With a new year come new rules and regulations across the country.  A plethora of new laws that went into effect on January 1, 2021, reflect the issues of the last year when employment, the pandemic, and criminal justice reform was top of mind for many Americans.

Here are some of the biggest changes that went into effect on January 1.

Corruption is the rule.  This week marks twenty-eight years since George H.W. Bush pardoned six defendants as part of the Iran-Contra cover up.  One of whom, confessed criminal Elliot Abrams, was brought back into government by George W. Bush, and now serves as Trump’s Iran/Valenzuela envoy.  Trump is not just using the pardon power as other presidents have, but pardoning people to send a clear signal to witnesses and prosecutors.  Each of the pardoned miscreants was convicted of crimes that may have been committed by witnesses against Trump or by the president himself.

A judiciary without honesty has little chance of executing its moral and constitutional duties, no matter how many rules of ethics exist.  This is true in the United States, where the judiciary is afforded wide discretion.  Facts and laws require interpretation; justice and equity require judgment.  We count on honest judges to navigate our ship of justice through dangerous waters.  We expect judges to be honest because we establish institutions that incentivize honesty.  Despite the critical importance of maintaining judicial integrity, there is much to say about how commonplace corruption is in our courts.

Can voters bring guns into polling places?  In most states, the answer is: it depends.  Only about a dozen states—including California, Arizona, Florida and Georgia—explicitly ban open and/or concealed carry in voting sites.  In much of the country, voters may bring firearms into polling places, as long as the buildings and churches do.  Those rules vary at the state and local level.

It’s not often that a judge does the right thing—upholds the law, exposes corruption, or rebukes prosecutors.  In the early days of our nation, it may have been quite common.  Today, however, it’s a rarity.  It’s so rare, in fact, that this is the first in more than fifty posts we’ve published that actually commends actions rather than condemns them.

Many people do not understand that the legal system can strike anyone at any time.  Regarding criminal matters, some hold the misconception that only the guilty get arrested, tried, and convicted.  Our corrupt judicial system has become a self-aggrandizing industry that feeds itself at the expense of Americans.

An openly misogynistic lawyer who is believed to have killed the son of a female federal judge in New Jersey had a list of more than a dozen other possible targets, including three other judges and two doctors, several people with knowledge of the matter said.  The list of names was found on July 20, 2020, inside a rental car on a rural road in the Catskills in New York, where the lawyer, Ron Den Hollander, had killed himself.