The Economist - USA (2022-01-29)

32 United States The Economist January 29th 2022

month he prefaced a query about a poten­

tial  settlement  in  a  dispute  over  flags  and

free speech with a self­deprecating caveat:

“I’m sure this is a useless question.”

A  penchant  for  case­by­case  consider­

ation and balance led him to join conserva­

tives in some high­profile cases involving

criminal defendants and other matters. He

joined  decisions  that  allowed  a  40­foot

cross on public land and shielded religious

schools  from  some  anti­discrimination

lawsuits. He followed a similar path perso­

nally.  In  the  wake  of  Bush v Gore,  the  Su­

preme  Court  decision  in  2000  that  halted

vote­counting in Florida and made George

W.  Bush  president,  clerks  for  the  liberal

and  conservative  justices  weren’t  talking

to one another. To ease the tension, Justice

Breyer  walked  into  the  clerks’  dining

room—a  nearly  unheard­of  occurrence—

and started chatting to the conservatives.

The leading candidate to replace him is

Ketanji Brown Jackson, 51, whom Mr Biden

promoted from a district court to the pow­

erful circuit court of appeals in the District

of  Columbia.  A  unanimous  voice­vote  in

the  Senate  confirmed  Ms  Jackson  to  her

seat  nine  years  ago.  She  has  dual  degrees

from Harvard and spent two years as a fed­

eral  public  defender—a  relative  rarity

among federal judges (prosecutorial expe­

rience is far more common). She was vice­

chair  of  the  usSentencing  Commission,

where she helped revise sentencing guide­

lines  that  imposed  harsh  penalties  for

crack  cocaine  that  disproportionately  af­

fected  African­Americans.  This  injustice

was  not  an  abstraction  for  her:  when  she

was a teen, her uncle was sentenced to life

in  prison  for  a  minor  drug  crime;  he  was

granted clemency 30 years later. 

A second contender for Justice Breyer’s

seat is Leondra Kruger, a 45­year­old judge

on the California state supreme court. She,

too, wields a pair of Ivy League degrees and

clerked on the Supreme Court. She worked

in the solicitor­general’s office, which rep­

resents the federal government before the

Supreme  Court,  arguing  12  cases.  Her  pre­

sentations  were  crisp  and  unflappably

calm,  even  when  all  nine  justices  were

openly hostile to the position she was dis­

patched to defend.

Other  prospects  include  two  district­

court  judges—Leslie  Abrams  Gardner,  47,

and J. Michelle Childs, 55—as well as Tiffa­

ny Cunningham and Candace Jackson­Aki­

wumi,  both  appellate  judges  in  their  40s.

Any  of  them  would  be  groundbreaking.

Only  two  of  America’s  115  Supreme  Court

justices have been African­American; both

were  male  (Thurgood  Marshall  and  Clar­

ence  Thomas).  And  there  are  only  eight

black women currently serving on Ameri­

ca’s  13  circuit  courts,  four  of  whom  have

been seated in the past year.

Some may take issue with Mr Biden bas­

ing  his  decision  on  race  and  gender,

thoughtheleadingcontendersallhavethe

requisite qualifications. The potential

nomineesarehardlyliberalfirebrands.Ms

Kruger,forinstance,hasoftensidedwith

conservativejurists,andhassaidthatshe

workstoenhance“thepredictabilityand

stabilityofthelaw”—notexactlythesortof

rallyingcrythatinspiresprogressives.

HoweverquicklyMrBidengetsa suc­

cessortoJusticeBreyerinplace,andwho­

eversheturnsouttobe,thecourt’sdirec­

tion will notchange: there will stillbe

twice asmany conservativesasliberals.

Abortionrightsappearlikelytoberestrict­

ed, gun­rightsbolstered andaffirmative

action’s daysnumbered. At least in the

nearterm,thenextjusticewillprobably

findherselfdissentingearlyandoften.n

NewYorkcrime

New sheriff

in town

“I

t hasbecomeliketheoldWest,shoot­

outs at high noon,” says Khayan Reed,

a  violence­disrupter  in  the  Bronx.  He

works  with  Stand  up  to  Violence  (suv),  a

programme  begun  by  Jacobi,  a  city­run

hospital. suvconsiders violence a disease

that  can  be  cured  through  intervention.

Until the pandemic hit, it was seeing suc­

cess. Gun violence in its targeted area had

decreased.  Now,  violence  is  pervasive.

“There’s  just  so  many  guns,”  says  Carjah

Dawkins­Hamilton, suv’s director.

New  York  City  is  nowhere  near  the

2,000  murders  a  year  it  saw  in  the  early

1990s (it had 488 in 2021). But some neigh­

bourhoods  are  decidedly  unsafe.  This

month five police officers have been shot,

two  of  them  fatally.  Several  people  were

pushed onto the subway tracks, and one of

them  killed.  A  teenager  was  killed  while

working at a Burger King. An 11­month­old

baby was hit in the face by a stray bullet.

“Gun violence is a public­health crisis.

There’s no time to wait,” says Eric Adams,

the  new  mayor.  On  January  24th  he  re­

leased his blueprint for combating gun vi­

olence.  Mr  Adams  is  a  former  police  cap­

tain, but his plan goes beyond policing. Ev­

ery  city  agency  will  be  involved  in  public

safety, even rubbish collectors. “If you live

in  a  community  that  is  filthy,”  says  Erica

Ford,  founder  of  Life  Camp,  another  vio­

lence­intervention  group,  “you  think

you’re filthy, which helps to reinforce neg­

ative behaviour.” Each agency will have an

anti­gun­violence co­ordinator. Mr Adams

intends  to  increase  the  number  of  hospi­

tal­based  intervention  programmes,  such

as suv. He will redirect resources to those

in urgent need of mental­health care.

Next week President Joe Biden is due to

visit New York to discuss gun violence with

the mayor. Mr Adams is prioritising the is­

sue which won him the election. He will be

judged on how successful he is at making

streets and the subway safer. 

But some of what he wants to do is out

of  his  hands.  He  lobbied  for  more  gun  re­

strictions and begged Congress to pass the

stalled  Build  Back  Better  Act,  which  in­

cludes  funds  for  anti­violence  initiatives.

He wants the state to roll back bail reforms

and wants violent teenagers under 18 to be

tried as adults. The progressives in Albany,

the state capital, are unlikely to oblige.

Controversially,  Mr  Adams  intends  to

reimagine the disbanded Street Crime Un­

it,  a  plainclothes  squad.  Members  will

wear modified uniforms and cameras and

will  be  carefully  vetted  and  trained.  Some

violence­disrupters  are  worried  that  this

means  indiscriminate  “stop  and  frisk”,

which  a  federal  court  ruled  unconstitu­

tional  in  2013,  will  return.  But  one  Life

Camp  violence­disrupter,  who  has  spent

time  behind  bars,  sighs  that  “desperate

times call for desperate measures”.

Most of Life Camp’s workers have incar­

ceration histories, which gives them credi­

bility  among  the  people  they  are  trying  to

deter  from  violence.  Roger  “Nacy”  McCle­

ary and Justice Townsend, who were 21 and

19 when they were locked up, served 31 and

27 years. They know only too well what’s at

stake.  One  recent  afternoon  in  Jamaica,

Queens,  a  New  York  borough,  Life  Camp’s

outreach  team  canvassed  Sutphin  Boule­

vard’s  “hotspots”,  corners  where  trouble­

makers  congregate.  Along  the  way,  they

said hello to everyone. They warmly greet­

ed a 12­year­old going into a shop with his

sisters.  The  disrupters  had  previously  in­

tervened when he started hanging outwith

a gang. Mr Adams will need a lot ofsimilar

interventions for his plan to succeed.n

J AMAICA, QUEENS

Eric Adams unveils his blueprint to

help the thin blue line tackle violence

After the killing, the candles