Officer Matt Marin shot and killed Brian Claunch, a one-armed, one-legged man in a wheelchair who turned out to only have a pen in his hand. Nevertheless, Police Department spokeswoman Jodi Silva insisted that “fearing for his partner’s safety and his own safety, [Marin] discharged his weapon.”
Category: Criminal law
In the last decade, the United States has increasingly become a symbol of hypocrisy as a nation that has violated many international principles that it helped create after 9-11. That record was reinforced this week after the Afghan government (not exactly the paragon of civil liberties) refused to adopt indefinite detention rules pushed by the Obama Administration. Of course, President Obama has continued the indefinite detention of the Bush Administration and the operation of the Guantanamo Bay facility over the objections of civil libertarians. We recently saw the death of a detainee who was found years ago not to be a national security risk and never proven to be guilty of a single crime. Yet, in its effort to create a “new Democracy” in the Afghanistan, the Obama Administration was insisting that it replicate our own indefinite detention rules. In the meantime, a federal court has stayed a prior court order that enjoined the provision on indefinite detention under the Obama Administration’s 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.
This video shows a clearly obnoxious and possibly unstable individual who hounds court security with a series of nonsensical statements about not being a person. The court staff shows considerable restraint and professionalism until the man is tasered for trying to get into a court area with a camera.
Continue reading “Court Staff Tasers Obnoxious Man Insisting On Entering Area With Camera”
Muslim extremists have destroyed another religious shrine. We have previously discussed the destruction of these sites which are importantly not just religiously but historically. This time it is the tomb of a Muslim saint, Cheik El-Kebir, in Mali. Using hammers and picks, twelve members of the Islamic Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) destroyed the ancient shrine.
Continue reading “Muslim Extremists in Mali Destroy Another Islamic Shrine”
We have received a lot of requests for the briefing just filed in the Sister Wives case in Salt Lake City. As lead counsel, I am limited in what I can say about the case publicly. However, here is the final brief on the merits of the case, which is limited to 25 pages of argument under the local rules.
Continue reading “Brown Family Files Final Brief On Summary Judgment”
We have spent years following the absurd series of photo ops featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin from shooting tigers to fishing bare chested in the wild to leading wild cranes in migration to Asia to riding leather-clad through Moscow. The ridiculous claim that Putin found the ancient vases on his very first stint as a scuba diver proved too much for even the most gullible Russians. After aides admitted it was staged following international ridicule, Putin has now shrugged off all of the students as staged events.
Continue reading “Russian Circus: Putin Admits His Exploits Have Been Staged”
Christopher Tyquan Groomes, 26, is the latest husband arrested for shooting his wife. This crime, however, is a bit different in that his wife allegedly asked him to shoot her. Police say that Judy Groomes, 25, wanted to avoid deployment with the Air Force and staged the shooting, accusing unknown burglars in her home in Bossier City, Louisiana.
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
I have to admit that I do not shock too easily. However, when I read an article this morning in the New York Times, I was taken back by the news. It seems that private debt collection companies across the United States have partnered with District Attorneys offices, to use the threat of criminal charges being filed against consumers in attempts to collect on alleged bounced checks to merchants. The fact that people were being threatened by collection companies did not surprise me. It was the fact that the veiled threats to the consumers were sent on District Attorney or Prosecutor letterhead that amazed me! Continue reading “Privatizing the District Attorney?”
The Ninth Circuit has handed down an interesting ruling that reaffirms that sexual contact requires consent. What is different is that the case deals with prison sex. Former Idaho prison guard Sandra de Marti is accused of sexual harassment in groping inmate Conway Wood. The case is Wood v. Beauclair, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 18575 (9th Cir.).
In Texas, Garland Officer Patrick Tuter reportedly fired 41 rounds at an unarmed man last month after a collision with the truck of Michael Vincent Allen (shown left). Now it appears that a dash-cam video contradicts what the police department first said in the case. Moreover, a witness has charged that police officers confiscated his phone and erased a video and pictures of the scene.
Justin Hallman, 16, wanted to show how the United States is turning into a police state. He succeeded all too well in not only receiving an A+ in his American Government class but also allegedly a visit from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) confirming the very premise of his film posted on YouTube (below).
Attorney Susan Elizabeth Van Note, 44, was arraigned this week on charges of forgery and first degree murder of her father William Van Note. Both William B. Van Note, 67 and his longtime companion Sharon L. Dickson, 59 died from gunshot wounds received at their home in October 2010. The case has an interesting twist: police allege that the father died as a result of Van Note presented a forged medical form allowing her to terminate life support.
Our erstwhile ally in Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is responding to the brutal murder of U.S. ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and three other embassy staff in Benghazi on Wednesday. Stevens was reportedly suffocated to death by the attacking mob which attacked the consulate because of a small film shown in the United States that was deemed as insulting to the Muhammad. Karzai then offered his own take on the murders by denouncing the “inhuman and abusive act” of the . . . filmmakers.
Continue reading “Karzai Denounces Filmmakers for the Murder of Americans in Libya”
Othello once begged that he be thought of “one that lov’d not wisely but too well.” Democratic candidate Wendy Rosen could claim the same defense regarding voting. She voted not wisely but too well by voting in both Maryland and Florida in 2006 and 2008. She has now withdrawn as the challenger to Republican Rep. Andy Harris in the 1st Congressional District in Maryland – though it is not clear if her name can now be removed from the ballot. She waited until after the August 28th deadline for ballot changes in announcing her withdrawal.
Below is my column today in USA Today on the closure of the final torture investigation by the Obama Administration. Notably, in light of the rift with civil libertarians and his move to the right on national security matters, Obama is not running on civil liberties in this election or claiming to be champion for such rights. Likewise, liberal newspapers and commentators have criticized the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party for rolling back on strong language in the prior 2008 platform to civil liberties in the Democratic platform. The downgrading of civil liberties by the Democratic Party leaves civil libertarians without even a pretense of a party or candidate championing the cause in this election. In a prior column one year ago, I complained that President Obama had not just killed certain civil liberties but killed the civil liberties movement in the United States. That appears reflected in the tepid response to these issues in the party platform. Of course, while party platforms can be dismissed as meaningless statements, the final closure of the last torture investigations without a single criminal charge promises to have a more lasting impact on the law and our record on civil liberties and human rights. Here is today’s column:
Continue reading “THE IMPROPRIETY OF TORTURE”