Florida police officer Paul C. Lawrence, 38, allegedly was so good in combating traffic violations that he did not wait for them to occur before ticketing citizens. Lawrence has been charged with giving tickets to people who were not even in the state, let alone on the highway.
Continue reading “Florida Police Officer Arrested For Allegedly Writing Fraudulent Tickets”
Category: Criminal law
Matthew Beck, 46, may be a dog’s nightmare. He was the dog catcher for the town of Hoosick, New York. He has pleaded guilty to shooting stray dogs that he found and burying them in his barnyard manure pile.
Continue reading “Hoosick? Matthew Beck is One Sick Dog Catcher”
Previously, I have questioned the constitutionality of the Stolen Valor Act, which criminalized false claims of military medals and decorations. Now, two cases in Colorado could become a test for viability of the act — an appropriate forum given it is the home state of Rep. John Tony Salazar who was the chief sponsor of the 2005 law. The cases involve two men, Xavier Alvarez and Rick Glen Strandlof (shown left) who are challenging the law as a violation of their first amendment rights. Both claimed to be decorated Marines. Dan Elliott has an interesting article on these cases in The Los Angeles Times.
Continue reading “Semper Fraud: Two False Heroes Challenge The Constitutionality of The Stolen Valor Act”
The New York authorities have finally caught up to Alexa Gonzalez, who saw her open life of crime end with an arrest in her junior high school in Queens. Gonzalez was caught doodling on her desk with erasable marker and promptly cuffed and taken downtown.
Continue reading “Not So Sharpie: New York Police Arrest Lime-Green Marker Menace”
In what may be something of a disappointment for Ian Rushing, 27, women identified the Oregon man as the alleged “St. Helens Flasher” by his pronounced bad tooth.
Continue reading “Flasher Identified By His Pronounced . . . Tooth”
Today in a congressional hearing, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair acknowledged that the U.S. may, with executive approval, deliberately target and kill U.S. citizens who are suspected of being involved in terrorism. I discussed this story in the segment on MSNBC Countdown below.
Continue reading “Obama Administration Claims Right to Kill Americans Suspected of Terrorism”
We have been following the criminal investigation into the deaths at a sweat lodge run by self-help guru James Ray. Ray has now been arrested Wednesday and charged with manslaughter in deaths of three people at the Arizona sweat lodge ceremony.
Continue reading “Self-Help Guru James Ray Arrested”
There is an interesting case out of Pennsylvania where a dog groomer has been convicted of animal cruelty for ear and neck piercings. It is the defense of Holly Crawford that makes the case particularly notable.
Continue reading “Goth Cats: Woman Convicted of Animal Cruelty for Piercings”
Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh seem to be vying for which country is the most repressive in the application of Islamic Sharia law. The Saudi courts have ordered a Filipino woman to be lashed 100 times after she was raped. The Bangladesh courts outdid their Saudi counterparts and ordered a girl lashed 101 times for being raped. At what point does the Obama Administration publicly denounce these countries for systemic human rights violations against women?
Harris County criminal Court-at-Law Judge Reagan Helm has resigned after protests over his allegedly taunting remarks to victims of domestic violence. Helm, 68, reportedly admitted to suffering from dementia and having “medical issues.” He was accused of extreme bias against women in these cases. In one instance, Helm told men accused of domestic abuse that these women have them “by the balls.”
Continue reading “Houston Judge Resigns After Claims of Bias Against Domestic Abuse Victims”
Police in Florida have been dealing with the long-ignored menace of trolls. While we are all taught how to trick trolls in the “Three Billy Goats Gruff,” the victim forgot the “rob-me-when-I’m-fatter” trick when Jimmy Lee Morris (27), Dylan Patrick O’Shea (18), and Christopher L. Johnson (24) demanded that he “pay a toll to the troll.”
There is an interesting investigation in Brooklyn where Internal Affairs is looking into allegations that Brooklyn police officers refused to take criminal complaints and downgraded crimes to lower crime statistics. It brings a new meaning to officers warning people not to become a statistic.
Continue reading “Fighting Crime . . . One Statistic A Time: Brooklyn Police Accused of Fixing the Books”
Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg does not appear quite ready to accept gays serving the country in the military. On Hardball, he not only opposed the elimination of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy but argued that all gays should be arrested as criminals.
A church in Oregon has the infamous reputation of killing children in the name of faith. Now, two parents — Jeff and Marci Beagley — have been found guilty of negligent homicide. Their case was discussed in this prior column. It is a welcomed charge (often religious parents are given lesser charges in the death of their children due to faith-healing), but the likely sentence is likely to be relatively low given the history of this church and the loss of life.
Continue reading “Faith-Healing Parents in Oregon Convicted of Negligent Homicide”
In a disgusting pornographic collection called “the Misty series,” a little girl named Amy was photographed by her uncle who then distributed the pictures worldwide on the Internet. As discussed earlier, now an adult, Amy has succeeded to securing restitution not from her uncle but from a man who was found in possession of the pictures. As reported by John Schwartz in the New York Times article below, it has raised serious questions from lawyers and law professors (including myself) but the Obama Administration is now supporting such claims.
Continue reading “Pay Misty for Me: Courts Mull Over Restitution Payments to Victims of Child Pornography From Possessors”