WJI's Daily Reads for May 13, 2022

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 2021 data on Milwaukee Police Department compliance with stop-and-frisk settlement.

Of all the police encounters, frisks represent the Police Department’s biggest challenge at reform. In six-month increments from January 2019 through December 2020, the department failed document justification for at least 79% of frisks.

Things improved with a score of 48.8% in the first half of 2021, but the April report showed no progress from there. The department failed to record justification for 53.6% of frisks in the second half of 2021.

Forbes: House moves forward with ethics bill for U.S. Supreme Court, while public opinion of the court drops.

BIG NUMBER
73%. That’s the share of voters in a recent Morning Consult/Politico poll who strongly or somewhat support binding Supreme Court justices to a code of ethics, as the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act would do. Supreme Court justices are not bound by the same code of conduct that governs other federal judges.

Slate: Mark Joseph Stern on the Fifth Circuit's reinstatement of Texas' social-media censorship law.

Texas Republicans passed their internet censorship bill, known as H.B. 20, in the fall of 2021. Its sponsors said that the legislation was necessary to prevent “West Coast oligarchs” from silencing “conservative viewpoints and ideas.” (Their theory that social media companies discriminate against conservative speech has no evident basis in reality.) The bill applies to social media companies with “more than 50 million active users” in the U.S. each month, like Twitter, YouTube, and Meta, that operate in Texas. (Republicans rejected a proposal that would’ve broadened its application to smaller conservative platforms like Parler and Gab.) It states that these companies may not “censor” a user’s expression on the basis of their “viewpoint,” whether that “viewpoint” is expressed on the company’s platform or somewhere else. If a platform removes a user’s content, it must provide them with notice and an opportunity to appeal. Alleged victims of “viewpoint discrimination” can also file suit against social media companies, as can the Texas attorney general.​

Des Moines Register: Des Moines police officers denied qualified immunity for seizure of murder victim's family members for questioning. 

The violation arose after Shawn Davis stabbed his brother, Preston Davis, during a family gathering in August 2017. Crysteal Davis, Preston Davis' wife; Damon Davis, another brother; and cousin Iisha Hillmon witnessed the stabbing, according to the appeals court decision. The relatives were not suspects in the killing, police said, but officers took them to the police station and questioned them for more than three hours rather than taking them to the hospital to see Preston Davis.

Preston Davis, meanwhile, died.

Marijuana Moment: Did Georgia police racially target HBCU Delaware State University women's lacrosse team in traffic stop and search?

The incident happened as the Delaware State University women’s lacrosse team were making their way back home following a tournament. Students believe the black bus driver and players were racially targeted as officers threatened incarceration if they turned up any illegal narcotics.