Crime & Justice

Okay. Here we can discuss what this thread's topic implies. Here deposit your posts about our civil and criminal justice systems, particular cases, celebrities and their legal entanglements, and Constitutonal protections and omissions.

I would love to particicpate here Olivant but being from over the pond i would be a bit lost......

I do know that the crime and justice systems in England are a joke, desperately in need of overhauling. Criminals get away with murder(sometimes literally) and then go to jail for ridiculously short sentences because our jails are overcrowded. People who go down on life sentences are out within 10 years...some life sentence

Ok, this brought on after having just seen Wall Street Money Never Sleeps film. In one scene Gordon Gekko comments how he spent 10 years (approx. I can't remember his total prison time)in prison for his crimes when there are rapists/murders who serve much less than he did. As much as many despise many of these "Gekko" types and want to see them rot, do any of you agree that sentences sometimes don't fit the crime?

I am no expert on Stock Market and can't recall the exact charge against her, (and I can't say I am really a "fan" of hers), but was Martha Stewart, for instance,used as an example by
the legal system as to say, "see we punish bigwigs"?

TIS

As almost everyone knows, money buys justice in America. I posted on that subject here:
http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthr...true#Post433771

But the underlying problem is the adversarial nature of trial law, especially criminal law. Lawyers will bend over backwards to settle out of court. But, once a case goes to trial, the figure of merit isn't innocence or guilt, or even right or wrong--it's who wins and who loses. No holds barred.

Another is how politics drives trials. I am a lifelong scholar of the Rosenberg spy case--the "trial of the century" for the 20th century--and in that case, all three branches of the federal government actively conspired to put both defendants in the electric chair weeks before the trial opened. More recently, a friend who was the CEO of a Fortune 50 company was sentenced to 6 years for "insider trading." B.S.! The US Attorney, seeing his fellow prosecutors gain fame and fortune for convicting other CEO's, wanted his time in the spotlight.

TIS, you raise good points as others have. It is so frustrating to hear about the disparities in sentencing and time served. But, as I instruct my sudents, the frustration may be due to a failure to recognize that we have a federallevel system and a state level system each with its own laws, due process, prsecutors, and judges. In Texas alone we have 254 counties each with a district attorney and at least one felony judge. They operate under the same laws and procedures, but thd human element is unpredictable. Also,we are usually unaware of the evidence presented at trial which can make a fundamental difference. Also, keep in mind that about 90% of all prosecutions are plea bargained. It's can be quite a challenge to get a jury to convict someone.

I do find the legal system very interesting (even if I don't agree or understand certain aspects).

I have served on several juries (as a matter of fact, I call in next month and may serve again).

I did serve on only one criminal case. It was a murder case. It was about a 3 week case. I found myself consumed with the info. You can't talk to anyone about it, but with someone's life on the line especially, I found my mind going like crazy over everything that was said. I couldn't wait to get input from the others as well.

I learned too, that you don't have any clue what any of the other jurors are thinking or what they are like until you start to discuss the case. It really is a wide variety of people.



TIS

SALT LAKE CITY – A bigamy investigation has been launched into a polygamous family starring in a reality television show, police said Tuesday.

Lehi police Lt. Darren Paul has said the probe was triggered by the reality television show "Sister Wives," which features 41-year-old advertising salesman Kody Brown and his four wives, 13 children and three stepchildren. The TLC program premiered Sunday.

Brown is only legally married to Meri but also calls three other women his spouses: Janelle, Christine and Robyn. The three stepchildren are from Robyn's previous relationship.

Christine Brown declined to comment Tuesday, although the family issued a statement through TLC that it was disappointed.

"...When we decided to do this show, we knew there would be risks," the family said. "But for the sake of our family, and most importantly, our kids, we felt it was a risk worth taking."

The Browns have said they hoped that the reality show's peek into their lives would help broaden the public's understanding of plural families.

Across Utah and parts of the western U.S., polygamy is a legacy of the early Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Members brought the practice to Utah in 1847, but the Mormon church disavowed plural marriage in 1890 as part of a push for Utah's statehood.

Although it is rarely prosecuted, bigamy is a third-degree felony in Utah, punishable by a prison term of up to five years. Under the law, a person can be found guilty of bigamy through cohabitation, not just legal marriage contracts....

Legal Investigation of bigamy

This last part is kinda troubling to me. Bigamy implies deception, either of another person or of the state. If the man is only legally married to one woman, then what business is it of the state's what else he may be doing? Who is he deceiving? Being found guilty of bigamy through cohabitation is ironically the state redefining marriage. That sort of seems like a "Find out what (insert group here) is doing and make them stop!!!" If a man wants to live with X number of women or vice versa how can the state stop that legally???

But Lilo, you've got to account for common-law marriage which in most states is the result of twopeople representing themselves as married.

Elderly Woman Shoots 12-Year-Old Boy
CHICAGO (CBS) ―

A shooting on the city's Southeast Side has people telling two entirely different stories.

Neighbors said an elderly woman was fed up with constant harassment from a 12-year-old boy, so she took a gun and shot the child after he and his friends threw bricks into her home.

Now, the boy is charged with a crime, while the 68-year-old woman is not.

The boy who was shot, along with another boy, 13, are cited in juvenile delinquency petitions with one count each of misdemeanor aggravated assault to a senior citizen, according to police.

The woman, identified by neighbors as Margaret Matthews, was released from police custody without being charged, on the grounds that she acted in self defense, police said.

Yup. But in this case could the state argue that the man was trying to deceive anyone when he's living with all of the women to whom he says he's "married"??

It just seems like it would be a big mess of circular logic. The state could say "You are representing yourself as being married to woman B when in fact our records show you are legally married to woman A".

Then presumably the man would say "But woman A and woman B both live with me and and I never tried to legally marry woman B or list her as common law wife in any legal proceedings/documents so no laws were broken".

What would the prosecutor say in that instance, do you think? I would like to see the case arguments because I think they'd be fun.

Only about 15 states recognize common law marriage. There are technical differences in the applicable law in each state, but essentially: two people cohabitate although the length of that cohabitation is not specified in law; they represent themselves as married; they intend to legally marry. That last requirement is subject to interpretation and, to avoid a bigamy charge, one might state that they never intended to marry (whether true or not).

(CNN) -- A New Jersey father fatally shot his two teenage sons, critically wounded one more and set his home ablaze before police killed him, authorities said Friday.

Police were called to a home in Pennsauken about 10:30 p.m. Thursday and found the home on fire, said Jason Laughlin, a spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office. Officers found the 54-year-old father in the back of the home holding a gun, a lighter and a can of gasoline, Laughlin said. The man charged the officers, who shot and killed him.

The man's 14-year-old and 18-year-old sons were found dead from gunshot wounds. One was in the street while the other was in the burning home.

The other son,16, was also shot and critically wounded.

OCTOBER 1--A Florida man arrested Wednesday on drug charges told cops that a bag of cocaine found hidden inside his buttocks did not belong to him. Though the suspect did cop to ownership of a bag of marijuana hidden alongside the coke.

The narcotics were discovered by Manatee County Sheriff’s Office deputies after Raymond Roberts’s Hyundai was pulled over on a Bradenton street for speeding Wednesday morning. Investigators, who reported smelling a strong odor of marijuana emanating from the vehicle, subsequently searched the 25-year-old Roberts and discovered his hidden stash.

During the search, when Deputy Sean Cappiello "felt a soft object in the crack of his buttocks," the suspect "began to tense up." Roberts volunteered to remove the item. “Let me get it, hold on” he said, and proceeded to place a "clear plastic baggie with a green leafy substance" on the car's hood. A subsequent test showed the substance to be marijuana, 4.5 grams worth, according to an amusing sheriff’s report. Or click here for an easy-to-read PDF of the document.

"I then asked him if that was it," wrote Cappiello, "and he stated 'yes.'"

But, as the deputy reported, "I then searched his shorts again and felt another object that was in the crack of his buttocks. I pulled the object out from the exterior of his shorts and a clear plastic baggie with a white rock substance fell to the ground." This plastic bag, a test would later determine, contained 27 pieces of crack cocaine.

Roberts quickly disavowed ownership of the cocaine. “The white stuff is not mine, but the weed is,” he claimed, adding that the crack in his crack was the property of a friend who had previously borrowed the car and left the drug on the passenger seat. Roberts explained that when he was pulled over for speeding, he concealed the second bag of narcotics.

Ha ha ha!! That is hilarious. What did he say, "how the heck did that get there?"



TIS

A Saudi prince allegedly brutalized his manservant with bites before strangling him at a posh London hotel, a British court heard Tuesday.

Prince Saud Abdulaziz Bin Nasser al Saud has admitted to killing 32-year-old Bandar Abdulaziz, but denied that he had a gay relationship with his servant, as prosecutors allege.

Saudi Prince on Trial

Which cheeks had the bite marks?

I'm sure we don't want to know....

The Connecticut home invasion trial reached a guilty verdict on all but one of the counts.

This story is one I've only recently heard when they had a clip of the wife going to the bank to withdraw 15,000 for the invaders and telling the clerk that her family was held captive.


For those who don't know of this story in a nutshell, A man was tied up in his basement, beaten with a baseball bat, while upstairs his wife and two daughters were being beaten and one daughter and wife raped. He had to endure listening to their screams and remain helpless to rescue them. The house was set on fire with everyone dying except for the husband. I'm not certain how it came to be that he escaped. Anyone who has more details and/or corrections please feel free to add.
My heart goes out to this poor man.

TIS

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

I think Phelps and his breed deserve a punch in the mouth but I'm not sure if their stupid protests at funerals of soldiers shouldn't be allowed. Of course the actual question before the court is really whether a father of a Marine who was killed in Iraq can sue the Phelps clan for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Calling someone names at a relative's funeral would seem to meet that criteria as far as I'm concerned.


But if this private lawsuit award stands does that mean that calling someone names over the net should also be grounds for a suit?? And it's not just speech it's also protest. Sticky issue.

Supreme Court Funeral Protest Case


Washington — The Supreme Court justices, hearing arguments Wednesday in a funeral protest case, sounded as though they are inclined to set a limit to the free-speech rule to permit lawsuits against those who target ordinary citizens with especially personal and hurtful attacks.

The First Amendment says the government may not infringe the freedom of speech, but it is less clear whether it also shields speakers from private lawsuits.

At issue Wednesday was whether the Maryland father of a Marine killed in Iraq could sue a Kansas family which protested near his funeral. The Phelps family not only held signs that said "Thank God for IEDs," but they also put on their website a message that accused Albert Snyder of having raised his son "to defy the Creator" and "serve the devil."

A Maryland court awarded Snyder $5 million in damages, but the award was thrown out on free-speech grounds.

Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer, usual defenders of the First Amendment, said they thought people could be sued for outrageous personal attacks.

Kennedy said "certain harassing conduct" was not always protected as free speech. "Torts and crimes are committed with words all the time," he said, referring to legal wrongs that result in lawsuits. "The First Amendment doesn't stop state tort law in appropriate circumstances," Breyer commented later.

Though the case is about funeral protests, Breyer said the court's ruling will have an impact on the Internet, since it tests whether personal attacks can lead to lawsuits.

Snyder sued the Phelps family under a common provision of state law that permits claims for an intentional infliction of emotional distress.

During Wednesday's argument, the justices seemed to agree that a general protest sign, such as "Stop the War" or even "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" would be protected as free speech. The Phelps family crossed the line when they made clear they were targeting the dead Marine's father with their protest, argued Sean E. Summers, a lawyer for Snyder. "We have personal, targeted epithets directed at the Snyder family," he said.

New Justice Elena Kagan drew the attention of her colleagues with her opening question to Margie J. Phelps. The Kansas lawyer who was defending her family began by saying their protests were intended to provoke "public discussion" about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Kagan quickly pressed her. Would it be permissible, she asked, for the protesters to pick out "a wounded soldier and follow him around," holding "offensive and outrageous signs" near his home and calling him a "war criminal?" In such a case, "does he have a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress?" Kagan said.

Phelps hesitated, but then said no. "My answer, Justice Kagan, is: No, I don't believe that person should have a cause of action."

That answer appeared to turn the argument against Phelps and the funeral protesters....

I have to agree, Lilo, as much as the primitive part of me would like to take an axe to Phelps genitals.

As far as the actual funeral, I can only speak from over 20 years experience in the funeral industry. Quite often, we'd get a volatile family who would tell us that "such and such" a person is NOT ALLOWED at the viewing, wake, funeral, temple, church or what have you. They'd go so far as to bring us pictures of the "undesirables." And all we could tell them was this: We'll do our best to dissuade any altercations, but by law we can't just bar someone from a PUBLIC PLACE because you have "bad blood" between you.

All that said, hopefully Phelps will just drop fucking dead and make it all moot. And I'm not kidding .

TIS, this story has gotten lots of local coverage. Because the father was locked in the basement, he escaped most of the smoke and was able to crawl out. The fact that the cops were called and didn't make it their just adds to the heartbreak.

To me, the most horrific aspect is that he admitted that after raping the daughter and tying them both to their beds, he not only splashed the house with gasoline, but their beds, too, and then burned them alive.

They asked the father how he felt upon hearing the guilty verdict, and he only said that his family was still gone, their home was still gone.

SB,

I saw the father's reaction after the verdict and felt so badly for him.


THIS OTHER STORY PISSES ME OFF

I just saw it this morning on MSNBC. A 18 year old mother and her 19 year old boyfriend. DUCT TAPED HER 22 YEAR OLD TODDLER TO THE WALL. They actually had a video they showed on the news where they also taped his sippy cup to the wall so he couldn't reach it. They show the child reaching for it crying. WTF?????

The couple say they were drunk & high.

TIS



http://www.action3news.com/Global/story.asp?S=13274801

I'm interested if you or any of our other legal scholars have any thoughts about the execution of the accused Lincoln conspirators Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt. All the people who were discovered to have had anything to do with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln or anyone with the slightest contact with John Wilkes Booth or David Herold on their flight from Ford's Theatre were put behind bars. Mary Surratt was the first woman ever hanged by the U.S government, but it was the treatment of all of John wilkes Booth's accused conspirators that can only be defined as egregious and suspicious. The accused were forced to wear hoods and confined to shackles throughout the duration of their entire 2-week holding and of course were not allowed to speak on their own behalfs at their military tribunal from what I understand. And it's today very debatable whether or not their role was as complicit as that of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was spared execution and given 20 years in prison but who was later pardoned.

Correct if I'm wrong, or if any of that's revisionist history, but the supposed conspirators were not even given a proper hanging (if such a thing exists) as Mary Surratt and the other three were forced to stand in the hot sun for almost an hour while still wearing hoods over their heads (very unusual) before finally having the trap-door open beneath them. Ironcially, after sentencing Mary Surratt to hang, five of the jurors signed a letter recommending clemency, but the darilek President Andrew Johnson refused to stop the execution (Johnson later claimed he never saw the letter.) 3 other conspirators were later pardoned by Johnson and spared the gallow's pole.

Was Mary Surrat really a conspirator? Or was her boarding house simply used as a meeting place? I was always under the impression that she was a scapegoat, like poor Dr. Mudd. Perhaps I've been misinformed.

Btw, didn't the Hippocratic Oath compel Mudd to set the leg?

More than likely more of a scapegoat than an active participant. However, her participation cannot be ruled out.

One of the more interesting things about crime and justice is how the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination works in the US:

If you are a defendant in a criminal trial, you don't have to take the stand and testify under oath, because you could be compelled to testify against yourself. Most defendants are smart enough not to take the stand, and let their lawyers do the arguing. Juries don't hold it against them that they didn't testify--jurors have seen all those cop-and-lawyer movies, and know how prosecutors tear into witnesses.

But, if you're subpoenaed before an investigative body (like the Senate committee that called Michael Corleone in GFII), you must be sworn in and testify. Your Fifth Amendment privilege extends only to refusing to answer specific questions. And then you must say, "I refuse to answer that question because my answer might tend to incriminate me." Well, if Michael had "taken the Fifth" when asked, "Were you respnsible for devising the murders of the heads of the Five Families in 1950 [sic]," his answer would have blown his "legitimate" cover--he'd be admitting, under oath, that a truthful answer would tend to incriminate him because he was responsible. So, an investigative body could easily destroy a racketeer's "legitimate" cover simply by forcing him to "take the Fifth" when asked a series of embarrassing questions.

Another twist: A prosecutor can offer a key witness "immunity to testify" and force him to take the stand. Suppose you were a big-time bank robber and you hired small-time me to drive the getaway car, and you killed someone in the bank while robbing it. The cops arrested both of us, and I was charged with being an accessory to murder because I was involved (by driving you away). The prosecutor will tell me that, if I agree to testify against you, I won't be prosecuted on the accessory charge. But if I refuse, I can be held in contempt of court. Why? Since the prosecutor made me "immune" on the accessory charge if I testified, I have no reason to claim that testifying would make me incriminate myself.

Oli, why is taking the Fifth a "privilege"? I thought it's a right, since it's in the Constitution. A driver's license is a "privilege."

Good question TB. The Constitution's Article IV's statement about priveleges and immunities was interpreted by the SCOTUS in 1823 as embodying things we take for granted such as owning property and movement across state lines, not rights as we usually think of them. The Constitution's 14th amendment uses the same privileges and immunities wording to compel states to treat all of their citizens alike. It was understood to some extent at the time that the drafters of the 14th amendment meant the first 8 amendments of the Bill of Rights when they stated privileges and immunities in that amendment.

If you closely read the Bill of Rights you will see that almost all of them are restrictions upon government("Congress shall make no law ..."). Thus, they are not positive statements about what we as citizens can do (by the way, the Texas Constitution uses such positive statements).

TB, I think it all comes down to a matter of semantics. Although a drivers license is considered a privilege, what about voting? A couple of the US Constitution's amendments do contain language that refers to voting as a right, but there is nothing in the Constitution that otherwise defines it as such.

The Senate hearing was not a prosecutorial forum. Thus, it could be argued that the same interpretation of the 5th amendment that would prevail in a court did not prevail in the Senate forum. The privilege or right is not absolute as you pointed out about immunity.

Thanks, Oli.

Re. driving "privilege," the most obvious (to me) evidence that it's not a "right" is DWI. If a cop stops you on suspicion of DWI, you can refuse to take a brethalyzer test or get out of the car and walk a straight line. But if you take that tack, your license will be suspended, and you will be fined, as if you had been proven to be DWI.

Interesting (to me) treatment of traffic offenses: When I first got my license in NYC, traffic cases were heard in a Magistrate's Court before real judges. The judges treated a trial as if it were a criminal proceeding: you didn't have to testify, and the cop had to prove you guilty beyond reasonable doubt. I once heard a judge invoke Miranda to let a defendant off who had confessed to the cop, without being asked, that he was driving with a suspended license. Then the AAA called for "reform": It was undignified or worse to treat drivers as if they were "common criminals." NY State obliged by putting all traffic cases in the "Administrative Adjudication Bureau," which was under the aegis of the Motor Vehicle Bureau. They were heard by per-diem lawyers, paid by the Bureau. Result: when it came to your word vs. the cop's, they always took the cop's word. And, the same agency that was holding the proceeding took the fines.

Net: I never lost a case in Magistrate's Court; lost all of them that were heard in the Administrative Adjudication Bureau. The only times I got off in the latter were because those per-diem lawyers couldn't issue bench warrants. So, lots of times the accusing officer just didn't show up for the hearing. If he failed to show twice, the case was dismissed.

Another US law anecdote:
I was draft eligible during the Vietnam War (pre-lottery). I got it into my head that the draft was unconstitutional because it constituted "involuntary servitude," banned by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. I canvassed all my lawyer and law student friends for an opinion, little realizing how specialized the practice of law is (and how few specialize in Constitutional law). Finally figured it out years later: Fourteenth Amendment says No one may be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process. Selective Service System had "due process" because you could appeal your draft classification in several ways.

But, an underlying issue was, and is, the application of military law and process to civilians. Although Selective Service was, technically, staffed by civilians, a sitting general headed it. A draftee was a civilian until the moment he was sworn in and "took the step forward." Yet he was subjected to a military code prior to induction. Muhammed Ali challenged that, in his own way, and won a landmark case before the Supreme Court that saved him from a five year prison sentence and a $10k fine.

TB, another thing to consider (and which is usually never considered) is original intent. What did the drafters and ratifiers of a Constitutional provision or a statutory one mean by the words they drafted and ratified. In its opinions SCOTUS raely anymore refres to original intent. Certainly, the original intent of the drafters ansd ratifiers of the 13th amendment was not to prohibit compelled military srevice through a draft or elements of imprisonment. But your due process reference is also essential to an understanding of legal actions. Due process also receives little attention.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A federal judge Tuesday ordered the government to stop banning openly gay men and women from serving in the military under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips found the policy unconstitutional in September. On Tuesday, she rejected an Obama administration request to delay an injunction and ordered enforcement of the 17-year-old policy permanently stopped.

The Justice Department has 60 days to appeal. Legal experts say the government is under no legal obligation to do so and they could let Phillips' ruling stand.

The federal government is reviewing the ruling and has no immediate comment, said Tracy Schmaler, spokesman for the Justice Department.

Judge's Order to Military

How funny. I live in Riverside County and just returned from jury duty. I saw the headline but wasn't aware where this judge was.

Anyway, I am confused as to why the Obama administration would delay it??? He's for ending it. Legal issues or something????


TIS

Sometimes we get frustrated with the justice system. Much of that frustration may be due (probably is) to our lack of understanding about how the justice system works, due process, and the impact of court opinions on process and procedure. I thought the following statement regarding a civil lawsuit in federal court examplifies what I am refering to above. See if you can interpret it:


"On August 6, 2010, the Court set a briefing schedule after receipt of Settling Plaintiffs’ Submission Complying with the Court’s Order Conditionally Granting Request for Second Notice, and Alternative Notice Proposal. The Court took this submission as a partial motion for reconsideration, and gave the Objecting Plaintiffs the opportunity to fully brief the issue. On August 23, 2010, the Objecting Plaintiffs filed an opposition to Settling Plaintiffs’ Motion for Reconsideration. On August 30, 2010, the Settling Plaintiffs filed their reply, and Defendants filed their responses."

ABA some years ago suggested that a committee be formed to simplify legal language to avoid stuff like that. It was rejected because, over the centuries, complex language like that had taken on solid, legal lingua franca meaning, and to change it would be to ironically introduce new levels of ambiguity.

One of my pet peeves is how the Feds can convict practically anyone on a "conspiracy" rap. In a conspiracy case, the government doesn't have to prove that you actually did anything bad--only that you were conspiring to do so with others. And, the judge will allow "uncorroborated testimony from unindicted co-conspirators." What that means is that if the Feds think I was conspiring with you, they can haul me in, accuse me of being a co-conspirator, then withold indicting me pending my "cooperation" at your trial. In other words, they can coerce me into testifying against you.

Morton Sobell, a co-defendant at the Rosenberg trial in 1951, was convicted of "conspiracy" to violate the Espionage Act of 1917 by having five conversations with Julius Rosenberg about spying. Gov't never specified what they conspired to steal, nor did they ever say Sobell actually stole anything--only that he was "conspiring" with Rosenberg. The only witness against Sobell was Max Elitcher, a former pal who was an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the case. Elitcher testified that Rosenberg tried to recruit him several times, and that Sobell tried on behalf of Rosenberg. But, he never said that he saw the two together. He also said Sobell asked him to drive him to Rosenberg's apartment to deliver a 35-mm film can. Never said Sobell told him what was in it, or that he looked inside. His testimony alone got Sobell a 30-year sentence, some of it served at Alcatraz.

This will no doubt have increased significance as the Health Care Reform passed takes effect. The ironic thing about this lawsuit is that the Michigan Attorney General, Mike Cox, is a Republican also involved in lawsuits to find portions of the HCR unconstitutional.

Millions of Michigan consumers have paid higher health insurance premiums over the last three years because Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan forced at least 70 hospitals statewide to charge its competitors more, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by the U.S. Justice Department and Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox.

The antitrust lawsuit alleges that Blue Cross -- the state's largest insurer -- used its muscle and size to negotiate deep discounts for itself.

The hospitals include Beaumont Hospitals, St. John Providence Health System and Botsford Hospital. The lawsuit alleges that the practice drove up prices for competitors such as Health Alliance Plan, one of the state's biggest health maintenance organizations, and at-large private insurers such as Aetna and Humana.

In some cases, Blue Cross paid hospitals more than what was proposed to close the deal, the Justice Department alleges. If it prevails, other insurers and their customers might get better deals on hospital prices.

In a statement, Blue Cross spokesman Andrew Hetzel said the insurer's negotiated discounts keep costs reasonable for its members. He said the lawsuit was "without merit."

The Justice Department has won five similar cases since 1994 in Ohio, Rhode Island, Oregon, Washington, D.C., and Arizona.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan was so eager to crush the competition that it sometimes paid even more than it proposed if a hospital agreed to charge other insurance companies much higher prices, state and federal attorneys charged Monday in a lawsuit filed in Detroit's federal court....

Full Article with graphics

A unique legal situation that arose locally in federal court that involves some of the Fifth Amendment issues discussed above by olivant and Turnbull.

Thae facts: Schuylkill Products began as a company in Pottsville, PA after WWII by Joseph Nagle, who manufactured and installed building materials with prestressed concrete. The business boomed and expanded. He died in 1980 and his son, Nagle II took over until his death in 2004 whereupon his son,Nagle III and son-in-law, Fink, battled over control of the company. They agreed to share control. In 2007 federal indictments were issued against a dozen former and present officers of the company dating back to 1992. It was determined that the co. engaged in massive fraud in securing hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts by fraudulently representing itself as a minority contractor. They conspired with a Connecticut company (mostly Filipino), and used that company name when performing work. They kicked back millions to the sham co. Most of the defendants pled guilty. Fink and Nagle III were charged last, and Fink entered a guilty plea without agreeing to cooperate with authorities and is awaiting sentencing. Nagle III maintained that he had no involvement in the schemes, which largely predated his involvement with the company, and is the only defendant awaiting trial.

The issue: In his defense he alleges that a journal and testimony of Fink would exculpate him. Fink is refusing to testify for him, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Nagle III has taken the extraordinary step of requesting the judge to grant use immunity to Fink to compel his testimony and the introduction of his journal into evidence. Normally the prosecution determines if immunity should be granted. The judge, named Rambo, granted the request over objections of Fink and the prosecution. Rambo noted that the situation presents a conflict between Nagle III's Sixth Amendment Right to a fair trial and Fink's Fifth Amendment rights, and therefore determined that granting Fink immunity is necessary to guarantee a fair trial for Nagle III.

The prosecution has appealed and the novel issue will be determined by the Third Circuit. Stay tuned.

Kly, that's a point that is often missed by people: the balancing of one right against another. It reminds me of free speech balanced against the right to a fair trial when a gag order is issued. If only our Nation's Founders had footnoted the Constitution.

Never grant a Fink immunity...

The Associated Press, October 22, 2010

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) -- Lindsay Lohan sidestepped another jail stint Friday when a California judge sent the 24-year-old troubled starlet back to rehab, telling her she was an addict and faced jail time if she relapsed again.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elden S. Fox ordered Lohan to remain at the Betty Ford Center until Jan. 3 and report back to court in late February.

A former Grand Rapids man pleaded guilty today to conspiring to spy for the People’s Republic of China.

Glenn Duffie Shriver, 28, told a federal judge at a court hearing in Alexandria, Va., that he was befriended by Chinese intelligence officers while studying in Shanghai, agreed to spy for them and was in the process of finalizing a job at the Central Intelligence Agency when U.S. authorities found out what he was up to.

Although the Chinese paid him $70,000 for his services, prosecutors said, it appears no secrets were passed. Prosecutors didn’t explain how he was caught.

He was arrested in June in Detroit while trying to board a plane for South Korea.

“Mr. Shriver threw away his education, his career and his future when he chose to position himself to spy for the PRC,” U.S. Attorney Neil McBride in eastern Virginia, said in a statement announcing the plea. Under an agreement with prosecutors, Shriver faces a possible four years in prison at sentencing Jan. 21, 2011, in Alexandria.

Court papers said Shriver was an undergraduate international relations student at Grand Valley State University who spent a year in 2002-2003 studying at East China Normal University in Shanghai.

After graduating from Grand Valley in 2004, he returned to Shanghai and responded to an advertisement soliciting people to write a political paper.

Prosecutors said he was contacted by a woman named “Amanda,” who paid him $120 for the paper he wrote. Later, she introduced him to two men, identified as Wu and Tang. All three were intelligence officers for the People’s Republic, prosecutors said.

Over the course of several meetings, the three intelligence officers and Shriver hatched a scheme for Shriver to land a job at the U.S. State Department or CIA and pass classified information to the Chinese, prosecutors said.

Would be spy busted

Grand Rapids?? Hey that's my old neck of the woods. Okay, so he's formerly from G.R. I mean Detroit in the news no big deal but G.R.? Anyway, a spy case no less is pretty major. I can only imagine what kind of a sentence this guy will get.

I know Grand Valley University too. I didn't go there but went to a concert or two there once in the 60's


TIS

Does anyone know the story behind the Quaids bazarre behavior? Are they broke or just nuts?

Something tells me they're just batshit crazy. No wonder he always got the role of a crazy person in his movies.

You know, I mostly know Quaid from the National Lampoons vacation series. Maybe he isn't acting as much as I thought. I don't know though?? To claim they fear they'll be murdered? I'm thinking they're crazy too, but who knows.



TIS

That right there is some durn fine shooting, little lady..

Annie get your gun

The fearless and well-groomed cop who faced down an armed robber in a Brooklyn beauty parlor managed to shoot the pistol right out of the crook's hands, cops said Monday.

And in a scene that would be over the top even for the most unbelievable Hollywood cop movie, one of her bullets hit the front door - and locked it.....

I saw this story on the local news. She's been getting a lot of coverage, as you can imagine. Good for her!

Our Brooklyn chicks are tough.

Can you believe this !


ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A teenager who attracted national media attention after she couldn't stop hiccuping for five weeks has been charged with first-degree murder for allegedly luring a man to a house where he was robbed and fatally shot.

Jennifer Mee, 19, appeared on NBC's TODAY several times in 2007 because of her condition, which caused her to hiccup up to 50 times a minute.

She tried various cures without success, until the hiccups eventually stopped. The teenager said at the time it was not known exactly why, but credited "a mixture of everything and all the medicine they had me on" in an interview on the TODAY show.

Sgt. T.A. Skinner of the St. Petersburg Police Department said in a news release that Mee on Saturday lured the victim, Shannon Griffin, 22, to a home where the others robbed him at gunpoint. Griffin struggled with the suspects and was shot several times, police said.

Nothing that happens in Florida surprises me anymore, Oli. The weirdness bar for crimes committed in the Sunshine State is set higher than anywhere else in the country.

Now I'm the kinda man that wouldn't harm a mouse
But if I catch somebody breaking in my house
I've got a twelve gauge shotgun waiting on the other side

So don't try to push me against my will
I don't want to hurt you but I damn sure will
So if you don't want trouble then you'd better just pass me by

Fed up with crime

Frustrated residents forming watch groups, hiring security guards, arming themselves
George Hunter, Santiago Esparza and Doug Guthrie / The Detroit News

Detroit— Pamela Malone and Tigh Croff are symbolic of Detroiters' frustration with crime, although they had vastly different ways of dealing with the problem.

Malone, president of the Historic Boston-Edison Association, hired a private security firm to patrol her neighborhood, which has seen a rash of recent home invasions.

Croff, whose east side home was the frequent target of break-ins, chased down a burglar the night of Dec. 28 and shot him in the chest.

Whether they're organizing neighborhood watch groups, hiring security guards or arming themselves, Malone, Croff and other Detroiters said they are fed up with crime and are taking matters into their own hands.

"We're just trying to preserve our community, rather than just complaining about the crime problem," said Malone, whose association hired Dusing Security & Surveillance to watch the neighborhood two years ago. "We realize the city is strapped, so we're dealing with reality — if there aren't enough police officers, what can we do to protect our property and quality of life?"

Croff's attorney, Gerald Evelyn, said citizens often feel the need to take action because there aren't enough police to respond to emergencies quickly. The average response time for dangerous runs in Detroit is 24 minutes from the time a 911 call is received, according to statistics released in April.

Nationwide statistics are not available, but Atlanta, Ga., police have an 11-minute average response time and in Washington, D.C., police respond in an average of eight minutes, according to statistics released last year by those departments.

"Police are stretched to the limit and can't get to every run in time, so people are frustrated," said Evelyn, whose client was charged with manslaughter. The jury in the trial deliberated for four days in August without reaching a verdict. A retrial is scheduled for Jan. 10.

"People feel they have to fend for themselves," Evelyn said.

Raphael B. Johnson, a community activist who has organized patrols in several Detroit neighborhoods, said, "No one is going to come and save us, so we have to help ourselves."

Johnson, who made a recent unsuccessful attempt for a seat on the Detroit City Council, added: "Any time the community is made unsafe for women, children and the elderly, the men have to stand up and do something."

The frustration with crime isn't just a Detroit phenomenon, said David Benelli, a retired New Orleans police lieutenant and member of the victims rights organization Crimefighters.

"People feel like the perpetrators have more rights than victims," Benelli said. "If you have a person who commits a crime, and both the perp and victim are injured, the perp gets all his medical expenses taken care of, whereas the victims have to fend for themselves."

Overcrowded jails, which force officials to release prisoners early, and declining police budgets add to the problem, Benelli said. "Here in New Orleans, the city is in dire financial straits, and police have to take one unpaid furlough day every two weeks. So there are less officers patrolling."

Brenda Mixon said it's up to citizens to defend themselves. Mixon's husband, Omar Mixon, 36, fatally shot 20-year-old Kenyon Reese Jr. outside a west side gas station Oct. 19 after police say Reese tried to carjack Mixon's Cadillac Escalade with a 5-year-old girl in the back seat.

Mixon said her husband, who has a concealed weapon permit, was going to surrender his Escalade "and the guy shot him anyways."

"You work so hard to get what you want, and somebody just wants to take it from you," she said. "That's why people get CCW permits. It is to protect yourself and your family. You should be able to protect yourself."

Statistics suggest more people in Wayne County are feeling the need to protect themselves: Since 2001, when the county loosened the restrictions for concealed weapon permits, the number of permits issued has more than tripled, from 4,217 to 12,656 last year.

Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee has repeatedly stressed the need for citizens to help his manpower-strapped department, which numbers about 3,000 officers after years of layoffs — but he said citizens should never take the law into their own hands.

"I believe it is a dangerous and unwise practice for citizens to perform law enforcement responsibilities in making arrests," Godbee said. "The dangers inherent in doing so are too self-evident to require elaboration. The advice I would give today is the same advice that police departments have always given: Do not attempt to apprehend a criminal suspect yourself. Notify the police."

Dennis Sullins, who lives in southwest Detroit, said he doesn't care whether it's police or outraged neighbors who catch the two men who robbed and beat his 88-year-old mother, who is confined to a wheelchair.

"It doesn't matter to me how they get caught — I just want to know who did it, and I want them to pay," said Sullins, 49. His mother, Emma Jean Sullins, was hospitalized in August after being attacked inside her home on Lansing Street.

Dennis Sullins was among hundreds of people who searched his neighborhood for the two men responsible.

"Sometimes, you can get justice in the court system, but sometimes you can't," Sullins said. "To me, vigilante justice is still justice."

Johnson, who organized patrols searching for Emma Jean Sullins' attackers, is one of the founders of Detroit 300. The organization got its name after 300 people showed up in the neighborhood to help look for the men who allegedly raped a 90-year-old woman on the city's northwest side in August. Godbee credited the group's efforts with catching the suspects, Maurice Randall, 17, and Anthony Hardy, 18, who await trial in December.....

4-Year-Old Can Be Sued, Judge Rules in Bike CaseBy ALAN FEUER
Published: October 28, 2010

Citing cases dating back as far as 1928, a judge has ruled that a young girl accused of running down an elderly woman while racing a bicycle with training wheels on a Manhattan sidewalk two years ago can be sued for negligence.

The ruling by the judge, Justice Paul Wooten of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, did not find that the girl was liable, but merely permitted a lawsuit brought against her, another boy and their parents to move forward.

Powerhouse Heir found guilty of murder
A Wayne County jury today found Peter Dabish guilty of first-degree felony murder and torture in the death of Diana DeMayo.

DeMayo, 23, was killed in a fatal beating in March at the Fort Shelby Apartments in downtown Detroit.
Dabish, 24, whose late father cofounded the Powerhouse Gym franchise, showed no reaction as the verdict was announced.

Surrey Accusation

False rape accusation 'destroyed life' of Surrey man

Kate Woodhead Woodhead made her accusation when Mr Joseph ended their 18-month relationship.

A man who was falsely accused of rape by his ex-girlfriend has said it will take years to rebuild his life.

Paul Joseph said Kate Woodhead, 31, who was jailed for three years on Monday, left him with nothing when she accused him of rape at their home in Surrey.

He lost his job as an IT consultant, his home and his collection of cars.

"For me, it is as if someone's house burned down and everything they owned was in it. That is effectively what happened to me," he said.

Guildford Crown Court heard Woodhead told police Mr Joseph, 39, had drugged her before attacking her at their home near Wisley.

She then stole property worth about £23,500, including an expensive stereo and art prints, and transferred ownership of his sports car and motorcycle to her own name.

Mr Joseph said she had also transferred to her name the £4,000-a-month rented home.

"I walked out of the house wearing my suit when I was arrested and I never saw anything again apart from one briefcase and a work laptop," he said.

The rape investigation was dropped when officers became suspicious that Woodhead had made it up and she was charged, but by this time Mr Joseph had lost his job...

Supreme Court takes up class action lawsuits.

LA Times Column

It hasn't gotten a lot of press, but a case involving AT&T that goes before the U.S. Supreme Court next week has sweeping ramifications for potentially millions of consumers.

If a majority of the nine justices vote the telecom giant's way, any business that issues a contract to customers — such as for credit cards, cellphones or cable TV — would be able to prevent them from joining class-action lawsuits.

This would take away in such cases arguably the most powerful legal tool available to the little guy, particularly in cases involving relatively small amounts of money. Class-action suits allow plaintiffs to band together in seeking compensation or redress, thus giving substantially more heft to their claims.

The ability to ban class actions would potentially also apply to employment agreements such as union contracts.

Consumer advocates say that without the threat of class-action lawsuits, many businesses would be free to engage in unfair or deceptive practices. Few people would litigate on their own to resolve a case involving, say, a hundred bucks.

"The marketplace is fairer for consumers and workers because there's a deterrent out there," said Deepak Gupta, an attorney for the advocacy group Public Citizen who will argue on consumers' behalf before the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

"Companies are afraid of class actions," he said. "This helps keep them honest."

The case is AT&T Mobility vs. Concepcion. The basic question before the court is whether companies can bar class actions in the fine print of their take-it-or-leave-it contracts with customers and employees.

High courts in California and elsewhere have ruled that class-action bans are unconscionable and contrary to public policy.

At issue at next week's court hearing is whether the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925 preempts state courts from striking down class-action bans. The federal law requires both sides in a dispute to take their grievance to an arbitrator, rather than a court, if both sides have agreed in advance to do so.

Vincent and Liza Concepcion sued AT&T in 2006 after signing up for wireless service that they'd been told included free cellphones. The Concepcions alleged that they and other Californians had been defrauded by the company because the phones actually came with various charges.

AT&T asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California to dismiss the case because its contract forbade class actions. The court declined, ruling that a class-action ban violates state law and is not preempted by the federal law.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower-court ruling last year. AT&T subsequently petitioned the Supreme Court to hear the case.

William B. Gould IV, a professor emeritus at Stanford Law School and former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board under President Clinton, said the high court was clearly interested in extending the reach of the Federal Arbitration Act.

"This is a very important issue," he said. "And this Supreme Court has indicated a measure of hostility toward class actions."

Matthew Kaufman, a Los Angeles attorney who focuses on arbitration law, agreed with that perspective.

"This is a very conservative court that's pro-business, and class actions are not good for business," he said...

This is an older story I ran across looking for something else but I could not resist using this quote...


I can tell you with no ego, this is my finest sword. If on your journey, you should encounter God, God will be cut.

NJ Johns Hopkins student uses samurai sword to kill intruder

Alleged rape victim, 14, taunted, kills self
Doug Guthrie and George Hunter / The Detroit News


Huron Township— High school freshman Samantha Kelly endured taunts and isolation during her last month in school, classmates said, after news surfaced that she had accused a popular senior of raping her.

On Monday, the 14-year-old girl committed suicide by hanging herself inside her mobile home in Huron Estates, off Inkster, south of King. Friends and family gathered at her home Tuesday, trying to find ways to cope with the pain and anger.

One relative who was not at the trailer was Samantha's mother, June Justice. She said it would be too painful to return to the site where her daughter killed herself.

Samantha's classmates at Huron High School said the school became divided over the rape allegations, with many students calling her a liar in the halls and on the school bus.
"They all took sides," said 17-year-old senior Sheila Little. "Her friends left her because they said she was lying. It's obvious this pressure had a real impact on her."

Sheila said Samantha confided in her that she had tried to commit suicide three weeks ago by overdosing on pills. "She said, 'I'm tired of people talking about me, so here you go. I might try it again,'" she said.

When news of Samantha's suicide reached the school, Sheila said, many students were unrelenting.

"People were saying, 'She was only doing it for the attention,'" Sheila said. "What kind of attention is that? She didn't ask for this."

Prosecutors plan to drop sexual assault charges against Joseph Tarnopolski, the 18-year-old who was accused of having sex with Samantha. A preliminary court examination was scheduled for today, and Samantha had been subpoenaed to testify....

Full Article

A very interesting legal issue has popped up in a big murder trial in this town:
A stockbroker was on trial for having murdered his ex-wife with a golf club in order to duck paying alimony. One complication was that the ex-wife had a boarder who was suffering from cancer, and who later killed himself. And, the medical examiner found DNA under the victim's fingernails, but none of the DNA matched the ex-husband's. Then his lawyers turned up an anonymous e-mail (sent to them) saying that a bunch of drug dealers had been on the way to kill the boarder because he welshed on paying them. Instead, when they arrived, they found the ex-wife, and killer her. The defendant's lawyers pressed to have it introduced in evidence, but the prosecutor objected, and the judge upheld the prosecutor.

Well, the prosecutor found out that the defendant's daughter sent the e-mail from an Internet cafe, after visiting her father in jail. So, the prosecutor added fraud and other charges against the defendant, and now wanted to have the e-mail introduced as evidence. This resulted in the trial being suspended for weeks while the lawyers and the judge hassled it out. Then the defense team suddely withdrew from the case, citing "conflict of interest." All of these shenanigans have been held in secret.

The local newspaper filed suit to have the judge open up the closed doors and reveal what's been happening. The prosecutor's ok with it. But the defendant's new lawyer (a public defender because he ran out of money, which is probably why his initial team quit) says it'll violate his client's right to a fair trial. The judge is on the verge of declaring a mistrial, which will deepen the secrecy.

A teen rapist (multiples??) gets probation? What's happening NY?

Tony Simmons case

Is the daughter of the defendant also the daughter of the woman who was killed?

Holocaust Fund defrauded.

Ripped Off

While fleeing the Nazis in 1941, an 11-year-old girl dodged airplane bombs as she crossed the Dnieper River in Ukraine, ultimately finding refuge in Donetsk, where she and her mother lived in hiding until the liberation of 1944.

A 13-year-old boy escaped from Kiev with his mother and younger sister, shuttling from basements to barns and sometimes the forest, where they often stayed for weeks.

These tales were among thousands of similar accounts given in the name of elderly immigrants who were seeking reparations from the German government through a fund established to provide help to survivors of Nazi persecution.

But many of the stories were works of fiction or embellishment of facts, perpetrated by a group that included six employees and custodians of the fund, which is based in New York, federal prosecutors said on Tuesday. Eleven other defendants were outsiders who recruited and funneled applicants to the programs.

Over 16 years, the suspects used fake identification documents, doctored government records and a knowledge of Holocaust history to defraud the fund of more than $42 million, according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday by the United States attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara.

The defendants, the indictment says, would recruit applicants — many of them from Brighton Beach, Brooklyn — through Russian-language newspapers, offering help to people applying for compensation from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany...

Teen's life too short -- and too public

BY BRIAN DICKERSON

Suicide and Rape allegation

Under Michigan law, it is illegal to have sex with a 14-year-old girl, even if she consents.

But there's no law against broadcasting on television the same 14-year-old's account of her sexual activity. And that's a shame, because if there were such a law, Samantha Kelly might still be alive today.

Late on Sept. 26, Samantha's mother, June Justice, told Huron Township police that her daughter, a freshman at Huron High School, admitted having sexual intercourse with Joseph Tarnopolski, an 18-year-old senior who lived eight homes down the road from theirs.

In a handwritten statement and two separate interviews conducted outside her mother's presence, Samantha said she and Tarnopolski had sex for two hours one morning while Tarnopolski's parents were away. She admitted telling Tarnopolski that she was anxious to lose her virginity. Police later found text message exchanges supporting the two teenagers' accounts that their sexual encounter had been consensual.

Those accounts, coupled with the fact that Samantha was too young to consent legally to sexual contact with anyone, gave prosecutors the grounds to charge Tarnopolski with third-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison and 25 years on Michigan's public sex offender registry.

These would surely qualify as seismic events in the lives of any two teenagers. But for Samantha Kelly and Joseph Tarnopolski, things were about to get much worse.

In early October, distressed by the hostility her daughter faced at school from Tarnopolski and his friends, June Justice contacted Detroit's Fox News affiliate, WJBK-TV (Channel 2). On Oct. 18, the station broadcast a 2 ½-minute segment in which Samantha, accompanied on-screen by her mother, charged for the first time that Tarnopolski had forced himself on her. An anchor's introduction to the piece called it a case of rape.

The issue of coercion was irrelevant to the statutory charge prosecutors had lodged against Tarnopolski. But the Channel 2 broadcast complicated the case in two ways.

First, it introduced a new version of events inconsistent with both Samantha's previous accounts and her text messages to the defendant.

Second, it turned what had been a closely held secret into general knowledge among the 850 students at Huron High. Many sided with Tarnopolski, a popular upperclassman who vehemently denied Samantha's allegations of coercion and branded his accuser a liar..........

This is just sick and horrifying. I nearly threw up reading this. I have nieces who have kids ranging from 6 to 2. If this happened to one of them there wouldn't be a prison guarded enough to prevent me from killing this fiend.

http://www.aolnews.com/crime/article/4-y...test=latestnews

Yes. And, equally bizarre, the stockbroker's ex-girlfriend tipped the prosecutor to the daughter's sending the e-mail. The prosecutor gave the daughter immunity to testify, meaning she either admits to sending the e-mail, under oath, or she gets prosecuted for fraud, along with her father.

By MIKE SCHNEIDER The Associated Press updated 1 hour 49 minutes ago 2010-11-19T20:10:33

ORLANDO, Fla. — A federal judge ordered actor Wesley Snipes to surrender to authorities Friday so he can begin serving a three-year prison sentence for tax-related crimes.

Well, that just goes to show that Mob guys aren't the only people stupid enough to get caught in tax raps. It's easy for the government to bring a tax case to trial: they don't have to show how you made the money, only that you are or were living above your means. And don't expect any sympathy from a jury--the prosecutor will make the point that the reason they are paying high taxes is because people like you are cheating on yours.

I just don't get it. These guys are making millions. Why risk it all by cheating?

Greed. Why did Martha Stewart commit stock fraud?? The profits she made were a drop in the bucket compared to her total income.

This is a very sad story but I'm not sure what the writer wanted to see done. The player is innocent until proven guilty and now without the ability to confront his former accuser I imagine he will not be able to be charged at all.

Suicide at St. Mary's

The FBI arrested a Somali idiot who loaded his van with what he thought were explosives to be detonated at an Oregon tree lighting ceremony. It was a sting operation.

I just now saw the headline. Don't know the details but my God! It seems, of late, the Feds seem to be on the ball as far as thwarting some of these attacks no? That's a good thing.


TIS

I thought the whole point of divorce was that people go their separate ways, not to come back years later with a hand out.

A man who shared one of Britain's biggest Lottery jackpots has been forced to pay his ex-wife £2 million 10 years after she left him.

Nigel Page, 44, and new partner Justine hit the headlines in February when they collected £56 million in the Euromillions draw.

However Mr Page, from Gloucestershire, has now been forced to pay his former wife Wendy, 43, in an out-of-court settlement. She is believed to have been seeking up to £8 million, but Mr Page agreed to pay £2 million to ward off legal action.

The money will go to his ex-wife after his offer to put it into a trust fund for their 13-year-old daughter Ella was turned down..

Nigel Page Article

Interesting Lilo. The article says the papers did not include a "clean break clause?" It does seem unfair that he should pay.

Does anyone remember a couple years ago, a woman who won a huge lottery (millions) while in the process of a divorce. I can't remember if it was in California or not (don't think so though). She kept it from her husband (and the law). Well, the judge ordered her to give it all to her husband. Talk about major bummer (for her).

TIS

That reminds me of a story from my long-ago youth:
Aeons ago, I was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, which was pretty dull in those days. All of us read the New York Daily News avidly for its lively content.

Seemed that the Dutchess of Argyle was being sued for divorce in open court, which was pretty rare in the UK in those days. Hubby alleged that she was a nympho, regularly took on 35 guys at once, etc. Naturally the News was all over that story--they flew 3 reporters to London to provide daily coverage.

In once story, buried way in the middle, was this deathless phrase: "At one point the prosecution entered as evidence a photo purporting to show the Dutchess, nude, in bed with another man. The man could not be identified because his head was obscured."

We all thought that was an example of brilliant journalism. We posted that clipping on our bulletin board: "Why can't we get writing that that in the Journal?"

Judge dismisses Health Care Challenge

RICHMOND, Va. — A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed Liberty University's lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's new federal health care law, declaring that a provision requiring most individuals to obtain insurance is constitutional.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon in Lynchburg is the second court decision upholding the law, following one in Michigan in October. University law school dean Mathew Staver said in a telephone interview that he will promptly appeal the ruling to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond.

Attorneys general from several states have filed another lawsuit in Florida, and a separate challenge by Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli is pending in federal court in Richmond...

Actor Wesley Snipes has arrived at a federal prison near this Pennsylvania town to begin serving a three-year sentence for this crime. The minimum-security facility doesn't have fences and the nonviolent inmates live in barracks.

I'm talking to Whistler now. Me and the Old Man are gonna break Blade out...

I haven't been following the Snipes story to a great degree nor do I know anything about his personal life, but am surprised he actually got jail time. It seems they would be able to have him repay what he owes???

Anyway, I actually like some of his films (although I haven't seen them all). Unlike most of you though, Blade is not one of them. I liked Demolition Man, U.S. Marshall, Passenger 57 to name a few.



TIS

In prison his nickname will probaby be Snippy.

Columbia Professor accused of heinous act.
Article on David Epstein

I see today that the sick bastard who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart was found guilty today. I hope he rots. Also I hope he gets raped on a daily basis just like he did to her.

A Virginia judge ruled that the health care mandate was unconstitutional. Unfortunately I don't have time now to read the entire decision. Obviously the SC will have to decide it. I don't know how soon that will be.

Health Care Decision

I believe our whole presidential situation is unconstitutional no birth certificate no citizen that is the way I see it, but then again I am not a politician what do I know.

They will probabally rule that he is mentally incompentent and put him in the country club. Put a bullet in the Fucks head so we do not have to pay for this guy with our taxes.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthcertificate.asp
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/08/05/birther_faq

WABC/Channel 7 weather babe Heidi Jones was arrested for perpetrating the ultimate snow job -- falsely claiming to cops that a man had tried to rape her while she was jogging in Central Park, sources said yesterday.

Jones, who anchors the station's weekend evening weather coverage and fills in on "Good Morning America," was charged Monday with filing a false report, a Class A misdemeanor. If convicted, she could face up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine.

WABC will announce on its noon newscast today that it is suspending her indefinitely, a spokesman said. Sources indicated that the move is the first step toward firing her...

Liar

Good for WABC!

It's hard enough for women who have actually been raped to prove it because shame often prevents them from reporting the crime, etc. But to outright make something up for attention? Horrible!

And of course, she just had to say it was a "Hispanic" looking man who tried to rape her lilly-white ass.

That a girl, Heidi. Don't just cry out for attention, start a race riot while your at it. You stupid bitch .

This "conspiracy" is just as fucking stupid as the government-behind-9/11 attacks "conspiracy."

More like conspiracies of SHIT!

Here's one I'd like Oli and/or the other lawyers here to comment on:

Earlier I posted about a big murder trial in my hometown. The defendant's lawyers quit abruptly after an e-mail they received indicating that the victim was murdered by a gang turned out to be a plant by the defendant's daughter, at his instruction. The judge declared a mistrial, and the defendant was later reindicted.

The local paper ran an article quoting the dismissed jurors' opinions of the aborted trial. Most of them thought the defendant was guilty according to what they heard, but said they probably would have voted to acquit because the prosecution failed to provide convincing evidence of guilt (i.e., no murder weapon, no DNA or blood matching the defendant under the victim's nails or in her home, clumsy forensic work, etc.).

My question: I know it's very difficult for a defendant to get a change of venue based on "prejudicial" accounts in news media, editorials, blogs, letters to editor, etc. But this is a case in which the actual jurors who sat through nearly half the trial, voiced their informed opinions in the local paper. I'd think that prospective jurors in a new trial would give thos opinions greater weight. Do you think the defense would have a better case for change of venue before the new trial starts?

TB, it's all a function of the state's law on the subject of a change of venue, the content of the motion for such a change, and the prosecutions response. The judge might consider the jury pool contaminated enough to grant such a motion. However, the prosecution would counter that a jury's "probable" failure to convict in the defendant' previous trial is not grounds for a venue change and that voir dire of a subsequent jury should eliminate any prejudice.

Here's another one for which I'd appreciate an informed answer:

We all remember that, in Gotti's last trial, the judge disqualified his regular lawyers, Bruce Cutler and Gerald Shargel, for being "house counsel"--they were heard on wiretaps participating in planning or commmenting on Gambino family business. Er, pardon my naivete, but aren't lawyers also entitled to give business advice to clients? When I was with a very big company, our in-house lawyers often litigated cases. Weren't they "house counsel," too? And if Cutler and Shargel were heard advising Gotti on illegal activities, shouldn't they have been prosecuted?

TB, I gave a little answer on this in the other thread. Yes, they were taped advising Gotti et al on illegal activity in order to advance a criminal enterprise. Disqualification is still considered by many as a dubious action, but I think one angle of the court was that under the circumstances Cutler couldn't give his client proper representation. As for Cutler's prosecution, I suppose they could, but I'm not sure how they would approach that. I think there's some fine lines there.

Thanks, Oli. Gotti retained Albert Krieger, a more experienced (and IMO, a better) lawyer than the flamboyant Cutler. But I think everyone by then had had enough of the "Teflon Don," and Da Bull made a surprisingly credible witness. Krieger tried to brand him a "serial killer," but I suppose that's what made his tale of the Castellano assassination all the more credible.

I think with Gravano and the tapes that Gotti would have lost the case anyway BUT Cutler was not charged or disqualified was he? So it seems to be very self-serving for the government to charge you with a crime and then say you can't use the lawyer of your choice who has (fairly or not) beaten them in previous cases.

True, Lilo, but as you know, once a case goes to trial, the figure of merit isn't innocence or guilt, or even right or wrong: it's about who wins and who loses. In a balls-out struggle like the the last Gotti trial, the government holds the high cards.

Another interesting aspect of American justice (and forgive me if it sounds naive): When you're on trial, you're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. But if you make an appeal, you're guilty until proven innocent. And proving innocence isn't simply a matter of showing that the judge and/or prosecutor made reversable errors, or that new evidence became available that wasn't at the trial. It's also largely a matter of the whim(s) of the judge(s) hearing the appeal.

Unfortunate case: a friend was convicted of insider trading and sentenced to six years. A three-judge panel voted 2-1 to order a new trial. So the government came back with a nine-judge panel to review the three judges' decision. My friend was defended by Maureen Mahoney, who is considered the top appeals lawyer in the US. The panel voted 5-4 to reinstate his conviction.

The Supreme Court, exercising its greatest power (IMO) simply declined to hear his case--their prerogative. He went to prison. His law team found that the sentencing judge (who was a bigot, and who ultimately resigned from the bar in disgrace) had made an error in calculating the penalty for my friend. So an appeals judge heard his case and resentenced him. Surprise, surprise: the judge was one of the five who voted to reinstate his conviction. She peeled all of two months off his sentence. "Conflict of interest"? Not according to her. And, my friend's law team told him if he further appeals the sentence, it can be lengthened.

"Justice"?

However TB, appeals courts are intended to deal with due process, not facts of cases. As you know, once adjudged guilty by a jury, an appeals court will usually only remand the case for retrial. So, the legal guilt is already there. A remand doesn't vacate the guilty verdict unless the appeals court orders so.

Lawyer Sues Ex For $95,000 For Canceled Wedding

Associated Press

Chicago - Dominique Buttitta, a suburban Chicago lawyer who says her ex-fiance called off their wedding just four days before the ceremony, wants to make him pay -- literally.

According to a lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court, Buttitta of Hoffman Estates is suing 31-year-old Vito Salerno for $100,000 over the canceled wedding.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the suit was filed Friday.

The wedding was supposed to take place on Oct. 2. But the bride says that on Sept. 27, Salerno backed out and "intentionally inflicted emotional distress" on her.

She says she's looking to recover the more than $95,000 she spent on the wedding, including nearly $12,000 on flowers and $5,400 on her wedding dress and accessories.

Messages left for Buttitta and Salerno weren't immediately returned.

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/met...penses-20101211

Is it me, or did the price of wedding gowns go sky high? I've watched "Say Yes To The Dress" a few times, and the salespeople say that a bride with a $3,000 budget will have a hard time finding a dress. WTF??

"Funny" is not really the word I would use to describe this situation but "strange" might be. Suspicious of an affair, a husband checked his wife's email and found out that she was indeed doing the horizontal mambo with a previous abusive husband.

So we all have our crosses to bear. Seems like that would just be the end of the story yes?
No. The husband was charged with a felony and if convicted could face up to five years in prison.
I wonder what the prosecutor is thinking or if there is some other personal animus here. The wife can take half in a divorce but the husband isn't supposed to know if someone else has been shaking her tree???


Full Article
A Rochester Hills man faces up to 5 years in prison -- for reading his wife's e-mail.

Oakland County prosecutors, relying on a Michigan statute typically used to prosecute crimes such as identity theft or stealing trade secrets, have charged Leon Walker, 33, with a felony after he logged onto a laptop in the home he shared with his wife, Clara Walker.

Using her password, he accessed her Gmail account and learned she was having an affair. He now is facing a Feb. 7 trial. She filed for divorce, which was finalized earlier this month.

Legal experts say it's the first time the statute has been used in a domestic case, and it might be hard to prove

"It's going to be interesting because there are no clear legal answers here," said Frederick Lane, a Vermont attorney and nationally recognized expert who has published five books on electronic privacy. The fact that the two still were living together, and that Leon Walker had routine access to the computer, may help him, Lane said.

What a disturbing story out of the UK. Have you guys heard of this "Crossbow/Cannibal killer?" One story said they found 82 body parts in one area of one of his victim. The video speaks for itself

TIS

TB, Olivant, this case sounds like it fits some of the criteria you were discussing as far as things getting more difficult once you've been found guilty-no matter if the prosecutor played fair or not.

Jabbar Collins

Each morning for 5,546 days, Jabbar Collins knew exactly what he'd wear when he awoke: a dark-green shirt with matching dark-green pants.

The prison greenies of a convicted murderer, he says, were "overly starched in the beginning, but as time wore on, and after repeated washes, they were worn and dull, like so many other things on the inside."

Today, Jabbar Collins works as a paralegal at the Law Offices of Joel B. Rudin in Manhattan. But for 15 years, he sat in prison, convicted of the 1994 murder of Rabbi Abraham Pollack. Mr. Collins, who maintained his innocence, spent much of those 15 years in a computerless prison law library.

For most of those 15 years, Mr. Collins, who maintained his innocence, knew the only way his wardrobe would change was if he did something that's indescribably rare. He'd have to lawyer himself out of jail.

There was no crusading journalist, no nonprofit group taking up his cause, just Inmate 95A2646, a high-school dropout from Brooklyn, alone in a computerless prison law library.

"'Needle in a haystack' doesn't communicate it exactly. Is it more like lightning striking your house?" says Adele Bernard, who runs the Post-Conviction Project at Pace Law School in New York, which investigates claims of wrongful conviction. "It's so unbelievably hard…that it's almost impossible to come up with something that captures that."....

I did hear about that crossbow case, TIS. There are people walking around that are broken inside.

I remember the case you are talking about TB. As a matter of fact I believe that you and I discussed it when I brought it up and you informed me that that it was a friend of yours.

If memory serves me correctly he really was nothing more than a scapegoat in this case. I believe that the real motive of his accusers was to just make an example out of him. There were others who were involved much deeper with insider trading who were not punished as severely as your friend was.

One remedy might be to have all appeals courts rule on fact and not just due process. Of course, that would tie up the judicial system even more than it is already.

You're correct, DC. My friend was a victim of CEO-prosecution-envy. Law is a competitive business. High-profile convictions cement prosecutors' careers. After some US Attorneys nailed the CEO's of Adelphia, Worldcomm, HealthSouth, etc., the US Attorney in Denver wanted his share of glory. My friend was a sitting duck for him. He was an Italian-American with a Brooklyn accent, running one of Denver's biggest companies. The media resented him as a "carpetbagger" because he flew back to NJ every weekend to be with his family. He ran his company's stock way up, and his employees liked that. But, many of them, greedily put every cent they had in the company's stock. When his company's stock got caught in the general telecom meltdown (which affected every carrier), he was made the scapegoat. The US Attorney knew that not a single juror would be on my friend's side. The judge was a bigot who later had to resign from the bench. My friend never had a chance.

Our justice system is a function of so many things but ultimately one of fallible people. The justice system does not necessarily attract the noblest among us. Of course, it's an adversarial system. What more can you say?

Anger management, people. It's called anger management.
Roseville woman sets boyfriend on fire

I would be so incredibly angry and bitter I don't think there's any amount of money that could make me let that go.

Declared innocent after thirty years in prison

God bless him. It sounds like he was convicted on some pretty flimsy evidence - picked out of a photo array by one victim, but not the other??? It doesn't sound like enough evidence for a trial, and it certainly sounds like enough for reasonable doubt when it DID go to trial!

The fallibility of the system is the primary reason I oppose the death penalty, cause if the system screws up and someone dies, there is no way to bring him or her back.

Jan 08, 2011 Rep. Gabrielle Giffords shot in Arizona

Rep. Gabrille Giffords (D- Ariz.) was shot while holding a public event outside a Tuscon grocery store, Arizona Public Media reports. At least nine others were injured.

A gunman ran up and started shooting while the third-term congresswoman was hosting a "Congress in Your Corner" event, according to Peter Michaels, news director of Arizona Public Media.

NPR reports that she has died.

This is terrible. Hope NPR is wrong, but...point blank?

And look at this relic from the mid-terms: Left column, Fourth row.



Bye Bye Sarah '12

Conflicting reports: it's still not clear if Representative Giffords has died as well as 4 others including a child.

I am just getting home hearing about this shooting now. How horrible. MSN is saying she is in surgery and IS expected to pull through. I hear an aide was killed. Does anyone know what sparked this??

The shooter is in custody right?



TIS

Yeah, they got the guy. Who the hell knows what this is about?

I honestly hope it's not some birther, tea party nutjob. But with everything that's been going on in Arizona lately, it very well could be.

I am hearing a child was killed???? That's absolutely terrible.



TIS

(CNN) -- Six people were killed and 12 others wounded including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. An aide and federal judge were killed.

Well, MSNBC IS reporting that one child, about 9 years old has died.



TIS

Apparently true.

Wait and see, even if the news media didn't (MSNBC: Tea Party!, Fox News: Immigrant!) because for all we know, its just another loser asshole who mistakes fame (or more precisely infamy) for better self-esteem. Like Mark David Chapman.

I just know the Palin fansites, PACs, etc., are taking down those "target" ads.

Little Late.

His website content includes references to "federalist laws" and "brainwashing" and "illiterate" and having no faith in money that is not backed by gold and silver.

The gunman is identified as Jared Lee Loughner, and (allegedly) this video came from his YouTube page. Clearly somebody that should have been in a four-wall padded room:

Evidently her husband is an astronaut, who just arrived in AZ now.

Also, President Obama is due to speak any moment, followed by Governor Brewer and Nancy Pelosi.


What a horrible horrible situation.


TIS

Currency????? I don't get it? And illiteracy?


TIS

How awful. Some websites are saying six dead and others are saying five. The Congresswoman is out of surgery and expected to survive.

One thing that will definitely come out of this - the President's Secret Service coverage is going to be increased dramatically.

I'm confused about this.

Just a brief follow-up for those interested. The detective in AZ just gave a news conference and apparently there is a 2nd "Person of Interest" that they are looking for. He referred to him (her) as that, not saying they were looking for a suspect.

Also, he said that the Congresswoman "was" the target. He apparently (and understandably) got a lawyer and is not talking.


TIS

so, the shooter wanted to assassinate mccain, but instead went after giffords, as well as innocent bystanders. i hope this son of a bitch actually gets the chair, and not rot in jail.

Assassinate McCain?? I didn't hear that. He hasn't been mentioned at all that I've seen.


TIS

Edit: Oops I referred to her as Senator. I believe she's a congresswoman. Thus, no McCain. Sorry. I'll edit

This morning they are announcing that they are looking for a second "person of interest." They showed a picture; male, white 40 something. They are not saying he is a suspect at this time.


TIS

News like this almost tempt me to support repeal of the 1st Amendment.

RR,

I saw that too on HP. What is wrong with these people??? These are the same nutjobs who protest at funerals of gay service people. Lots of hate out there.


TIS

The hate they spew is disgusting.

The poor little girl who was killed was born on September 11, 2001.

Man, I try not to put too much stock in bad luck, but that poor kid was born to a tragic national event, then died in one.

I heard earlier that this little girl went with a neighbor to see the Congresswoman. Talk about being there by chance. Just like the Judge who got killed. Evidently he was just stopping by.

TIS

Leaked DHS Memo hint to Anti-Government/Anti-Semitic Conspiracy behind Massacre?



http://gretawire.blogs.foxnews.com/lates.../#ixzz1AYxb5SFy

would anybody be suprised if this group was involved in a massacre it self?

They're going to picket the funeral of a 9 year old girl?

You know, how big can that "church" actually be?

I know this is wrong, but I'd fucking LOVE to see someone go postal on them. Take out a dozen or so members and burn their church to the fucking ground. Then picket their funerals, and spit on their families .

Something needs to be done to shut that group up.

To say they are a disgrace and that the hate they propagate is a horror is the world's greatest understatement.

I can't imagine what that little girl's parents are going through, or any of the families, for that matter. May God give them the strength to get through this somehow.

Amen to that SB.

I just read an article that said the little 9 year old girl victim was actually born on 9/11. Born on a tragic day in history...and dies on one.

Loughner's statements tied to far right-wing conspiracy theory?

Jared Lee Loughner’s rants about grammar and mind control track closely to the writings of a conspiracy theorist who believes that is how the government controls the populace, one leading group says – and the man tells POLITICO he agrees with some of Loughner’s statements.

The far-right activist, David Wynn Miller, said in a telephone interview that he didn’t know Loughner, but agreed with his statement in a YouTube video that “the government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47329.html#ixzz1Ab0Jlpn4

Judy Clarke, who has represented "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski and Zacarias Moussaoui, will be representing accused mass murderer Jared Lee Loughner.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.co...r.php?ref=fpblg

This morning, I saw the parents of little Christina Green interviewed. She was the 9 year old girl killed in the shooting massacre on Saturday. Her parents managed to hold it together very well, and I was so impressed with their courage. Then, the reporter asked them if they felt that Christina was looking down on them, and the father simply started to cry. It was the most heart-wrenching thing I've ever seen.

The neighbor who took Christina to the Meet and Greet was also shot. She was shot three or four times - leg, abdomen and chest, I believe. She has been stabilized and is expected to recover, but her family said they don't know if she'll ever mentally recover from being the one that took Christina to the event.

I also saw the son of Phyllis Schneck, the 79 year old retiree killed that day, tell the story of how the local police came to his door on Saturday evening to break the news. He had been trying to reach his mother all day when he realized that the shopping center was so close to her home. He was on the phone with his sister when the doorbell rang, and he said he just knew that it was bad news about their mother.

The little girl who was killed was the granddaughter of Dallas Green, former manager of both the Yankees (1989) AND the Mets (1993-1996).

She probably won't, and neither would I.

No reassurance from anyone, including Christina's family could ease the guilt of having been the one to have physically brought her there. It is aweful, but simply human nature.

Makes me think of every time I have taken a friend's child into my care, shopping, a movie or whatever...and fully expecting to bring them home safe and sound a few hours later. For this poor woman it wasn't to be, and my heart goes out to her.

Recent e-mail exchange over the weekend:

Beck to Palin: "An attempt on you could bring the Republic down."

http://www.businessinsider.com/glenn-beck-arizona-shooting-giffords-loughner-2011-1#ixzz1Af9ryHx6

Yea, how surprising. Beck comes to the defense of the mama grizzly. Don't retreat reload right?


Anyway RR, I heard something about another congressman/senator being threatened that "you;re next". Have you heard anything about this? I am positive all these threats will HAVE to be taken seriously.

Nutjobs coming out of the woodwork.

TIS

IL Congressman Gets "You're Next" Message

http://illinoishomepage.net/fulltext?nxd_id=205936

Thanks RR

MSNBC is reporting the the parents of this kid won't let the FBI in the house. And have a plywood blockade preventing them from entering.

The neighbors are saying that they have lived there a number of years and have "never" had a pleasant exchange with this family.

TIS

Tom DeLay got three years in prison.
Delay

But he's so pretty.

He'd better forget all those nifty dance moves. Texas prison is no joke. My advice? Knock the meanest looking guy out the first day..or become somebody's b****!!!

Or go up to the local big shot on the block and tell him
"I'm think I'm p****d off at you but I don't know why? Do I got a reason? Give me your top ten reasons you're a piece of s*** and I'll let you know when something rings a bell"..

for crying out loud...this is going get out of fucking control pretty soon

Bam - Not to mention someone earlier today got arrested for threatening Oregon Senator Michael Bennet (D).

Come to think of it, what do Bennet, Davis (threatened IL. Congressman), and Giffords have in common?

They're all Democrats.

im not surprised by that...after the health care debate, alot of people took in heart what the republicans have said. theres too many crazy radical's who believe in 'big brother'.

Those who purport to care about the tenor of political discourse don't help civil debate when they seize on any pretext to call their political opponents accomplices to murder.

Not to single out anyone in particular on this message board, but more particularly comments from those on the left like Paul Krugman who writes that the Tea Party is at fault because they've created a "climate of hate."

Of course, back during the '08 campaign when Obama emoted "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun"-- it's just evidence of high spirits, but when Republicans do it ("lock and load") it somehow creates a climate of hate.

Shortly after November's defeat for the Dems, pollster Mark Penn appeared on Chris Matthew's TV show and remarked what Obama needed was another Oklahoma City to reconnect with the American people. To judge from the reactions to Saturday's events, many on the left agree, and for a while hoped that Jared Loughner's killing spree might fit the bill.

Frank Nitti - You realize when you use that argument, you're conceding defeat right? You're effectively admitting the argument is right, since since both sides do it, its A-OK.

"Son you drink too much."
"Well you do too Dad!"

ronnie,

I don't even want to speculate why people do the things this kid did because it generally boils down to the fact that some in this world are simply close minded bigots. Perhaps in a more ideal world where conditions were better for all we could eliminate any need for such predjudices and hatred. I dunno.

But yes, both sides of the political aisle are guilty of using very combative tactics the past few years, no doubt about that. And if the Dems seriously want to blame this incident on Republicans, they need to look in the mirror and question why our President, who claims to be some sort of academic, always feels the need to be the classroom clown by making smug, snide, smart-ass remarks at every corner as if he's just so witty and youthfully exuberant--all the while wearing his mom jeans.

Seriously, I liked the guy coming into his presidency, and I'm all about having a minority in the White House, but he rubs people the wrong way. And IF the Republicans and their combative banter over the past years is at all to blame for this incident, then the Obamaites have to accept atleast some of the culpability as well.

There is a big major difference you're ignoring or just don't realize.

Were there liberals who were...off the deep end in rhetoric so to speak...when Dubya was in office? Yes. Quite a few of them called Dubya Hitler, fascist, the usual liberal overreaction to the Right Wing. But who feared them?

Who was publicly scared that liberal fuckheads were gonna take up guns and take politics into their own bloodyhands? I didn't. You didn't. Why would you? It's far far far from the 1970s when you had legitimate armed, violent terrorist groups from the SLA to the Weathermen. Those assholes either grew up and sold out to become middle class. And the new generation is too busy listening to their iPods or playing on Facebook or eating EasyMac in their dorm rooms. Capo went to school with quite a few of them I'm sure.

Why is this? Because all those exteme left wing, pretentious communist-wannabes of today don't....really do all that much. They bitch, they moan, they send out petitions, they march, they try to boycott, then march, and then petition some more. Remember when they were pissed about the Obama/GOP compromise on tax rates which even pissed off our own esteemed Lilo?

They were so pissed....nothing came of it. Nothing. Hell they're so angry at Obama, he's more popular with that base of his party than Clinton was at this point of his presidency. As I said elsewhere, the Democrats hate their base. Republicans fear their base.

It's Democrats "targeted" recently. I don't see liberal hippie metrosexual kids, armed to the teeth with their 2nd Amendment-protected Granola Bars, smashing Congressmen's offices during the Health Care debate or cry that governmental "Death Panels" are going into business or claim certain politicians in power have to be "stopped" using particular Fascist/Communist imagery/terminology.

Or to put it another way, which particular GOP politicians in the last election were cited in liberal PAC ads with target bullseyes....no I'm sorry surveyor sights
...next to them in a pseudo-hitlist? How come no threats in the last few days against GOP politicians?

Do I expect certain right wingers to possibly take "action"? Like some of my neighbors here in Tennessee? More likely than the (very few) liberals around here. But will they? Probably not. 99.9% won't outside of bitch/moan on the Internet and call-ins to local radio about the evils of big government intrusion in their private lives inbetween collecting their federal disability/military pension/social security checks. Or buy the new Glenn Beck book. Those phones/computers btw powered more than likely by TVA, a relic of the New Deal.

I wouldn't be surprised if a crazy violent local from around these parts was involved in a tragedy like what happened on saturday. Not a guarantee, but I wouldn't be shocked at all. Or to put it another way, I look at the Middle East and who are the ones detonating the bombs or demanding "heresy laws" in Pakistan? Religious book-thumping fucktard ultra-conservatives. They're the Mullahs in Tehran. The "liberals" in that country were the protesting/voting kids who got their skulls bashed in by the Mullah's goons back in summer '09. In the name of Allah, bah gawd!

Or for that matter, which group was founded in my state of Tennessee back in 1865 down in Pulaski? The Ku Klux Klan. They did alot in the name of their god too. So did Tim McVeigh. Hell to be even more tangental, Mark David Chapman was a born-again Christian. Notice it? Its called a pattern. Not a rule. Not a law. Not a fact of nature or life, but a pattern.

So come on dude, none of this morality equavalence bullshit, at the very fucking least on this one issue You're right about the mainstream discussion talking about the "noise" that's become the story instead of the story (especially the suspect) itself. But on the "noise" itself, don't play dumb or ignorant with the obvious. Don't follow the Newsmax narrative. Don't claim there is smoke but no fire. Or the other way around, I'm not sure.



Because he's an asshole?



What President didn't rub some people the wrong way? Washington, Lincoln, JFK, FDR, Reagan whoever all pissed off certain American people because of their policies or because he was from the other party or because of what they perceive about him personally. It's natural within politics. Without this, how can we have political parties or elections or shit, a debate?

Lincoln died because John Wilkes Booth and his gang were outraged after Lincoln called to give freed blacks the right to vote. They were going to kidnap him, but the idea of giving American blacks citizenship apparently drove them over the edge.

And really, "minority"? I doubt pizzaboy got behind Obama in the last presidential election because he was mulatto or had a funny name. For that matter, Republicans didn't back McCain because he was a senior citizen.



There are lots of things to shit on Obama about. How about that recent Tax Compromise? Good politics, probably bad policy.

His surge of military involvement in Afghanistan (liberals would have been screaming more bloody murder if Dubya was still in office), his recent order to FEMA to build new nuclear fallout shelters in major cities to grabbing more executive branch power (with Dubya precedence) and demanding total unchecked/unbalanced executive authority on Guantanamo, how long detainees can stay detained or may or may not be charged (if ever). Obama recently has become fond of the "Signing statements" that he blasted Dubya for relying on.

His Administration lawyers might just be the first White House in American history to claim in court that the Commander-In-Chief has the unrestricted right to give the order to assassinate anybody anywhere anytime if said subect is deemed a threat to national security. And of course there is always the economy.

Whatever, some of those are legitimate concerns/complaints among others. But none of this retarded Birther bullshit or that he's an Al Qaeda Manchurian Candidate or the new Stalin/Hitler that will force millions of abortions and use health care reform to send dissidents off to detention camps (Thank you Michelle Bachman) or whatever sillyness.

Dubya wasn't Hitler. Obama isn't Hitler. Neither have the whiskers. Only thing those three had in common asides from getting elected to the executive office of their countries was that they all wrote lousy books.

Back to the topic itself...

What we must remember is the story itself. From all the reports put out so far, this is the basic picture: The suspect allegedly was in political affiliation a liberal before 2006, pothead too. One of his parents was a county public official. Suspect also allegedly quit the reefer and apparently lost his head (mental disease?), cutting himself off from friends and going off in his own private little world of conspiracy theories that make no sense to anyone except himself.

Then he appeared (unless I'm mistaken) at a rally for the Congresswoman in '08 and was miffed that she didn't answer his perfectly reasonable question (to him at least) about the power of grammar. Or something. Anyway he took that gun and went off on a suicidal assassation attempt (he left letters behind at his home addressed to authorities) and targeted her personally. This wasn't random.

From those YouTube videos he posted on-line, nothing he cited is specifically Tea Party. It's less anti-government and more the broad generic anti-authority paranoia shared by all fringes. In fact alot of his so-called "favorite books" from ALICE IN WONDERLAND to yes both COMMUNIST MANIFESTO and MEIN KAMPF are all about an author unveiling the real reality behind the misleading manufactured "reality." Then again, friends of the suspect claim he liked to fuck with people in general by shocking people with outrageousness this side of your usual FAMILY GUY segway sketch which they think explain that booklist, but who knows?

Is the Tea Party to blame for this particular tragedy? Is Sarah Palin? No. The "noise" I mentioned in my previous post that the media is speculating/attacking from now is honestly all based from that Palin ad I posted which at the time it was distributed a bad idea by that PAC. Now in retrospect its definately even much more a very bad idea.

Her camp spinning the "targets" as surveyor's sights (what?) only digs that PR hole she's in even deeper.

That's like claiming a Christian cross is actually a plus sign. Couldn't her flunkie staffers just admit they screwed up, we're sorry, it was a mistake at the time? Did they really think anyone would disagree with that?

Her (and the basic Tea Party community) being over-reacting defensive just makes them look more guilty than they necessarily are on this incident. Nor not exactly swatting down the Beck-expressed public idea that the American republic would fall if she would to fall herself. That last bit isn't bad PR or bad spin, just being narcissist, which is expected of most if not all aspiring presidential candidates. Including our current President.

Back to the point unless we discover otherwise, until then there is no direct evidence that the suspect was directly inspired or influenced by that PAC ad or certain specific Tea Party rhetoric. Did this pamphlet, passed around Dallas a few days before JFK visited, inspire Lee Harvey Oswald?



We have no evidence that it did, and to argue that it did is just from pure speculation. Not like the police found it in his house or he had it in his pocket or whatever. But none the less its still a toxic visual political link (fair ot not) that gave Dallas a bad name.

Both of your posts are dead on accurate, Ronnie .

See how smart you can be when you're not too busy playing a Billy Madison type manchild?

Erm, I don't know if I'd agree that all (or most) violent lunatic extremists are on the right, and that the left is "too busy listening to their iPods or playing on Facebook or eating EasyMac in their dorm rooms." Just about any serious Marxist I've ever met is of the mindset that a violent revolution is necessary to advance the cause.

But yes, I'm sure we all hoped that the violent extremists on the right would have died out after the Civil Rights era and their children would have taken a different route. It appears otherwise, and we'll have to indeed fight many of the same fights our parents and grandparents engaged in.

That's why EVERYONE, on BOTH sides, need to chill out over the coming years and stop inciting this stuff. Unfortunately, humans are inevitably the same, and I have a feeling that after the smoke from this incident clears partisans will go back to being partisans and supporting 'their team,' trying to discredit and dismiss the other side, all the while manifesting a hatred that they claim to be fighting against in the first place.

For that matter, some people just need to get a life and stay out of political discussions all together, especially when they use political banter as an outlet for some pent up anger they've built up over the years.

Like my grandfather always said: Why do people always feel the need to blab about one thing or another?? What the hell is so important that everyone feels they need to run their mouths at every second of the day?? Everyone wants to talk and discuss things when they ought to be eating, sleeping, or working. THAT'S IT. Sounds strange, but if some (not anyone here) adhered more to this old adage I have a feeling there would be less loons on both side.

As far as I'm concerned, they'd better stay out of my way all together. Maddow, Beck, Olbermann, O Reilly, Limbaugh; you're all corporate whores straight out of Orwell's 1984, propogating one false paradigm after another.

Some excellent points here. Their is no direct causal relationship between the crap the right spews out and the act of a deranged persone, but the fact of the matter is that there a lot of nut jobs in this country and the media needs to do a better job of not giving publicity to politicians who say outlandish things such as Sharon Angle's call for the people to use "Second Amendment Remedies," or to tolerate hosts who
declare political ponents "The worst person in the world."

If you want to get a grip on things, use your remote and skip over Fox, MSNBC, and CNN even. The BBC does a nice job of reporting the news, and magazines like The Economist also do. If you want a "liberal slant" there is always the New Yorker, and if you want a "conservative slant" there's the Wall Street Journal (although its editorial page is over the top).

Point is no one wants to discuss the issues, they just want to shout over each other. Real talk about real issues does not equal good ratings, so we are stuck with the promotion of toxic
politics and opinion for a while.

For God's sake will they please shut up about the 2012 elections? We just had elections in 2010.

My fear is though (and I'll bet I'm right)is that absolutely NOTHING will be done to change anything. With the people's right to "bear arms" and "freedom of press", just try changing anything.

As far as guns go, I heard yesterday that in AZ you can actually go into a bar with a gun (as long as you don't drink) Really? Nobody really seems to care about putting limits (or enforcing)exactly WHO can own a gun because God forbid it hamper someone's right, so don't check-out anyone? We blame it on mental health, upbringing; the school or parent or coach or someone who should have known. Who???? Nothing will happen!!

As far as the media goes, you've of course got "freedom of the press". Who's gonna tell someone not to say something or not to report the news. They get these nutjobs and it's a story and they air it on tv. Then they only need to say "freedom of the press." Do you really think the media (in any form) will monitor itself? So, what is the answer??

Don't misunderstand. I am for both rights, but I am also for regulations and better checks on gun ownership and think that responsible journalism is possible as well.

TIS

As DT alludes to above, most of the cable channel news outlets constitute the Cliff Notes of domestic and international issues and events. They appeal to one's emotions. A viewer attaches themselves to one or the other of them because they assuage the viewers feelings. In-depth analysis of news content by a viewer presents quite a challenge which I'll bet most Americans are unwilling to meet.

The current rants on gun control make me laugh. After the Columbine massacre, there was an outcry for better gun control. After the Virginia Tech massacre, there was an outcry for stricter laws regarding the sale of weapons. Now, there will be another outcry. It will die down until the next shooting rampage.

I am so sick and tired of people complaining about how easily this man obtained an automatic weapon. Why are these weapons even for sale? Nobody needs an automatic weapon. If you want to hunt or protect your belongings, do you really need an automatic weapon to do it? Of course not. It's absurd. They should be banned, end of story. The only thing they're used for is to kill humans, so leave them for the military only.

Them and Us

I disagree; respectfully. I think both sides have blood on their hands for this one, ron, and it seems I'm not in the minority on that one here on these boards.

And a little off topic, but you have to give your South Eastern brethren credit for one thing: everything weird happens in Florida and Germany, right? Well, now the Wild, Wild West appears to be back on the lunatic scene after Saturday's tragedy(not to mention the holocaust taking place in Northern Mexico, SW United States with the drug cartels).

But even with all the cousin fucking, rebel flag wearing, and gun toting machoism that goes on down there in your neck of the woods, it's out in the country, and people can choose to get up and move out of the frickin woods anytime they want. You don't hear about terrorism taking place out in the country and small rural towns (even in the big towns).

But when you combine these small minded personalities with a burgeoning infrastructure and technologically inclined cultural landscape you get rogue-outcasts like this kid in AZ, who can walk out in a mass public gathering and start shooting politicians with no legal entities present to stop them--just old elderly men and a brave female (who apparently were forced to be the heroes of the day in the absence of any other legal deterrents)

No, in the deep South we have what they call gentlemen's code, and despite all the banter that may come out of sectors of the region from time to time, I think most down there are God loving and God fearing people who would never act this way with their guns.

Speaking of Florida and other lands of the strange....

Not to be even more ghastly truculent than is necessary right now, but since we're talking about gun control, did anyone hear about this:


He's out on bail and walking around right now.

Care to defend this one Nitti?

Rush Limbaugh: Lougher has the full support of the Democratic Party

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11...t_n_807543.html

Dems are sure to blame too for this one quip. Because it's everybody's fault for everything.

This isn't over though. The prosecutors and school district intend to have the case dismissed because of governmental immunity. Also the police claim they would do exactly the same thing if this situation happened again.


Family to get $1.8 million in dad's jailing, teen's false sex-assault interrogation

A West Bloomfield Township family will get $1.8 million to settle a lawsuit against the police department, after the father was prosecuted and jailed after being accused of sexually assaulting his severely autistic daughter — a prosecution that eventually imploded..

The charges against Julian Wendrow were dropped for lack of evidence in March 2008, after he had spent 80 days in the Oakland County jail. His wife, Thal Wendrow, was also jailed, and the girl, 14, and her brother, 13, were placed in foster care for months.

The settlement was made public in district court filings today.

The Oakland County prosecutor’s case was based almost solely on statements the daughter reportedly made using facilitated communication, a widely discredited method in which the child typed on a keyboard with the assistance of a school aid. The girl, who does not speak and functions on the level of a two-year-old, reportedly typed that her father had been raping her since age seven. Prosecutors pursued the case, even though a physical exam showed no sign of assault.

The family sued in federal court in 2008, alleging 38 counts of false imprisonment, wrongful prosecution and other misdeeds.

The Wendrows named the police department as a defendant in part because of a two-hour interrogation a detective conducted with the 13-year-old boy, shortly after his parents arrests, wrongly telling him they had videotapes of both the boy and his father sexually assaulting the girl. The boy had no adult representative present for the interview....

Lawsuit

What's to defend?

The Huffington Post decided to abridge Limbaugh's statement, although to their credit they did supply the full audio. Here's in total what Limbaush said...and he's absolutely right about SOME in the Democratic Party and its far left buddies in the media, including one Paul Krugman.

"...It appears that what Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He's sitting there in jail; he knows what's going on. He knows that a Democrat Party, the Democrat Party, is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a victim. He's the latest in a never-ending parade of victims brought about by the unfairness of America; the bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia of America; the mean-spiritedness of America.

So he sits around, he gets reports, he understands. He probably never paid any attention to Sarah Palin. All of his friends say he didn't like things political. This guy's been on the sheriff's radar in Pima County since 2007, long before Sarah Palin was nominated to run with McCain and long before there was a Tea Party. That smiling mug shot, this guy clearly understands he's getting all the attention, and he understands he's got a political party doing everything it can (plus a local sheriff) doing everything that they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder but something lesser. He's a victim, he's deranged, and yet he's smiling. He's snickering at every one of us in that mug shot..."

These lies are extreme even for Limbaugh. There is no one who is hoping this maniac gets away with murder and attempted murder. There is no one in the Deomcratic party who has played this idiot to be a victim. Rush makes it up as he goes along, and anyone who take him seriously is a moron.

I hope a house falls on palin and buries her until her feet curl up.

Did anyone try to watch that Palin speech?

Josh Marshall said it best about the already derided "blood libel" speech: "Today has been set aside to honor the victims of the Tucson massacre. And Sarah Palin has apparently decided she's one of them."

Sarah Palin's charge of 'blood libel' spurs outcry from Jewish leaders

By James Oliphant, Los Angeles Times

Sarah Palin's remarks Wednesday in which she accused critics who would tie her political tone to the Arizona shootings of committing a "blood libel" against her have prompted an instant and pronounced backlash from some in America's Jewish community.

The term dates to the Middle Ages and refers to a prejudice that Jewish people used Christian blood in religious rituals.

"Instead of dialing down the rhetoric at this difficult moment, Sarah Palin chose to accuse others trying to sort out the meaning of this tragedy of somehow engaging in a 'blood libel' against her and others," said David Harris, president of the National Democratic Jewish Council, in a statement. "This is of course a particularly heinous term for American Jews, given that the repeated fiction of blood libels are directly responsible for the murder of so many Jews across centuries -- and given that blood libels are so directly intertwined with deeply ingrained anti-Semitism around the globe, even today."

"The term 'blood libel' is not a synonym for 'false accusation,' " said Simon Greer, president of Jewish Funds for Justice. "It refers to a specific falsehood perpetuated by Christians about Jews for centuries, a falsehood that motivated a good deal of anti-Jewish violence and discrimination. Unless someone has been accusing Ms. Palin of killing Christian babies and making matzoh from their blood, her use of the term is totally out of line."

U.S. Rep Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head Saturday and remained in critical condition in a Tucson hospital, is Jewish.

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said "it was inappropriate at the outset to blame Sarah Palin and others for causing this tragedy or for being an accessory to murder. Palin has every right to defend herself against these kinds of attacks, and we agree with her that the best tradition in America is one of finding common ground despite our differences.

"Still, we wish that Palin had not invoked the phrase 'blood libel' in reference to the actions of journalists and pundits in placing blame for the shooting in Tucson on others. While the term 'blood libel' has become part of the English parlance to refer to someone being falsely accused, we wish that Palin had used another phrase, instead of one so fraught with pain in Jewish history."

Early Wednesday, Palin posted a lengthy video on the Web in which she defended the provocative speech employed by her and other conservatives -- and condemned the violence in Arizona. Yet she also strongly pushed back at any notion that inflamed and sometimes gun-laden rhetoric played any role in the attack. She called allusions to that effect "irresponsible."

Her critics in the media, she contended, "should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible."

Last year, Palin's political operation targeted Giffords' district in a map that critics said were gun sights, but a Palin aide argued earlier this week were surveyor's marks. That map immediately became a focus of controversy in the wake of the shootings, with some directly blaming Palin for the attacks.

Prominent conservatives rallied around Palin and the terms "blood libel" soon began circulating -- and some were angry that Palin wasn't more urgently defended by party leaders.

"To the gutless GOP establishment who watches in silence the blood libel against" Palin, wrote commentator Andrew Brietbart Tuesday evening, hours before Palin's statement was posted. "We will be watching."

And although she was criticized by some on her Facebook page, the power of Palin's appeal to her admirers was also on full display. Within hours, more than 25,000 people had expressed their support for her remarks.

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

To be fair, hasn't other politicians in recent years have used that terminology before? Not saying she was right to say it, just asking.

Of course I doubt she and her aides knew the term's context.

I am watching the President's speech and have to say it is one of the few times I am truly impressed. There is no denying he's a great orator, and tonight President Obama is honoring the victims and putting in their places all those who have incited political rhetoric since last Saturday afternoon.

Funny you should say that, because actually all those who evoke his name and attempt to demonize him, including various U.S. Congressmen and Senators, Arizona sherrifs, and even other talk show hosts and ...DO apparently take Rush Limbaugh and what he says, VERY seriously.

His speech managed to be simultaneously compassionate, moving and inspirational.

My heart breaks for the families. To lose a loved one is painful enough, but to do so in such a public and violent manner is just beyond comprehension.

Wonderful and moving speech. It was touching that he spoke individually about each one of the deceased, the wounded and heroes.

And yes SB my heart breaks for the family members as well. How can one not feel for them?


TIS

What DT is refering to is that so many in his audience do believe what he says. What varios "U.S. Congressmen and Senators, Arizona sherrifs, and even other talk show hosts" take seriously is his influence upon listeners regardless of the veracity of what he says.

TIS, have you seen the retired Colonel who tackled the gunman? He's an older gentleman, and he had been wounded that day. When he was interviewed on the news about what he had done, he turned around and showed the scar on the back of his head where the bullet had grazed him.

SB,

I did see that guy yesterday in an interview, but it must have been another interview because he didn't show his scar.

So many sad stories...the guy who killed shielding his wife was sad.


TIS

TIS, it was right along the back of his head and looked like a horrible burn.

My heart just breaks for all of the victims and the families. It is scary that these days when you walk out your front door to live out your life you just never know what might happen.

I know EXACTLY what DT was referring to.

However, in keeping with the tone that the President so valiantly attempted to quell tonight...it was the same reference that could be made of any listener of Rhandi Rhoades, Robert Kennedy Jr., Ed Schultz, Alan Colmes, or any other left wing host with a similar following (and far lower ratings, of course).

All DT was doing was voicing his political preferences (with which we are all familiar), and displaying the usual intolerance and disdain toward anyone who (proudly) disagrees with them.

Bravo, DT...well done!

But that's not the portion of his post that you quoted and to which I responded.

Bottom line is that ANYONE who politicizes a horrible tragedy like this or uses it as an attempt to advance their political agenda /career / party is an out and out disgrace of a human being in my eyes. As far as I am concerned only a selfish heartless bastard would even attempt to do such a thing!

You cannot compare the influence of RFK Jr., who is IMHO an empty suit, Alan Colmes, a weak kneed fall guy for Sean Hannity and a blow hard like Ed Schultz (For the life of me I don't know how he has a show) to Rushbo.

Amen to that DC. The blame on this tragedy does not belong to the right/left, Sarah Palin, talk radio. It belongs on the looney who pulled the trigger.

Tucson billboard.

Clear Channel Yanks 'Straight Shooter' Limbaugh Ad In Tucson

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.co...son.php?ref=fpa

Thi is too cute!

By Todd Wright updated 1/14/2011

A 4-year-old Florida boy called 911 to report that his dad was "being bad" and that he needed to get that urgent message to Santa. Now that might not seem like a proper use of 911 to you, but to a toddler, there is no bigger emergency than a parent who is being mean.

"Send a message to Santa that will say that dad is being bad. My dad's been very bad, he really did," the boy said confidently, according to a recording of the Jan. 2 emergency call.

The Niceville operator on the other end was clearly taken aback but played along with the child to make sure nothing was really wrong.

"Send the message all the way to Santa," the boy repeated.

"You want me to write a message to Santa?" the operator asked. "OK, what's your name? How old are you?" The child told her he had just turned 4 but didn't want the operator to get distracted from the mission.

The operator asked what the boy's dad did that was so bad that Santa had to be notified 11 months before the next Christmas arrived. She didn't get a straight answer, but the child was almost spot-on about what the proper punishment should be.

"When you're bad you get a big rock and you have to put it under your house," the kid explained. Usually Santa deals in lumps of coal, but maybe Dad really deserved a rock.

The operator dispatched a police officer to the house to make sure nothing criminal was going on and it turns out the little guy was just mad at his dad. No one was arrested, but no word on if Santa will be getting a letter in the mail.

Our news is reporting that they are "looking" into trying the Tucson shooter in CA to get a more fair jury pool I guess. Don't know if that will come to be or not.



TIS

This possible change of venue would seem to be in conflict with the following provision of the Constitution.

From the 6th Amendment: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law ..."

I wonder why they would even think about it then??



TIS


Edit: MSNBC is reporting that the story (in the Washington Post...I think) saying that they wanted to move this trial to San Diego, CA was NOT true.
Maybe they read the constitution then?

TIS, compromises regarding the Constitution are as old as the Republic. Trying to follow it strictly is impossible if you want a dynamic Nation. No doubt the reasoning in this case is the "impartial jury" provision.

Yup. Remember that the OKC bomber was tried in Denver.
If it's a federal crime they could move it out of the state with no problem, no?
CNN LINK

they should move his trial to texas

During court recesses, we hang 'em here.

Crazy and evil is a very dangerous and disgusting combination. Talk about dancing on graves. But this is what free speech allows.
Ugly language used of course...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpkxoql4xz0

Lilo,

That is really disturbing isn't it? I can't believe they preach such crap at that church. Like you say, it's their right to say what they want, but sadly their are those who will blindly follow them. This guy is crazy!!! I hope this guy doesn't have a gun until he gets a mental exam.

TIS

The Tucson shooter could get a change of venue. Timothy McVeigh was tried in Denver, not Oklahoma City.

I don't think Croff said that the would be burgular was a threat to his life but even if that had been the case he likely still would have been convicted. You can not chase a criminal off your property and kill them. He went from right to wrong in the eyes of the law.


Croff Convicted

Tigh Croff, a Detroit homeowner who chased down and shot a would-be burglar 13 months ago, was convicted this afternoon of manslaughter and a firearm offense for the slaying of Herbert Silas.
A Wayne County Circuit Court jury took less than two hours to find Croff, 32, guilty. Judge Michael Hathaway set a sentencing for Feb. 18 and allowed Croff to remain free on bond.

Croff faces a mandatory two years for using a firearm in the commission of a felony and up to 15 years for the shooting.

How is that evidence of this guy having the support of the Democratic Party? Would it make it easier for upcoming elections if this guy was a Tea Party or outspoken member of the GOP? Of course it would, but that is not the case. To imply that the guy has the support of the Democrats, and the fact that there are people out there that defend this, just just shows how gullible people are in this country.

"...It appears that what Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He's sitting there in jail; he knows what's going on. He knows that a Republican Party, the Republican Party, is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a guy who used his 2nd amendment right to try and stop an oppressive government. He's the latest in a never-ending parade of victims brought about by the unfairness of American government; big government, high taxes, governemnt spending, more and more regulations, communism, socialism, nazism, liberals.

Four cops shot.

Cops shot in police station

Domestic use of aerial drones by law enforcement likely to prompt privacy debate


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/22/AR2011012204111.html

Jesse Ventura sues DHS over body scans, pat-downs



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_ventura_airport_security

And when his plane blows up?? Is he going to sue the terrorists?

He was a Navy SEAL. He'll just snap their necks.

He'll just tell them, "I ain't got time to bleed".

TAMPA, Florida — The wife of a military officer shot and killed her son on the way to soccer practice, then drove to their upscale home and shot her daughter in the head while she studied at her computer, police said Friday. Afterward, the woman told detectives she killed the teens for being "mouthy."

Julie Powers Schenecker admitted the slayings after officers found her covered in blood on the back porch of her home Friday morning, police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said. Schenecker's mother had called police from Texas because she was unable to reach the 50-year-old woman, who she said was depressed and had been complaining about her children.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41319561/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts

How awful. The article mentions that she was in a serious car accident a month ago. Could she have suffered a brain injury? I can't imagine any other way a mother could so cold-bloodedly murder their children.

Video of Police Station shootout

Plot to blow up Dearborn mosque foiled by tip to police
Man arrested in Dearborn served time for threats against Bush
Jennifer Chambers and Francis X. Donnelly / The Detroit News
Dearborn — A decorated Army veteran accused of plotting to blow up a Metro Detroit mosque served time in federal prison for threatening to kill President George W. Bush and bomb a Vermont veterans' clinic in 2002.

Roger Stockham, 63, who flew 600 combat helicopter missions in Vietnam, is behind bars in Michigan after he drove from his home in California last week and parked a car with a trunk full of explosives outside the Islamic Center of America, authorities said.

Acting on a tip, Dearborn police thwarted the alleged plot by arresting Stockham outside the sprawling religious center, one of the largest mosques in North America. At the time, 500 members were attending a funeral at the mosque.

Stockham had high-end fireworks outside the 70,000-square-foot mosque, which has a 150-foot dome height and 10-story-tall minarets, said Dearborn Mayor John B. O'Reilly Jr.

"The kind that are illegal here and if used in a building would cause tremendous harm," O'Reilly said Sunday..
Full Article

Unfortunately some police are bullies. Once it was determined no crime was being committed they should have left the house. Sadly they got in a p****g match with the man and were not going to leave until they found a reason to assault him and arrest him. So it goes. Of course if my cheating wife had called the police because I wouldn't give her back her cell phone I rather think after I got out of jail and the hospital I might be looking for a new wife.
Audio Recording may overturn conviction

Can you beleive this? He will never learn.

Updated Feb 14, 2011 3:03 PM ET

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)
Former Ohio State quarterback Art Schlichter, whose NFL career was derailed by a gambling addiction, was charged Monday with stealing more than $1 million from a 68-year-old woman in suburban Columbus.

Schlichter has offered to cooperate with an ongoing police investigation into the sale of Ohio State football tickets and 2011 Super Bowl tickets, according to Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien, who didn't provide details on how the theft charge was related to the ticket investigation.

msnbc.com and NBC News updated 2/25/2011 7:46:51 PM ET

ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida authorities say a 26-year-old man raped a 2-year-old girl at SeaWorld Orlando and saved pictures of the crime on his cell phone, local media reported Friday.

Michael Grzybowicz of Cocoa Beach, Fla., has been held without bail in the Brevard County Jail since Saturday, Orange County sheriff's deputies said.

Grzybowicz is accused of raping the child on Feb. 17 after her mother had asked him to briefly watch the toddler inside the theme park, according to Orlando TV station WESH.

Pictures of the alleged rape were found on Grzybowicz’ phone and sent to his e-mail account, the sheriff's office said.

Sounds like something that would happen in this part of Arizona.

The Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision, has ruled that the incredibly offensive protest staged by Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church at the Kansas funeral of Matthew Snyder – a marine killed in Iraq – was a legitimate exercise of free speech.

In 2007, Matthew’s father, Albert Snyder, sued Westboro Church, and its leader, for invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy after Westboro members picketed the funeral with signs expressing slogans such as ”Thank God for dead soldiers,” “You’re Going to Hell,” “God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11,” and one that combined the U.S. Marine Corps motto, Semper Fi, with a slur against gay men.

SC Decision

Dying Man's ID of Killer Is Admissable, Court Rules
(CN) - Michigan prosecutors were allowed to use a dying man's last words in which he identified his attacker in a murder trial, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 6-2, on Monday. In a sharp dissenting opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the decision leaves the constitutional Confrontation Clause "in a shambles" and demeans the court.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored the court's majority opinion, which reverses the finding of the Michigan Supreme Court that the identification amounted to inadmissible testimony.

Detroit police spoke with the victim, Anthony Covington, as he lay on the ground of a gas station parking lot, dying of a gunshot wound to his abdomen in April 2001. Covington told police that he was shot after having a conversation with "Rick" through the back door of Rick's house. He drove to the gas station after he was shot through the door while leaving the property, Covington had said.

SC Decision on Admissible Testimony

As long as the victim was of sane mind, I don't understand how the dying man's statement would NOT be admissible. I don't see justification for throwing it out? If I were dying from a gunshot and let it be known who did it, I would like to think it would matter.



TIS

Perhaps the actual legal experts can chime in but my understanding is that it's (or rather it WAS) problematic to allow that into the courtroom because the accused can no longer challenge his/her accuser.

And, from what I know of our legal system, perhaps it's because the Accuser can't be cross-examined. Still, to think it just doesn't matter seems unfair.

TIS

Well, deathbed confessions have been admissable for decades. However, such a confession is not automatically admissable. Its admissability must be adjudicated. It's apparently the same for assailant identification. The "confrontation" clause of the Constitution (like most of the Constitution's clauses) have been qualified in our Nation's 200+ years of history. Just to illustrate, one can be convicted of murder without producing a body. In the extreme, a defendant could argue that the absence of a body precludes the defense from confronting the facts associated with the corpse.

The trial of James Ray, the spiritual guru involved in the sweatlodge deaths, opened yesterday in this county. It's being televised. His attorneys are claiming that Ray wasn't negligent int he deaths--the deaths and illnesses were caused by "toxins" in the wood and stones used to heat up the sweatlodge.

A Dodge County mother and father have pleaded guilty in connection with charges that they traded sex with their 14-year-old daughter for monthly payments on the family minivan.

Sandra Davis, 37, of Dodge County, pleaded guilty to child molestation in Dodge County Superior Court on Monday and was sentenced to eight years in prison, Oconee Circuit District Attorney Timothy Vaughn said.

She also must serve 12 years on probation.

Although Davis didn’t physically abuse her daughter, she admitted trading sex with her for the van payments, Vaughn said.

The girl’s father, 39-year-old James Clarence Davis, and 67-year-old Robert Wayne Bearden, pleaded guilty to child molestation and were sentenced to 10 years in prison, followed by 10 years on probation, Vaughn said.

Dodge County sheriff’s investigators have said the girl’s parents made her perform “sexual favors” for Bearden, who was manager of Shorty’s Used Cars in Eastman in 2010, so they wouldn’t have to make the $281 payments on their 1998 Dodge Caravan.

The girl, now 16, spoke at the sentencing hearing...
Parents sell daughter's services

I swear, I just threw up after reading that, Lilo. I've heard of addicts trading their children for drugs, but cold-blooded and sober?? I'm sure they'll find out what sexual molestation feels like shortly, but that's not enough justice.

God bless that poor child and help her heal. The only good to come out of this is that they can't contact her until she's in her 30s, at which point they'll hopefully never be able to find her.

The trial of James Ray, accused of manslaughter in the infamous sweat lodge deaths in Sedona last year, is being held here. So far the prosecution is painting a picture of a man who was utterly without any concern for health and well-being of his "samuri's." Defense is trying to maintain that everyone had free choice, and could have left if they wanted. Prosecution counters that Ray's total command over his accolytes intimidated them into endangering themselves. We'll see.

BY BRIAN McCOLLUM
DETROIT FREE PRESS POP MUSIC WRITER

The Supreme Court has quietly handed a major victory to Eminem in a much-watched case involving online royalties.

In a triumph for the Detroit star and his former production company, the court today declined to hear an appeal filed by Universal Music Group in a dispute over payments for downloaded tracks and ringtones.

The court let stand an appeals-court ruling against the record company — the world’s biggest — and set the stage for a potentially massive payout to the rapper and Ferndale’s F.B.T. Productions.

“For us, this is probably a $40 million to $50 million issue,” said Joel Martin of F.B.T., which filed the lawsuit in 2007. “Every artist who has this sort of language in their contract is now going to go back to their record company and say, ‘OK, so what do you want to do about (download royalties)?’”

F.B.T. administered Eminem’s deal with Universal in 1998, on the cusp of the MP3 revolution, and still has royalty rights in his work. The firm, which includes the well-known brother team Jeff and Mark Bass, has shared the rapper’s recording contract for some of the best-selling releases of the modern era, including albums such as “The Marshall Mathers LP” and last year’s “Recovery.”

Eminem was not a direct party in the suit, and has not publicly commented on it.

The Supreme Court has sent the case back to a trial court to determine damages. If Universal and F.B.T. cannot settle on a figure, a judge or a jury would decide what is owed.

At issue was the royalty rate for tracks distributed via online services such as iTunes. Universal claimed it owed F.B.T. the same royalty it paid for physical sales: 18% of the suggested retail price.

Eminem’s team argued that because Universal’s online agreements are actually licensing situations, not unit sales, a different type of calculation should kick in: 50% of net revenue. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in September, reversing an earlier jury decision.

There has been sharp disagreement about the ruling’s broader impact.

Universal and some industry observers have said it will have few ramifications beyond Eminem. Most current hit artists already have contracts that explicitly spell out download royalties, and many other deals have been reworked in recent years.

In a statement today, Universal spokesman Peter Lofrumento said: “The case has always been about one agreement with very unique language. As it has been made clear during this case, the ruling has no bearing on any other recording agreement and does not create any legal precedent.”

But other experts have said the ruling will have profound effects on an industry that has already seen massive upheaval in the past decade. With the Supreme Court’s tacit endorsement in hand, artists with older deals may feel empowered to attain higher payments for download sales.

That might include Motown performers seeking to address their royalty rates with Universal, parent company of Motown Records, guided by the same arguments that worked for Eminem.

“We’ve been waiting for this from the Supreme Court, but we’ve been talking with the artists about it, and they’ve been very interested,” said Billy Wilson of the Motown Alumni Association, which had filed an amicus brief in the case. “And it’s not just Motown artists, but many others in the same situation, who now have the same opportunity to renegotiate their contracts — and renegotiate the structure of the music industry, really.”

Royalities Ruling

When I was draft eligible during the Vietnam war, I got it into my tiny little head that the draft was unconstitutional because it constituted "involuntary servitude," banned by the 13th Amendment. I asked all my lawyer and law school acquaintances about it, not realizing how specialized the practice of law is--and how few specialize in constitutional law. I got interesting answers: Constitution gives Congress power to raise and maintain armies; President is Commander in Chief; 13th Amendment applied to "Negro slavery," not Selective Service, etc. Finally figured out, many years later, that I should have been looking at the "due process" clause of the Fifth Amendment. Selective Service had "due process" because you could appeal your classification--to your local board, to a larger board or to the President.

But, an underlying issue was: a man was a civilian until the moment he took the step forward at induction, yet Selective Service was run by the Defense Department and imposed military legal procedures on civilians. Most lawyers at the time didn't want to touch that one with a ten-foot pole. Muhammed Ali's law team won a major victory for civilian law when the Supreme Court overturned his draft-dodging conviction.

TB, my understanding is that SS is a civilian operation whose director is selected by the President.

I'm a little late to this thread, but the Federal Rules of Evidence, as well as the evidentiary rules of the states, preclude hearsay testimony in order to serve, in part, the interests of the confrontation clause. However, there are dozens of specified exceptions to the hearsay rule, which allow the testimony to be admitted. Among them is the dying declaration. Essentially, the declarant must have presence of mind that he is about to die; the statement must be related to his pending death; and he must die.

The reasoning is that someone facing certain death would not lie about the circumstances that brought about his death. The statement, like all others in a jury trial, must be judged by the jury. A dying man, who utters, "Geoff just shot me," gets the statement admitted in the murder trial against Geoff. If he said, "Geoff robbed the First National Bank in Trenton," under the same circumstances, then the statement is precluded as inadmissable hearsay against Geoff in the robbery trial. In the latter case the probative value of the utterance is less reliable than that of the former.

Thanks Kly! I guess that makes sense. Just a thought... How awful if someone is so cold or wants to frame someone so badly that they lie as they die.

TIS

Oli, the SS director is appointed by the president, but in the Vietnam era, and way before, the SS director was General Lewis B. Hershey, an active duty officer who was as durable in his post as J. Edgar Hoover. Most SS employees were civilians, but DoD ran it.

The victory Ali won: he claimed exemption as a Muslim minister. His draft board and every other body in the "due process" line turned him down. He refused induction and was convicted of draft-dodging. He got the max: 5 years in prison and a $10k fine, seldom levied in those days.

But: Ali was registered in a SS local in an all-black neighborhood in Houston. All the local SS board members were white. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Ali had been deprived of his rights because the composition of the draft board should have reflected the racial/religious makeup of the neighborhood or region it served--the better to enable them to understand religious claims such as Ali's. To my way of thinking, it was a major affirmation that Selective Service had some genuine "civilian" accountability.

So...the massage was ok until she found out he wasn't gay?
What if he never said he was gay in the first place?
And what does his sexuality have to do with her consenting to the massage? Either the act was criminal or it wasn't...

Jersey City Masseur Article

A Jersey City woman who consented to having her breasts and buttocks massaged at a Downtown health club said she thought it was normal and thought the masseur was gay, according to police reports said.

But hours later she filed criminal charges against the man after she learned he was in a relationship with a woman and the manager of Club H Fitness told her the massage was not proper, reports said...

Consent is consent. Shut up and enjoy your recently-lotioned skin.

This is just terrible. These people are dangerous. When he had the muscle Obama should have pushed to get the number of justices on the SC increased. Can you imagine being on death row b/c the prosecutor LIED and hid evidence and then when , no thanks to the prosecutor, you are able to get off death row and save your life, the SC accepts the argument that b/c the prosecutor hasn't done this enough times, you are unworthy of receiving compensation?

United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote his first majority opinion of the Term Tuesday and, naturally enough, it was a 5-4 decision against the interests of a criminal defendant whose constitutional rights had been dramatically violated by prosecutors. To mark the occasion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read her dissent aloud in court (also a first for the Term) and Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Ginsburg's well-chronicled BFF, took a few shots at her in an otherwise needless concurrence joined by Justice Samuel Alito.

All of this, mind you, occurred before the justices heard oral argument in Walmart v. Dukes, the massive class-action case which garnered sweeping attention at the courthouse Tuesday morning. No wonder the justices seemed so grumpy when the plaintiffs' lawyers started making their discrimination case (or maybe it was just the traffic ticket Justice Scalia's got coming in for work Tuesday morning). And no wonder the Court's striking ruling in Connick v. Thompson was left largely underreported.

Still, it's not every day that the Court so brazenly overrules a jury verdict in the name of protecting state prosecutors (and the political entities which employ them) from the consequences of sustained official misconduct. And it's been quite some time since the Court's conservative majority reached out in such a fashion to snatch form from the jaws of substance. In these circumstances, it's no surprise that Justice Ginsburg blew her stack or that Justices Thomas, Scalia and Alito reacted so defensively to her objections.

Here's the story. Convicted of murder, and on Louisiana's death row for 14 years, John Thompson was just one month away from being executed when defense investigators discovered exculpatory evidence that prosecutors had failed to share with Thompson's lawyers in the two cases (one for armed robbery, one for murder) which led him to death row. The evidence hidden by the state were blood samples -- not from Thompson's blood -- found at the scene of the robbery.

Confronted with the new evidence, an appeals court quickly reversed both of Thompson's convictions. Undaunted, prosecutors tried Thompson again for murder. This time, Thompson was acquitted. He then sued the district attorneys. Thompson alleged that prosecutors had intentionally caused him to be wrongfully imprisoned for a total of 18 years. He argued that the DA's office unconstitutionally handled exculpatory evidence -- or at least that lead prosecutors inadequately trained their office staff to handle such evidence.

Prosecutors conceded before Thompson's civil trial that they had violated the Brady rule, the constitutional standard designed to ensure that government officials don't hide exculpatory evidence in criminal cases. But they argued that it was an isolated incident and thus could not generate a viable damage award. The jury disagreed. It awarded Thompson $14 million -- one million for each year the man had wrongly spent on death row, you could say. The district attorney, Harry F. Connick (yes, the famous singer's father) appealed.
....

Wrongfully convicted man gets squat

http://detnews.com/article/20110503/METRO03/105030345

Shelby Township— The owners of a Shelby Township restaurant are facing up to life in prison on allegations they attempted to kill the owner of a competing restaurant with a baseball bat.

Brothers Giuseppe D'Anna, 58, and Girolamo D'Anna, 46, owners of Tiramisu Restaurant, were arraigned Friday in 41-A District Court on charges of assault with intent to murder, Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith said Monday.

Prosecutors say the pair is expected to be arraigned on additional counts of extortion and witness intimidation on May 16 during a scheduled preliminary examination in Shelby Township.

Authorities say the brothers stormed into Nonna's Restaurant near 23 Mile and Schoenherr at 10 p.m. Thursday and hit owner Pietro Ventimiglia over the head 11 times with an aluminum bat.

Holy crap!! Talk about killing off your competition.

Really how vicious! A baseball bat? That's horrible.



TIS

I heard that Wendy was going to do that to the Burger King!

Tough racket, the restaurant business. What they need is a local calm collected young man to guarantee their profit margins and ensure that everyone stays reasonable...

Local paper today reported on sentencing of a 23-year-old guy who pleaded guilty to "sexual conduct with a minor." He met a 13-year-old girl on the web, lured her to a motel, and had sex with her. Was consensual. But this effing dimwit showed up for sentencing with nonstop smiling and rolling his eyes while his family pleaded for mercy for him. The judge got angry and said his demeanor "shows you do not take responsibiity for your actions." He was supposed to get 13 years. She whacked him for 20.

..she said Lola, L-O-L-A...
Detroit Police Officer

Ha ha ha ha I heard the headline earlier but didn't read the story. No other officer will ever want to ride in a squad car again with this guy again. I'm guessing he's history.

TIS

Two trials that are getting national attention are taking place here in rural Yavapai County, AZ:

Stockbroker Stephen DeMocker is accused of bludgeoning his ex-wife to death with a golf club in order to avoide paying alimony. This case has been dragging on for two years. First the presiding judge had a seizure and later died of a brain tumor. Then his lawyers abruptly resigned when an e-mail that they tried to have introduced as evidence (allegedly pointing to others as the murderers) was written by DeMocker's daughter and posted from an internet cafe. The acting judge declared a mistrial. Before that, the dimwit coroner admitted that he drove the wife's body in the bed of his pickup truck 100 miles to Phoenix to perform the autopsy, and that nonsterile instruments were used in getting fingernail scrapings, which turned up DNA from three men other than the defendant.
Now his new lawyers are trying to get him sprung from solidary, where he's been since last September. But the prosecutor says the judge has no authority over the country jail: "The sheriff can do what he wants."

The second trial is of James Arthur Ray, charged with manslaughter in the deaths of three participants in a sweat lodge that was part of his "motivational spiritual seminar" in Sedona last summer. Ray charged his participants ten grand for three days of starvation and dehydration, proving that a fool and his money are soon parted. His lawyers are claiming that the participants were adults and capable of assessing their own risk. Now they're claiming the deaths weren't due to heat stroke, but to insecticides found nearby.

You know TB, given the huge travesties of justice that are being revealed through the Innocence Project, the standard we impose on the justice system has to be as close to exacting as possible.

Well, it sure isn't exacting in the DeMocker case, I can tell you that. After the mistrial was declared, the local paper interviewed some of the jurors. All said they thought he was guilty, but the prosecution had so botched the investigation and evidence that they'd never vote to convict him. I think the prosecution is retaliating by keeping him in solitary.

This fellow is VERY lucky he wasn't shot or beaten.
I admire his knowledge of the law and willingness to stand up to incorrect police officers. That said, I'm still not sure he couldn't have handled it in a smarter way.

MARK FIORINO'S story has three elements that tend to get people worked up - gun rights, Philly police and YouTube.

On a mild February afternoon, Fiorino, 25, decided to walk to an AutoZone on Frankford Avenue in Northeast Philly with the .40-caliber Glock he legally owns holstered in plain view on his left hip. His stroll ended when someone called out from behind: "Yo, Junior, what are you doing?"

Fiorino wheeled and saw Sgt. Michael Dougherty aiming a handgun at him.

What happened next would be hard to believe, except that Fiorino audio-recorded all of it: a tense, profanity-laced, 40-minute encounter with cops who told him that what he was doing - openly carrying a gun on the city's streets - was against the law.

"Do you know you can't openly carry here in Philadelphia?" Dougherty asked, according to the YouTube clip."Yes, you can, if you have a license to carry firearms," Fiorino said. "It's Directive 137. It's your own internal directive."

The cops, department officials later admitted, were wrong. They didn't know that a person who has a license to carry a firearm can openly carry it in the city.

But the story doesn't end there. How could it...

Mark Fiorino Incident-Full Story




EDIT: Perhaps an attorney or other legal expert could answer: is there a legal requirement to comply with an unlawful order by a police officer?

It all depends on state law. Generally, there is no such right. There are too many variables involved. For one, what's unlawful? How is that determined and who determines it?

I was thinking of situations where you have completely rogue officers-ie. that case in NY where the officers allegedly sexually assaulted a woman, or other situations where officers may break into the wrong home without identifying themselves as officers or break into a home looking to steal things or similar such actions.

EDIT: There was that 2007 case in Chicago where a drunk cop beat the **** out of a woman bartender who had refused to serve him. If she had gone for the 12 gauge under the counter, or someone else had would that have been justified?

Well, you've described criminal activity, not orders.

In some instances it might be difficult to tell the difference in the heat of the moment. I'm thinking about situations like the ruling in Indiana, the recent dustup in my home town or this case in Maryland.

As you have stated it looks like many states differ but not all of them have eliminated the right to resist unlawful actions by police. I need to see what the status is in Michigan.

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/17/ben-stein-blame-accuser/

LAS VEGAS -- O.J. Simpson's lawyer won't get a chance to plead for the imprisoned former football star's freedom before the full seven-member Nevada Supreme Court.

The state's highest court issued a terse and unanimous order Tuesday declining to do what three of its members already refused to do -- hear Simpson's appeal of his conviction and nine-to-33-year prison sentence in a 2007 armed confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas casino hotel room.

Simpson lawyer Malcolm LaVergne told The Associated Press he understood the court's reluctance to hear oral arguments after a three-justice panel in October denied Simpson's appeal and declined in February to reconsider. LaVergne said he'll take the case now to the federal courts.

updated 5/24/2011 6:46:55 PM ET 2011-05-24T22:46:55

ORLANDO, Fla. — The attorney for a Florida woman [Case Anthony]charged with killing her 2-year-old daughter outlined a bombshell defense Tuesday, contending the toddler accidentally drowned in a swimming pool and her grandfather covered it up. After nearly three years of sensational details and rumors in tabloids and television shows, Casey Anthony's murder trial got under way in an Orlando courtroom.

That argument doesn't hold water.

Another that doesn't hold water:

Dominique Strauss-Kahn now claims the sex between him and the chambermaid was "consensual." Asshole.

msnbc.com news services updated 2 hours 20 minutes ago 2011-05-25T19:44:23

PHOENIX — A federal judge has ruled that the suspect in the Arizona shooting rampage that wounded U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is mentally incompetent to stand trial, putting the criminal case on hold indefinitely.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Larry Burns means 21-year-old Jared Lee Loughner will be sent to a federal facility for up to four months in a bid to restore his competency.

Is it just me or does anyone else find Rob Blagojevich amusing? I heard he's on the stand, testifying in his defense (not always advised, but doesn't that just sound like him?); and he's rambling on and on about his upbringing; he told the jury that he wasn't a good lawyer; and he apologized for his language on the phone conversations saying he wasn't serious about the bribe; and just now I'm hearing he "broke down" when he told the jury how he met his wife. I don't know the guy but picture him to be like a used car salesman.

I mean, I don't say the guy is innocent, but I can't get myself to dislike him because he's so darn funny.

TIS

...he has great hair, though....

Oh, and he told the jury he had a "man crush" on Alexander Hamilton. They guy is hilarious.



TIS

Cops Acquitted of Rape Charges

msnbc.com staff and news service reports updated 2 hours 4 minutes ago

YUMA, Ariz. — A 73-year-old gunman apparently upset over his divorce case went on a shooting spree Thursday around Yuma county, Ariz., killing at least five people including himself and the attorney representing his ex-wife, officials said.

A sixth person was injured and flown to a Phoenix-area hospital.
Authorities identified the suspected shooter as Carey Hal Dyess of Yuma. Yuma County Sheriff's deputies found Dyess with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound near Blaisdell and Highway 95 around 11:35 a.m.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43256351/ns/...ings/?GT1=43001

SAN FRANCISCO – Gene Balas and Carlos Morales were facing health problems and crushing financial pressures plaguing many U.S. households when they decided to file bankruptcy as a married couple.

The Obama administration said they couldn't, citing the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriages.

On Monday, 20 of 24 judges sitting on the country's largest consumer bankruptcy court sided with the gay couple. In doing so, the court took the extraordinary step of declaring the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

The ruling is the first such attack of the Defense of Marriage Act in bankruptcy court, and it adds to the building pressure on the Obama administration to make good on a February pledge to stop defending the law in court.

Balas and Morales were among the 18,000 Californian same-sex couples who wed Aug. 30, 2008, during the brief period when gay marriages were legal in the state.

"It is hurtful to hear my own government say that my marriage is not valid for purposes of federal law," Balas said in a court filing.

Balas said he was laid off from his $200,000-a-year job in the financial industry in March 2009. The couple said they share all income and expenses...
Full Article

I actually remember this event.

Ypsilanti— A woman involved with her three sons in a notorious shootout at a motel in 1987 that resulted in the death of three Inkster police officers has died.
Alberta Easter, who was being held at Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti, died on Sunday shortly after being taken to St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, a Department of Corrections spokesman said.
Easter, who was 93, died from natural causes, according to prison system spokesman Russ Marlan.
The shootout occurred at an Inkster motel where Easter was living when the officers tried to arrest her and one of her sons on charges that they bounced a $286 check.
After the officers were shot, Easter and three sons kept other police at bay during a 10-hour standoff that involved hundreds of rounds fired from the first-floor motel room.
Killed in the initial shootout were Officers Clay Hoover, 24, and Dan Dubiel, 36, and Sgt. Ira Parker, 41.
Hoover and Dubiel were shot 29 times each, according to testimony at the murder trial.
Easter and three sons were convicted of first-degree murder and given three life sentences apiece.

http://detnews.com/article/20110614/METR...s#ixzz1PLV7OfNZ

One of the biggest trials in the West, which is being held here, is going to the jury tomorrow:

James Arthur Ray is charged with multiple counts of manslaughter in a "Spiritual Warrior" sweat lodge experience in which three people died. How they died is the point on which this case turns. Prosecution alleges Ray deliberately told his followers they'd be liberated after a "near death" experience, and refused to acknowledge or help people who were obviously in extremis from heat stroke. Defense alleges they had free choice, and that insecticides embedded in and near the sweat lodge caused the deaths. Both sides paid expert witnesses to testify to the cause of death--they didn't rely on the coroner, whose testimony wasn't considered definitive.

Senior Citizen Foils Carjacker

He walked from the post office to his Ford Escape, carefully looking around as he always does, before getting in the vehicle. A second later, a gun was pointed at him.

It was early afternoon on June 13, and Moses Baldwin was being carjacked.

But he isn't your average 81-year-old: Baldwin is a retired Detroit police officer who served on the force for 25 years and carries a concealed weapon.

The retired cop and carjacker exchanged gunfire. The thief escaped, but by Thursday, police said they had identified a suspect.

The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office is reviewing a warrant request for the suspect, who is in custody on other charges. Baldwin said he knows the outcome could have been different as he fought off a young, armed carjacker.

"Get out, get out, get out, get out, get out!' " Baldwin said the man yelled, telling him to put the keys in the ignition.

But Baldwin threw the keys on the floor. He said he was trying to buy time so he could get up from his seated position.

"I just slid out and started backing up and he says, 'Give me your money,' " Baldwin said.

"I said, 'I don't have any money.' "

Baldwin, who would end up about 10-15 feet away from the carjacker, reached into his pocket. He had some loose cash and pulled out a $5 bill with his left hand and threw it.

Then he reached for something else.

The carjacker, Baldwin said, asked: "What you reaching for? What you reaching for?'"

"I said, 'This.' "....

msnbc.com news services updated 2 hours 4 minutes ago 2011-06-20

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled for Wal-Mart on Monday in the largest sex-discrimination lawsuit ever, handing down a decision that could have broad implications for workers seeking jointly to sue their employers.

The justices overturned an earlier U.S. appeals court ruling that gave class-action status to 1.5 million female Wal-Mart employees, past and present, seeking billions of dollars in a suit accusing the retailer of paying women less and giving them fewer promotions at the company.

Woman arrested for videotaping police

NEW YORK -- In May, the Rochester Police Department arrested a woman on a charge of obstructing governmental administration after she videotaped several officers' search of a man's car. The charge is a criminal misdemeanor.

The only problem? Videotaping a police officer in public view is perfectly legal in New York state -- and the woman was in her own front yard. The arrest report of the incident also contains an apparent discrepancy from what is seen in the woman's own video...

so, its legal and on her own property. i believe the officer will be suspended because he just cost the force some money.

What is going on in Tennessee?
Cyber-Bullying Law goes too far??

DSK case about to fall apart?

The criminal case against French political heavyweight Dominique Strauss-Kahn is in jeopardy of falling apart because the hotel maid who accused him has been caught in a web of lies, sources said.

The Bronx chambermaid's credibility crumbled as investigators linked her to a network of crooks and found her to have to multiple bank accounts stuffed with a total of almost $100,000 in dirty cash, sources said Thursday night.

Prosecutors now believe there was little truth in anything the Guinean-born maid has told them since NYPD cops yanked the one-time contender for the French presidency off a plane at Kennedy Airport on May 14, the sources said.

Rush to Justice???

This makes it all the more difficult to prosecute rapists. It's a terrible situation.

Of course if Strauss is innocent or if the evidence says he should not be charged, so be it.

BUT, it's just wrong to me that in cases like rape you can dig up all kinds of shit about the accuser's past, BUT if the defendant has had similar arrests for same charges, in some (if not all?) states, it can't be known to the jury.

That being said, it is sad that some women would falsely accuse a man of rape. I just can't imagine any woman wanting to go through the legal process based on a lie. Takes all kinds I guess.

TIS

Texas rules of trial procedures prevent a defendant from bringing up an alledged rape victim's sexual history. Pre-trial motions may result in such history emerging.

This is what has happened in the Strauss case. The accuser's veracity is being questioned by investigators. A defendant's arrest and conviction record at trial would prejudice the jury, so it is disallowed.

Prosecutors' Letter

Exactly.

MSNBC is reporting there is a verdict in the Casey Anthony trial to be read at 2:15 p.m. Talk about quick deliberations.



TIS

Gotta be guilty, no?

I mean, deliberations that fast usually only come back in favor of the prosecution. But I guess that's not an exact science. I'll tell you one thing: If they found her guilty of capital first-degree murder that fast, they're very likely to vote in favor of the death penalty at sentencing. Central Florida has an awful lot of Bible thumpers.

I guess we'll know soon enough .

All the speculation is that it is guilty but you never really know. Obviously they all must have been on the same page going into deliberations. It does seem there was a lot of evidence (a lot of circumstancial evidence I hear) to go over but they must have been convinced one way or the other.....my guess is it's guilty.


TIS

NOT GUILTY except on the "providing wrong information to law enforcement" charges.


TIS

See, you never know.

Not guilty across the board except for making false statements to law enforcement.

Wow!

Having served on one murder trial, I can say I took it very seriously as I'm guessing these jurors did. You try to follow the judge's instructions (which is like a novel it seems); you must not hold it against the defendant if he/she doesn't take the stand and you judge by evidence/testimony provided. It can be very very stressful and when it comes to murder and in this case possible death penalty, one would certainly want to be thorough and fair.

I laugh at the talking heads having to backtrack after all there speculations that a quick verdict means "guilty." I admit, I thought that's what it would be too. You truly NEVER know.

TIS

BTW, regarding the charges of making false statements to law enforcement, with her being in jail all this time can the courts say it was "time served" and she'll go free in the end?

Sure, that could very well happen, Tis.

Say the Judge gives her a year for each count she's been found guilty of, then runs them concurrently. If she's been incarcerated for longer than said year, she'd get time served. But I'm just using one year as an example; I'm not even sure what the penalty is in Florida.

One thing's for sure: Every day that she's spent behind bars will count towards her sentence. That's the law.

saw that coming...sadly enough their wasn't enough proof saying that casey killed her daughter. the only proof they have is that casey is a bitch when it comes to being a mother.

Won't that be an interesting house for Thanksgiving dinner.

If this had been an accident, she would've never acted the way she acted. Molested by her father? Are you fucking kidding me? Then her mother comes on the stand and lies about Googling chloroform. I'm not saying I would've wanted her to get the death penalty, but convict her for aggravated manslaughter!!! The behavior this woman displayed is sick.

TIS. You asked if she could get time served for being found guilty for lying to the police. She very well could. She's been in prison for the last three years now and she faces up to five years in prison for four counts of providing false information to the authorities. PB pretty much answered this, but that's the penalty down in Florida. If she gets three years or less, she'll walk right then and there.

I agree. I'm anti-death penalty except for very extreme cases, but I was hoping this woman would have been found guilty of at least manslaughter. In Florida the judge would probably have maxed her out. Now she's going to be out after doing only three years for a crime that she obviously played a part in.

Don't even get my wife started. She's hoping some redneck cracker grabs a shotgun on the courthouse steps .

If only I were in Florida.....

The only thing I really liked about this was watching Nancy Grace's head explode.

Ha ha ha!! I heard a clip of her reaction which was unusually calm BUT she remarked something like "The Devil is Dancing Tonight."


TIS

Yeah, as disgusted as I am by this verdict, at least Grace has one less thing to be so fucking smug about. She's a HORRIBLE woman. It wouldn't surprise me if her boyfriend in college paid that guy to kill him, just so he could get away from her.

Although I know that the defense did their job extremely well, I found their jumping up and down and celebrating a bit much. The news showed footage of them high-fiving each other and whooping it up in a bar afterwards. They may as well have been dancing on Caylee's little grave.

Could someone PLEASE remember that a little girl died, far too young, and way too tragically? Although I'm sure that she died by her mother's hand, the prosecution didn't have a strong enough case to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. It's a horror, for sure, and Caylee deserved way better.

Nancy Grace or Gloria Allred. Who do you hate more? I've wrestled with that question for the past two weeks or so. Best case scenario: Casey Anthony finishes them both off with a tire iron and goes to prison for life. That would mean justice for so many people.

i'm still pissed off at nancy grace for ruining the lives of those accused in the duke lacross rape case. and, i almost forgot about the mother who committed suicide the night after talking to nancy grace.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Police say seven people have been fatally shot at two locations in the western Michigan city of Grand Rapids and the victims include a child.

Chief Kevin Belk tells The Grand Rapids Press the deaths were discovered Thursday afternoon, and police are looking for a suspect. Belk says the shootings are related.

The paper says two women and a child were found dead at one house, and three women and a man were found at the other home.

Police tell The Associated Press that there has been a shooting but say no other information is immediately available.

So, Casey Anthony will be released next week, on July 17, to be exact. I wonder what this woman will do now.

By the way, is there anyone here who worries about her safety?

Lilo, I saw this on the crawl during the news this morning, but not much information was given. I believe it said that the shooter had killed himself.

Maybe you should take her to live with you over in Iceland, on your turf, where she'll be safe. Teach her what you learned in the 5th grade....and get her a job as a pizzagirl.




Was she worried about little Caylee's safety?

Lilo,

I went to M-Live to try to get more info. It certainly is a horrible crime. They said it was by a small lake but then said it led them to downtown G.R.which has no lakes but the Grand River. I was curious as to which lake since I know several in the area and my parents use to live on a lake.


TIS

Grand Rapids— A gunman who killed seven people before ending his own life Thursday in the West Michigan city was on a malicious manhunt looking for any woman he had ever dated, police said today.
But Police Chief Kevin Belk said today he didn't know why Rodrick Shonte Dantzler was angry at his former flames.
Belk said Dantzler's huge cache of ammunition showed the act was premeditated, but he wouldn't speculate whether Dantzler was mentally ill.
"There's no question he went out hunting these people down," the chief said during a press conference.
The names of the seven victims were released by police. They were: Jennifer Marie Heeren, 29, an ex-girlfriend; 12-year-old Kamrie Deann Heeren-Dantzler, Dantzler's daughter; 52-year-old Rebecca Lynn Heeren, Jennifer Heeren's mother; 51-year-old Thomas Heeren, her father; 23-year-old Kimberlee Ann Emkens, a woman Dantzler had previously dated; 27-year-old Amanda Renee Emkens, Kimberlee Emkens' sister; and 10-year-old Marissa Lynn Emkens, Amanda Emkens' daughter.Autopsies are scheduled for today.
At the press conference, held at Grand Rapids Police headquarters, Mayor George Heartwell said the bloody rampage had shaken the community to its roots.
"It's so uncharacteristic that it boggles the mind, even to imagine it could happen here," he said.
He counseled residents to talk to each other, and for neighbors to reassure one another.
Dantzler targeted each of his victims, which included two ex-girlfriends and his 12-year-old daughter, police said today.
Belk also said Dantzler took cocaine and alcohol in the hours after his shooting spree.
Heartwell today also praised local and state authorities for relentlessly pursuing Dantzler and for their negotiating skills that helped keep three hostages alive. Heartwell said that the surviving hostages taken Thursday by Dantzler might not have lived without the patience and skill of hostage negotiators. Police say they tried to talk him into giving up but at the last moment he killed himself.
Heartwell said he wishes Dantzler hadn't taken his own life so "we could have brought him to justice." The mayor says "there were entire neighborhoods that were traumatized by these events."
"This is a rare occurrence anywhere," Heartwell said. "A homicide like this is exceedingly rare. It's an awful situation."
Dantzler had been on the run for hours Thursday, leading police on a high-speed chase through downtown Grand Rapids after the deadly shootings began around 3 p.m. Officers soon found three bodies in a home on Plainfield Avenue. An hour later, they discovered the other four across town in a ranch-style house on a cul-de-sac called Brynell Court...

Full Article

Curious as to why the Grand Rapids massacre story was posted in the Dead Pool thread?

It deserves a thread of its own, IMO.

I saw this on the news yesterday. Unbelievably horrible.

Not that there is any direct connection, but I immediately thought of TIS - though she's been a Californian for years, she's originally from Grand Rapids.

Signor V.

Hi SV,

I am following this story as my heart is still very close to G.R. I spoke with my mom and brother/sister yesterday. Evidently my brother and sister were in the downtown area and although not right in the police chase area, very near to it as it happened. The guy ended up killing himself.

They also told me that a memorial is planned for the victims on the same day that a memorial (or service) is planned for Betty Ford.

TIS

Meanwhile, in our biggest local murder case:
"
"Attorneys for Steven DeMocker have renewed their call for dismissal of his murder case on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct, due process violations and "possible ethical violations," according to a motion filed with the court.

"The allegations come in a 21-page motion written by defense attorney Craig Williams. He claimed that the state's response to his original motion amounts to a "confession" of wrongdoing.

DeMocker, 56, is awaiting a retrial, currently set for September. He is accused of killing his ex-wife, Carol Kennedy, in 2008.

In the reply motion, Williams restated his major allegation: "The state illegally viewed and printed ex parte pleadings using the OnBase (computerized records) system. And not just a little. Not by accident. Not inadvertently."

Ex parte information is intended to be kept between one side, in this case, the defense, and the judge. Williams has produced copies demonstrating that the documents were so marked.

Williams asserted that the defense team's check of the computerized database records turned up 60 instances of such activity, and that the prosecution admitted to the violations. He quoted the state's response: "The State concedes that its employees viewed and/or printed the subject documents ... "

The response offered by Deputy Yavapai County Attorney Dennis McGrane last month essentially said that a "computer programming oversight" allowed access via the OnBase document system to people who should not have had the right to see the sealed documents, and that there was no warning to those staffers that the documents were not to be viewed.

Williams pounced on that statement, writing, " ... this assumes a free-for-all at the County Attorney's Office, where there is no supervision nor oversight as to what documents are being viewed and/or printed."
--Prescott Daily Courier

Seems to me the defense is firing a shot across the judge's bow. They're saying that it's a reversable error. If the judge refuses the motion, let the trial go forward, and if DeMocker is convicted, it'll be the basis for an appeal. No judge wants to be reversed by an appellate court--looks awful on his/her record and compromises chances to be appointed to a higher court.

The prosecution has made an incredible botch of this case. A mistrial was declared last year. Local paper interviewed dismissed jurors. All of them said they thought the defendant was guilty, but the state had not made a convincing case.

It is unfortunate TB that, in most cases, the only remedy for such misconduct is to penalize us all by either excluding inculpatory evidence or dismissing charges.

Agreed. I don't think this guy is ever going to be brought to justice (although he's been jailed for more than two years, in solitary since last September).

In one of the most egregious screw-ups on the prosecuter side: The coroner tossed the victim's body in the back of his pickup truck and drove to Phoenix, 100 miles away, for the autopsy. His assistants didn't sterilize their instruments--including those that took DNA samples from under the victim's fingernails. The coroner later applied for a position in another state. He was hired--then fired after the pickup truck stunt came out.

This is a pretty ugly story. We'll see how it turns out-if things happened as alleged. Among other reasons this is why I think it is important for people to always have the means to protect themselves. Because there are people out there who aren't wired properly and can't be reasoned with.

It all happened when Johnny, Lisa and Alyssa Bonty, and their son-in-law, all from the Reno Sparks Indian Colony, stopped at the Quick Stop to get some gas in Fernley NV on May 24th.
Johnny Bonta got out of the car to pump some gas when a carload full of skinheads pulled up alongside him. One of them got out of the car with a baseball bat and tried to pick a fight. Johnny told him he didn't want to fight and got back into the car. The family then drove off, with his son-in-law, Shane Murray, behind the wheel. But now the skinheads were in pursuit...

Native American Family Attacked

Lilo

That is just awful. I know, I know, people have their prejudices and many are very verbal about it, but for such hate to inspire this kind of violence is just plain unacceptable and wrong.

I remember some years ago a group of friends and I were in Vegas for the weekend. We were waiting in line in the buffet of all places and some people at the front of the line evidently didn't speak English (or speak it well) and were holding up the line. There was a few people in line yelling at these people to "Speak English or go back to .... (their country). How awful is that, not to mention that in Vegas you get people from all over the world (you would think at least there it would be more understandable to some of these big mouths).

TIS

This has my skin crawling. I can't get the little boy's face out of my mind.

Brooklyn Missing Boy: Police Arrest Man the Dismembered Child Had Asked for Directions

By CHRISTINA NG, ABC News
July 13, 2011

Police have arrested the man whom a missing Brooklyn, N.Y., boy had asked for directions before his dismembered body was found this morning in two separate locations, including the man's refrigerator, authorities said.

The two-day search ended today when remains believed to be that of Leiby Kletzky, 8, were found early this morning in two Brooklyn locations, two and a half miles from each other. Body parts were found in a black plastic garbage bag inside of suitcase in a dumpster and in the refrigerator of the third floor attic of the home where 35-year-old Levy Aron lived, police said at a news conference this morning.

"It was a very brutal murder," New York Assemb. Dov Hikind told WABC. "This is the worst possible conclusion imaginable."

Leiby was reported missing Monday when he did not meet his mother at a pre-arranged location seven blocks from his camp. Police say the boy and the mother had gone to the location Friday and she had showed him the route he was to take.

Police say Leiby left camp at 5:05 p.m. and missed the turn he was to take to meet his mother. He was lost and asked a stranger, Aron, for directions, police said. The suspect was reportedly described as wearing "trappings" of the Orthodox Jewish community.

Security video footage shows Leiby speaking to Aron on a corner by his car, police said. Aron then went across the street and entered a building, while Kletzky waited for seven minutes. When Aron returned, the boy and the man got into his car, police said.

Detectives discovered that the building was a dentist's office where Aron went and paid a bill while Leiby waited.

After locating one of the dentists at the practice in New Jersey and a receptionist, the man's identity was determined and police went to his house, a three story home owned by the suspect's father. Aron's parents live on the first floor, his uncle lives on the second and he had been living in the third floor attic apartment, police said.

Police arrived at Aron's apartment at about 2:40 a.m. and found the door slightly ajar. The suspect was standing shirtless in the middle of the room. When asked where the boy was, he pointed toward the kitchen, police said.

There was blood on the refrigerator handle and police found a cutting board and three carving knives inside along with remains that are believed to be the boy's, police said. Aron also directed them to the dumpster where more remains were found, police said.

Police believe Aron took Leiby to his apartment and allegedly killed him there when he panicked after seeing all the fliers and people searching for the child.

There is no indication that Aron was connected to the boy or his family in any way prior to this incident, police said.

The case has drawn comparisons to the mysterious and highly publicized 1979 disappearance of Etan Patz, a 6-year-old boy who left for school and never came home. No body or suspect was ever found and the case was re-opened in May 2010.

"I am speechless and shocked by the brutality and injustice of this horrific crime," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler of Brooklyn said in a statement. "As a father and a human being, I am deeply saddened that so innocent a soul could be so cruelly taken."

Thousands of community members, investigators and detectives participated in the search for Leiby Tuesday. The FBI was involved and a $100,000 reward was offered. Police describe the area as a "very safe neighborhood" and call the situation "every parent's nightmare."

An autopsy was started this morning.

Some people look human on the outside.

This falls into the "Did not know who he was ****** with" category..

DETROIT (WJBK) - Two guys walked in to a very busy Gents Barbershop at about 5:30 p.m. Friday on Whittier at Stratman on Detroit's east side. One with a gun said, "You know what time it is."

What the two bad guys didn't know was two customers were legally carrying handguns.

A man in a chair getting a cut took advantage of pulling his gun under the cover of the smock....
Barber Shop Robbery

Ok she didn't kill him but I still think the death penalty would be appropriate.

Catherine Kieu mutilates Husband



A California woman was charged with torture on Wednesday after authorities said she cut off her husband's penis with a kitchen knife and ground it up in a garbage disposal.
Catherine Kieu, 48, is accused of tying her sleeping husband to a bed with nylon ropes, pulling down his pants and slicing off his penis, the Orange County District Attorney's Office said in a written statement.

Ha ha!! Yea I read that. It really is NOT funny and I agree with you that she should get a pretty hefty sentence. It is such a brutal and vicious crime.

Btw, what sentence did Loreena Bobbit get after she did the same thing?


TIS

She was found not guilty due to insanity. She's a free woman today.

is their a way for guys to keep track of her?

Per google she remarried/or is in a LTR.. go figure.

This is one of the most horrifying murders I've ever read about. Perhaps also because I, too, live in Brooklyn - though not in the neighborhood where this atrocity occurred - and I consider it as having happened practically in my back yard. Yesterday afternoon as I left my apartment building, I saw that a flyer with the boy's photo and description had been posted near the entrance. On the main shopping street a block away, several flyers were taped to light posts and visible in store windows. Then, this morning, I heard the tragic news and that a suspect had been arrested.

As I write this, there is a huge funeral in progress and thousands of people from the Hasidic Jewish community are expected to fill the streets in the Borough Park neighborhood.

And what about the bastard who murdered that poor, innocent child? According to what I heard on the news, his ex-wife was shocked at the arrest and said she couldn't imagine him doing such a thing. Perhaps. But it would be equally horrifying if this guy gets off on an insanity defense or something similar. Yes, I know, in this country everyone is entitled to be defended and represented by counsel, but my gut feelings say if there was ever a case where the death penalty should be considered (though admittedly,there hasn't been an execution here since 1976), this one is it.

Signor V.

They'll be counting the funeral watchers in TENS of thousands.

The Hasidim are VERY clannish and have a strong sense of community. When the kid first disappeared the word got out in the neighborhood and they quickly had a thousand volunteers scouring the neighborhood looking for the boy. Within 24 hours $100,000 was offered as a reward (an amazing amount in a relatively short period of time).

One thing I don't understand.... how did the parents allow this eight year old to be on his own on the streets of Brooklyn? I grew up in a less crazed time and I wasn't allowed on my own in the streets at that age.

I heard this morning that the little angel was autistic? My God, I can't bear to think of the pain the family's going through. But to let an 8 year old autistic boy walk alone? I don't know....

nancy grace, and HLN should apologize to this woman who was mistaken as casey anthony.

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/28557195/detail.html

I'm kind of catching up on this story but it is simply horrible. That poor little kid. They said the killer had no criminal record nor history of violence, was a local in that area. Is he nuts????

TIS

From what I heard on the news yesterday, his attorney is already laying the groundwork for an insanity defense, saying his client (who is being held on a suicide watch) has been "hearing voices."

Insanity my ass. According to news reports, this guy drove the boy to a wedding (though none of the guests remember seeing the child there) and then kept him in his home until he saw that the police (and the Hasidic community) were searching everywhere - then he panicked, suffocated the boy and dismembered him in an attempt to dispose of the evidence.

But I figured the attorney would be setting the stage for pleading insanity. Somehow, I just knew this was where it would all be headed.

Signor V.

Leiby Kletzky’s alleged killer reportedly tried to kidnap other boys

Source: JTA.org



Leiby Kletzky:



Here is the monster responsible for the murder of his innocent child:

I feel for this boy's family. Just awful, beyond imagination.

What's up New Jersey?
How about some jelly roll with your jelly roll donut?
Or maybe some extra cream in your coffee...

Attack in Jersey

LONDON (AP) — A man was arrested on suspicion of stabbing six people to death, including three children, on the British island of Jersey in what was the deadliest crime in the community's living memory, police said.

Neighbors said Sunday the victims were members of the same family. The dead, all Jersey residents, were a man, two women and three children, police said.

Some were stabbed inside their home, others outside the property, which is located on a relatively secluded side street. The 30-year-old suspect, who was not identified, also sustained unspecified injuries that were not life-threatening. Police said they were questioning him at his hospital bed.

Neighbors said they thought at least some of the victims were Polish. One witness, Andre Thorpe, said he saw police running around the property trying to gain access, then paramedics carrying a bloodied child from the scene.

Police Det. Superintendent Stewart Gull, who is leading the investigation, said his officers had yet to establish the victims' ages and the circumstances of the attack. He said the crime had shocked everyone.

"It goes without saying that when you are dealing with multiple deaths, of men and women and, in particular young children, you would be inhuman not to be shaken yourself," he said.

Violent crime is unusual and murder rare on Jersey, a British island dependency 14 miles (22 kilometers) west of France's Normandy peninsula. The largest of Britain's Channel Islands has a police force of 236 officers to protect about 92,500 residents, many of them tax exiles...

From Sun-Sentinel

63-year-old holds off robber with rear naked choke
By Maggie Hendricks

A robber messed with the wrong man in Florida on Thursday night. 63-year-old, 5-foot-7 Fred Kemp used a foot sweep and a rear naked choke to disarm a robber who pointed a gun at Kemp and his wife.
The couple was getting into their car in Boynton Beach when a man came out of the darkness and approached them with what turned out to be a pellet gun. Wanting to keep his wife safe, Kemp returned to the skills that he learned as a wrestler for Hofstra University.
"He started to hit me, so I reacted from there," a bruised but smiling Kemp said Friday. "I got him out into the street and held his arm. I foot-sweeped him down and I was trying to get a hold of the gun. He banged me up a little bit but my main concern was the gun."
Kemp's quick thinking led him to apply a rear-naked choke, then when the robber was weakened, he took the gun from him. The police report mentioned that Kemp held the robber down until the police arrived.
"He asked me to let him go when I had him down," Kemp said. "I said, 'No, I'm not going to do that.'"

Fighters who started as wrestlers often go back to rely on their wrestling skills when they get in trouble in a fight. Clearly, that instinct sticks with them, because Kemp was smart enough to rely on his sport when danger found him. Joe DeMeo, a friend of Kemp's through wrestling, was not surprised to hear that Kemp took out the criminal.
"Fred Kemp's the last guy I would rob," DeMeo said. "He'll go down fighting. … He does have a lot of physical ability. He's a no-nonsense, get-the-job-done kind of guy."
Remember that the next time you approach a diminutive 63-year-old. It's probably not a good idea to mess with him.

PONTIAC, Mich. (WJBK) - Around $150 million worth of drugs are off the streets after Oakland County Sheriff's and federal authorities seized the largest quantity of heroin ever discovered in the state.

According to a release, a traffic stop last week in Pontiac led to the search of a apartment on Pike St. where 69 kilograms of heroin and 10.5 kilograms of cocaine were discovered. "The sheer quantity of drugs we confiscated last week in our own backyard is startling," said Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard.

The couple living in the apartment have been charged with possession with intent to distribute cocaine and heroin. They are Juventino Urioste Valdovino and Lila Torres-Garcia.

$150 Million Drug Bust: TV Story

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — Authorities say a man who killed five people near Morgantown and ran down an elderly woman in neighboring Pennsylvania also shot and wounded a gas station attendant as he crossed back through West Virginia. He then took his own life in Kentucky.
The path of violence that Shayne Riggleman cut through three states before committing suicide during a police chase was "one of the most heinous crimes I've ever witnessed," State Police Capt. James Merrill said Tuesday.
At a news conference, Merrill would not comment on a motive or say how Riggleman, 22, was connected to any of the five shooting victims at the blood-spattered house a few miles west of Morgantown, where the spree began Monday afternoon.
Charles Richardson Jr., whose son was among the five shooting victims, told The Associated Press he didn't recognize Riggleman's name or know his connection to the family. Nor was he aware of his son having trouble with anyone.
Richardson said his son worked for FedEx and liked to tinker on vehicles and computers. The two were not close, he said, even though the elder Richardson lives in a mobile home within sight of his son's house.
"He went about his business and I went about mine," he said, "but I loved my son."
Police identified the dead as: 49-year-old Charles Richardson III; his wife, 50-year-old Karin Richardson; her children, 17-year-old Kevin Hudson and 22-year-old Katrina Hudson; and 30-year-old Robert Raber.

http://news.yahoo.com/police-5-slain-w-va-suspect-kills-self-201815071.html

msnbc.com updated 2 hours 19 minutes ago:

With high unemployment and police departments hit by budget cuts you'd expect more crime, right?

But the FBI released statistics Monday that showed the opposite in 2010: Violent crime across the U.S. dropped 6 percent, marking the fourth straight annual decline. Property crime was down for the eighth straight year, falling 2.7 percent.

Within violent crime, robbery fell 10 percent, rape 5 percent, and murder, non-negligent manslaughter and aggravated assault more than 4 percent.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Two North Carolina men walked free Thursday when a panel of judges ruled they didn't kill a man during a home invasion despite their guilty pleas a decade earlier.
Kenneth Kagonyera and Robert Wilcoxson said they felt pressure to plead guilty to second-degree murder for the shooting of Walter Bowman so they wouldn't have to face the death penalty or life in prison. A later confession by a prisoner led to DNA testing that excluded five men, including Kagonyera and Wilcoxson, who served time for the crime.
"It's been a long time," said the 32-year-old Wilcoxson, who embraced his daughter and father as he walked out of a county lockup after 11 years behind bars...
Full Article

(CNN) -- A 26-year-old Massachusetts man with a physics degree was arrested and charged Wednesday with plotting an attack on the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol with a remote-controlled model aircraft, authorities said.Rezwan Ferdaus, a U.S. citizen from Ashland, Massachusetts, planned to use model aircraft filled with C-4 plastic explosives, authorities said.

As a result of an undercover FBI investigation, Ferdaus, who has a physics degree from Northeastern University in Boston, was charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to al Qaeda for attacks on U.S. soldiers overseas, authorities said.

Two interesting wrinkles in a long-running murder case here:

Stockbroker accused of bludgeoning his ex-wife to death to escape alimony payments has been in jail for more than three years. First trial ended in mistrial when the judge collapsed with a brain tumor, and later died. The new wrinkles:

First, the guy's been held in solitary in the county jail for over a year because of some dustup with another prisoner. His lawyers petitioned the court to let him into general population, claiming he's going nuts. Sheriff countered that he and he alone has jurisdiction over the county jail. Court backed him up. Jeez, didn't they ever hear of the Eighth Amendment?

Second, a new trial is scheduled for next February. The judge overseeing the proceedings has ordered both sides to hold a conference on a plea bargain--even though both sides have repeatedly said they don't want any plea-bargains.

Anyone surprised at the Amanda Knox verdict?

No. My information about the entire matter is what has been afforded to me by the media. I have no way of testing its veracity. But, unlike hte US, Italian appeals courts do examine evidence as well as due process. So, in effect, those courts conduct a second trial.

NBC, msnbc.com and news services updated 2 hours 10 minutes ago

SEAL BEACH, Calif. — The death toll in the shooting in a Southern California hair salon has risen to eight victims, police said. Seal Beach police Sgt. Steve Bowles says two of three victims who were transported to a hospital in critical condition have died.

The other six victims died at the scene of Wednesday's shooting when a gunman opened fire in a busy hair salon, leaving victims' bodies scattered throughout the business in a normally sedate beach community.

How long before this spreads to the US? God, I hope not too long!


Harare, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Police in Zimbabwe on Friday charged three women found in possession of 33 condoms containing semen with 17 counts of aggravated indecent assault in a case that may be a break in a string of sex attacks over the past two years by women targeting male hitchhikers.

Prosecutor Michael Reza told a court in Harare that the counts were for each of the 17 men who had positively identified the women as having sexually assaulted them in 2010 or 2011

Just say no.
Like this "Do you have a search warrant officer? No?
Oh. In that case you do not have permission to search my car".

If they do it anyway which they no doubt will then sue them. Sue them for everything they have and then some. I'm never out that way but people need to make a huge stink about this imo. It's against the law.

Motorists driving on expressways around Flint are getting surprised by a stunning tactic that the Genesee County sheriff has been using to fight the flow of illegal drugs -- one that legal experts said will not withstand a court challenge.

At least seven times this month, including Tuesday, motorists have said they have seen a pickup towing a large sign on I-69 or U.S.-23 that depicts the sheriff's badge and warns: "Sheriff narcotics check point, 1 mile ahead -- drug dog in use."

The checkpoints are part of a broad sweep for drugs that Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell and his self-titled Sheriff's Posse said are needed, calling Flint a crossroads of drug dealing because nearly a half-dozen major roads and expressways pass in and around the city. Pickell said he decided to try checkpoints when he learned that drug shipments might be passing through Flint in tractor-trailers with false compartments.

"We're doing everything by the book," Genesee County Undersheriff Christopher Swanson said. "We think there's major loads (of drugs) coming through here from all over, every day. And this is one of the tools we use -- narcotics checkpoints."

He said the dogs are used to sniff around the vehicles to check for drugs.

The practice has legal experts on searches and seizures at two law schools in Michigan, a constitutional law expert in Lansing and the American Civil Liberties Union calling the practice out of bounds and out of touch with state and U.S. Supreme Court rulings that ban such practices.

Based on a case out of Indianapolis, the U.S. Supreme Court held in 2000 that narcotics checkpoints where everyone gets stopped on a public road are not legal and violate Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches and seizures, professor David Moran at the University of Michigan Law School said....

Full Article

I just listened to Megyn Kelly on Fox who asked lawyer Joe Taccappino if the parents of the baby missing in Kansas could set conditions on any interview of them by the police. Are Americans generally unaware of the 5th and 6th amendments to the US Constitution? How can one grow up in America and not be aware of one's Constitutional rights. The ignorance out here amazes me especially when there are so many people who shout "My rights! My rights!.

updated 1 hour 44 minutes ago 2011-11-02

LOS ANGELES — A judge on Wednesday sentenced Lindsay Lohan to serve 30 days in jail for a probation violation, but due to jail overcrowding, she will only serve a portion of that time.

TMZ.com is reporting the actress will serve just six days of the sentence due to California's jail overcrowding issues. She cannot serve those six days under house arrest or electronic monitoring. Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner sentenced the actress for violating the terms of her release by being terminated from a community service assignment at a women's shelter.

We live in a rural area, where meth and sex with minors are rampant. Yesterday's paper carried an interesting article on six child sex defendants claiming entrapment--they corresponded online with police officers posing as underage girls. The sting was that they were contact on a site that claims that everyone is over 18. Then the "girl" invited them to contact "her" on a different url or e-mail id, where "she" claimed to be only 13. They were arrested when they showed up to meet the "girl"--or at home if they continued to contact "the girl" online after learning "she" was underage. One guy got a judge to throw out a charge of "impairing the morals of a minor" because he never met a minor--he just was chatting with the cop.

In another case: a young guy pleaded guilty to three felonies involving sex with a minor, but got probation. Reason: the state's "Romeo Law" says that consensual sex between a minor and someone who's only 18 months older is a mitigating factor. A letter writer to the local paper protested against the guy being convicted. "I lost my virginity to a 19-year-old when I was 15," he revealed. "I practically wore out a 10-speed bike riding to her home whenever I could. Should she have been convicted as a felon?"

Washington (CNN) -- As expected, the Supreme Court has agreed to decide the constitutionality of the sweeping health care reform law championed by President Barack Obama. The justices made their announcement in a brief order issued Monday.

Oral arguments are likely to be held in late February or March, with a ruling by June, assuring the blockbuster issue will become a hot-button political debate in a presidential election year.

This is good. I will be very interested in the decision. However the SC rules there will be ramifications 20, 30 years down the road that we can't even see now.

By JOSH GERSTEIN | 12/12/11 10:33 AM EST Updated: 12/12/11 11:56 AM EST

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider whether a law Arizona passed last year cracking down on illegal immigration violates the Constitution by intruding on the prerogatives of the federal government.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70293.html#ixzz1gLEUk5Y7

To the extent that the Arizona law merely apes federal law it will be interesting to see the Federal government's arguments. This will have some impact on the election either way the Court rules. People are riled up.

We can't have 50 different immigration policies but neither can we turn a blind eye to things.

Adolf Bergbauer

That is just disgusting on different levels. I can't believe there is a statute of limitations on something like this. The girl was 12 years old. OMG. How easy would it be to change this law I wonder? If not for this case, for future cases at least.



TIS

By MACKENZIE WEINGER | 12/22/11 2:07 PM EST Updated: 12/22/11 3:14 PM EST

A federal judge blocked several parts of South Carolina’s immigration law Thursday, saying in his ruling that the measure tramples on federal powers.

U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel granted a preliminary injunction, according to The Associated Press and Reuters, ruling that the federal government has the sole constitutional authority to set immigration policy and regulate enforcement. Gergel said parts of South Carolina’s law are in violation of those powers.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70789.html#ixzz1hKXrAFIU

We have a long-running murder case here--stockbroker accused of bludgeoning his ex-wife to get out of paying alimony. He's been in the can for more than three years, partly because his first trial resulted in a mistrial after the judge collapsed due to a brain tumor (judge died later). Now he's been held in solitary confinement for over a year because of some alleged altercation with other prisoners. He's let out of his cell only an hour a day, and has to use it to transact all business with lawyers, phone calls to family, as well as whatever exercise he can take.

His lawyers have petitioned the court to let him go into general population. But the Yavapai County Sheriff says that he has exclusive say over what happens in his jail--and the judge agrees with him.

Haven't they heard of the Eighth Amendment?

Of course, that's true of sheriffs.

But even the feds only allow 1 hour outside of cells.

Remember this?

27 years after NYC subway shooting, Goetz victim dies
By msnbc.com staff and NBC News

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/1...etz-victim-dies

Hard to believe so many years have passed since Goetz went ballistic (pun intended).

I remember that Bernie was at first heralded as a hero. If he could only have kept his mouth shut, he might have gotten away with it completely.

That's it exactly, Lilo. The AZ law invites racial profiling--police aren't going to demand proof of citizenship from my wife or me in a traffic stop--but they will check my neighbor because he's of Mexican background and has a Spanish name. On the other hand, illegal immigration is a serious problem here in AZ, and the Feds have simply dropped the ball.

(CNN) -- The Justice Department announced Friday that it is expanding a decades-old definition of rape that it has used in compiling its annual crime statistics.

Now, any kind of nonconsensual penetration, no matter the gender of the attacker or victim, will constitute rape -- meaning that for the first time, attacks on men will be counted.

The crime of rape will be defined as "penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim," a Justice Department statement said.

Last year, AZ voters approved medical marijuana. Licenses have been issued to individuals to possess or grow medical marijuana--but no dispensaries have been licensed yet. Reason: Justice Dept. has reiterated that marijuana is an illegal drug. So, AZ Governor Jan Brewer, who opposed the medical marijuana referendum, filed a suit in federal court, asking for a ruling on whether AZ officials who grant licenses to dispensaries will be considered accessories to a federal crime. Judge dismissed her case, but she has 60 days to appeal.

That fucking little [BadWord] you call a governor won't be happy until she can call SOMETHING illegal..... she's had little luck with illegal aliens so she's going after "drugs" now.

Move, TB, before you get poisoned by those inbred yahoo cowboys living in too much sunshine and WWII era nuclear waste contamination.

This has been online awhile, but just look at her. She looks high herself.

Friggin nutjob.

Well, I don't know what the federal general accessory statute says, but it's a good question. Too bad the case was dismissed.
Of course, It's at least ironic that on one hand Brewer supported her state's illegal immigration statute because the federal government wasn't doing its job. However, she now supports her state's marijuana law despite the fact that the federal government is doing its job.

Yes, Brewer is the Poster Girl for "I can have it both ways--yes I can."

If you think she's a nut, just check out Joe Arpaio, "America's Toughest Sheriff."

any chance he might lose his badge though? i thought he was in deep trouble last i heard.

Aside from hr political views, a couple times I've seen Brewer she seems a little spacy. Seriously, the way she seems to lose her train of thought and that blank stare makes me wonder if she has alzheimers or something. I remember Reagan toward the end seemed kind of the same (although he was much older) and we all thought it was old age. I guess it's just her way or somebody would have said something. She just doesn't seem all there some of the time.

I know that's a great opening for jokes.


TIS

sounds like presidental running in the future lol

Ha ha ha ha!!! Good one. Then again, yikes.



TIS

By Kari Huus, msnbc.com.

In a decision that Muslim legal advocates celebrated as a major win, a federal appeals court on Tuesday agreed with a lower court that blocked an Oklahoma law that would have barred state courts from considering or using Sharia law — the Islamic code of conduct.

The law would likely dampen similar legislation proposed in at least 20 U.S. states over the last couple of years, said Noah Feldman, professor of law at Harvard University.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/0...-sharia-efforts

By JoNel Aleccia

For the first time in 45 years, homicide dropped out of the top 15 causes of death in the United States in 2010, according to a new government analysis of mortality trends.

Crime rates have been falling for decades, fueled by a range of social, demographic and law enforcement factors, but the just-released death figures from the National Center for Health Statistics underscore the decline.

Ya Right, It's because everyone is dieing from heartattacks, stress , smoking to much, killen themselves one way or another . This Govt. analysis shit, hell these fucken idiots can't make a decision when ta take out the fucken trash let alone what else is happenin !

Yesterday, Maksim Gelman, the psycho Russian who, in February 2011, murdered four people here in Brooklyn just a few blocks from where I live, was sentenced to 200 years in prison. Defiant, even in the courtroom, he said that what happened wasn't his fault (!).

Sick bastard should have been put to death, IMO.

NY Daily News article

Signor V.

Just like the captain of that Italian cruise ship: he said he didn't abandon ship, he tripped and fell into a lifeboat.

Regarding that Captain, he steered the ship from blue water into shallow water in order to keep it from sinking.

By Pete Yost updated 1 hour 1 minute ago 2012-01-23T15:58:32
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court says police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects.

The court ruled in the case of Washington, D.C., nightclub owner Antoine Jones. A federal appeals court in Washington overturned his drug conspiracy conviction because police did not have a warrant when they installed a GPS device on his vehicle and then tracked his movements for a month.

Here in AZ a lawyer with a client on death row is arguing that the lethal injection process in the state must be suspended because the only qualified doctor dispensing them quit--"had enough"--leaving just one person who's a prison guard with no medical training and an arrest record for DUI and public intoxication. The Death Row inmate in question was given "compassionate leave" from prison to visit his ailing foster mother--whom he promptly murdered and dismembered.

You mean a death row inmate was given unescorted leave?

No, I misspoke. The lawyer filed the brief on behalf of his client, who's on death row, and the other guy, who wasn't on death row before he killed his foster mother.

SCOTUS rendered two opinions this week that I think are quite interesting. They are interesting not because of their content, but because they were both unanimous decisions. One decision requires law enforcement to get a warrant before utilizing GPS to track a suspect. The other decision affirmed the primacy of federal law over state law.

Now, the subjects of those two rulings are hot buttons with conservatives. But, having hugely conservative justices like Scalia, Roberts, and Alito sign onto them is almost startling.

Well, Oli, it's the old question of how you define a "liberal" or "conservative" SCOTUS decision. Hugo Black, considered one of the most "liberal" Justices, always said he was a "strict constructionist--I believe in everything that was written in the Constitution."

Honestly I'm surprised they did especially on the GPS precident.

TB, what do you think about the prosecution of organized crime figures as terrorists? I wonder if there are provisions of the Patriot Act under which they could successfully be prosecuted or legitimately investigated. How much of a stretch would that be? Thus, they could be held indefinitly without usual due process.

If he was such a big shot why was bond set so low?

Drug Organization Busted-Includes former State Rep

Coincidence. I'm watching an episode of Law&Order which attempts to apply an anti-terrorism statute to a murder.

You be the judge:
1. A cop shoots and kills his wife with his service revolver. Claims she attacked him with a kitchen knife. His knife wounds are found to be self inflicted. He gets 6 years in prison.
2. A man shoots a 14 year old boy twice. Boy lives. Man gets 8 years.
3. Husband and wife have an argument. Wife assaults husband with physical blows. Man defends himself, but grabs a piece of rope and subdues her by holding the rope against her throat. She passes out. He lets go. She revives. Husband gets 11 years.
4. Drunken wife runs down her husband with car as he waits for the bus and kills him. Wife gets 6 years.

Which punishment seems extreme? Which punishment seems too lenient.

These are real cases.

#1 seems far too lenient. Not only did he murder his wife, but had the forethought (is that a word??) to fake self-defense. And for this he gets 6 years? Disgusting.

#1,#2, and #4 are disgusting acts that should have been over 30+ years. #3, should have been way less and the wife should have been in trouble as well. then again who knows, maybe there was more to the story.

See, this is the problem with laymen analyzing criminal justice.
1. Per what statutes were they prosecuted?
1A. What does the statute state? What are its predicates?
2. In what states were they prosecuted?
3. What evidence was presented?
4. How was the evidence argued by the prosecution and the defense?
5. Were they bench trials or a jury trials?
6. Were they plea-bargained?

All legitimate questions (arguments), but when presented in the local newspaper what conclusions would you come to? BTW, number 3 is someone I know.

Let's keep it simple !

There are to many loop holes ! And a GOOD attorney should know them.

If ya get in trouble find the dirty's attorney that you can find !! You don't wanna pussy that is gonna let you set ?

Just sayen !

Well this is somewhat disturbing...

Missouri Teenager Describes Killing As 'Ahmazing' And 'Pretty Enjoyable'

Source: The Huffington Post

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A Missouri teenager who admitted stabbing, strangling and slitting the throat of a young neighbor girl wrote in her journal on the night of the killing that it was an "ahmazing" and "pretty enjoyable" experience – then headed off to church with a laugh.

The words written by Alyssa Bustamante were read aloud in court Monday as part of a sentencing hearing to determine whether she should get life in prison or something less for the October 2009 murder of her neighbor, 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten, in a small town west of Jefferson City.

Bustamante, 18, sat silently – occasionally glancing at those testifying about her, often looking down or to the side – as law enforcement officers, attorneys and forensics experts read aloud her inner most thoughts that she had recorded as a 15-year-old high school sophomore.

The most poignant part of Monday's testimony came when a handwriting expert described how he was able to see through the blue ink that Bustamante had used in an attempt to cover up her original journal entry on the night of Elizabeth's murder. He then read the entry aloud in court:

"I just f------ killed someone. I strangled them and slit their throat and stabbed them now they're dead. I don't know how to feel atm. It was ahmazing. As soon as you get over the "ohmygawd I can't do this" feeling, it's pretty enjoyable. I'm kinda nervous and shaky though right now. Kay, I gotta go to church now...lol."

The journal entry was presented to the judge not long after Elizabeth's mother and other relatives pleaded with Cole County Circuit Judge Pat Joyce to impose the maximum sentence. Bustamante pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and armed criminal action last month and faces at most a sentence of life in prison with a chance for parole. The least she could get is 10 years.

Elizabeth's mother, Patty Preiss, described her daughter as "happy, little girl," when she left her home about 5 p.m. after begging to go play with Bustamante's younger sister. Preiss said she told Elizabeth to be back for dinner at 6 p.m. but never saw her again.

"So much has been lost at the hands of this evil monster," Preiss tearfully said, with Bustamante sitting several feet away. "Elizabeth was given a death sentence and we were given a life sentence."

With Bustamante looking at her, Preiss said: "I hate her, I hate everything about her." The judge cut off her testimony when she described Bustamante as "not even human."

FBI agents seized the journal from Bustamante's bedroom during a search of her family's home the day after Elizabeth went missing as hundreds of volunteers scoured the rural area around St. Martin's.

Bustamante suggested to FBI and the Missouri State Highway Patrol officials that the girl had probably been kidnapped and that whoever had done so deserved to be convicted.

At one point, law enforcement officers discovered a hole in the ground in the shape of a shallow grave near Bustamante's home. They testified that Bustamante acknowledged digging it but said she just liked to dig holes. It was only later that Elizabeth's body was found concealed under leaves in another grave in the woods behind the Bustamante home.

At a hearing in 2009, Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. David Rice testified that the teenager told him "she wanted to know what it felt like" to kill someone.

Defense attorneys Monday highlighted Bustamante's troubled childhood as part of their argument about why she should receive leniency. They referred to numerous references in her journal in the two months before the murder, describing her suicidal feelings and the urge to hurt herself and others.

At one point Bustamante had written that she intended to burn down a house and kill all the occupants, but she never followed through with that. On Oct. 14, one week before Elizabeth's slaying, Bustamante had written that she was unable to use her cell phone because the charger had died, which meant she couldn't talk to anyone about the depression and rage she was feeling.

"If I don't talk about it, I bottle it up, and when I explode someone's going to die," she wrote in a journal that was read to the court by her defense attorney, Charlie Moreland.

It is a Sick World ! I really hate to say that it is going to get any better. I see kids , killing their parents rich familys . The Mendoz brothers. A young man in colo. youngen, his older brother had just left , and he killed his mom and dad and I believe another sibling . Sure wish someone had the answer .

NBC News and news services updated 2 hours 1 minutes ago 2012-02-07T18:09:09

"SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court has declared California's Proposition 8 unconstitutional, paving the way for a likely U.S. Supreme Court showdown on the voter-approved law, NBC News is reporting. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 Tuesday that a lower court judge interpreted the U.S. Constitution correctly in 2010 when he declared the ban, known as Proposition 8, to be a violation of the civil rights of gays and lesbians."

I imagine the decision is destined to be reviewed en banc by the 9th and may eventually find its way to the SCOTUS.

Independent of whether one thinks gay marriage is a good thing or not, what exactly makes rules against gay marriage a federal issue? For example, the State of NY allows first cousin marriage. The state of Michigan does not. So presumably if two NY cousins moved to MI and wanted to be married they'd be out of luck. Would they then have a federal case? I want to understand why this didn't end for good or bad at the California SC.

The basis of the opinion is the 14th amendment's equal protection of the law provision. The opinion holds that Proposition 8 does not serve any legitimate state interest and that it was only intended to disparage gay people.

Regarding your cousin's scenario, if either state applied its law against marriages within the 1st consangunity to all proposed marriages, then it would not be construed as violating equal protection. In addition, federal courts have generally allowed states wide latitude to apply their own policies despite Article IV's full faith and credit clause.

(CNN) -- Lawmakers in Washington State voted Wednesday in favor of a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage.

"With today's vote, we tell the nation that Washington state will no longer deny our citizens the opportunity to marry the person they love," said Gov. Chris Gregoire. "We tell every child of same-sex couples that their family is every bit as equal and important as all other families in our state. And we take a major step toward completing a long and important journey to end discrimination based on sexual orientation."

Good for Washington.
Good for California too.

Washington (CNN) -- Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was robbed last week by an intruder armed with a machete while Breyer was vacationing on the Caribbean island of Nevis, court officials said Monday.

Breyer, his wife and two other guests were in the justice's vacation home at the time, but officials said no one was hurt in the incident.

This is just disgusting!

Mother raped own daughter for 'sex education'

Source: GlobalPost.com

A mother of four who raped her 11-year-old daughter and filmed it as a form of "sex education" has been jailed for four years in Australia.

The 37-year-old woman from Queensland's Sunshine Coast made three films using her mobile phone showing her raping her youngest child and exposed her to other sexual activity "in response to repeated questions," The Sunshine Daily reported.

Judge John Robertson said sexual offenses against children by their own mothers were "rare," describing the relationship between mother and child as "seminal in our society."

He told the woman she had "no psychological or intellectual reason to explain this shocking behavior," as she had "a normal loving upbringing with parents and family who still support you."

The court heard that the woman started seeing the father of her four children — 16 years her senior — when she was "virtually a child" at age 14. She had her first child at 16.

She later began a cyber-sex relationship with a man and "became obsessed with sex." She would allow her daughter to view sexual videos the two sent to each other.

"From the start you characterized your behavior as some form of bizarre sex education with the child which did not involve sexual gratification from you... You were obsessed with sex and your life was in chaos," Robertson reportedly said.

He also said the mother, through her "selfish criminal conduct," had deprived her daughter of the right to "a wholesome and loving relationship with her mother."

In addition to the factors that olivant has listed, the defendant's prior record can significantly alter the sentencing guidelines. In PA we weigh the gravity of the offfense (each offense has a gravity score from 1-10) against the prior record score to get standard, mitigated and aggravated ranges of sentences. If the judge departs from the guidelines, especially if he goes into the high aggravated range or beyond, he or she better state the reasons on the record.

You noted that the cop, who killed his wife and fabricated a defense of self-defense, got off light. For the most part I have found that peace officers, who are sentenced for crimes that do not involve a breach of their duties as officers, get mitigated sentences.

Justice ? Rope ! Crime ? All that are with in child abuse & neglect, animals included in this statue ! Spouse abuse (only if it is overdone, and for what reason's) ! Includes BOTH sex's!

NO thefts, of anykind will be permitted, booze, money, etc.. Or those found doing it may be shot and killed on the spot ! (Just make sure they have the shit in their hands !

NO, threats of verbal, assaultive behavior, Drop the SOB before he drops you, but watch how many witness's or do it faster than a bolt of lighting ! May use , the following, cane, stilleto, (knife) just make sure it is sharp and where you put it !

Fights, don't talk , just do what has to be done ! Smile and deck , poke thar eyes out, hit the windpipe , hit upper belly ,mid sternum ! kick in knee cap, block any pass around your pretty face or prtoect your nuts or equipment ladies ! Also GROIN them , break some rocks ! Both Men and Women !

I hate Yelling but Yell like a Mother Fucker , who knows ya just might wake up a cop that wants to get a promotion !

If you like these then say so, and ask for more !

I will be more than happy to serve , protect, your loved ones !

Frosty

There is only one Winner and If you do it right it had better be you Just sayen !

How long will she get away with this?

Gay Texas Judge refuses to perform marriages

;)Maybe she can sell Dousche bags , Kirby's, Hoover's, Mary Kay or something ! Victoria Secret !

Lilo, I don't blame her. I can't imagine being denied the right to commit to the person you love. You are forever shoved aside (legally) for someone else who is their "next of kin".

I don't think it would take much to get a district court judge to issue a Writ of Mandamus to compel her to perform the marriage. Her refusal to obey the Writ would then be grounds for her removal from her office.

Madonne! Her reference to not applying the law. Texas statute and constitution both define marriage quite clearly.

Sometimes you need to take a stand for your beliefs. There were lots of things that were against the law at one time. I couldn't vote. A black woman and I couldn't use the same restroom. If it wasn't for the courage of certain people to take a stand against a law they felt was just plain wrong, then where would we be??

She's a judge for Christ's sake. She took an oath to uphold the Texas and US Constitutions. She knew that when she ran for election and when she took the oath.

I know what you mean SB. But if she feels so strongly about it shouldn't she be working for a gay rights organization so there is no conflict between her ethics and her job responsibilities? Dunno.

Perhaps she should be a lobbyist instead of a judge. That's not my call. However, as I said, if not for the courage of a few, most laws that we now consider odious would never have changed.

Judges stand at the apogee of the our justice system. When their integrity is impugned, it impugnes the integrity of the entire justice system. Loyalty above all else except honor.

Link

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A federal mandate requiring tobacco companies to place graphic images on their products warning of the dangers of smoking was tossed out Wednesday by a [federal]judge in Washington, with the judge saying the requirements were a violation of free speech.

How is that possible? Wasn't labeling settled law?

Lilo, my friend if we could figure out what is going on in Washington with all there we might have a idea to get this country on track ! The right one !

Frosty

I don't think there's a way to defend this. Turley makes good points in my view.

Obama's Kill Policy

(CNN) -- Mississippi's Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the controversial pardons of more than 200 convicts that former Gov. Haley Barbour granted on his way out of office, rejecting a challenge by the state's attorney general.

Dharun Ravi Found Guilty in Rutgers Trial

By COLLEEN CURRY
March 16, 2012

A New Jersey jury today found former Rutgers student Dharun Ravi guilty of the most serious charges for spying on his roommate, Tyler Clementi, having a gay sexual encounter in 2010.

Ravi was convicted of invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, witness tampering, and hindering arrest, stemming from his role in activating a webcam to peek at Clementi's date with a man on Sept. 19, 2010. Ravi was also accused of encouraging others to spy during a second date, on Sept. 21, 2010, and intimidating Clementi for being gay.

Ravi, who faces 10 years in prison and deportation to India, was was found not guilty of some of the 15 counts of bias intimidation, attempted invasion of privacy, and attempted bias intimidation, but was found guilty of the majority of crimes.

Ravi's attorney, Steven Altman, put his arm around Ravi's shoulder shortly before the verdict. Ravi showed little reaction as the jury read out the verdicts to his crimes.

Clementi's case gained national attention when he committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge Sept. 22, 2010. Ravi is not charged in connection with Clementi's death.

John O'Boyle/The Star-Ledger/AP PhotoDharun Ravi waits for the judge to explain... View Full Size John O'Boyle/The Star-Ledger/AP PhotoDharun Ravi waits for the judge to explain the law to the jury before they begin their deliberations during his trial at the Middlesex County Courthouse in New Brunswick, N.J. on March 14, 2012.

Throughout the trial, Middlesex County Prosecutor Julie McClure tried to build a case that Ravi spied on Clementi's date because his roommate was gay, and told his friends and Twitter followers to also spy on Clementi, describing his actions as an anti-gay hate crime.

She argued that Clementi was clearly made uncomfortable by Ravi's actions, evidenced in Clementi's request for a room change that he submitted to Rutgers on Sept. 21.

"Three weeks into the semester and (Clementi) finds out that his sexual orientation has been broadcast to the defendant's twitter followers," McClure said. "His private sexual activities have been exposed. What do you think he's thinking? 'If Molly saw it, did Cassie see it? Did people in the hall see it? Did people in Davidson C see it?' You don't think that he was intimidated by learning that information? Fearful, embarrassed? He'd been exposed."

Ravi's defense attorney, Steven Altman, dismissed suggestions that his client was anti-gay or targeting Clementi. He claimed that Ravi was curious and immature, but not malicious, when he decided to activate hte webcam on Sept. 19.

"Why we're here is because on Sept. 19, and Sept. 21, 2010, an 18-year-old boy, a kid, a college freshman, had an experience, had an encounter that he wasn't ready for," Altman told the jury, claiming that Ravi reacted "immaturely" to what he saw on the screen.

Altman argued that Ravi only activated the webcam to keep an eye on his belongings while an older "creepy" stranger was in the room, and that Ravi's messages on Twitter and to his friends about the spying were just immature joking.

Ravi is also charged with witness tampering and hindering arrest during the investigation.

I'm predicting that we'll be seeing federal indictments against law enforcement authorities in Samford, Florida for obstruction of justice in the Trayvon Martin killing. There are reports that multiple witnesses contacted police with information that refutes the shaky statement of George Zimmerman, who maintains that he was acting in self defense. Plus, Martin's phone call to his girlfriend while he was being chased by Zimmerman corroborates the witnesses' version.

Zimmerman has to be charged.

I hope so, Klyd. I signed the online petition just an hour or so ago.

This guy Zimmerman is a paranoid, gun-toting loon. Have you listened to his 911 false alarms? In my opinion, he was just waiting for an excuse to shoot someone .

The feds are now involved and the matter will go to a Fla. grand jury.

Unfortunately, there are too many people like Zimmerman out there, and they give neighborhood watch groups, which are a good thing, a bad name. They are over-zealous police wanna-be's who are just waiting for their moment to emerge as a hero.

I see Trayvon's girlfriend was interviewed earlier this morning. She said she was on the phone with Trayvon as it was happening. He told her someone was following him. She told him to run. She said that he said he'd put up his hoodie but was gonna walk not run. Then she said she heard what she thought to be Trayvon being pushed because she heard his phone drop and the call was disconnected.

You're right SB about People like that being around. I call it "Joe Cop" syndrome. The police told this guy to NOT follow him but he did so anyway. It sounds as tho he wanted to be a hardass and of course carrying the gun makes him a "macho man". That combination doesn't go well together.

As I understand it, Trayvon was in possession only of skittles and a soda. I am glad they are pursuing this case because it just doesn't seem that cut & dry as Zimmerman would have us believe.

TIS

Does anyone know the history of the name "Trayvon"?

I'm betting you do.

Thanks for trolling me. Strokes my ego.

I was asking. I have never heard the name "Trayvon" in my life.

Yes, it means "innocent kid walking around with nothing but a bag of Skittles in his pocket and running into a racist moron with a gun".

Working at a school I am familiar with that name. There were a few Trayvons at the school I worked for. I guess that's why I don't think it that unusual.




TIS

Btw, have you guys heard any of the several 911 calls the police got that day where it seems the boy is yelling for help? In the middle of one call, you hear the gunshot and the caller said she thought the boy was dead. So sad.

Are you aware that every cop killed in line of duty in my area of Tampa has been killed by a black male? There's a reason why people are afraid of black males. They commit most violent street crimes. Minorities, mostly black and Latino are ruining parts of Florida with their gang violence and "inner city" .

Overall, whites are more likely to be the victim of a black perp than a black person at the hands of a white perp.

That's what makes a story like this sell. It's so rare.

The Knoxville Horror


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Channon_Christian_and_Christopher_Newsom

What really puts this story on the headlines across the nation isn't the fact that the killer was white and the victim was black. It's the fact that the police intentionally ignored plausible evidence indicating a murder had taken place. It is kind of mind boggling that they quickly bought into Zimmerman's implausible story of self-defense that is seemingly contradicted by uncontroverted facts. Had the police investigated the matter fully and arrested Zimmerman, this would not be reported daily by the national press.

And what's that crazy law about that you can kill anyone if you feel there is a threat. I understand that is Zimmerman's defense and what? Ok, you go free???? You know what law I'm talking about? I had never heard of it til now.


TIS

Oh! That makes perfect sense now! People should just start slaughtering anyone that makes them nervous because of gangs! Gotcha! Now it makes total sense. Emmett Till probably deserved it, too, because of all the gangs that would ruin Tampa one day.

Were these cops killed by young men with no criminal records armed with a bag of skittles?

Was George Zimmerman a police officer?

Should Black people be subject to challenge and/or assault any time a white person thinks they're in the wrong area?

Should someone who initiates and escalates a confrontation with someone who wasn't doing anything illegal then be able to kill that person and scream self-defense?

No, no, no and no.
It is irritating but unsurprising at this point of my life to see how racists love to piously talk about treating people as individuals when it comes to opposing any/all forms of affirmative action or anti-discrimination laws or procedures but suddenly seamlessly endorse the idea of blood guilt when it comes to black (but never white) bad behavior.

A child is dead because a punk bully with a gun wanted to show the world and himself how "tough" he was. That's the bottom line. Zimmerman should have been arrested immediately. The more we find out the less defensible it is that he wasn't. The fact that Zimmerman was allowed to go free and evidently wasn't tested for drugs or alcohol or anything is what makes this story so hard to believe. It's what gives it legs. And when we see that the local police department has had similar incidents in the past, it appears that something really foul is going on.

Well put Lilo. AND, let me add that Zimmerman had made something like 46 911 calls within a few months. They played tapes of several of them and in all he described the "perp"(?) as a black male. In the Trayvon case it sounds as tho he makes a racial slur under his breath. HE followed Trayvon (against Police request) and then says that HE was the one intimidated and it was self-defense? Lots of questions here.

TIS

It's called the castle doctrine.

Watch whom you accuse of trolling, Skinny!

Lilo,

It's not just Tampa cops who are shot and killed by minorities, blacks in particular. In Philly it's also the case. NYC has had a recent rash of minority on cop shootings including a black man from NC who killed a cop in ENY.

Why was Trayvon walking around with a sweater with a hoodie? We've had the warmest most humid winter we've had in years in Florida. Really gets cold enough for a hood but whatever.

It's not politically correct, but in reality, minorities are a greater threat to themselves and others in America. Simply put they commit more violent crimes.

No, I have not heard the 911 calls. Can you link to any sources that have been playing them?

And I don't think 911 telling someone to stay inside qualifies as disobeying a police command, although people are portraying it that way.

Whites die at the hands of black perps all the time and the outrage is minute compared to when the roles are reversed. Recent examples are the Knoxville case I linked to, and the girl in NC who was shot point blank by black carjacker even though she begged for her life. And no one in these cases is ever charged with a hate crime.

(CNN) -- A white Mississippi man has been sentenced to life in prison for the 2011 murder of an African-American man, with the judge calling it an inexcusable, "despicable" crime.

Deryl Dedmon pleaded guilty to murder and a hate-crime charge before a judge in Jackson on Wednesday afternoon, admitting to the June killing of James Craig Anderson. Hinds County Circuit Judge Jeff Weill sentenced him to two concurrent life terms, saying, "This craven act isn't who we are."

"Whatever excuse you offer, forget that. There is no excuse," Weill said. He added, "The state of Mississippi condemns this despicable crime."

I saw Trayvon's parents on the news today. As a parent, I can't imagine their heartbreak. God help them and give them strength. No parent should bury a child - it's the ultimate nightmare.

For some reason, I don't see CNN or MSNBC giving this any play

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...blind-date.html

^^i saw them report that on anderson cooper a few days back

This is no doubt a heinous crime, but there is a huge difference between this matter and the Martin killer. As I stated before, what makes the Martin killing a national story (which is even sparking the outrage of FOX News anchors) is not the fact that the victim was black and killer was white.

It has made the daily headlines because the killer was inexplicably allowed to go free with his gun on his shaky representation that he was acting in self-defense and the fact that other witnesses, who refute the story, had their statements twisted or ignored. Had the Samford Police bothered to conduct a thorough investigation and filed charges against Zimmerman, this story wouldn't dominate the news.

The Oklahoma incident involves a brutal crime and an arrest. If there was undeniable evidence that he killed the woman and the police performed a cursory interview of him and let him go with a firearm, then you'd see this on CNN.

To SV, the liberal media is always racist against white people.

klydon - yeah pretty much. I'm struck by how even fire-brander Rep. Allen West (the black Repbulican Florida Congressman who once compared MSNBC to Goebbels) called bullshit on the Sanford police and added his name to the Congressional call for a DOJ investigation.






http://www.facebook.com/notes/congressma...320362644683436

Well put, Counselor .

Obama Calls for 'Soul Searching' in Wake of Trayvon Martin Shooting

By Devin Dwyer | ABC OTUS News

President Obama today offered a personal reflection on the tragic shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, saying the incident requires all Americans to "do some soul searching."

"When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids," Obama told reporters when asked about the case during a Rose Garden press conference.

"I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative to investigate every aspect of this and that everybody pulls together - federal, state and local - to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened," he said.

Earlier this week the Justice Department opened an investigation into the incident which took place in an Orlando suburb last month. Martin, 17, was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch captain while he walked down a neighborhood street unarmed.

"I think all of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen," Obama said. "And that means we examine the laws, the context for what happened, as well as the specifics of the incident.

"But my main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin: If I had a son he'd look like Trayvon. And I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are gonna take this with the seriousness it deserves and that we're going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened."

Obama already has his talking point to energize females voters: The contraception controversy

Now he has the Trayvon shooting to energize the black voter base. And it could not have happened in a better place for Obama. Florida. A swing state.

I doubt that President Obama is using this to score political points. As he said, he is the parent of black teenagers, and an incident like this will put fear in the heart of every parent of a black teenager.

LOL. You're too much.

The "I adopted my girlfriend" guy was found guilty of manslaughter.

Interesting you bring that up. I hate to bring national politics to something as local and personally tragic as this story, but since national politics has done that already in the ilk of Sharpton and the debate over the self-defense law...

Yesterday, right-winger David Frum tweeted that Romney should've called Martin's parents and give them support. And maybe Frum's right? It would've been surprising considering his party affiliation and unfortunately the racial context of this story, but it would've made an impression. A positive one.

But he didn't, and his fall opponent staked his claim to that story. If we're talking political gaming as SV is trying to explain, then Romney dropped the ball and Obama took it in for the score. Sometimes opportunities are given to you, and sometimes you don't realize it until it's too late.

It's a black issue. Obama owns it. Romney's job will be to defend the "stand your ground" law when it's attacked again by the left.

hit the nail right on the head

Funny, I never mentioned the Trayvon Martin case. You assumed I was comparing the two. Interesting.

That said, there's a long history of "black out" in the media. They ignore or downplay black on white crime, but give disproportionate coverage to white on black.

A few weeks ago, a black girl at Fordham found a racial slur on her door and it was a national story all week. More people probably know about that case than Eve Carson.

Apparently, the shooter George Zimmerman is Hispanic, according to his dad. I had an inkling he was from his picture.



Trayvon Martin case: George Zimmerman’s father speaks out in defense of son
The 28-year-old has been in hiding since he shot and killed an unarmed 17-year-old


As cries for his arrest continue to grow louder, George Zimmerman's father defended him in a one-page letter, saying he isn't a racist but rather of victim of sensationalized media coverage.

The neighborhood watch volunteer, 28, has been in hiding since he shot and killed unarmed Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old on his way back home to his father's house.

His father, Robert Zimmerman, 64, said in a letter to the Orlando Sentinel that his son was Hispanic and grew up in a multiracial family.

“He would be the last to discriminate for any reason whatsoever,” the letter says, according to the newspaper. “The media portrayal of George as a racist could not be further from the truth.”

He defended his son's actions on the day that he got out of his car and shot the teen, despite being strongly discouraged by a 911 dispatcher.

“At no time did George follow or confront Mr. Martin. When the true details of the event became public, and I hope that will be soon,” the letter said, “everyone should be outraged by the treatment of George Zimmerman in the media.”

He said his family is “deeply sorry for the loss of Trayvon.”

“We pray for the Martin family daily. We also pray that the community will grieve together and not be divided by more unwarranted hate.”

As mixed as the accounts of the Feb. 26 shooting are, so are bits and pieces of George Zimmerman’s background have trickled out, painting a picture of a well behaved kid turned into a man who has aspirations of being a cop with a thread of 911 calls to his name.

In the neighborhood George Zimmerman grew up in, his former neighbors described him to the Washington Post as a “respectful” and religious kid who “didn't play with the neighborhoods kids.”

“They had to stay home and play. It was always ‘Yes, ma’am,’ ‘No, ma’am,’ ” said Kay Hall, who lived across the streets from the Zimmermans in Manassas, Va.

In his high school yearbook in 2001, Zimmerman said he wanted to be a businessman, but by 2008 had shifted his plans and enrolled in Seminole State College, according to the Post.

He wanted, sources told the newspaper, to become a police officer.

He moved to Florida after high school with his family and the Washington Post reported that in 2004 he made 46 calls to the emergency line to report what he saw as dangerous incidents before finding himself in some of his own trouble with the law in 2005.

He later moved to the gated community where the shooting took place with his new wife, Shellie, a licensed cosmetologist, whom he married in 2007. By 2011, he became involved with some sort of neighborhood watch program and seemed to take the job extremely seriously.

The Daily Beast reported that between Jan 1, 2011, and the night she shot Trayvon Martin, he called 911 close to 50 times to report suspicious activity.

Neighbors told The Associated Press that he was often very helpful.

“The only impression I have of George Zimmerman is a good one,” Samantha Hamilton, who lived on the same street as Zimmerman for about a year, told the AP.

Others said while he seemed to have good intentions, he was often a bit overzealous on the job.

Some neighbors told the AP it seemed strange that he felt the need to carry a concealed weapon on the watch patrol, despite having a permit for it.

“That is crazy. That is totally crazy,” one neighbor added. “Why does he have to carry a gun? Something is totally wrong with that picture.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national...3#ixzz1pz9zLr5Y

Three "male" suspects. I wonder what that means?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/26/2-m...s-over-weekend/

It means that they probably stand when they pee.

Female store owner shoots, kills, armed thug in Tampa.

http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/bay...e_store_clerk_s

I guess this goes here: a list of the ten most corrupt states. Surprisingly, they are mostly in the south and western states.

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/20...corruption-laws

Sounds like she had every right to defend herself. Just because the would be shooter was only 16 doesn't make him any less capable of murder.

Why the Right is Smearing Trayvon

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20...reputation.html

Seems like a lot of grandstanding coming from all sides on this.

Paesan, I won't read your link.

There are many reasons why people are asking questions about Trayvon's character. They want a clearer picture of what really happened that night.

For central Floridians like me, we understand just how dangerous black males(followed by Hispanics) can be. They are behind every single cop killing in Tampa Bay since I moved down. This isn't to say that all black males are violent criminals. It's just pointing out that I can totally relate to anyone, white or black who has felt threatened in certain situations.

From Long Island to Lakeland, you can't help but notice how minorities seem to be responsible for most shootings and stabbings. People and law enforcement don't racially profile because of racism. They do it to avoid being victims.

What you said above may not be "politically correct," and so many may not want to hear it, but it's true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZhljU6vioM

Just to call a spade a spade, they said the SAME thing about the Italians and Irish in NYC and many other groups at one time or another regardless of location. The fact is that race isn't a major factor in whether you will commit crimes or not, most of these groups commit crimes because of the abject poverty that many live in that creates the conditions for them to turn to a life of crime.

As a Hispanic - American (born in NYC), I take issue with your comment. What about all the underage Hispanic girls that have been raped/assaulted/carried sexual relationship in NYC schools by white males/females in recent memory? Come on bro, calm down and have a little respect.

I am not defending one group over another cause every group has its own share of bad apples. I just think we should be mindful of making statements to misrepresent entire races.

It is a economic thing more than a racial or ethnic thing. But if it's true, it's true. But people automatically become so defensive when somebody says it, that gets forgotten. It's not an indictment of all blacks or all Hispanics. But of a big chunk of black and Hispanic males. Like I said, it's not politically correct to say it, but everyone knows what I'm talking about.

I'll behave because of SC's warning, but politely I'll point this out as a proud American: As someone who also owns a (vacation) home down in Florida (DeLand in fact), to say the least I think you're being condescending in your professed expertise of that area.

IvyLeague - Ah the Panthers, amazing how invisible they are in relevance except there's a camera. Turn a camera on, they're there! It's like magic. They're the Anti-Cockroaches.

I agree about the Panthers. They're a non-factor. Just one of many trying to grandstand on this issue. The likes of Jackson and Sharpton being no different.

And while I can't speak on any area of Florida, speaking in general, it's true that black and Hispanic males do have a certain reputation. And there's a reason for that. Again, it's not an indictment on all blacks or Hispanics. Or even on all black or Hispanic males. But, rather, the ones that give the rest a bad name and perpetuate the stereotype.