I am still in Salt Lake City, but we have had a great number of inquiries on yesterday’s hearing in the Sister Wives case. The two motions for summary judgment were argued with the state presenting its case through lead counsel Jerry Jenson and my presenting the case for the Brown family. Judge Clark Waddoups was obviously well-versed in the record and asked probing and fair questions to both sides. He has now taken the case under review for a final decision on the merits. I prefer not repeat or comment on statements in court from either myself or the judge. A few articles from the hearing are linked below.
Continue reading “Sister Wives Case Now Set For Final Ruling”
Category: Criminal law
Carmen Ortiz, the US Attorney in Massachusetts, appears to be feeling some of the heat of the global anger over her prosecution of Aaron Swartz — an unrelenting prosecution that many (including the family) blame for his suicide. Ortiz is attempting to portray this abusive and unnecessary prosecution as prosecutors merely enforcing the law in compliance with their oath. They were, according to Ortiz, something akin to a legal version of Inspector Javert — committed to the enforcement of the federal law without discretion or judgment. Ortiz, who had remained silent, appears to have accepted that the case is presenting a serious problem for her and begins with a statement of sympathy that was entirely absent in the treatment of Swartz by her office and Assistant United States Attorney Stephen Heymann who has been linked to another suicide of a defendant.
I have previously written about the trend in our schools to use arrests as substitutes for school discipline for students. A new report highlights this trend and leaves a particularly shocking account of the situation in the Mississippi school system which remains 50th on teacher salaries but leads the nation in putting its students in jail.
Continue reading “Mississippi’s Policy of Matriculation Through Incarceration”
Municipal court judge Lee Johnson in Ennis, Texas, is the latest public official to rush to Facebook like a teenager on a tear. Johnson breathlessly reported that a “certain unnamed (very) recent Heisman Trophy winner” had been ticketed in his jurisdiction — an obvious reference to Texas A&M quarterback and Heisman winner Johnny Manziel. Johnson then wrote “I meant to say ‘allegedly’ speeding, my bad.” It was striking that Johnson thought the problem was not saying allegedly as opposed to his turning into some form of judicial paparazzi.
There is an interesting case out of San Antonio where a car owner shot and killed one alleged car thief and wounded another outside of a home of a friend. What is interesting is that response of the police that, since he was defending property, he was in the right.
Continue reading “Texas Man Cleared Of Wrongdoing In Killing One Car Thief And Wounding Another”
We already have a distressingly long list of cases of police officers allegedly shooting dog pets either in mistaken raids or without provocation. We can now add the case of Jeff Fisher and his dog Ziggy in Colorado. Fisher says that deputies shot and killed Ziggy after they went to his house by mistake. Now it appears, according to local accounts, that the Adams County deputy sheriff, Wilfred A. Europe III, who shot the dog was involved in a previous fatal shooting.
Continue reading “Colorado Police Officer Shoots Dog After Going To Wrong House”
On Thursday, the federal court in Salt Lake City is set to hear final arguments in the Sister Wives case. The hearing on the motions for summary judgment will be heard on Thursday, January 17th at the federal courthouse in Room 102 before Judge Clark Waddoups. The Brown family has challenged Utah Code Ann. § 76-7-101 (West 2010) under seven constitutional claims, including due process, equal protection, free speech, free association, free exercise, the establishment of religion, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. As lead counsel, I am limited in what I can say about the case publicly beyond the statement below.
Continue reading “Federal Court Set To Hear Final Arguments In Sister Wives Case”
We have another large settlement involving the Chicago Police Department this year. The Chicago police will pay $22.5 million to compensate a mentally-ill California woman who was released by police into a high-crime area where she was kidnapped and raped before she fell from the seventh floor of a public housing apartment building. Christina Eilman, 27, survived and will be given the largest settlement in Chicago’s history (the prior record was $18 million).
Michael L. Selleneit, 54, appears to have decided that his defense to shooting a neighbor was not particularly promising. After Selleneit shot Tony Pierce, 41, who lived in a nearby trailer, he claimed to have acted in defense of his wife who was being “telepathically” raped by Pierce.
We previously discussed how the Justice Department hounded Aaron Swartz in a prosecution that sought 35 years in prison for his effort to make academic papers available to the public — even though MIT did not ask for such charges and later released the papers free of charge to the public. United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and the Obama Administration were long criticized for the prosecution but remained committed to destroying Swartz — a move that clearly delighted copyright hawks that have tremendous influence over the Administration as discussed earlier. Given the high-profile nature of the case and the months of criticism, it is clear that Main Justice in Washington had to be monitoring the case. Now it appears that Swartz’s line prosecutor, Assistant United States Attorney Stephen Heymann was connected to a prior suicide of a defendant in a similar case. In 2008, Jonathan James killed himself while being pursued by Heymann in a criminal hacker case. Heymann then moved on to Swartz who also killed himself — complaining of the abusive treatment by the Justice Department. It is worth noting that the Justice Department could not come up with a single charge for anyone associated with the torture program, including the attorneys who facilitated the program. However, it wanted 35 years for a man accused of illegally gaining access to a university site and downloading academic papers to make available to the public for free. Those documents later released for free to the public but the Obama Administration still felt jail time was essential in the interests of justice.
Continue reading “Prosecutor of Aaron Swartz Linked To Another Suicide Of Defendant”
The response to the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut continues to get more and more bizarre. In Arizona, a controversial sheriff will have a volunteer “posse” at schools armed to the teeth. The NRA president wants armed guards at every school. Now, in Montpelier, Ohio, the school district wants to arm custodial staff who will now have push brooms, plungers, and semi-automatic weapons.
Continue reading “Ohio School District Moves To Arm . . . Janitors”
John Cusack and I had a dialogue last year about civil liberties and other issues. John previously ran a second interview (actually half of a second interview) on Huffington Post. Huffington has now published the second half of this last interview. With the death of Aaron Swartz this month, the Assange case takes on even greater significance for many. Below is the full interview if you want to read it without edits for space.
The suicide of famed programmer and free access advocate Aaron Swartz shocked the world. However, the underlying story of the how the Obama Administration prosecuted — and, in the eyes of many, persecuted — Swartz for seeking to publish academic papers which were later released by MIT without charge. Nevertheless, United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and the Obama Administration relentlessly pursued Swartz and sought an absurd 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines before he took his own life. His family blames the Justice Department and Ortiz for his suicide. Swartz opposed the Administration’s fight against public access and particularly President Obama’s “Kill List.” The Swartz prosecution was widely criticized for months but the Obama Administration and Justice Department remained committed to putting him in jail.
Continue reading “Aaron Swartz And The Obama Administration’s War On Public Access To Information”
This is not exactly your standard police report in Miami. A homeowner came downstairs and found an intruder in his home and shot him. What was a bit less common was the fact that the intruder was naked and in the process of strangling the homeowner’s pet Rottweiler when he was shot.
Continue reading “Miami Homeowner Shoots Man Found Naked and Strangling Dog In His Home”
This feline felon was inches from the caper of the century when he realized that he had missed on a small detail.
Continue reading “The Master Criminal Plan Had Worked Brilliantly Until . . .”