A recent study of capital cases in Texas shows that nine death row inmates lost their appeals due to the failure of counsel to file by the court deadline. Johnny Ray Johnson was put to death after his lawyers missed a filing deadline by one day. He is one of six such inmates put to death after missed deadlines.
Category: Criminal law
If Yvonne Pampellonne, 30, wanted a “hot” body, she got it. She is accused of stealing newly enhanced breasts and lipusuction from the Pacific Center For Plastic Surgery by stealing another person identity to change her own appearance. She was identified by clinic employees in a (fully dressed) line up.
Continue reading “Corpus Delicti: Woman Arrested for “Hot” Body”
Two British High Court judges have released a very disturbing decision that finds that ormer detainee Binyam Mohamed was offered his freedom by the United States in exchange for his promise not to reveal his own torture at Guantanamo Bay. Equally disturbing is the statement from the English government that it cannot release proof of the torture because of objections from the United States government. If the Obama Administration is continuing this position, it is not only blocking prosecution of war crimes but the release of evidence of such war crimes to other nations. I discussed this and other developments on this segment of Rachel Maddow’s show.
Continue reading “Court: United States Offered to Release Detainee If He Would Not Reveal His Own Torture”
This goes into the good news, bad news category. San Francisco-based attorney David Replogle (right), 60, is no longer facing a forgery trial in Riverside, California. The bad news is that he is now facing a murder trial in the death of Clifford Lambert (left), a 74-year-old retired art dealer.
Eric Montanez faces a curious criminal charge in Orlando, Florida: feeding hungry people. The good people of Orlando, Florida have decided to join other cities in making it a crime to feed poor and hungry people caught up in this recession. Even at Yellowstone you are simply asked not to feed the bears, but in Orlando feeding the hungry will get you arrested. There was a guy in the New Testament that did such things and look where that got us.
Continue reading “Don’t Feed The Local Citylife: Man Arrested for Feeding Homeless in Orlando”
London police are refusing to rescind a $145 ticket given to Penny Batkin, 40, who had the audacity to pull to the pavement to jump out to resuscitate her severely disabled son, Freddie, 4.
Continue reading “Mother Receives $145 Parking Ticket For Stopping to Resuscitate Her Disabled Son”
Angelo Monderoy, 18, and Matthew Cooper, 17, are looking at serious time for the horrific act of burning a cat named Scruffy with lighter fluid. The potential twenty-five year sentence is a rarity since most such cases fall under relatively light criminal penalties, but the property counts appear to have magnified the sentence.
Continue reading “Scruffy’s Revenge: New York City Teen Faces 25 Years in Cat Burning”
There are some species just born for border inspections and not just border collies.
Recently, we followed the crackdown on a Catholic newspaper by the Malaysian Islamic religious council and government over its use of “Allah.” Now, the council is pursuing the Malaysian Bar for using the word on its website in two online polls on whether any particular race has exclusive rights to the word.
Continue reading “Malaysian Bar Charged With Misuse of the Word “Allah””
Among the academics making the news this week is former Naval Academy professor Patrick Harrison, 66. It is not the type of publicity a professor craves. He is charged with raping a 12-year-old girl while teaching at the Academy. What is interesting about this case is that the alleged victim took 15 years to come forward with the claims.
The Israeli Military Advocate General Avichai Mandleblit is investigating accounts of religious extremists pushing soldiers to view the Gaza invasion as a “religious war” against gentiles. In the meantime, human rights groups are calling for the removal of military’s head chaplain, Rabbi (and Brigadier General) Avichai Rontzki, who told soldiers that it was “immoral” to show mercy to the enemy in the operation.
Jade Puckett in Houston, Texas spent her wedding night in a wedding gown in a cell with twenty other women at the Harris County jail after she and her new husband were pulled over in a sobriety roadblock. Police say that Puckett became belligerent and was arrested. She is not contesting the charge (which was pleaded out as public intoxication), but she has filed a complaint over her abusive treatment by Harris County officers. That complaint appears to have considerable merit.
The Corcoran State Prison in California has given the world a glimpse of Charles Manson at 74. As the founder and director of the Project for Older Prisoners (POPS), I want to reaffirm that he is not viewed as a good POPS candidate.
Continue reading “Charles Manson at 74: Still Not POPS Qualified”
In Whitehead, Indiana, Michelle Owen, 24, was allegedly so focused on incriminating her ex-boyfriend for downloading child pornography that she forgot about picture showing her engaged in sex acts with a dog.
Aleyda Uceta, 30, has been arrested after she allegedly punched and bite Principal Rudolph Moseley Jr. of Roger Williams Middle School in Providence, Rhode Island. Moseley had just informed her that her 11-year-old son would be suspended for refusing to go to a room for misbehaving children.
Continue reading “Parental Intervention: Mother Arrested After Biting Principal For Suspending Son”