On Wednesday's MSNBC Live with Stephanie Ruhle, host Ruhle worried that President Donald Trump is appointing too many "white male judges" from the conservative Federalist Society who will be on the courts "forever," during a discussion of rapper Meek Mill's release from prison.
Ruhle began the segment by recalling that Mill was released from a Pennsylvania prison yesterday because one of the police officers in the case has since been deemed unreliable. Without informing viewers of the list of probation violations that were being held against him, Ruhle gave viewers the impression that all he had done to violate probation over the past decade was "popping a wheelie and a scuffle" at an airport. Ruhle:
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered an immediate release of the hip hop star after spending five months in jail for probation violations from a 2008 conviction on drug and firearms charges when he was 19 years old. The probation violations -- popping a wheelie and a scuffle at a Missouri airport. Both charges were dismissed, but he was still found in violation of probation, and for those violations, Meek Mill was sentenced to four years behind bars.
As the panel portrayed the probation period of 10 years as excessive, it was not mentioned that the judge in the 2008 case gave him a lenient prison sentence upfront as she imposed a longer parole period. MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson portrayed the recent prison sentence for the most recent probation violations as a "malicious prosecution."
Johnson: "So we not only need to make sure that the laws are applied equally, but that the people who are unfairly convicted -- the people who are thrown into jail maliciously -- a malicious prosecution like Meek Mill -- they can be made whole afterwards."
Ruhle then followed up by fretting over President Trump appointing too many Federalist Society members who are white to the courts who will not take a liberal view of the criminal justice system:
Okay, I don't want to pour rain on this. This is inspiring, it is good news. Last night was a beautiful ceremony, but Meek Mill said, "When it's time to vote for governors, judges, or DA's, vote. We're being affected by it." His statement is right, but remember what's happening. President Trump is putting a record number of federal judges into those positions, most coming directly from the Federalist Society -- under 40, white male judges. So we can celebrate this all we want, those judges are going to be in place forever.
Frequent MSNBC guest and liberal Republican former Congressman David Jolly suggested that Republican presidential candidates have had difficulty winning the popular vote in recent presidential elections because they are "leaving constituencies behind" by putting too many criminals in jail.
