Nice Dig at Qualified Immunity, by Judge Don Willett (5th Cir.)

Turns out, ignorance of the law is an excuse—for government officials. Such blithe “rules for thee but not for me” nonchalance is less qualified immunity than unqualified impunity.

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/01/24/nice-dig-at-qualified-immunity-by-judge-don-willett-5th-cir/

More State Lawmakers Propose To Regulate Farm Practices in Other States

Whether or not laws like this would pass muster at the current court, they remain an aggressive and uncalled‐for extraterritorial extension of state police power.

https://www.cato.org/blog/more-state-lawmakers-propose-regulate-farm-practices-other-states

Oral Argument in Devillier v. Texas Suggests Victory for Property Rights Likely

In many cases, compensation is the only possible remedy for the violation of the property owner’s Takings Clause rights, as there is no way to address it by an injunction. For example, Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted that an injunction couldn’t fix a “temporary taking” where the government has temporarily taken an owner’s property, but then stopped. I would add the same is true of cases where the government has destroyed or damaged the owner’s property—as in Devillier itself. Short of inventing a time travel device and going back in time, Texas cannot undo the flooding of Devillier’s land. The only possible remedy for that violation of his rights is the payment of compensation.

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/01/16/oral-argument-in-devillier-v-texas-suggests-victory-for-property-rights-likely/

IRS Expansion Was Never about Reducing the Deficit

First, the Biden administration wanted to raise $400 billion over the next ten years with greater tax enforcement. Some Democrats in the press were talking about up to $1 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office has evaluated proposals for greater tax enforcement for over a decade and never found an estimate greater than $120 billion. Now it’s supposed to be some great victory that, over a year after the IRS expansion was passed into law, they’ve raised $500 million.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/irs-expansion-was-never-about-reducing-the-deficit/

Ohio SWAT Team Raids Wrong House, Seriously Injures Baby With Flashbang Grenade, Denies Responsibility

In a press release, the Elyria Police Department claimed that the flashbang grenades “were deployed outside of the residence.” … However, the above footage from the neighbor’s Ring camera shows an officer hurling the device into the home–with the noticeable presence of smoke.

“My baby was blood-red, gasping for air,” she said. “He could not breathe…”

https://redstate.com/jeffc/2024/01/12/ohio-swat-team-raids-wrong-house-seriously-injures-baby-with-flashbang-grenade-and-denies-responsibility-n2168653

Trumbull County grand jury declines charges in miscarriage case under national spotlight

Watts’ lawyer, Traci Timko, said in an Associated Press story in December that her client was sitting at St. Joseph Warren Hospital for eight hours awaiting treatment while officials there tried to decide how to treat the symptoms of her pregnancy under Ohio’s abortion laws.

https://www.wkbn.com/news/local-news/warren-news/trumbull-county-grand-jury-chooses-not-to-indict-woman-charged-after-miscarriage/

Inflation Hit Some States Harder

Inflation wiped out economic growth in most states last year. Adjusting for inflation, only five states had positive personal income growth last year: North Dakota, Delaware, South Dakota, Montana, and Alaska. Rhode Island, Oregon, DC, Mississippi, and New Hampshire all saw real personal incomes drop by more than eight percent.

State policy has a lot to do with why some states saw more inflation than others. Local land-use regulations that restrict home-building drive up the cost of housing, the largest part of the consumer price index. New Hampshire’s eye-popping inflation rate was driven by housing costs, which also rose at the nation’s fastest pace.

https://www.aier.org/article/inflation-hit-some-states-harder/

Study Estimates Roadside Drug Tests Result in 30,000 Wrongful Arrests Every Year

…as many as 30,000 innocent people a year may be wrongly arrested for drug possession based on their results, making these tests “one of the largest, if not the largest, known contributing factor to wrongful arrests and convictions in the United States.”

212 people pleaded guilty between January 2004 and June 2015 to drug possession based on Houston Police Department field tests that were later invalidated by crime labs.

https://reason.com/2024/01/09/study-estimates-roadside-drug-tests-result-in-30000-wrongful-arrests-every-year/