Police insist that they were acting in self-defense when they shoot Alonzo Heyward in Chattanooga, Tennessee. There is no question that Heyward was carrying a rifle around his neighborhood and ranting about suicide. However, it was the response to the danger that has people demanding answers: the six officers fired 59 rounds at him — hitting him 43 times. The officers fired three volleys and stopped to reload before continuing to shoot the man.
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Category: Criminal law
This week Sen. John Ensign announced that he would remain in the Senate and insisted that he had not “done anything legally wrong.” He also rejected analogies to Bill Clinton, who he voted to convict in his Senate trial.
Continue reading “How Can It Be [Legally] Wrong When It Feels So Right: Sen. John Ensign Defends Affair as Not “Legally Wrong””
The Seventh Circuit continues to push the envelope on the recently recognized individual right to bear arms. In an interesting opinion by Judge Diana Wood, a three-judge panel ruled that the town of Cicero could still require gun registration without violating the Second Amendment. In the meantime, litigation is being planned over the Montana law claiming that guns in the state are exempt from federal jurisdiction and enforcement. Cicero businessman John Justice brought the challenge.
Continue reading “Justice Denied: Seventh Circuit Rejects Challenge to Gun Registration Law”
As we continue to pour money into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, cities are continuing to shutdown for lack of money (here). The latest such story comes from Philadelphia where officials are facing a shutdown of the entire court system due to budget shortfalls. Mayor Michael Nutter is also threatening the cutting of 1000 police officers and 200 firefighters.
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All Donald May wanted was fresh breath. Instead, he got three months in the slammer. When an officer in Kissimmee, Florida pulled May over for expired plates, he saw a white mint in his mouth. The officer said it looked like crack cocaine and had him spit it out. He then claimed that he field tested the mint, which showed it was crack cocaine. It took three months for the test results to be completed on the breath mints and to clear him as having candy rather than cocaine in his mouth.
Continue reading “If He Kissimmee Once, Will He Kissimmee Again? Man Spends Three Months In Jail After Officer Claims Breath Mint was Crack Cocaine”
Two police officers fled a police softball game with thousands of police from around the country after they were found smoking pot in their van. One officer, Souza, reportedly resisted arrest and had to be pepper sprayed. Shayne Souza, 47, and Kevin Fujioka, 37, allegedly parked illegally when other officers smelled the weed.
Continue reading “Police Officers Arrested After Allegedly Smoking Pot at Police Softball Game and Then Fleeing Pursuing Officers”
The officials in Paterson, New Jersey appear to be closing in on the problem of crime in their city: the citizens. The city is considering the first citywide curfew on adults to curb crime. No people, no crime — that sounds simple enough.
Continue reading “New Jersey City Finds Solution to Solving Street Crime: Get Rid of the People”
In a major ruling, the Supreme Court on Monday ordered an evidentiary hearing on innocence claims of Troy Davis, who is on death row in Georgia for the 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail. Not only did the Supreme Court stop the execution, but it created new law on the right of the defendant to present such evidence — a holding that drew the outrage of the conservative wing of the Court. While only a paragraph long, the unsigned opinion represents the first such order in decades for a new hearing to “receive testimony and make findings of fact”. Justice Scalia called it a “fool’s errand.”
Continue reading “Supreme Court Stays Execution and Says Evidence of Innocence Should Be Given Evidentiary Hearing”
Vincent Paul Riojas is not your typical accused hit-and-run felon. Where all hit and run felons flee the scene, Riojas stopped and took the body of his victim with him to his home.
Sacramento divorce attorney Gary Appelblatt, 58, has pleaded no contest to four counts of sexual battery and one additional count of attempted sexual contact. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Gary E. Ransom will now sentence Appelblatt, who is looking at likely jail time for a bizarre series of assaults on clients.
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A study by Yuegang Zuo, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, has made a surprising discovery: ninety percent of U.S. bills tested by this laboratory had traces of cocaine on it.
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Timothy Kissida, 23, was not exactly the poster boy for the “cash for clunkers” program. Kissida is accused of killing Chuck Waldrop, 52, in a hit and run accident. He then went that day to a dealer and traded in the damaged car in the “cash for clunkers” program in Phoenix, Arizona.
Continue reading “Arizona Man Accused of Trying to Sell Car in “Cash for Clunkers” Program After Fatal Hit-and-Run”
A man in Boise, Idaho is suing after the Boise Police Department declared that an officer who tasered him on the buttocks and threatened him with sodomy with a taser did not violate the law. While against policy, the police insist that the officer (who also threatened to shock his genitalia) merely failed to follow guidelines — the name of the officer has not been released despite the release of the audio tape below. The officer actually states on the tape that he had already sodomized the man with the taser when he threatened to deliver a second shock first to his anus and then to his genitalia.
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As we continue to pour billions of dollars and sacrifice lives of our military in Iraq, the country continues its return to radical Islamic rule. We have seen the continued denial of basic rights for women in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Now there is a report of hundreds of gay men and women tortured and killed in Iraq.
Continue reading “Report: Hundreds of Gays Tortured and Killed in Iraq”
Never say the English do not have a better class of criminals. When burglars broke into the home of Richard Coverdale, 24, they were delighted to snare a computer with the rest of the property. They soon discovered, however, disturbing pictures of child pornography and turned in the evidence to the cops.
Continue reading “Burglars Turn in Child Pornographer After Stealing His Computer”