England has seen the rise of calls for speech prosecutions, including calls from powerful politicians for crackdowns on insulting or offensive comments. We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, particularly in England ( here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). The rapid decline of free speech in England has been both chilling and frightening for civil libertarians as the country appears to have abandoned this once defining right of Western Civilization. Now, a Manchester man reportedly has been arrested and sentenced for making “grossly offensive” comments about Muslims on Facebook. Stephen Bennett, 39, (who has a Muslim mother-in-law and sister-in-law) has been sentenced to 180 hours of unpaid work and a 12-month community order for expressing his views.
Category: Criminal law
Below is my column in USA Today on the history of corruption and negligence at the Olympics. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) remains a troubled (and frankly troubling) international organization. After this column ran, a new doping scandal emerged around the Kenyan Olympic team. Here is the column:
Chris A. Walden, 46, has the distinction of taking a Chihuahua hostage and lighting a love seat on fire as part of his alleged criminal conduct. What makes it even more bizarre is that this conduct was allegedly due to the failure of a check to clear for him.
Continue reading “Can You Guess What This Person Was Arrested With?”
Iran has given the world another outrage in its enforcement of the medieval Islamic Sharia law. The victim was Hassan Afshar, 19, who was hanged for what the Sharia court called “forced male-to-male anal intercourse.” Afshar insisted that that the sex was consensual, though in Iran you can also be executed for simply being homosexual — as we have previously discussed.
Continue reading “Iran Executes Gay Teenager Under Islamic Sharia Law”
If you said Flamingo homicide, there is a job waiting for you with the security staff of Busch Gardens. Joseph Corrao, 45, is a brute with a long and violent criminal history who recently went to Busch Gardens with his mother and three children. He then proceeded to grab Pinky, a favorite Chilean flamingo and threw her to the ground. He tore her foot almost completely off and she was eventually euthanized.
Continue reading “Can You Guess What This Person Was Charged With?”
There is an interesting case out of Leroy, Alabama where Nathanial Johnson, 68, is facing an investigation after subduing and trying a burglar to a tree. By the time, he returned with the police, the man, Cleveland Jones Gully, 31, was dead and Johnson could go from the victim to the accused in a criminal case.
If you said impersonating a police officer to meet Hooters waitresses, you have a gift. Nicholas M. Fuhst, 18, went into a Hooters in Kochville Township, Michigan and said that he was an undercover cop in need for reviewing the background information of various waitresses. They gave him the information but also gave the real police a call. Fuhst has now pleaded no contest to impersonating a police officer.
Continue reading “Can You Guess What This Person Was Charged With?”
Charles James Cahill, Jr., 49, is someone all too familiar to police. Cahill has 12 prior drunk driving convictions. He can now add a 13th arrest, but in this latest case there is a dead 12-year-old girl. Cahill hit a family’s van from behind on July 27th at 8:18 p.m. He then tested at almost three times the legal level of alcohol in his blood. Notably, his license was revoked by the Secretary of State in 1990. He is now facing charges of second-degree murder, operating with a high blood alcohol content causing death, operating while intoxicated third offense and driving while license suspended causing death and a misdemeanor charge of open intoxicants in a motor vehicle.
There was a deeply disturbing scene in Louisville when a female prisoner was brought into court without pants. Kentucky Judge Amber Wolf was rightfully irate and called the jail directly from the courtroom. What is equally disturbing is that this woman was in court for simply failing to complete a diversion program on a 2014 shoplifting charge, but held for three days and denied feminine hygiene products in jail.
We have been discussing the trend toward suspending and expelling students (and teachers) for comments that they make on social media (here and here and here and here and here and here and here). Teachers and administrators have been criminalizing juvenile conduct rather than dealing with such issues with the students and their teachers. Now the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has issued an opinion upholding one of the most ridiculous examples of the criminalization of our schools. The Tenth Circuit said that Albuquerque school officials and police were justified in ordering the arrest of 13-year-old boy who was burping in class. The Tenth Circuit ruled that the school officials and police officer were entitled to immunity for their excessive response to what was at worst a class clown.
Afghan cleric, Mohammad Karim, is in his sixties but he decided to marry a younger bride. For most people (including all non-pedophiles), this might mean a woman half his age in her thirties. For Karim it meant a six-year-old girl. After being arrested, Karim insisted that the girl was given to him in wedlock as a “religious offering.” The little girl could only say “I am afraid of this man.”
Continue reading “Afghan Cleric Defends Marriage To Six-Year-Old Girl As A “Religious Offering””
There is a bizarre case in Orlando where Daniel Rushing was arrested after a police officer declared that she recognized meth on the floor of his car from her extensive experience. It not only turned out to be icing from Rushing’s Krispy Kreme donut but Rushing told the officers what it was when they asked. To make matters worse, a field test registered positive for meth — another false positive in a long line of such cases.
There is a controversial arrest in Elkview, West Virginia where Matthew Lane Furby, 26, was arrested after posting a video on Facebook allegedly calling for police officers to be killed. The police say that they were alerted to a video where Furby said “the only good cops out there are dead cops.” However, the anti-police comments raise questions over protected speech under the first amendment. He has been charged with making threats of terroristic acts.
Continue reading “West Virginia Man Arrested For Posting Call for Police To Be Killed”
Many of us have been in Japanese Steakhouses when the chef pulls out and squeezes the little rubber toy of a boy. The result is a stream of water that makes it look like the boy is peeing. I have seen it happen a dozen times to the delight of kids. Isabelle and James Lassiter clearly did not get the joke. Instead, Isabelle exclaimed “It peed on me!”and the couple called police and claimed that Isabelle Lassiter was sexually assaulted when hit by water by the prank.Continue reading “Couple Call Police After Wife is Squirted By Toy At Japanese Steakhouse”
The infamous Iranian Basij militia cracked down on the use of satellite dishes by confiscating 100,000 dishes in Tehran. Iranian prosecutors insisted that dishes expose families to UnIslamic influences and are “morally damaging.” The dishes were destroyed in a triumphant ceremony before General Mohammad Reza Naghdi, head of Iran’s Basij militia. Most people view Naghdi’s crackdown as a pathetic and laughable example of religious orthodoxy that still strangles Iranian society. However, Naghdi heralded the latest achievement of his extremist forces.
Continue reading “Iranian Police Confiscate 100,000 Satellite Dishes To Protect Public Morality”