Category: Criminal law

Guns-O-Plenty: Virginia Passes 20 Gun Bills

The Virginia legislature passed a flurry of bills stripping away limitations on gun possession in the state. After intense lobbying from the National Rifle Association and over $1 million in NRA campaign contributions, the lawmakers passed 20 gun bills expanding possession and ownership rights in the state.

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Close Enough For Police Work? Denver Police Arrest Mother on Way to Pick Up Daughter At School — Despite the Fact that She Looks Nothing Like Suspect

Christina FourHorn is suing the Denver police department in a bizarre mistaken identity case that led to her jailing — and an alleged refusal of police to listen to repeated efforts to show that they had the wrong person. It is only the latest in such mistaken identity arrest cases.
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Prosecutor Refuses to Charge Police Officer Who Allegedly Commits Hit-and-Run, Lies About Accident, and Then Defends His Actions As “Impaired By Alcohol”

Redondo Beach City Prosecutor Brenda Wells is receiving considerable heat over her decision not to charge Torrance Police Sgt. Michael Mastick, who was involved in an off-duty hit-and-run collision. He admitted that he fled the scene because “judgment was impaired by alcohol.” A novel defense to be sure but it seems to have worked.
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Father Faces 10 Years After Altercation With Pennsylvania Officers at Scene of Son’s Car Crash

We have another case of officers arresting a distraught family members at the scene of an accident. This one involves James Rourke of Doylesburg, Pa., who had rushed to the scene after he learned that his 19-year-old son Freddy was in a serious car accident with a friend and still trapped in the car. The photos from the scene are horrific. If he thought things could not get much worse, Rourke was wrong. The arrival of two officers lmer Hertzog and James Erme would result in Rourke’s arrest and charges with a maximum penalty of ten years in prison.

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Cheney: “I Was a Big Supporter of Waterboarding”

Former Vice President Dick Cheney came out this weekend in an interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl to proclaim “I was a big supporter of waterboarding.” It is an astonishing public admission since waterboarding is not just illegal but a war crime. It is akin to the Vice President saying that he supported bank robbery or murder-for-hire as a public policy.
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A Mesa in Arizona: Judge Finds Basis for Contempt Sanction Against Arpaio

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is fighting with another judge and this one seems ready to hold him in contempt in Mesa, Arizona. While Arpaio routinely disregards and even investigates local judges who oppose his controversial policies or actions, here, he picked the wrong fight with a federal judge this time. U.S. district judge Murray Snow has formally found grounds for sanctioning Arpaio for the acknowledged destruction of records in a lawsuit involving racial profiling.
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Boise Police Officers Taser Man on Buttocks, Threaten to Rape Him With Taser, and Then Claim No Fault in Modest Settlement

We previously followed the case of Gerald Amidon, who sued the Boise police department for allegedly threatening to sodomize him with a taser and using excessive force in his arrest, including tasering him on the buttocks. He has now settled for only $150,000 and, despite a highly disturbing tape of the incident, the police department is able to claim no fault as part of the settlement.
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Sex Tape Leads Abbas To Fire Top Aide and Call for an Investigation

Palestinian officials are largely supporting Rafiq Husseini, a former Palestinian intelligence officer and top aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is embroiled in a sex-for-favors scandal. However, Abbas has now dismissed his aide and called for an investigation after he was allegedly captured in an embarrassing video, here.

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Obama Administration Seeks To Strip Cellphone Users of Privacy Protections

The Obama Administration is appealing a ruling in favor of privacy before the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit — seeking to allow it to track people by their cellphones and arguing that there is no privacy expectations to prevent tracking without probable cause. It is another example of Obama’s continued assault on civil liberties — and the failure of liberals to call him to account for such policies.
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Wedding Crashers: Kenya Arrests Couple and Guests At Same-Sex Marriage While Protesters Call For The Suspects To Be Burned Alive

Kenyan police showed the world what state-sponsored homophobia looks like this week when police raided a same-sex wedding and arrested all suspected homosexuals.
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Professor Arrested for Murders at University of Alabama

The academic community is shocked by the news that not only were three faculty members murdered at the University of Alabama but that the suspect is a fellow academic. Amy Bishop, a biology professor, is facing murder charges in the shooting deaths of three faculty members and will be charged with the wounding of three other employees Friday.

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Bad Pitch: Weight-Loss Pitchman Trudeau Held In Criminal Contempt

United States District Judge Robert Gettleman in Chicago has held infomercial pitchman Kevin Trudeau in contempt after Trudeau encouraged fans to write and call his chambers. The result was clogging the court’s email and phone system. Trudeau is the author of “The Weight Loss Cure ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About.”

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Passing the Buck: Teenager Steals Dog to Prevent It From Being Euthanized

Police in New Zealand have an interesting necessity defense to deal with in a theft case. Bronson Stewart’s puppy, Buck, was hit by a car and neither Stewart, 19, or his father could afford the money to pin the puppy’s broken leg back together or the lower price to have the leg mputated. While the family (which is on welfare) offered to pay $3.50 a week, the vet declined and said that it was best to euthanize Buck because he was in agony. That is when Stewart took matters into his own hands.
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