Steve Smith

Blog

On Warrants and Searches, A Man’s House Is His Castle

The Fourth Amendment and decades of case law make clear that law enforcement may not enter a residence for search or arrest without a warrant based on a statement of probable cause and signed by a neutral magistrate. Exceptions exist—exigent circumstances, hot pursuit, searches incident to arrest, plain view, consent—but ...
Blog

Sexual Assault at California’s Colleges and Universities: A Policy and Public Safety Issue

California Campus Data Clery data from California’s largest universities illustrate the scale of the issue: UC Berkeley and UCLA each reported 61 rapes in 2023. When adjusted for student population, this equates to rates of 184.5 per 100,000 students at UC Berkeley and 164 per 100,000 at UCLA—approximately four to six times the statewide ...
Blog

What’s Killing Our Kids? It’s Not Alcohol.

Four decades later, the promised benefits are difficult to find. In California, arrests of underage drivers for driving under the influence are exceedingly rare. In 2024, just 45 juveniles were arrested for driving under the influence—a figure that has remained consistently low for years. Rather than eliminating youth drinking, the ...
Blog

Bearing False Witness

Those limits grew out of lived experience and a deep Christian faith shaped by the Protestant Reformation. The Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments reflect that inheritance. They function as a kind of secular catechism, a rule book governing our system of justice. This year, John Grisham stepped away ...
Blog

Ni Estudian – Ni Trabajan – On California’s Poor Education System and Its Consequences for Public Safety

The prospects for California’s high school grads are not good as they face a shrinking job market and a correspondingly high youth unemployment rate. In Latin America, they are known as the “Nini’s” – out of school and out of work. According to a November 2025  LA Times article, a ...
Commentary

Proposition 36 will work if given a chance

Proposition 36 was approved just one year ago, yet its detractors are already calling it a failure and urging its repeal. This is despite overwhelming support from California voters, who passed the measure in every one of the state’s 58 counties. Their message was clear: Californians want accountability and treatment ...
Blog

Rejecting the Evidence of Your Eyes and Ears

There’s an adage about crime statistics in progressive political and academic circles that can be summed up as the “perception exceeds reality school.” Put another way, Americans are simply wrong to be afraid of crime in the view of these so-called experts. Recently, the New York Times criticized President Trump ...
Blog

Naval strikes on drug rings may bring cases of “Smuggler’s Blues” and “Sugar Highs”

In 1999, just 703 people died from fentanyl overdoses. For the next ten years, those deaths remained relatively low. hitting 2,628 in 2012. Yet from 2013 to 2023, fentanyl killed 376,197 Americans – a number roughly equivalent to the entire population of Cleveland Ohio. This doesn’t factor in the over ...
Blog

SB 627 – A Law in Search of a Crime

ICE has been busy, and despite not living up to the Trump administration’s promise to deport 1 million illegal aliens, they have arrested and have either deported or held 202,464 individuals since January 2025. In that dragnet, they have managed to arrest a few people whose cases are the subject ...
Blog

Je suis Charlie

On Wednesday, September 10, Charlie Kirk went to Utah and was killed. He went there to visit the campus of Utah Valley University (UVU) as part of his role as president of Turning Point USA – a conservative student organization he founded that boasts over 800 chapters and tens of ...
Blog

On Warrants and Searches, A Man’s House Is His Castle

The Fourth Amendment and decades of case law make clear that law enforcement may not enter a residence for search or arrest without a warrant based on a statement of probable cause and signed by a neutral magistrate. Exceptions exist—exigent circumstances, hot pursuit, searches incident to arrest, plain view, consent—but ...
Blog

Sexual Assault at California’s Colleges and Universities: A Policy and Public Safety Issue

California Campus Data Clery data from California’s largest universities illustrate the scale of the issue: UC Berkeley and UCLA each reported 61 rapes in 2023. When adjusted for student population, this equates to rates of 184.5 per 100,000 students at UC Berkeley and 164 per 100,000 at UCLA—approximately four to six times the statewide ...
Blog

What’s Killing Our Kids? It’s Not Alcohol.

Four decades later, the promised benefits are difficult to find. In California, arrests of underage drivers for driving under the influence are exceedingly rare. In 2024, just 45 juveniles were arrested for driving under the influence—a figure that has remained consistently low for years. Rather than eliminating youth drinking, the ...
Blog

Bearing False Witness

Those limits grew out of lived experience and a deep Christian faith shaped by the Protestant Reformation. The Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments reflect that inheritance. They function as a kind of secular catechism, a rule book governing our system of justice. This year, John Grisham stepped away ...
Blog

Ni Estudian – Ni Trabajan – On California’s Poor Education System and Its Consequences for Public Safety

The prospects for California’s high school grads are not good as they face a shrinking job market and a correspondingly high youth unemployment rate. In Latin America, they are known as the “Nini’s” – out of school and out of work. According to a November 2025  LA Times article, a ...
Commentary

Proposition 36 will work if given a chance

Proposition 36 was approved just one year ago, yet its detractors are already calling it a failure and urging its repeal. This is despite overwhelming support from California voters, who passed the measure in every one of the state’s 58 counties. Their message was clear: Californians want accountability and treatment ...
Blog

Rejecting the Evidence of Your Eyes and Ears

There’s an adage about crime statistics in progressive political and academic circles that can be summed up as the “perception exceeds reality school.” Put another way, Americans are simply wrong to be afraid of crime in the view of these so-called experts. Recently, the New York Times criticized President Trump ...
Blog

Naval strikes on drug rings may bring cases of “Smuggler’s Blues” and “Sugar Highs”

In 1999, just 703 people died from fentanyl overdoses. For the next ten years, those deaths remained relatively low. hitting 2,628 in 2012. Yet from 2013 to 2023, fentanyl killed 376,197 Americans – a number roughly equivalent to the entire population of Cleveland Ohio. This doesn’t factor in the over ...
Blog

SB 627 – A Law in Search of a Crime

ICE has been busy, and despite not living up to the Trump administration’s promise to deport 1 million illegal aliens, they have arrested and have either deported or held 202,464 individuals since January 2025. In that dragnet, they have managed to arrest a few people whose cases are the subject ...
Blog

Je suis Charlie

On Wednesday, September 10, Charlie Kirk went to Utah and was killed. He went there to visit the campus of Utah Valley University (UVU) as part of his role as president of Turning Point USA – a conservative student organization he founded that boasts over 800 chapters and tens of ...
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