We have been following the investigation into the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. The shooter, George Zimmerman, 28, has not been charged and reported a suspicious character to 911. Martin was returning from a 7-11 after buying Skittles. He was carrying the candy, a small amount of cash, and an iced tea. The family and many others have called for the arrest of Zimmerman, though the accounts of the shooting have been murky. Previously, we discussed the need to hear the 911 tapes, which have now been released and are linked below.
Category: Criminal law
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger
When the Patriot Act was signed into law back in 2001, there was significant discussion about and distrust in the broad powers granted to the FBI and other intelligence gathering agencies. I won’t go into the uproar that ensued back then, but I do want to discuss the latest events pertaining to the infamous Section 215 of the Patriot Act. Section 215 of the Patriot Act is the section that has been dubbed as the “business records” provision of the Act. In the last few days, two United States Senators reconfirmed their concern over the possible misuse of the broad powers granted to the government in Section 215. Senator Ron Wyden and Senator Mark Udall have made public their recent letter to Attorney General Holder expressing their grave concerns on just how Section 215 is being interpreted and used to spy on Americans. Continue reading “How Patriotic is the Patriot Act?”
Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
It is a truism that most technology is a two-edged sword. Something created with a beneficial use can and (due to human nature) turned into something harmful is the way the scenario usually plays out. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule where the inverse is true and something harmful turns out to have a beneficial application. To illustrate this point, here is the Vortex Gun.
You saw correctly. This is a gun that can fire concentrated blasts of tear gas, pepper spray or any other aerosol agent moving at 90 miles per hour at targets up to 150 feet away. The “smoke rings” are still moving at 60 miles per hour reaching targets over 90 feet away. What possible benefit could come from such a weapon? Let’s look at the non-military application of the weapon before jumping the gun (pun fully intended).
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger
Being in my late 60’s and having grown up in a liberal family, politics and history have been always among my greatest interests. Those much younger than I would no doubt list 9/11 as the most traumatizing historical event of their lifetime. While 9/11 of course affected me greatly, no historical event in my life has affected me as much as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I believe that it traumatized my generation so extensively that most of us have not been able to fully believe in our country and its government since that tragic day and its aftermath. Most Americans alive today, who were born in 1960, or afterwards, have only second hand accounts of the total turbulence of the 60’s and the trauma experienced by those who lived through it. There is no doubt that 9/11 has traumatized this nation, but initially it drew most of us together, only to have that unity frittered away by the Bush Administration. The 60’s did that for my generation and that trauma led directly to our current political chaos and deep distrust of government as my generation took the reins of political power.
To most people growing up in the 50’s, on its surface America was the land of opportunity. The USA was a great democracy, unparalleled in human history in the prosperity of its citizens and its standing among nations. For many though, there were obvious cracks in this version of the America Myth. If you were a Black American you faced the viciousness of “Jim Crow” in the South and the somewhat more “genteel” racism pervading the rest of the country. People of Spanish speaking heritage also faced the status of second class citizenship. Native American’s were treated just as badly as they had been from the first European landing on these their shores. Women were, with few exceptions, expected to be subservient to male expectations and were uniformly portrayed as being intellectually inferior. Homosexuals were viciously and violently persecuted. And so it went in 1950’s America. Some great white writers like Mailer, Kerouac, Steinbeck and many others were taking on the myth of the America Dream. Africa American writers like Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin were standing on the shoulders of their predecessors from the Harlem Renaissance, in exposing the oppression Black people faced. There was among many Americans a weariness of the canards of the Eisenhower Administration, the fear based militarism of the Cold War and a recognition that all was not well with a good portion of the population. There was also for many, a hope for purposefulness in their own lives, beyond marriage, house in the suburbs, new car and two kids.
Arriving on the scene, promising to revitalize the country, was JFK, a brilliant speaker, handsome man and charismatic leader. He won a close election against the unlikable Richard Nixon and proceeded to galvanize the nation with the dreams of his New Frontier. JFK also was the source of great enmity among the Washington Establishment. Seen as nouveau riche by the plutocracy, too idealistic and naïve by the Defense, State Departments and CIA, hated by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, too “Nigra Friendly” for Southern racists and a threat to the “business as usual” Corporate status quo. He was murdered on a Friday Afternoon in 1963 as my University suspended activities and I sat with friends stunned with grief listening to a car radio and puffing Marlboro’s. That day is etched permanently in my mind and the disturbing events that followed it throughout those turbulent 1960’s forever changed the way I viewed the world. Lee Harvey Oswald was improbably murdered as I watched on TV that Sunday; a flawed Warren Commission Report arrived filled with holes; the murder of Martin Luther King and then Bobby Kennedy; along with the prosecution of a vicious and illegal war; with all this my faith in American Democracy and exceptionalism faded into skeptical disbelief. Life for us ordinary citizens, however, still went on and pleasure, friends, lovers, spouses, families and careers took up most of our time and attention. Nevertheless I devoured everything I could read about the JFK murder and indeed about the history taking place as I lived my mundane life. Recently a book brought all those strange feelings back to the surface and provided a possible explanation why our world seems so much crazier these days. Continue reading “A Real History of the Last Sixty-Two Years?”
Rick Santorum is continuing his faith-based campaign with a pledge to wipe out pornography in his Administration. The problem is that pornography is lawful and now a multi-billion dollar industry. It is obscenity that can be criminalized, but what is obscene remains exceptionally vague and ill-defined. Indeed, many may find parts of this presidential campaign to border on the obscene.
In Sanford, Florida, a family has buried a teen killed by a “watch captain” in a gated community on February 26th. However, question remains not only about the killing of Trayvon Martin, 17, but why the shooter, George Zimmerman, 28, has not been charged. Zimmerman reported a suspicious character to 911 and was expressly told by the police not to confront the individual. Instead, he pursued Martin and shot him — claiming that the shooting was in self-defense. [UPDATE: A statement reportedly from the Zimmerman family denies that he confronted Martin].
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, is embroiled in another controversy. King has previously been criticized for anti-Muslim statements and his express support for the IRA, despite its listing as a terrorist organization. Now, King has triggered an investigation after he went along with U.S. Marshals on a raid of a home and gleefully filmed the arrest of a citizen, including what appears footage inside the person’s home. It is the perfect merging of entertainment, politics, and crime. In the land of the blind, the one-cameraed man is King.
Continue reading “Freeze, U.S. Congress! Rep. King Criticized For Video Of Raid Posted On YouTube”
Given the recent reports on our latest filings in the World Bank case (Chang v. United States), below are the two most recent filings asking for a resumption of hearings on the alleged destruction of evidence by the government.
We have yet another tragedy in the Arab world where a 16 year old Moroccan girl committed suicide in Morocco after being forced to marry her rapist — a man ten years her senior. The girl’s parents filed charges against the man but the court ruled that rather than punishing the man, he should marry his rape victim.
In the last week, we have had one dad who blinded a goalie with a laser in a girl’s hockey game and another dad who bit off part of the ear of an opposing coaches ear after his son lost a basketball game. Now comes Shelly S. Miller, 37, who is charged with felony battery after allegedly punching an assistant basketball coach at St. Stanislaus School to the point of his losing consciousness.
Ok, maybe not eternal. A Guatemalan court sentenced former special forces soldier Pedro Pimentel, 55, to 6,060 years in prison for his role in a 1982 massacre of 201 people. The Las Dos Erres massacre was carried out by a group of some 20 soldiers in December 1982.
An assistant basketball coach at a basketball game of sixth graders is accused of biting off part of another coach’s ear at a Catholic Youth Organization game in Springfield, Massachusetts. Timothy Lee Forbes is reportedly the father of one of the players on his team that lost the game at Holy Name School in the Catholic Youth Organization final. He is charged with first punching the opposing coach and then going Mike Tyson on his ear. Jesus
Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Elizabeth have canceled speeches in Toronto, Canada out of concern that they would be set upon by people who oppose torture and want Cheney arrested. While Americans appear reconciled with the torture program, citizens in other countries still demand that Bush officials be arrested according to international law.
Continue reading “Cheney Cancels Meeting in Canada With Spectre To Avoid Attempts To Arrest Him”
We have previously looked at the liability questions surrounding injuries and deaths linked to herpes transmissions from Rabbis during ultra-Orthodox circumcision rituals known as metzizah b’ peh. During the ceremony, the rabbi or mohel removes blood from the wound with his mouth. The latest tragedy occurred with the death of a two-week-old boy in Brooklyn who contracted herpes from the Rabbi. In 2005 another infant died from the same alleged transmission from a rabbi. This could raise a difficult question on defining the “reasonable rabbi.”
Continue reading “The Reasonable Rabbi Standard? Brooklyn Prosecutors Reportedly Investigate Rabbi Who Transmitted Herpes To Baby In Circumcision Ceremony”
I recently wrote a column on how the West is curtailing free speech under blasphemy, hate speech, and anti-discrimination laws. As if on cue, lawyer Gloria Allred has called for the criminal prosecution of Rush Limbaugh for calling law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute.” I previously wrote that I believe Limbaugh’s comments were protected speech under the first amendment and constitute opinion for the purposes of any libel action. Such a prosecution would threaten core free speech principles and the law cited by Allred would appear not only inimical to free speech but overtly sexist.