand trial. An individual with 18 prior arrests allegedly shoved an off-duty officer onto subway tracks. These cases reveal gaps in pretrial detention, charging decisions, competency determinations, and accountability that endanger victims and communities.

Read at The American Conservative