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Guy Hamilton-Smith

@guyhamiltonsmith.com
434 followers 243 following 186 posts

Civil rights & criminal defense attorney. Amateur Giles Corey impressionist. Views expressed are mine, but they could be yours for a low low price.

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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 01/10/2026
It occurs to me that the tendency towards medicalizing executions is not for the benefit of the person being executed. It's for us -- to give it an appearance of being humane, even as it makes it far less so. It's so we don't have to be made uncomfortable by the sight of our own lust for blood.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 29/09/2026
much like how pants go from skinny to baggy and back again, we are in a constant cycle of learning and forgetting the importance of due process
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Steve Gale @stevewg.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Colley Hill, Surrey: coffee break from birding the steep scrub. Love the plaque on the bench I’m sitting on
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 15/09/2026
I think two things can be true simultaneously: a patronage system for pardons is grotesque, and the traditional model of only granting handfuls of clemency requests in the safest political cases is *also* grotesque.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 09/09/2026
a lot of questions being asked about my "this military flyover is actually a memorial" shirt etc etc
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 04/09/2026
Not for nothing, but I think it's pretty horrific that the state can just continue to re-roll juries until they get a conviction or an acquittal. Also, I have a big defense attorney crush on Kevin Reddington.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 11/08/2026
NEW: Report from @prisonpolicy.org documents the growth of conviction-based registries based on sex offense registries, and their presumed similar shortcomings in creating public safety www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2026/08...
prisonpolicy.org
When bad policies spread: The expansion of the “sex offense registry” model to other convictions
Shaming doesn't prevent crime.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 09/08/2026
She's kind of camo'd here
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Brawlcats @brawlcats.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
airbnb I’m staying at unintentionally created the toughest punk album cover of 2027
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Josh Douglas @joshuaadouglas.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Good news on voting rights from Missouri! @boltsmag.org boltsmag.org/gop-run-miss...
boltsmag.org
GOP-Run Missouri Becomes Latest State to Roll Back Felony Disenfranchisement - Bolts
A new law will restore voting rights for tens of thousands of people on probation and parole. It’s a departure from other GOP bills this session to restrict democracy.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 03/07/2026
Despite this sort of thing being commonplace, this is (I believe) the first time I have heard of someone being criminally charged with harassing someone on the sex offense registry abc13.com/post/woman-c...
abc13.com
Woman charged with harassing sex offender and his family, sheriff's office says
A Baytown woman allegedly "harassed, tormented, and embarrassed" a registered sex offender and his family by posting about them "over and over" on social media sites, investigators said.
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Museum of Twitter @museum-of-twitter.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Tweet from Brendan O'Hare (@brendohare):

ME: I will have 4 blueberry muffins for dinner please
DUNKIN DONUTS CASHIER: Please do not tell us that you're having them for dinner
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 13/06/2026
I think I realized today that, unfortunately, I like being a lawyer.
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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Now here is a grand juror doing the 5th Amendment proud www.documentcloud.org/documents/28...
Okay. I'm feeling the 09:29:526 skepticism already. Are you going to be able to7 listen with an open mind? Tell me the truth.8 GRAND JUROR: I -- no.9 MS. MECKLENBURG: Okay. Then you have to10 go -- 09:30:0411 GRAND JUROR: I heard this case like last12 week and I thought it was a crock of shit then and I13 still think it is
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Jason Kirk @jasonkirk.fyi · 09/06/2026
How about you Switch 2 reading the Holy Bible
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Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
I cannot stress enough that there is no language in the First Step Act that suggests Congress intended such a parsimonious reading of compassionate release; indeed, there is language that suggests the exact opposite. One major goal was to expand compassionate release. So why is SCOTUS shrinking it?
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 29/05/2026
I read a whole article about Daniel Cameron and where'd his political career take a wrong turn and not one word about him sandbagging the grand jury in Breonna Taylor's case and lying about it to the press (which we only know about because the grand jurors lawyered up to talk about it). Weird.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 27/05/2026
"Tala-freako" is another exhibit supporting the "everyone is 12" theory
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 25/05/2026
I have a client I did a habeas for. I believe he was convicted of a crime it was not possible for him to have committed, and the government knew that because evidence they had (but did not introduce) proves it. He's autistic, with the social-emotional functioning of a young child.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 24/05/2026
I've been neglectful of my writing lately, so I wrote something about a recent argument, though not so much about the argument, more about the last few years, or twenty, however you want to look at it. open.substack.com/pub/littlere...
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 22/05/2026
I wrote, I think, the best thing I’ve ever written yesterday. It just happened to be filed in federal court, and in support of a client and an issue I’d stick my neck out for. Also, I got to use “transmogrification” in a brief, which, believe it or not, was the right word to use.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 16/05/2026
I think the thing people miss when someone with resources gets acquitted or a conviction reversed is that it happens because the government cuts corners. It takes resources to find out where they cut them. Don’t be upset that someone found them, be upset that they were cut in the first place.
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Kyle Whitmire @warondumb.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Chief Justice Roberts says the court isn't political. This week, six justices "read" 107 pages of legal briefing in 38 minutes and let Alabama gerrymander its congressional map mid-election. The stopwatch says otherwise.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 13/05/2026
I ran into my old boss yesterday, and he told me he was very proud of me, and that a lot of people would have given up, but I didn’t. I reminded him that there were many times when I wanted to, but I had people who told me to get up and keep moving forward. Including, and especially, him.
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Kevin Morris @kevintmorris.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
New from me at the @brennancenter.org: Once again, Alito uses disingenuous reasoning and bad data to take an ax to the Voting Rights Act.
brennancenter.org
Finishing Off Voting Rights Act, Supreme Court Declares Racism Over — Again
The Court’s conservative majority used outdated examples to say the racial gap in voter turnout has closed, but in reality, the gap is growing.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 30/04/2026
Great essay that's worth your time nymag.com/intelligence...
nymag.com
I Miss My Old Life
One year after my abduction by ICE, I still watch my back. When someone falls in step behind me, I stop, tie my shoe, and wait until they pass.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 25/04/2026
Probably an unpopular take, but I think if we’re going to have the death penalty, it should be something like the firing squad. We shouldn’t dress it up as a medical procedure. Also, arguably, it‘s more humane than lethal injection.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 23/04/2026
I wrote about a Kentucky prison that burned to the ground after a riot, tracing its causes to a food service contract with Aramark where they basically starved prisoners for profit. They operated the commissary, too.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 21/04/2026
I’m confused by l*z o*er going after Ghislane Maxwell’s attorney. Is she not supposed to have a lawyer? Or, only one who doesn’t zealously advocate for their client?
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The Onion @theonion.com · 19/04/2026
Poor Sleep Linked To Gong theonion.com/poor-sleep-linked-to-g…
theonion.com
Poor Sleep Linked To Gong
CHICAGO—Concluding that the costs of keeping such a device in the bedroom far exceeded the benefits, a study released Monday by the University of Chicago’s sleep lab found a strong link between poor s...
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 19/04/2026
At most, a cat can commit a misdemeanor. Dogs are, for sure, capable of committing felonies.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 18/04/2026
I think the thing that I fight for, more than this or that law is unconstitutional, is redemption. Not for me, or not just. The principle. We need it as surely as we need air. Otherwise our punishments become little more than poison that diminish us all.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 17/04/2026
Making allegedly questionable constitutional arguments is like, my whole job
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 16/04/2026
It was the honor of a lifetime to represent these nine families at oral argument at the Eighth Circuit this week. My only hope is that I was enough of a lawyer to give their stories and the issues the consideration they deserve. www.courthousenews.com/families-sco...
courthousenews.com
Families scorn Missouri sex offender registry as 'badge of stigma' at Eighth Circuit
People whose addresses are publicly listed asked for a fresh look at a regulation they say does nothing to prevent recidivism and everything to heap shame on them.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 15/04/2026
Had an argument that, I’m not sure how it went, and was feeling negative about how I thought I did, when someone reminded me that the fact that I got to do it, by itself, is something to be grateful for. Indeed. Indeed it is.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 15/04/2026
I wonder if, in my lifetime, DOJ will ever recover the integrity that it once held, to whatever extent it held it.
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Mark Blacknell @blacknell.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Just . . . outstanding.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 07/04/2026
love preparing for an oral argument with the threat of *checks notes* nuclear warfare and genocide just being...right there
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 06/04/2026
I still think it's funny, in a laugh or else you'll cry sense, that he bought twitter at least in part to make everyone look at his dog shit tweets. How can you be the world's richest person and still have this insatiable need for approval
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John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
"i have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working." The Astronauts truly representing us all up there.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 01/04/2026
news to the enslaved!
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 01/04/2026
hard to believe I've been a lawyer for three years as of today. Also, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel of my LexisNexis contract. Two good things.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 31/03/2026
its kind of like, Bluesky is as toxic as twitter, just runs in the other direction is all
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 26/03/2026
The New Mexico Meta verdict is noteworthy, in part, because Meta has had a longstanding policy of permanently banning anyone ever convicted of a sex offense from its platforms. It highlights that policies like that are essentially window dressing that create a false sense of security.
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The Onion @theonion.com · 24/03/2026
Dad Suggests Arriving At Airport 14 Hours Early theonion.com/dad-suggests-arriving-…
Dad Suggests Arriving At Airport 14 Hours Early
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brian nam-sonenstein @bson.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
i went into this expecting the medical grievance denial rate in federal prisons to be in like the 70–80% range after crunching the numbers, i found that 98% of the 66,000 medical grievances lodged between 2014–2024 were rejected by BOP; less than 1,000 cases were granted relief in 10 years
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 24/03/2026
This is a good segment, and validates, I think, one of my longstanding criticisms of chat room stings: that police deprioritize (and are often hostile to) actual victims of abuse and investigating those cases, because catfishing and ensnaring hypothetical criminals is easier, good PR, and lucrative
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 15/03/2026
I think the risk in telling people that the only thing they can be is the worst thing that they have done is that they believe you.
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Guy Hamilton-Smith @guyhamiltonsmith.com · 13/03/2026
now its fun to have an circuit court oral argument scheduled because I can be all like, this isn't my first rodeo I just hope no one asks if it's my second rodeo
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The Onion @theonion.com · 11/03/2026
Crab Just Happy To Be In Bucket With All His Friends theonion.com/crab-just-happy-to-be-…
Crab Just Happy To Be In Bucket With All His Friends
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