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cbhessick.bsky.social
Criminal law professor at the University of North Carolina Director of the Prosecutors and Politics Project Author of Punishment Without Trial: Why Plea Bargaining is a Bad Deal
238 posts 5,534 followers 736 following
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this is all downstream of people finding it aversive to change their mind

submitted 6 days ago • 7 comments

I increasingly feel certain that the thing that has driven politics insane is the growing ability of people to find ways to validate their beliefs, no matter how incorrect and irrational. It started in right-wing media but has become central to all political discussion.

submitted 6 days ago • 48 comments

we call this "fighting antisemitism"

submitted 32 days ago • 2 comments

I always get caught off guard by Memorial Day weekend. It's somehow not on my list of summer occasions.

submitted 36 days ago • 1 comment

Important statistics. But questionable claim that SCOTUS isn’t willing to defend the rule of law.

submitted 36 days ago • 6 comments

This is the best assessment of the Trump administration vs universities battle that I've seen. Definitely worth the read. (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/o...

submitted 37 days ago • 3 comments

Can't wait until Trump's DHS spokespeople start trying to convince us this American toddler is actually a wife beating human trafficker

submitted 64 days ago • 7 comments

Trump is putting 100% of the responsibility and blame for Garcia’s release on “his lawyers” in DOJ Also, the implication of these comments is either that the lawyers are lying to Trump or that he can’t understand what they’re telling him.

submitted 64 days ago • 1 comment

I think if Jack Lowden is going to play Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice it’s only right that Gary Oldman should play Mr Bennet and Kristin Scott Thomas should play Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

submitted 66 days ago • 0 comments

If you’ve received a text claiming you owe unpaid tolls, you’re not alone.

submitted 72 days ago • 26 comments

I argued before Judge Wilkinson as an assistant federal defender. It generally didn’t go well for my clients. His opinion today is a credit to him and an indictment of everyone in the administration who brought us to this moment.

submitted 72 days ago • 2 comments

That is not what this clip says. It says a bunch of awful and divisive stuff. But it doesn’t suggest criminally charging people who call for due process. Come on people—what this administration is doing and saying is bad enough. There’s no reason to invent fictional bad things.

submitted 73 days ago • 0 comments

I am of the firm belief that law professors should not publish op eps on important legal issues until AFTER they’ve done the hard work required to produce a publishable article on a topic. The op ed is only getting published because the status of the prof is an implicit claim to expertise.

submitted 73 days ago • 3 comments

The man told them he was an attorney, and that his email contained privileged information. Nonetheless, government agents insisted on looking through his phone, exploiting their power to search at the border. This is something that all attorneys need to address immediately.

submitted 74 days ago • 2 comments

I want everyone to have due process rights, because I believe in the constitution and the rule of law. But sometimes a small part of me wants everyone to have the same due process rights that they advocate for others. Wonder how JD Vance would like being sent to prison without a hearing?

submitted 74 days ago • 1 comment

It's genuinely hard to express to sort of normal not politically plugged in non-lawyers *how* lawless the Trump administration is, and I think that's some part of the problem. You sound like you're hyperventilating, but it's just a flat description of what is going on.

submitted 74 days ago • 123 comments

Read and follow @cbhessick.bsky.social to learn how proliferating plea bargains damaged our criminal justice system and why they should not be used to prohibit any exoneration claims. And read and follow @robertmannbooks.com, too.

submitted 74 days ago • 0 comments

An excellent essay here from @alanrozenshtein.com on the presumption of regularity. Highly recommended reading for those who are paying attention to the Trump administration’s defiance of the courts. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/what...

submitted 74 days ago • 0 comments

Well, El Salvador let Kristi Noem film a commercial inside the dang prison so maybe she could go there and escort him out.

submitted 75 days ago • 12 comments

There are the grand and ancient constitutional principles at stake, but the concrete practical reason you put things like levying taxes and major economic policy decisions in the legislature is even when they get it wrong (and they do!) it doesn't change day to day based on one man's erratic whims.

submitted 76 days ago • 4 comments