iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Carissa Byrne Hessick

Sanho Tree @sanho.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Kash Patel is suing the Atlantic for a quarter billion dollars. I am begging people who are not familiar with Oscar Wilde’s downfall to read about his legal case. He filed a similar weak defamation suit, lost, and ended up serving two years of hard labor for the “gross indecency” the trial revealed.

history.com

Oscar Wilde Trial | HISTORY

Lord Alfred Douglas Wilde kept his homosexuality a secret. He married and had two sons. But in 1891, Wilde began an a...

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

ICE and Border Patrol claim that they can arrest people who follow them, record them, blow whistles, refuse to follow orders, etc for "impeding" their official actions. But the law officials are referencing is much narrower than they seem to think. prawfsblawg.com/what-does-it...

prawfsblawg.com

Understanding 18 U.S.C. § 111: Are ICE Tactics Legal?

Discover why ICE and Border Patrol may misinterpret 18 U.S.C. § 111 when arresting civilians for following them. Explore the legal implications.

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Thomas Frampton @tframpton.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Wild opinion: Virginia has been violating the Readmission Act of 1870 for about ~125 years, illegally denying the vote to 1000s convicted of crimes that weren't "common law felonies." (Credit to @cbhessick.bsky.social & Edward Ayers, both of whom served as expert witnesses for the plaintiffs.)

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Josh Chafetz @joshchafetz.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

“No one teaches the Western canon anymore!” “Look, Plato’s Symposium is right here on my syllabus!” “Whoa, whoa, whoa—not that!”

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

I think you’re misusing the concept of whataboutism More importantly, you seem to be assuming that criminal cases either can’t or shouldn’t be assessed on their individual merits You are obviously free to form your own opinion of the case. I’m just offering my analysis

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

The Comey case looks like a political prosecution in part because of the ridiculous installation of Halligan as the US Atty in the EDVa The Bolton case comes out of DMd, which as I said, is being run by a career prosecutor. Also the FBI investigation of Bolton predates the Trump presidency

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Yes. Exactly. Which is presumably why criminal charges were filed against Trump

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

You mean the judge whom I literally referred to by name in the previous post?

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Trump was charged, but not convicted So I’m not sure I’d say he got away with it But I certainly understand being dissatisfied with how that case was handled by Judge Cannon

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

And the indictment itself is here: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

storage.courtlistener.com

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

To be clear—the fact that Trump has called for Bolton to be charged is highly inappropriate. It undermines the public legitimacy of the charges. But that doesn’t mean the charges should not have been brought. To the contrary, there are good reasons to think the charges are warranted

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

For those who are trying to assess the legitimacy of the charges against Bolton: 1) these charges came from the MD US Atty’s office—which is led by a career prosecutor 2) the investigation predates Trump taking office 3) the indictment suggests large amounts of classified material were involved

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

I mean the Daniels case. And we will have to agree to disagree about the business records charges in that case.

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

But at least some of the criticisms of the Comey indictment can be made about the NYS prosecution of Trump for the Stormy Daniels payments. There were clear political reasons to bring that case, the underlying actions were far from egregious, and reports from the Manhattan DAs office were troubling

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

It's tempting to focus only on Trump's public statements to Bondi and others, directing them to indict Comey and the public reports about how career prosecutors warned against bringing the charges against Comey. These facts all look really horrible, and there are many reasons to criticize this case

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

Whatever ends up happening in the James Comey prosecution, our country needs to grapple with the fact that public confidence in the impartiality of criminal prosecutions has been terribly damaged over the past few years.

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Reposted by Carissa Byrne Hessick

Josh Vaughn @joshuapvaughn.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

Voting ends Oct 9 vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting...

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 27/09/2025

I’m sure that bodes well for getting a conviction at trial

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James Chalmers @jameschalmers.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

Oddly striking how this teenager, in accounting for her admittedly criminal behaviour, frames it as self-care. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"When I eventually encounter the gang, I'm faced with a 14-year-old girl in pink leggings and Crocs.
"I'm not claiming to be innocent because I'm not," she tells us. "I've threatened people and I've hit people, I'll admit to that."
"The second you get into one bit of trouble with the police, you fall into it too deep and you can't get out," she adds.
She says an injury forced her to give up sport and that behaving badly offers an alternative energy release. "I found that I get the same adrenaline boost from being in trouble with the police and being missing and stuff."
But there's little remorse. "I regret what I do, but I don't say sorry," she says to cheers from the rest of the gang.
She seems bright but deeply troubled. She admits drinking and she's vaping while we talk. Muhammad had already told us he had experienced racist abuse - something the girl firmly denies being involved in.
One of her friends chimes in. "I know what we're doing is wrong but we're teenage kids, we're going to have a bit of fun," she tells us. "I'm sorry for most of the people we have damaged, but I have no sympathy… it's just one way of taking my anger out.""

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

I’m writing a book & it’s keeping me busy!

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Given what’s been happening in DC, I would think no one in DOJ should feel particularly confident about whether a grand jury will indict anyone right now.

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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

I decided to look at all 66 prosecutor elections this fall. Why? Prosecutors have huge power over sentencing, charging, second chances, and even immigration implications. Here's everything you need to know, from East to West Coast. New from me:

boltsmag.org

Your Guide to the 2025 Prosecutor Elections - Bolts

Most of November's prosecutor races feature just one candidate, as usual. But key races will shape the politics of criminal justice, from Philly to Seattle — plus a wild card in New Jersey.

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Prof Jane Mitchell @jane-mitchell.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

I enjoyed reading through @cbhessick.bsky.social's latest "Prosecutors and Politics" study. Surprising to learn that most media coverage about prosecutors is neutral in tone (only 6% of 2020 coverage about prosecutors was negative). Is that still true in 2025, in today's era of weaponized justice?

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Just posted my new paper (coauthored with Andy Hessick), called Facts, Policy, and Discretion, which is is forthcoming in the @ucdavislaw.bsky.social law review We address an important error that I keep seeing in criminal justice cases about the nature of discretion papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Yup. I think we write symposium papers more quickly, and sometimes include summaries of prior work. Because they're written quickly, I think the summaries tend to be less carefully caveated than our primary work.

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

I’ve been wondering whether we could check professors’ symposium pieces to see a) what their priors are and b) how they perceive the core of their arguments when stripped bare of our ordinary hedging and careful language

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Cristian Farias @cristianfarias.com · 18/07/2025

Calling it: Grand Jury Bluesky will be the worst Bluesky so far.

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

Curious whether anyone could tell me more about this statutory restriction on plea bargaining in Kansas. The conventional wisdom is that the parties will always evade plea bargaining prohibitions. I'm curious whether that has been the experience in KS with this limited carveout

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Erin Gallagher @3r1ng.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

These 2 paragraphs are bananas. Truly incredible stuff c/o US Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Screenshot of 2 paragraphs from linked WSJ article.

Text:
“In a Fox News interview in May, she made the claim that since Trump had taken office, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had seized more than 21 million fentanyl pills, and “that’s 21 million lives saved, in my opinion.” Critics seized on it as a dubious claim, given that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in May said synthetic opioids including fentanyl were involved in 48,422 deaths in 2024 and 76,282 deaths in 2023.

Two days later, Bondi said the fentanyl seizures had saved 119 million lives, which would be roughly one-third of the 340 million people living in the U.S. In a cabinet meeting, she revised her statement again, this time claiming the seizures had saved 258 million lives. McGavick posted on social media an equation intended to show that the number of seized pills could hypothetically kill 258 million people.”

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 12/07/2025

I'm a professor at the flagship university for the fourth whitest state in the US. Over 80% of our students are white. The biggest barrier to access here is that due to lack of state funding, we have top 10 highest tuition per capita of public unis in the country. We also have a food pantry.

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Reposted by Carissa Byrne Hessick

Milan Weibel 🔷 @weibac.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

this is all downstream of people finding it aversive to change their mind

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Reposted by Carissa Byrne Hessick

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

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.

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

(Teaching kids how a sports bracket works = important knowledge)

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

That’s awful. From what I can tell, at least some teachers here are using the week to have fun activities—a science-related scavenger hunt for the middle school kid and a double-elimination pool noodle fencing tournament for the elementary school kid.

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Ann Monster Lipton @annmlipton.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

we call this "fighting antisemitism"

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

Is that somehow related to Pinker’s essay? Or the question of whether to frame criticism of Israel in terms of antisemitism?

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Cait (spooky edition 🦇) @caitesq.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

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

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

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

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

From what I've seen, some criticisms of Israel are steeped in antisemitism, and others aren't. I think Pinker's essay does a nice job explaining why trying to frame all criticisms of Israel is a poor idea.

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

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...

nytimes.com

Opinion | Harvard Derangement Syndrome

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Joe Katz @joekatz45.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

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

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Carissa Byrne Hessick @cbhessick.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

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.

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