Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has decided to continue the fight to preserve the state’s “crimes against nature” law that bans both oral and anal sex in both heterosexual and homosexual relations. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (considered by many to be the country’s most conservative circuit) struck down the law on obvious constitutional grounds. However, Cuccinelli has filed a motion for reconsideration to try to get that decision reversed. The current attorney general and likely GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli wants to keep anti-sodomy laws on the books in Virginia.
Continue reading “Virginia Is For [Some] Lovers: Cuccinelli Continues Fight To Save Crimes Against Nature Law”
Category: Criminal law
The murders of two prosecutors in Kaufman County, Texas has caused heightened security measures to protect court staff and prosecutors. However, few expected those concerns to lead to the withdrawal of a federal prosecutor in Houston. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Hileman has reportedly announced that he will withdraw from a case out of personal safety concerns. If true, it is a rare case for a federal prosecutor to refuse to litigate a case out of fear.
The Justice Department was once all too eager to announce its prosecution of Aaron Swartz and issue press releases on how they piled on additional counts against him. However, after Swartz committed suicide in response to its unrelenting prosecution, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz and the Justice Department now want to keep the names of prosecutors in the case a secret so that they will not be held accountable for the abusive case. The Justice Department routinely holds press conferences in which prosecutors crowd stages to take credit for indictments. However, when a prosecution is denounced globally as excessive and cruel, the Justice Department wants to prevent the public from knowing the identities of the prosecutors responsible.
Continue reading “Justice Department Seeks To Keep Secret The Names Of Prosecutors Of Aaron Swartz”
In Los Angeles, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has launched a rare investigation into the Doheny Glatt Kosher meat market after a council of rabbis withdrew his Kosher certification. The USDA is looking into allegations that the owner of Doheny, Michael Engelman, served meat that did not meet Jewish dietary standards. The investigation places the federal government in the awkward position of enforcing a religious practice. At issue is whether the meat was not adequately certified by rabbis. However, the tale has more turns than a Mike Hammer movie with a gumshoe, a mysterious rabbi, and boxes of meats carried out of car trunks and warehouses.
A classic confrontation is occurring in Arizona over the freedom of the press. FoxNews.com reporter Jana Winter is standing by fundamental principles of journalism in refusing to disclose who gave her a notebook that a judge had put under a protective order in the case of Colorado shooter James Holmes. Arapahoe County District Judge Carlos Samour is pursuing other avenues for the time being in trying to find out who leaked the notebook, but Winter could still be put on the bench and held in contempt for a failure to disclose her source.
Continue reading “Fox Reporter Faces Potential Jail In Protection Of Her Sources”
A Saudi court is prepared to carry out a sentence to have Ali Al-Khawahir surgically paralyzed in conformity with Sharia law’s “eye for an eye” traditions. Al-Khawahir was only 14 when he stabbed a friend and left him paralyzed. Now, his family has failed to pay the victim “blood money” to be released from jail. After ten years of negotiations over the blood money, Al-Khawahir faces total paralysis under the Kingdom’s medieval legal system.
Continue reading “Saudi Man Faces Paralysis Under Sharia “Eye For An Eye” Sentence”
Satirist Bassem Youssef has sometimes been called Egypt’s Jon Stewart — a refreshing uninhibited commentators in the increasingly restricted Egyptian public discourse. That ended last week as Egypt’s Islamic government added him to the spate of blasphemy arrests in defense of Islam.
Continue reading “Egypt Arrests Popular Satirist For Blasphemy”
An unnamed 20-year-old man succeeded last week in combining trafficking in the infamous ivory trade with the destruction of historical artifacts to become one of the truly vile humans on Earth. The man broke into the Paris National History museum and cut off the tusk of the famous Louis XIV elephant with a chainsaw. An alert neighbor heard the sound of the chainsaw and called police. The man was arrested as he tried to make his escape.
Continue reading “Thief Cuts Off Tusk From Louis XIV’s Elephant With Chainsaw”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
To some of us the transition from slave to citizenship by those Africans brought in chains to these shores for economic exploitation and horrific abuse ended with the “Emancipation Proclamation”. To others its’ end might have been marked by “Brown v. Board of Education”, or by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Those of somewhat more insightful bent may have said that the true emancipation occurred when Barack Obama was elected President in 2008. In my view, as much of an impact as all those milestones (and more such as Jackie Robinson i.e.) made to American consciousness, Black people in the United States clearly still lack the benefits and rewards of citizenship. I would go further and say that in the United States, at this time; most Black people still suffer the degradation and challenges brought about by both institutional and emotional racism. This is not to say that in our country other groups, such as Latino’s and Native Americans are free of oppressive prejudice, but to assert that given their history in this country Black people are slotted into the bottom of the economic and social ladder and are still struggling to obtain even those most minimal of rights that most Americans see as their birthright. Continue reading “The Myth of Black Freedom in the U.S.”
The spiny freshwater turtle population is less than 1000 according to Canadian reports, but they found a windfall of dozens of the turtles recently. The problem is that they were dead and on a Chinese menu. Yet, the Chinese owner will face only a relatively small fine for this violation. In killing and sell these turtles for soup (and contributing to the possible loss of a species) the owner will face less of a penalty than a car theft or bad check.
John Cassidy has a remarkable story out in the New Yorker this week about a sweetheart deal cut by the Justice Department with one of the wealthiest men in the world, Steven A. Cohen (who may be pictured here at a standard picnic, or not). Cohen’s company would pay $626 million but not have to admit any wrongdoing and Cohen would face no personal sanction. The billionaire appears to be celebrating this month with a buying spree with a Picasso painting and a huge new mansion. What is amazing is that various Cohen subordinates have pleaded guilty and Cohen has been tied directly to an insider trading allegation. Yet, he appears to “too big to jail” as a continuation of the Obama Administration’s bifurcated legal system for the super rich and the rest of us.
Saudi Arabia has long shocked the world with its medieval Sharia justice system, but nothing prepared most of us for the recent execution in Jazan, Saudi Arabia. Faced with Mohammed Rashad Khairi Hussein, a Yemeni man accused of murder and sodomy, the Sharia court ordered him first beheaded and then crucified. This is not the first such sentence under Sharia law. A man in 2009 was ordered beheaded and then crucified for being a gang leader.
Continue reading “Over-Kill: Saudi Court Orders Man Beheaded And Then Crucified”
Dale Peterson, the Alabama Republican running for Agricultural Commissioner, has railed against “thugs and criminals.” Yet, Peterson is facing a second shoplifting charge in just five months. The latest charge however is over a handful of nuts that he ate at a Sam’s Club. Indeed, it is hard to see why either of these charges were brought rather than requiring a simple payment at the counter.
In Chickasha, Oklahoma, Anthony Black, 21, was arrested for a particularly risky act of shoplifting. Employees at Ross Seed Company were concerned because they thought a man was handicapped and was having trouble walking. They then thought he might be drunk. They then realized it was probably the chainsaw stuck down his pants.
Continue reading “Is That A Chainsaw Or Are You Just Glad To See Me?”
John Goodman, 48, recently lost his freedom for 16 years and now it appears that he has lost his beloved adopted daughter. Goodman is the wealthy founder of the International Polo Club Beach in Wellington, was convicted of killing Scott Patrick Wilson, 23, while driving drunk. Facing a civil lawsuit from his family, Goodman has legally adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend, Heather Laruso Hutchins, as his daughter to protect some of his money. Now it appears his daughter is back being his girlfriend after an appellate court ruled that her adoption was a sham and fraud. It was the continuation of Goodman’s effort to establish himself as one of the worst human beings on the planet.