There is a surprising story out of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania that seems the perfect storm of religious tensions. You begin with Ernie Perce, an atheist who marched as a zombie Mohammad in the Mechanicsburg Halloween parade. Then you add Talaag Elbayomy, a Muslim who stepped off a curb and reportedly attacked Perce for insulting the Prophet. Then you have a judge (Judge Mark Martin) who threw out the criminal charges against Elbayomy and ridiculed the victim, Perce. The Judge identifies himself as a Muslim and says that Perce conduct is not what the First Amendment is supposed to protect. [UPDATE: The judge says he is not a Muslim despite what is heard by most listeners on the tape. That being the case, the criticism of the comments remains.] [UPDATE2: Perce has responded to our blog and denied many of the factual representations made by Judge Martin].
Category: Criminal law
Meredith Lowell, 27,has been arrested in a rather bizarre alleged murder plot: to randomly kill a fur wearer. Lowell was charged with soliciting a hit man to shoot a stranger — justifying the hit was akin to liberating people from Nazi concentration camps.
The Iranian Sharia courts have given the world a steady stream of horrific judgments — using the pretense of a legal system to mete out religious-based and perfectly medieval punishments. They have now added a fresh outrage. Despite worldwide condemnation, a trial court in Iran has issued its final verdict that Youcef Nadarkhani, 34, be put to death. His crime? Converting to Christianity. During the country’s Sharia law, such apostasy is punished by death.
Continue reading “Iranian Court Orders The Death Penalty For Christian Pastor Convicted of Apostasy”
James Privett, 26, believes in love . . . and its power to heal all wounds . . . including cleaver scars. Privett took a cleaver to his wife but has told police that he hopes “loves conquers all” and hopes to reconcile with his wife Erica.
Michigan legislators are moving to make possession of toy guns a crime. The legislation by members is based on the growing practice of criminals cutting off the orange tips and using the toy guns in crime. This way, presumably, they will go and get real guns for their crimes?
Holly Grigsby is obviously cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. The murder suspect has challenged jail conditions that deny her access to the cereal and other items in the commissary of the Snohomish County Jail.
Continue reading “Cereal KIller? Murder Suspect Challenges Jail’s Denial Of Favorite Cereal”
California prosecutors have brought a rare manslaughter charged against an architect for the substandard construction and design of a $11 million mansion. Albert Becker, 48, was arrested after a firefighter died in a blaze at the home, which was going to be the backdrop for a reality show called “Germany’s Next Model.”
Continue reading “Architect Charged With Manslaughter Over Poorly Built $11 Million Mansion”
Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Reasonable people tend to agree there is both a right to privacy and that it is necessary.  But what exactly is the right to privacy? Justice Brandeis famously said in Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1928), “The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone-the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect, that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And the use, as evidence in a criminal proceeding, of facts ascertained by such intrusion must be deemed a violation of the Fifth.” Plainly put, at its heart a right to privacy is simply a right to be let alone.
However, do we need to specifically protect it or generally protect it? Is that right absolute? Laws, by definition and the nature of entering a social compact, are restrictions on absolute liberty found in the state of nature. One of the larger disagreements at the Constitutional Convention was about whether enumerated rights would serve to unjustly limit those rights versus a failure to enumerate rights would result in rights not being properly protected. This is a valid question surrounding this issue, especially since some would advocate enumerating the right to privacy by Constitutional amendment. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. While specifically defining/enumerating a right creates a foundation for arguments surrounding said right, leaving a right’s definition nebulous allows jurisprudence greater leeway to evolve around fact specific instance and questions that in the long run can result in a more nuanced understanding and application of the right without the constraints a foundational definition might impose. In this light, consider the right to privacy.
Continue reading “Privacy Rights – To Enumerate or Not to Enumerate, That is the Question”
By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Martin County Florida law enforcement officers made a surprising discovery while processing 28 year-old arrestee Ramon Blair. Blair had been fingered by the ubiquitous reliable, confidential informant as riding around town with $100 worth of crack cocaine on his person.
Continue reading “Florida Police Make Surprising Discovery That Man Has Crack In His Butt”
Below is my column today in the Washington Post (Sunday) Outlook Section. The column concerns the Alvarez case to be heard on Wednesday before the Supreme Court. I have been a long critic of the Stolen Valor Act — not because I am not highly sympathetic to its purpose but because I am concerned about the means of achieving that purpose. I share the anger over people who falsely claim to be war heroes. However, the government often selects popular causes for expanding its power over speech or conduct of its citizens. The question before the Court is really not about this specific form of lying, but the legal basis for criminalizing lies generally. The Act is different in that it seeks to criminalize lies simply because they are lies as opposed to lies that are used to commit a specific crime like larceny or fraud or perjury. I also spoke to NPR on Talk To The Nation on this subject.
Continue reading “The Better Part of Valor: Should Lying About Medals Be A Crime?”
We previously discussed the abusive arrest of Mark Fiorino by Philadelphia police. Now the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and the law firm of McCausland Keen & Buckman have filed a federal complaint today against the city of Philadelphia in his defense. It is an important case and we will be following it closely.
Continue reading “ACLU Files On Behalf Of Gun Owner Abusively Arrested By Philadelphia Police”
State Rep. Alvin Holmes (D-Montgomery) has introduced a bill that tackles that pressing problem of the State of Alabama. No, not high unemployment or crime or foreclosures. He is moving a bill that would ban saggy pants. That’s right, the legislature of Alabama is close to passing a statewide ban on saggy pants. The only thing more questionable than its constitutionality is its necessity. While it may put him at odds with Arizona Democratic state Rep. Katie Hobbs to require airbrushing of any saggy images, they both seem to be working off the sense of legislative priorities.
Continue reading “Alabama House Passes Ban On Saggy Pants”
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a stinging rebuke to the Justice Department after refusing to remove the name of a prosecutor who acted unethically from an opinion. The effort by the Justice Department to conceal the name of the prosecutor, the court noted, was in sharp contrast to its common heralding of the accomplishments of its prosecutors in public. The move reaffirmed the view of many lawyers that the Justice Department often acts reflexively in defense of its lawyers — often resisting efforts to hold abusive prosecutors accountable. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jerry Albert is accused of misrepresenting a drug defendant’s prior statements when trying to impeach her trial testimony.
Nancy Grace has long thrived on the carrion of high-profile murders and disappearances. Sometimes, however, there simply is not time to lose to distort facts into a juicy murderous tale. Thus, when Whitney Houston died, Grace was virtually hyperventilating in fashioning the death as a presumptive murder. Grace demanded to know who pushed Houston under the water in her tub or gave her the lethal dose of drugs or both.
Continue reading “Nancy Grace Demands To Know Who Shoved Houston Under The Water”
The new Libyan government has adopted many of the habits of its previous regime like torture and it can now add homophobic leadership. Libya’s new United Nations delegate to the U.N. Human Rights Council used a resolution to combat violence based on sexual orientation to denounce homosexuals as threatening the survival of the human race.
Continue reading “Libyan U.N. Envoy Denounces Gays and Lesbians As Threatening Humanity”