Some headlines just write themselves. Carlton Henderson, 54, died this week after jumping out of a freezer and threatened employees with a knife while screaming “Away from me,Satan!” After he was tackled and the knife taken away, Henderson went into cardiac arrest and died. It was later discovered that he was the suspect in the 1988 shooting deaths of 26-year-old William Medina and 22-year-old Antonio Dos Reis.
Continue reading “Cold Case Suspect Dies After Emerging From Freezer”
Day five on Oahu could be simply called turtles, turtles, and more turtles. One of the reasons that I was interested in staying on the North Shore rather than Waikiki was the abundance of green see turtles. Today we enjoyed watching these magnificent animals at various beaches, including their daily visit at a beach for sun and a feast of sea grass. It was a great way to spend the last full day on Oahu. Continue reading “Day 5: Behold The Green Turtles of Oahu”
Below is a slightly longer version of my Hill column on my recent hike in the Cleveland National Forest outside of Santa Ana, California. It was the beginning of the heat emergency that is still gripping the area with massive fires and dangerous conditions. I have stayed in contact with my new friends at the Orange County Fire and Rescue and they were kind enough to send some pictures of the rescue. I am told that their biggest problem is that people often do not want to be rescued because they are afraid to be hit with a bill for the rescue. They do not charge. They just want people out of harm’s way and safe.
Day Four of our trip to Hawaii started early with a trip to the Diamond Head crater. This was my second hike up the crater, but the first such venture for the family. We then had a great lunch at Duke’s restaurant in Waikiki and journeyed on to Pearl Harbor. We finished the day with an evening dip back on the North Shore. It felt wonderfully decadent. Continue reading “Day 4: From Diamond Head To Pearl Harbor”
For over a year, there has been an ongoing debate over the constitutionality of the appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel. The claim is that Mueller constitutes a “principal officer” who should be nominated by President Trump and confirmed by the Senate. Instead, defenders claim Mueller is an “inferior officer” who does not require such a process. Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia just gave Mueller an impressive legal victory in an opinion that swept aside this and two other fundamental challenges to the Special Counsel. The decision came as part of the grand jury investigation into Trump confidant Roger Stone.
While there are good-faith arguments that Mueller is no inferior officer given the sweeping nature of his mandate, I have previously expressed great skepticism of the viability of these challenges in light of the prior decision of the Court in Morrison v. Olson, which upheld the constitutionality of the Independent Counsel Act. That Act was allowed by Congress to lapse but the special counsel procedure is, if anything, stronger than the ICA since Mueller is squarely within the Justice Department and subject to its chain of command. This of course could well change with the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh is a long critic of Morrison. However, his past writings do not clearly establish that he would rule a Special Counsel to be a principal officer. However, this challenge is clearly designed to move up to the Supreme Court where Morrison is considered an endangered precedent, even before the expected addition of Kavanaugh.
Continue reading “Stone Cold: Mueller Wins Key Legal Challenge To His Authority As Special Counsel”
A A new discovery may have solved the long-standing mystery of who stole a Willem de Kooning painting worth more than $100 million. The theft in 1985 was a brazen crime by a man and a woman who cut out “Woman-Ochre” from its frame in November 1985. The painting was found a year ago at a home in New Mexico belonging to Jerry and Rita Alter. A newly discovered picture not only puts the couple in Tucson the day before the heist but it shows a striking resemblance to the suspects.
Below is my column in USA Today on the most recent claim that the tweets of President Donald Trump concerning the Special Counsel are acts of obstruction. Once again, there is a blind eagerness to claim a prime facie criminal case against Trump. However, the implications of such a charge are enormous. It would mean that a subject or target of an investigation could be criminally charged for publicly denouncing the prosecutors or their investigation. While it is certainly true that a president is not just any investigatory subject and has powers that do mean a menacing meaning to such tweets, it would radically extend the scope of obstruction into more ambiguous areas. In the end, this is still the exercise of free speech in this context.
Continue reading “Trump’s Tweets Are Cathartic and Costly But Not Crimes”
Our third day in Oahu was spectacular. We started by driving to the magnificent the Waimea Valley and the Waimea Arboretum and Botanical Garden. We then walked to the nearby Waimea Beach where kids jump off a high rock into the surf. It was a great day of hiking and just lying on the beach.
Continue reading “Day 3: The Waterfalls, Water Lilies, and Waterdrops Of Oahu”
We arrived at 6 am (ET) in Oahu, Hawaii and were pretty beat but had to rent a van and drive to the North side of the island. We are staying in Turtle Bay between Protection Point and Kuilima Point on the North Shore of the island of O’ahu. For those wanting to avoid the congestion and tourism of Waikiki, the North Shore is ideal. Despite our late arrival, we got up at 6 am to start what was an awesome first full day on the island. Continue reading “Day 2: Oahu From Turtle Bay To Shark’s Cove”
In a major building block for the prosecution of former Trump campaign head Paul Manafort, prosecutors put on the stand his accountant who demanded a grant of immunity because he admitted to filing returns for Manafort that he believed to be fraudulent. All however did not go as well for the prosecutors after the judge again lashed out at prosecutors of their effort to use Manafort’s opulent lifestyle to poison the jury.
Continue reading “Witness Admits To Filing Presumed False Tax Returns For Manafort”
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the Manafort trial and why Manafort is pursuing a high-risk litigation strategy over a plea deal. The strategy looks strikingly like a pardon pitch and it could be working. President Donald Trump took the rare step of commenting on a case at trial to not only praised Manafort but analogized his case to the treatment of Al Capone. He tweeted that “Looking back on history, who was treated worse, Alfonse Capone, legendary mob boss, killer and ‘Public Enemy Number One,’ or Paul Manafort, political operative & Reagan/Dole darling, now serving solitary confinement – although convicted of nothing? Where is the Russian Collusion?” Of course, both could well be guilty and both could find that a criminal count with a ten year sentence is just about the same as another in terms of its impact on your life.\
Here is the column: Continue reading “Playing The House: Why Manafort May Have Taken The Highest Risk Option”
There is an extraordinary case out of North Carolina where Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson awarded Keith King $8.8 million in compensatory and punitive damages against Francisco Huizar III. Huizar had an affair with King’s wife and was sued for criminal conversation and the relatively rare claim of “alienation of affection.” Only six states currently have alienation of affection laws still on the books. We previously discussed an award of $9 million to a woman in North Carolina.
The Justice Department received well-deserved pushback yesterday in the trial of Paul Manafort from U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis who noted that it’s not a crime to be rich in America. The Justice Department has been trying every possible way of introducing pictures and witnesses detailing Manafort’s “extravagant lifestyle” in the jury trial. This includes such items as his $15,000 jacket that’s “made from an ostrich.” On style values alone, many of us would be tempted to convict on the Ostrich jacket but that is hardly what Manafort is charged with. Nevertheless, the government got plenty by using lifestyle witnesses to confirm Manafort’s use of direct wire transfers from his many foreign accounts — a practice that was recalled as exceptionally rare by the witnesses.
Continue reading “Mr. Manafort And His $15,000 Ostrich Coat”
Today, I am taking most of the family on our first family vacations in years. We are going to Hawaii and will spend time on Oahu and Kauai islands. I will be posting our usual travel blog on the trip with discussion of sights, restaurants, and adventures for any readers who might benefit from the experience and photos. As always, I may be a tad delayed in posting depending on wifi and conditions. I will be posting the travel blog at the end of each day. However, we take off this afternoon and will arrive in Honolulu around 9 pm local time. Unfortunately, my son is doing pre-med studies and staying behind, though he and my brother-in-law are cheap house and dog sitters at the homestead! Continue reading “Aloha Hawaii”
Sweden was the scene of a heist this week that is worthy of Ocean Eleven or The Thomas Crown Affair. A gang of thieves hit the Strangnas Cathedral. The 900-year-old church (located about 50 miles from Stockholm) houses the royal treasure of King Karl IX and Queen Kristina. It was surprisingly easy — a smash and grab followed by a high-speed boat getaway. Continue reading “The Swedish Crown Affair: Treasure Snatched By Gang Of Thieves Outside Stockholm”