Florida may be pondering ‘novel’ lethal injection change

Megan McCracken quoted by The Recorder (registration required), Dec. 6, 2016

The use of etomidate in an execution, if that is what Florida is planning to do, is “brand new and wholly novel,” McCracken said. “It has not been used to our knowledge in an execution in any state and it’s never appeared on an execution protocol in any state,” said McCracken.

Stronger together? A blueprint for a blue state alliance

Jennifer Granholm and Dan Farber quoted by California Magazine, Dec. 5, 2016

“We have to get better at process strategies,” says Jennifer Granholm. … “The Republicans have been diligently building candidate pipelines for many years, and we’re just not as good at that. We have to do a better job of recruiting our bench. Right now it’s not very deep.”

“Trump has power, but most of the things he wants to do can’t be done with the stroke of a pen,” Farber says. “He’ll have to work with Congress, and as we know, even members of his own party don’t see eye-to-eye with him on a lot of things. And in any case, it’s always hard for Congress to get anything done. The courts are also a possible check. Democrats can’t sugarcoat the election results, but that doesn’t mean they’re not in the game.”

Murder convictions rare for owners or landlords of deadly sites

Mark Gergen quoted by San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 5, 2016

Survivors of the victims of this weekend’s Ghost Ship fire can also file damage suits against the building’s owner, his chief tenant who leased the spaces, and possibly the promoter of the concert that brought people to the warehouse Friday night, said UC Berkeley Law Professor Mark Gergen. The main obstacle, he said, is that the operators of such “gray economy” enterprises typically have few assets and no insurance.

State justices suppress smartphone evidence in child porn case

Catherine Crump quoted by The Recorder (registration required), Dec. 5, 2016

Catherine Crump … said the decision is significant not so much because it safeguards phone data but rather because it resists an expansion of the grounds for warrantless police searches. … If a court had gone the opposite way, “then the power of police to search people going about their daily lives would have been sweeping,” she said.

About that octopus in the parking garage

Daniel Farber co-writes for Miami Herald, Dec. 4, 2016

In short, the Octopus in the Parking Garage is a wake-up call about the need to start confronting the reality of climate change. This call is nonpartisan. After all, Trump’s famous retreat, Mar-a-Lago, is on the Florida coast, too.

How will Trump’s first 100 days impact the Bay Area?

Ethan Elkind hosts KALW-FM, City Visions, Dec. 4, 2016

“A few weeks after the election, president-elect Trump outlined a tentative agenda for the start of his administration. And an examination of his plans shows deep conflicts with policies in the Bay Area and in California at large.”

Will California ever let Sierra Nevada forests burn?

Eric Biber blog post quoted by The New York Times, Dec. 4, 2016

“Our regulatory system creates incentives for land managers to avoid prescribed burns and to suppress all fires as quickly as possible, rather than allowing some wildfires to continue to burn in a managed way to reduce fuel loads. But preventing fire in the Western United States is a fool’s errand that in the long run will produce worse fires.”