#complex legal

[felixhonigwachs]

Felix Honigwachs offers key advice on navigating FinTech's future

As a specialist in FinTech and DLT, Felix Honigwachs offers crucial advice for navigating the future of finance. His guidance focuses on adapting to evolving technologies, ensuring compliance, and capitalizing on new opportunities. Through his expert insights, businesses can unlock FinTech's full potential and stay ahead of emerging trends.

[reasonsforhope]

Article | Paywall Free

"Maryland Gov. Wes Moore issued a mass pardon of more than 175,000 marijuana convictions Monday morning [June 17, 2024], one of the nation’s most sweeping acts of clemency involving a drug now in widespread recreational use.

The pardons forgive low-level marijuana possession charges for an estimated 100,000 people in what the Democratic governor said is a step to heal decades of social and economic injustice that disproportionately harms Black and Brown people. Moore noted criminal records have been used to deny housing, employment and education, holding people and their families back long after their sentences have been served.

[Note: If you're wondering how 175,000 convictions were pardoned but only 100,000 people are benefiting, it's because there are often multiple convictions per person.]

A Sweeping Act

“We aren’t nibbling around the edges. We are taking actions that are intentional, that are sweeping and unapologetic,” Moore said at an Annapolis event interrupted three times by standing ovations. “Policymaking is powerful. And if you look at the past, you see how policies have been intentionally deployed to hold back entire communities.”

Moore called the scope of his pardons “the most far-reaching and aggressive” executive action among officials nationwide who have sought to unwind criminal justice inequities with the growing legalization of marijuana. Nine other states and multiple cities have pardoned hundreds of thousands of old marijuana convictions in recent years, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Legalized marijuana markets reap billions in revenue for state governments each year, and polls show public sentiment on the drug has also turned — with more people both embracing cannabis use and repudiating racial disparities exacerbated by the War on Drugs.

The pardons, timed to coincide with Wednesday’s Juneteenth holiday, a day that has come to symbolize the end of slavery in the United States, come from a rising star in the Democratic Party and the lone Black governor of a U.S. state whose ascent is built on the promise to “leave no one behind.”

The Pardons and Demographics

Derek Liggins, 57, will be among those pardoned Monday, more than 16 years after his last day in prison for possessing and dealing marijuana in the late 1990s. Despite working hard to build a new life after serving time, Liggins said he still loses out on job opportunities and potential income.

“You can’t hold people accountable for possession of marijuana when you’ve got a dispensary on almost every corner,” he said.

Nationwide, according to the ACLU, Black people were more than three times more likely than White people to be arrested for marijuana possession. President Biden in 2022 issued a mass pardon of federal marijuana convictions — a reprieve for roughly 6,500 people — and urged governors to follow suit in states, where the vast majority of marijuana prosecutions take place.

Maryland’s pardon action rivals only Massachusetts, where the governor and an executive council together issued a blanket pardon in March expected to affect hundreds of thousands of people.

But Moore’s pardons appear to stand alone in the impact to communities of color in a state known for having one of the nation’s worst records for disproportionately incarcerating Black people for any crimes. More than 70 percent of the state’s male incarcerated population is Black, according to state data, more than double their proportion in society.

In announcing the pardons, he directly addressed how policies in Maryland and nationwide have systematically held back people of color — through incarceration and restricted access to jobs and housing...

Maryland, the most diverse state on the East Coast, has a dramatically higher concentration of Black people compared with other states that have issued broad pardons for marijuana: 33 percent of Maryland’s population is Black, while the next highest is Illinois, with 15 percent...

Reducing the state’s mass incarceration disparity has been a chief goal of Moore, Brown and Maryland Public Defender Natasha Dartigue, who are all the first Black people to hold their offices in the state. Brown and Dartigue have launched a prosecutor-defender partnership to study the “the entire continuum of the criminal system,” from stops with law enforcement to reentry, trying to detect all junctures where discretion or bias could influence how justice is applied, and ultimately reform it.

How It Will Work

Maryland officials said the pardons, which would also apply to people who are dead, will not result in releasing anyone from incarceration because none are imprisoned. Misdemeanor cannabis charges yield short sentences and prosecutions for misdemeanor criminal possession have stopped, as possessing small amounts of the drug is legal statewide.

Moore’s pardon action will automatically forgive every misdemeanor marijuana possession charge the Maryland judiciary could locate in the state’s electronic court records system, along with every misdemeanor paraphernalia charge tied to use or possession of marijuana. Maryland is the only state to pardon such paraphernalia charges, state officials said...

People who benefit from the mass pardon will see the charges marked in state court records within two weeks, and they will be eliminated from criminal background check databases within 10 months."

-via The Washington Post, June 17, 2024. Headings added by me.

[kittykatninja321]

Bruce has 3 1st sons: Dick is the first child he took in/raised, Jason is the first kid he adopted/legally claimed as his own, Damian is his first bio kid/would’ve existed before Jason’s adoption, so could technically be considered the 1st kid that is “legally” his, even if wasn’t aware of his existence yet

[handledwithgloves]

draco is SO “what? like its hard?”

after a montage of him studying, practicing, and holding himself to high standards

[femme-objet]

a 55 year old man on grindr opened with something close enough to being hot that my dick twitched a little and yet now my first instinct is to congratulate him on writing out a full sentence like he's a first grader

[rotzaprachim]

definitely an issue with the general pan-humanities think piece from people who are not actually polymaths. Many have status but not expertise

[cherry-treelane]

I find it so ironically funny when hardcore Debbie defenders use the defense that she was just a victimised teenage girl (agreed) and then proceed to slander Fiona and express their hatred for her character and lack of sympathy

as if being an adult magically absolves an individual of the horrifying trauma that precedes them and screws up their mentality and actions

funnily enough these people get mad at others for "expecting Debbie to be an innocent angel and hating on her for acting out as a result of trauma" (also agreed, debbie does deserve more sympathy, she can't be expected to grow up to be a perfect saint when she's been through so much) yet seem to hold Fiona to the same unattainable standards and put her on a pedestal as if she wasnt a child that was forced to intensely grow up while never actually being raised

like lets put this into perspective and remember that fiona grew up surrounded by corrupt morals and insanely screwed up behaviour yet still emerged as messed up, yes, but surprisingly good considering the situation she was in??? she had to navigate basic things such as morals and being a good, responsible person on her own. imagine how difficult it must be to lead a bunch of kids, including yourself, with no previous role model or good example of your own to follow. most of the time, she always tried to do what she thought was best and would have the most desirable outcome

[cygnahime]

I’m imagining Jon and Thayet going, “The Immortals have returned! Quick, while everyone’s distracted! Establish a legal system!”

and it WORKS because the Immortals War is VERY DISTRACTING and it’s very easy to keep the people who are going to dig in their heels the most EXTREMELY BUSY with genuine important tasks that are coincidentally FAR FROM CORUS

[cliveguy]

i feel like there must be a way about talking about transmisogyny in trans spaces without making posts that act like every single trans person comes from a large liberal usamerican city

[felixhonigwachs]

How Switzerland Could Become the Global Crypto Leader with Felix Honigwachs

In a notable exchange at Davos, Felix Honigwachs shares insights on how Switzerland can position itself as a leading global entity in the cryptocurrency field. He delves into the nation's unique synthesis of regulatory practices, financial infrastructure, and technological breakthroughs, outlining a clear pathway for Switzerland to take a pioneering role in the rapidly evolving sphere of cryptocurrencies and blockchain solutions.

[artofapeach]

Actually laughing so hard, Pav truly is a poor little meow meow, doomed by the narrative, 100% asshole, fuck your redemption you bitch

[yellowmagicalgirl]

Every time I hear someone complain about how hard it is to figure out AO3 I get so confused. Do people not know what the words "include" and "exclude" mean? You click on a tag, and you see all the fics for that tag. That's incredibly intuitive.

[ennaih]

Every Film I Watch In 2023:

72. Saint Omer (2022)

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

whenever someone asks me whether I think ging is a bad dad I immediately tell them that ging has never even called himself a dad, much less even tried to be one, and therefore this is a meaningless metric to measure him by

he is gon’s weird distant relative who alternates wildly between pretty chill dude with some fun stories and decent advice and cringefail guy who does whatever the hell he feels like and runs away from responsibility. ���

[wiltedrosebouquet]

I’m SO curious, if you have OSDDID or a dissociative disorder, please vote on this and share it around. Smoking in this context is interchangeable with any THC consumption method (edibles, tinctures etc are included).

[frevandrest]

not to be a d*ck, but is it true the king's trial was kind of illegal?

Yes - because the existing laws at the time gave the king more rights and protection than any other person. It was basically impossible to put him on trial for a crime legally.

If anyone else were accused of that crime (high treason), it would've been an easy trial with a clear sentence (not just during frev; we know how treason was addressed in Ancient Régime).

But Louis had special protections in the law. So that was a pickle. And that's why the Convention took so long to figure out what to do (if he could be tried legally at all). It was an example of "it can't really be done legally, but it's because the law is bad". Yet they (majority at least) didn't want to go "fuck the laws, it's unfair for him to have privileges over other people, especially for that type of crime". So they struggled to find a loophole that would make it non-illegal and in the process some important things were said about the nature of rulership, the divine right of kings, equality, democracy etc. But yeah, there was no way to do it legally because the law was bad. (Edit: And I think rulers generally still enjoy these protections around the world, so it wasn't unusual. Still bad.)