Weaver has been highly critical of Taylor and he retaliated in public with sexist derision, characterizing her detailed complaints as "sort of strange rantings ... of an unhappy human being" and the venting of "a sad and angry woman." (You know how emotional women get.) In a draft opinion circulated among his fellow justices he suggested she launch a hunger strike "as it seemed to have the potential for everyone to be a winner." (Speaking of sad, Above the Law swallowed the Chief Justice's poison.)

The papers call it a "feud" but in every instance that's come to my attention, Weaver was clearly in the right. It wasn't even arguable, except in the sense that everything's arguable to a lawyer who wants something for him- or herself. It's incredible that the Michigan newspapers don't see where their own interests lie - in governmental openness. (If this isn't enough for you, here's Justice Weaver's own website.)

But to return to the Slate article, which used Taylor's well-earned, thumping defeat as the take-off point for complaining about democracy and openness in government. What makes the article, by the head of an anti-democracy and anti-transparency organization, particularly "delusive; unreal" isn't just its premise that "the business sector" is unable to perceive its own best interests, or even its see-through pretense of offering disinterested and helpful advice.

No, it's that while accurately summarizing the corrosive effect of money in judicial races, it fails to consider why people are prepared to pour so much money into campaigns that attracted no interest at all just a few years ago.  It reports that a union official supposedly said, "We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators," without drawing the logical conclusion: the official was saying that one was as good as the other.  The seven justices are now doing things that not so long ago were done by 132 legislators.

People who run for office with an "ethical" commitment to not informing voters about what they plan to do with the power entrusted to them (see pp. 11-12 of this handbook for New York judges) now routinely substitute their policy views for those of legislators who laid out their programs, or at least their slogans, in expensive campaigns.  The word for that is "de-democratization."

So what's the alternative to judicial elections?  "Merit selection," of course, means appointment by backroom politics. It means sale of judicial appointments.  (See post 229.)  In New Mexico (state motto: "Because that's how we've always done it"), we've cleverly managed to combine the worst aspects of both systems, and a good 85% of the time the scuttlebutt among lawyers accurately predicts who will win the "merit selection" competition for an open judgeship. 

That's not because we're a particularly clairvoyant lot, but because we belong to a relatively small bar.  To calculate in advance who's going to be appointed you first have to suppress your wistful hope that this time it might be different.  Instead, you just need to glance at the list of people applying, then look up political contributions on Followthemoney.org and keep your ears open to learn who's been seen palling around with the governor or his big supporters, and you'll be able to guess with remarkable accuracy who will be appointed.

If the prediction is a little more difficult in other states, it's only because you have more members of your bar, making it harder to get a handle on the relationships.

Money and connections - that's what "merit selection" means. I've heard the general concept defended on the ground that it weeds out the absolutely incompetent, the complete morons, but that's not even entirely true on the federal level, where the Senators and White House judge-pickers are under a degree of scrutiny.  It's certainly not true in any system that doesn't receive sustained media attention.

In short, "merit selection" means the non-democratic appointment of people to make anti-democratic policy decisions.

Lawyers like merit selection for the same reason they like the concentration of power in judges' hands: the goo-goo types enjoy the delusion that they can exert some influence over the final result through the application of sufficient earnestness and commitment to the process. 

The realists know they can get what they want from enlightened despots without all the inefficient muss and fuss of democratic self-government.  That's why they make the contributions. 

Big contributions aren't the cause of the corruption.  They're a symptom.

Prop 5 is massively long - 57 sections over 20 pages of small type - making it difficult even for those of us trained to endure long statutes to be sure exactly what it does.

But the California Secretary of State's website does include this very amusing "rebuttal" to arguments against Prop 5 from Orange County Superior Court Judge James Gray, who (according to his own website) ran for Congress as a Republican and for the Senate as a Libertarian without having to hang up his robe:

Under Prop. 5, judges make the call as to which nonviolent offenders get into treatment and which don’t. Judges know how to separate dangerous offenders from deserving cases. We do it every day.

Nothing in Prop. 5 prevents judges from sentencing dangerous offenders for the crimes mentioned by opponents.

It's not really a criticism of judges to say: balderdash and blatherskite. No one's particularly good at predicting future violence except in the obvious, Tasmanian Devil cases. But judges are demonstrably bad at it.

From England's reliably excited Daily Mail we learn (if that's the right verb to use in connection with the Daily Yell):

Criminals on probation commit a murder every week, official figures show.

In the past two years, offenders under supervision have been convicted of 121 murders.

Meanwhile, 44 have been convicted of manslaughter, 103 of rape and 80 of kidnapping.

(Nice short paragraphs, no?)

In comparatively unpopulated New Mexico, our number of homicidal probationers is much more modest, according to my local paper, the Albuquerque Journal:

At least 13 people sentenced to probation in the past five years have been charged with committing homicide while serving their sentences, according to a survey of court records.

Two of them have been charged with multiple killings while on probation, bringing the total number of deaths to 16.

(Those monstrously long paragraphs!  They wind on and on like mountain roads!)

Sixteen deaths is pretty horrible, but I don't think anyone should be surprised that probationers (allegedly) committed them.  As the best recent justice of our Supreme Court mildly observed in a Halloween op-ed, "The unpredictability of behavior of an unpredictable population is a real challenge to those working in the system."

It's hard to know when some people are done being dangerous.  That works both ways, of course.  We learn about the dangerous people judges let out, but not about the undangerous sent away to prison.

There may be some excellent reasons for voting for Prop 5, but faith in the ability of judges to predict the future dangerousness of drug-abusing criminals isn't one of them.

I can think of two explanations for his logic: he's clinically insane; or, he's so confident his convictions will be reversed on appeal that he considers them as good as reversed already.  Or, I suppose, both.

Assuming the second explanation, his confidence is well-placed, I think.  Our appellate courts are extremely reluctant to uphold the conviction of anybody who's demographically like the average judge: white, male, middle-aged or older, and part of the governing class.

If I remember right, Oliver North said during his Virginia senatorial campaign that he hadn't been convicted, since a federal appeals court had reversed his conviction (on grounds that have, ever since, handicapped mob and gang prosecutions around the country).  So there's a precedent for Stevens' position.

Stevens will be appealing his conviction to the same D.C. Circuit court that recently intervened in the presidential campaign by sparing the GOP potential embarrassment regarding congressional subpoenas to Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolton.  The panel consisted of the pot-smoking Reagan Supreme Court nominee Douglas Ginsburg and G.H.W. Bush appointee and Ford Administration assistant solicitor general Arthur Randolph.

Their purported reason for refusing to decide the case is that the Republicans might take control of Congress, mooting the entire issue.  (Although, being judges, they phrased it in a more roundabout way.)  To justify their position, they first had to (nearly) run out the clock on the current Congress.

I think Stevens is correct in assuming that the D.C. Circuit will do everything it can to reverse his jury's verdicts.  In the meantime, we're treated to the entertaining spectacle of Alaskanas rallying around their highest-ranking federal official with t-shirts saying, "Fuck the feds."  So far as the Anchorage Daily News article reveals, they apparently exempted one particular formerly-influential fed from their sexual threat.

Benton County is a rural area of the state. Its population density ranks it 74th among Tennessee counties, and it's poorer than the average county, too. Wikipedia says it is known locally "for its duck hunting and fishing industries" - which I didn't even know were industries.

Judges in such isolated areas can establish despotisms. The most extreme example is the psychopathic David Lanier (scroll down), who presided over family court in another western Tennessee county, Dyer, for the opportunity it provided him to rape female litigants in his soundproofed, windowless office.

Darby isn't accused of anything remotely as bad as that. But I wonder if a judge's great power in an isolated area combined with a lack of adult supervision might have given him an exaggerated (even if less-exaggerated) sense of either entitlement or invulnerability.

According to the Camden Chronicle:

In May of 2007 Darby started a drug court in Benton County that would allow participants to participate in a program of rehabilitation. The program was designed for non-violent drug offenders who were seeking to rehabilitate their lives by getting off drugs. The program required the participants to provide community service and encouraged participants to seek employment. The program allowed participants to remain out of jail as long as they complied with the requirements that were set forth by the court. Funding for the program was provided by the State of Tennessee.

On September 4, Darby held a graduation ceremony for eight of the drug court members who had completed the program. During the ceremony Darby stated that these eight had completed all of the requirements of the three- phase program. They had remained drug and alcohol free for one year and 40 days and one couple had regained custody of their children. Graduates were presented with a certificate and a bible.

(Do judges in your neck of the woods hand out Bibles?)

Anyway, the allegation is that the "community service" the probationers performed tended to be concentrated on land owned by Judge Darby himself.

Darby's surrender to temptation reminded me of a summertime story about another rural judge who found it hard to resist picking up a few extra perks of the job.

Judge Brooks E. Blitch, III, hailed from Clinch County, Georgia, which gave him jurisdiction over a portion of the Okefenokee swamp, meaning that his constituents included Albert, Porky, Churchy and Pogo himself.

An Atlanta Journal-Constitution article from April sets the scene, and vividly illustrates just how much power a judge can wield in rural counties:

Ted Smith could tell you about Superior Court Judge Brooks E. Blitch III. But Ted Smith isn't talking.

He's fidgeting. His eyes won't meet yours, and he's rubbing his lips with a rough callused hand.

"He ain't gone yet," he says, referring to the judge whose office is just a few blocks away. "He's still got power —- and I ain't talking until he ain't."

People not talking and suddenly nervous at the drop of the Blitch name has become commonplace in this sleepy little town (pop. 2,803) that suddenly isn't so restful in the rural southeast corner of Georgia, about 250 miles from Atlanta.

Judge Blitch is 73 years old and has sat on the bench since 1980.

He grew up in a family that has wielded power over this corner of the world for six decades.

His late mother, Iris Blitch, was elected to the state Legislature in 1947 and later served eight years as a U.S. congresswoman. His wife, Peg Blitch, served 12 years in the state Senate before leaving office in 2004.

Unfortunately, although Blitch is now gone, it doesn't appear the Journal-Constitution has gone back to hear what Mr. Smith might have to say.

In July, when you'd think it would be far too hot in Okefenokee for anything but fishin', the FBI arrested Judge Blitch "on federal corruption charges that he illegally paid employees with court fees, gave high-paying jobs to friends and fixed cases."

I was particularly intrigued by the judicial slush fund alleged in the indictment:

The indictment says Blitch and Sutton ordered more than $73,000 in illegal payments to county employees that came from $15 and $10 fees charged to criminal defendants between 2001 and 2007. The fees were collected into a bank account kept secret from county budget officers, and payments made to employees were never taxed.

I imagine it would be remarkably easy to set up something like that. In effect, it allowed the judge to control the county's budget to a remarkable degree, at least according to the county commissioners.

Also alleged: he created no-show courthouse jobs for friends. And, inevitably,

The indictment also lists dozens of cases in which attorneys and friends of criminal defendants sought favors from Blitch outside of court. In many cases, prosecutors say, Blitch granted them by reducing sentences, terminating probation sentences and ordering defendants' early release from jail or prison — often without hearings or notifying prosecutors.

There were even - allegedly - fixers working the courthouse, accepting fees for getting Blitch to take favorable action. Blitch resigned from the judgeship just ahead of the Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission hearing.

How could things have gotten so bad and gone on so long? Easy. No Georgia Superior Court judge has been removed from office "in almost 50 years." That means: Georgia Superior Court judges aren't subject to any serious risk of disciplinary proceedings until things get bad and go on a long time. Which means: they're free to ignore the law and ethical rules so long as they don't get carried away.

All three cases - the monster Lanier, the (alleged) little chiseler Darby, and the (alleged) swamp capo Blitch - all seem to me to present the same basic story. If you give people unrestrained power, some percentage of them will use it without restraint.

The abuse of judicial power is easiest to get away with it in rural counties, far from the nearest investigative reporters, where local lawyers understand how suicidal it would be to complain (and how  dangerous to one's clients, whom the judge holds hostage) and everyone else can be easily snookered with legal mumbo-jumbo.

For every judge like that we hear about, there are many, many more hiding and multiplying behind our courthouse walls.

First there's Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Her remarks about Obama and other Congress members got the press. Her explanation ("I never called all liberals anti-American") made it worse.

But I thought the weirdest thing about her Chris Mathews interview was her affect. There appears to have been a bit of a transmission delay, but even so - that smile! Imagine meeting someone at a party whose eyes and lips wore such dramatically different expressions.  And then imagine that this person says bizarrely nasty things in a second-grade teacher's sing-song. She's Jokerishly creepy.

I've long thought that the biggest hurdle for any incumbent is not to embarrass one's constituents. Now the story is that the Republican congressional campaign is pulling its money out of Bachmann's race, apparently figuring the embarrassment she's caused has doomed her reelection effort.

As for the candidate for Supreme Court, Deborah Hedlund - you can see a YouTube video of her here, as she lounges around her living room in her robe (I've long suspected the nuttier judges do that, but never previously seen it demonstrated) - she received an email filled with all the ugly Obama-is-a-Muslim-and-Islam-is-evil drivel that seems to be making the rounds among Governor Palin's wing of the GOP.

(Here's a story about a New Mexico Republican busily doing her part for the campaign.)

So what does a sitting judge do with an email filled with that kind of brayingly ignorant bigotry and hatred? She writes, "Matt, We speak the same language. And I still need to let voters know they have a choice to 'Seek Justice, Vote For Experience' for the Minnesota Supreme Court."

And then she accidentally hits "reply to all", sending it to many, many people.

Mark Cohen of Minnesota Lawyer Blog gives a kind account of the incident here, claiming to find Hedlund's explanation - by "we speak the same language" she meant to say she wanted to order yard signs from the guy who sent her the email - "plausible."

Well, I'm not so kind. I think it's about as plausible as the rumor (you heard it here first!) that John McCain is a Manchurian candidate, brainwashed during his captivity to aspire for the presidency in order to fulfill the sinister will of the long-dead Ho Chi Minh. I mean, wouldn't that explain a lot? Can you prove it didn't happen like that?

Hedlund said she "disavow[ed]" the email she forwarded to the world and his wife.  But, the story continues, when asked whether she thought Obama was a  Muslim, Hedlund said: "I have no idea what he is. My level of information about the presidential candidates would not fill a thimble."

Again, kindly Mark Cohen takes her at her word as the world's most ignorant political candidate.

I think she's just a liar.  I think she spread the filth intentionally and she played coy with the reporter to give it maximum exposure without actually endorsing it.

Her explanation is exactly - exactly - like that of the Maine nutcase featured on CNN.  It's almost as if they and the New Mexico Republican official were following the same script.  What a coincidence!

Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. is universally regarded as one of the most influential and liberal justices of the second half of the 20th century.

If the liberal Brennan was so influential, it must mean that we live under a liberal government.  But who believes that?  Well, sure, there's those whack-jobs who show up at McCain / Palin events, to at least one of the candidates' embarrassment.  But somehow I don't think the Brennan Center meant to refer exclusively to those people with its "universally."

If you agree that the American polity under Reagan and the Bushes has been markedly conservative, and that Clinton was politically successful in part precisely because he "triangulated" between the left and the right, it's difficult to see in what sense any American liberal has been conspicuously influential in recent decades.

In short, the Brennan Center's two adjectives are self-contradictory.

But then, if you look more closely, the bio might be saying only that, among liberal justices, he was the most influential, which might be a little like saying that among lefthanded knuckleballers in low-A, so-and-so gave up the fewest home runs.  But I'm pretty sure the Brennan Center didn't intend such faint praise.

What the Center means by "influential," of course, is that Brennan is hero-worshiped in the legal academy while his brand of aggressive judicial supremacy is embraced by many other judges, many of them ideologically very conservative indeed.  In other words, he's influential in Law World, the entirely artificial domed city in which so many of us spend our professional lives.

He was "liberal" in the sense that he sought to concentrate power in the judiciary, a concentration that furthered the liberal cause during the Civil Rights Era.  Bizarrely enough, the Brennan Center seeks to prove his influence by quoting the National Review:

According to the conservative National Review in 1984, "there is no individual in this country, on or off the Court, who has had a more profound and sustained impact upon public policy in the United States."

The National Review, writing as Reagan was running for reelection (or after his landslide), didn't mean its hyperbole as a compliment.  It was charging that Brennan had succeeded in wresting power away from elected leaders.  It meant that he wasn't a judge at all.

Probably the staffers at the Brennan Center felt pretty smug about using the National Review's words, as they believed, against it.  But that just makes it weirder that the profile launches its final paragraph with: "Justice Brennan's devotion to core democratic freedoms was unwavering."

If he truly had more profound and sustained impact upon public policy in the United States than Ronald Reagan or any other elected official, it's safe to say that Justice Brennan had no devotion to democracy at all, but on the contrary undermined it by exalting himself.

The striking thing about the profile isn't the shrill exaggeration of the National Review article it quotes, but that the authors - and we can be confident it was a committee effort - were unable to perceive the incoherence of their product.  It's hard to imagine a clearer example of the way in which attending law school teaches people how to talk without thinking - to maneuver into place prefabricated slabs of words.

My friends, I offer no excuses but when elected I will immediately fire somebody for it.

Samuel Kent, whom we met in post 322, was indicted at the end of August.  His career demonstrated just how much grit and determination is necessary for a federal judge to risk consequences for his actions.  Merely being a contemptible  drunk who regularly abuses both lawyers and staff wasn't nearly enough.

You won't be surprised to learn that the out-of-district judge presiding over the prosecution has issued a gag order that would be wildly unconstitutional if the defendant were anyone but a fellow judge.  It actually bars witnesses from talking about their own lives.

The judge, you see, carefully balanced the reputation of the judiciary against the public's right to know what its government is doing.  Hmmm.  But I like it that the judge relented to the extent of allowing court personnel to divulge dates of hearings.  Now that's balance!

Meanwhile, unbelievably, the indicted judge continues to sit on the federal bench.  James Gill of the Times-Picayune reported that, as of late last month, there was no move to impeach him or even send him on another paid vacation.

The Fifth Circuit's Judicial Council did come down hard on another judge, Thomas Porteous, sternly ordering him to take a two-year vacation with the following findings:

Judge Porteous repeatedly committed perjury by signing false financial disclosure forms under oath ... 

Judge Porteous repeatedly committed perjury by signing false statements under oath in a personal bankruptcy proceeding ... This perjury allowed him to obtain a discharge of his debts while continuing his lifestyle at the expense of his creditors. ...

Judge Porteous wilfully and systematically concealed from litigants and the public certain financial transactions by filing false financial disclosure forms ...

Judge Porteous violated several criminal statutes and ethical canons by presiding over In Re: Liljeberg Enter. Inc. v. Lifemark Hosps. Inc., No. 2:93-cv-01784, rev’d in part by 304 F. 3d 410 (5 Cir. th 2002). In that matter, which was tried without a jury, he denied a motion to recuse based on his relationship with lawyers in the case, in violation of 28 U.S.C. § 455 and Canons 3C(1) and 3D of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges. In denying the motion, he failed to disclose that the lawyers in question had often provided him with cash. Thereafter, while a bench verdict was pending, he solicited and received from the lawyers appearing before him illegal gratuities in the form of cash and other things of value in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 201(c)(1)(B). ...

Judge Porteous made false representations to gain the extension of a bank loan with the intent to defraud the bank and causing the bank to incur losses...

Here's the House Judiciary Committee harumphing about him.

Interestingly, a number of other Fifth Circuit district judges actually dissented from the Judicial Council's suggestion that taking bribes on the bench might be an impeachable offense, writing an opinion revealing a good deal about themselves, and not just in their display of there-but-the-grace-of-God solidarity:

The Framers of the Constitution provided that federal judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior and shall be removed from office only upon impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors; ...

Thus, the founders intended for judges to have a high degree of independence and to be removable only upon constitutionally specified grounds; they did not intend for judges to serve simply at the pleasure of a majority of the Congress.

The standard for removing a patronage appointment in the judicial branch is the much lower one of  "good behaviour", for the obvious reason that removal by impeachment means only that a judge returns to the other side of the bench and resumes a career in a profession the practice of which many of us don't actually believe is inherently disgraceful.

The dissenting judges were actually relying upon an act of constitutional interpretation made by the U.S. Senate in 1805.  Can you think of any other context in which judges defer to the constitutional rulings of Congress?

But I especially love the phony choice between "high crimes and misdemeanors" and "serve simply at the pleasure of a majority of the Congress."  What other option could their possibly be?  (Surely not good behavior!)

When political spin artists present issues in such outrageously dishonest ways, they usually do so with a wink to journalists and other insiders.  When judges do it, especially in a memo circulated only to other judges, you have to wonder if they might actually have convinced themselves.  I have to admit, though, it's probably easier than thinking about what you're writing.

The article, entitled "When Judges Make Foreign Policy," continues with the following helpful summary of attitudes about international law:

One view, closely associated with the Bush administration, begins with the observation that law, in the age of modern liberal democracy, derives its legitimacy from being enacted by elected representatives of the people. From this standpoint, the Constitution is seen as facing inward, toward the Americans who made it, toward their rights and their security. For the most part, that is, the rights the Constitution provides are for citizens and provided only within the borders of the country. ...

A competing view, championed mostly by liberals, defines the rule of law differently: law is conceived not as a quintessentially national phenomenon but rather as a global ideal. The liberal position readily concedes that the Constitution specifies the law for the United States but stresses that a fuller, more complete conception of law demands that American law be pictured alongside international law and other (legitimate) national constitutions. The U.S. Constitution, on this cosmopolitan view, faces outward. It is a paradigm of the rule of law: rights similar to those it confers on Americans should protect all people everywhere, so that no one falls outside the reach of some legitimate legal order. What is most important about our Constitution, liberals stress, is not that it provides rights for us but that its vision of freedom ought to apply universally.

The grisly discovery capped four days of violence that has shaken the sprawling Tijuana metropolitan area and forced Baja California state officials to plead for more federal police to help control the city. Police on Monday also discovered four bodies in a vacant lot in eastern Tijuana. They had been carefully arranged in a circle and, like other such scenes, carried a narco-message.

(Excuse me.  Rommel?)

All of them, of course, were victims of America's war on drugs.  It's longstanding U.S. policy to maintain a lucrative black market in untaxed goods.  As Misha Glenny shows in his entertaining, disturbing, altogether brilliant McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld, the one thing the worst thugs around the world have in common is their dependence on  government.

Of course, governments (well, most governments) don't intend to subsidize their thugs.  It's typical of the American way of looking at the world to focus exclusively on the intention and ignore the result.  Anyone who works in the criminal justice system sees it every day. 

The exclusionary rule is intended to deter police misconduct, so it does. It's not intended to encourage criminal misconduct, so it doesn't.  For most judges and lawyers, that's enough.  More than enough.

But it's not a failing unique to our little courtroom corner of solemn make-believe.  I was reminded of it when my local newspaper republished a different LA Times piece, this one having to do with the drinking age.

Scanning the article, I was struck by arguments that proceeded from the premise that a drinking age of 21 prevents people younger than that age from drinking.  Proponents of the current drinking age cite evidence - or pseudo-evidence - that 18-20 year olds shouldn't drink, and consider their point made.  The fact that the drinking age doesn't actually stop younger people from drinking seems to be beside the point.

(Among the pseudo-evidence is the claim that raising the drinking age in 1984 is responsible for a 13-percent drop in traffic fatalities.  Air bags didn't contribute?  Improved medical care didn't contribute?  Crackdowns on DWI, and the invention of cell phones with which those sharing the road might call 911, didn't contribute?  Thirteen percent is pretty pathetic, really.  Just imagine how much greater the drop would have been if their parents hadn't bought SUVs for them...)

Binge drinking on campuses is an expression of the weird neuroses Americans have about alcohol, and have had at least since Prohibition seemed like a good idea.  The annual deaths of college students who overdose on alcohol is also due to their lack of awareness that marijuana's suppression of the vomit reflex has its downside, too. 

There are times when it's actually a good thing to throw up.  Tainted fish and an entire bottle of tequila are the two that jump immediately to my mind, although I'm sure you have your own memories of near-death experiences.

The war on drugs is, at least ostensibly, intended to put drug lords out of business.  In practice it creates a business for them.  Also, many millions of incentives for enforcing it with mass violence. 

But then, which is more important?  Good intentions, or mere reality?

Tanae and her cousin, Mishay Williams (Mishay), were standing on the porch outside Tanae's house.  [FN3. Tanae was 14 years old and Mishay 12 years old at the time of trial.] ...  Tanae's 16-year-old brother, Deron Calhoun (Calhoun), and their mother walked to an ice cream truck at the corner of 41st and Naomi Streets. A few minutes later, Tanae saw Vince walking up Naomi Street toward the ice cream truck, holding a “long black gun.” Tanae ran into the house with Mishay, got on the floor, and heard gunshots. ... After the shooting, there was a hole in the front window of her house.

It was a routine case - just another shooting.  What got me was kids, younger than 14 and 12 at the time of the incident, knowing exactly what to do when they saw a man coming up the street with a rifle.  They ran into the house and dropped below the level of the windows.

For those kids, gunfire and sudden violent death was, if not exactly normal, something that could reasonably be anticipated.  For a caregiver, part of responsible parenting was teaching children how to recognize and respond to such potentially lethal threats.

I think that the process of normalization is the single most important variable in establishing the rate of a community's violent crime.  What people expect influences what actually happens, and not in some semi-mystical Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle sort of way.  (Besides, I'm talking about the macroscopic world - the one with bullets.)

I can best explain what I mean with an illustration, and luckily one comes readily to hand:

My brother Peter Jacobsen wrote a paper a couple years back called "Safety in numbers: more walkers and bicyclists, safer walking and bicycling."  It was published in Injury Prevention magazine and became a kind of instant classic in the field of traffic safety.  The World Health Organization, for instance, flew him to an Oslo conference on the strength of it.

As described in this Transportation Alternatives article,

The research suggests that the relationship between increased cycling and increased safety varies according to “PJ’s Law”, named for Peter Jacobsen, the California engineer who documented it in an article in Injury Prevention. He found that doubling the number of cyclists on the road tends to bring about a 1/3 drop in the per-cyclist frequency of a crash with a motor vehicle. By the same token, tripling the rate of cycling cuts the crash rate in half.

It seems counterintuitive at first, but it's really not.  If the driver of a car expects to see lots of bicycles, he or she will be on the lookout for them, and that much less likely to turn right in front of them, push them off the road, clip their rear wheels, open doors on them, and all those other things cars regularly do to bicycles.  As bicycle riding becomes normal, it becomes safer.

I think something similar helps to explain the phenomenon of violent crime rates dropping precipitously in some places (such as New York) while rising in others.  Here's one article on the phenomenon.   Over the summer, U.S. News reported: