WJI's daily reads for Dec. 23, 2021

The Cap Times: Judge tells Vos, Gableman to immediately release records of election review or explain to the court why they aren't.

Politico: U.S. Supreme Court to hold special session on vaccine requirements.

Wisconsin State Journal: Former judge Brett Blomme sentenced to nine years in prison for child porn.

The Kansas City Star: Missouri trooper released a fugitive because of a state law prohibiting enforcement of some federal gun laws.

(The state law)declares “invalid” many federal gun regulations that don’t have an equivalent in Missouri law. These include statutes covering weapons registration and tracking, and possession of firearms by some domestic violence offenders.

Local departments are barred from enforcing them, or risk being sued for $50,000 by private citizens who believe their Second Amendment rights have been violated. Police are also prohibited from giving “material aid and support” to federal agents and prosecutors in enforcing those “invalid” laws against “law-abiding citizens” — defined as those who Missouri law permits to have a gun.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star: The slow undoing of the Sixth Amendment.

Several years ago, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said plea bargaining determines “who goes to jail and for how long. It is not some adjunct to the criminal justice system. It is the criminal justice system.”

That is in spite of what President John Adams declared more than two centuries ago, ‘‘[r]epresentative government and trial by jury are the heart and lungs of liberty. Without them we have no other fortification against being ridden like horses, fleeced like sheep, worked like cattle, and fed and clothed like swine and hounds.’’

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