This has been a strange and stressful weak for Obama supporters. Environmentalists are reeling over the selection of Sen. Salazar for Interior Secretary and liberals are denouncing the selection of Rev. Rick Warren for the inauguration prayer. In the meantime, Obama has assembled the most establishment cabinet of any recent president — picking the very same power figures who have run the government for years. However, nothing prepared Democrats for yesterday when Obama picked Rep. Ray LaHood, Republican of Illinois, to lead the Transportation department. I represented the democratic staffer on the House Intelligence Committee, Larry Hanauer, who was savagely and unjustly attacked by LaHood. LaHood’s attacks — found to be baseless — led to threats against Hanauer and his family.
Continue reading “Obama Nominates LaHood Despite Past Controversies in Congress”
Category: Criminal law
There seems to be a developing Third Reich theme this week. With Adolph Hitler being turned down for a birthday cake in Pennsylvania, Eichman has now been arrested in Delaware. This is Wilbur Eichman who was arrested in a bizarre case involving his alleged hiring of a hitman with a promise of bonus if he not only shot his ex-son-in-law but also brought him his genitals in a jar.
Continue reading “Eichman Arrested in Delaware Over Castration Contract”
Matthew J. Rubin may have a rye sense of humor and easy with the condiments, but he has to learn a bit about throwing food. For the second time in a month, a Florida man has been charged with battery by sandwich on a girlfriend. Rubin, 20, allegedly hurled a sandwich at his 19-year-old girlfriend during an argument over renewing insurance on his car. Port Lucie seems to have had a rash of these sandwich assaults.
The police officer shown on YouTube striking bicyclist Christopher Long without cause has been indicted. The officer, Patrick Pogan, has been instructed to report to State Supreme Court for the unsealing of the indictment. It is not clear what the specific charges may be: assault or a rumored false statement charge.
Continue reading “YouTube Indictment: New York Police Officer Charged in Bicyclist Attack”
Baltimore is outraged over the video below showing two teenage girls laughing as a man is robbed and then shot at a Chinese carryout. After Darren Brown and David Jefferson (both 17) shot the man, the carryout reportedly did nothing to help him, refused to let him behind the counter for protection, and continued to take orders.
Now, this is what you call a case of first impression. In Willmar, Minnnesota, Scott Wagar, 50, was upset with kids toilet-papering his house in that common homecoming adolescent practice. He decided, therefore, to spray them with . . . . fox urine.
Continue reading “Urine A Lot of Trouble: Minnesota Man Sprays Teens with Fox Urine”
It appears that officers of the Humane Society of the United States may be caged themselves at Gitmo. This week, the Center for Consumer Freedom ran a huge ad in the New York Times accusing the Humane Society of the United States of helping an animal-rights terrorism group raise money. The CCF represents the fast food, meat, diary and alcohol industries and has attacked such groups as Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD).
Superior Court Judge James Orlando of Pierce County, Washington has ruled that a 91-year-old man with proven dementia and a delusion disorder is still competent to stand trial for murder. Orlando held that competency is a “fairly low standard” that does not appear to exclude demented defendants like Joe Conway Elder.
Continue reading “Elder’s Law: Demented 91-Year Old Found Competent to Stand Trial”
New York Judge Thomas Spargo has been indicted for attempted extortion and attempted bribery. A former Albany County Judge, Spargo is accused of pressuring an Ulster County lawyer to give him $10,000 in 2003 and he was forced from the bench in 2006.
Just when the nightmare of John Ashcroft has receded in many minds, he’s back to remind us how we became an international pariah for our abandonment of fundamental legal principles and why the Supreme Court and other courts have ruled repeatedly against the Bush Administration. In the video below, Ashcroft scoffs at the suggestion that detainees deserve a fair trial, revealing his evident contempt for the rule of law.
Continue reading “Ashcroft “Stunned” People Think Detainees Deserve Due Process”
There is another interesting case to emerge from the New Hampshire Supreme Court. A former district court bailiff, Robert Theriault, 51, was charged with prostitution after offering a couple $50 to allow him to videotape them having sex. The Court ruled in the opinion below that the state could not prosecute him for prostitution on first amendment grounds since this is precisely what people do in making pornographic movies — which constitutes protected speech. One could call this the Isherwood Defense from Christopher Isherwood’s 1955 movie class, “I Am A Camera.”
Continue reading “I Am A Camera: New Hampshire Supreme Court Overturns Prostitution Conviction for Adult Movie Maker”
A Dallas police officer has achieved a certain fame after the video below captures him tasering himself after a chase with a suspected car thief.
Continue reading “Video: Officer Tasers Himself After Car Chase”
There could be a major criminal case emerging from Lynchburg, Virginia where prosecutors have charged Ronald Wojdyla, 57, with child pornography for superimposing his picture over a picture of an 11-year-old girl. It is a continuation of the debate over computer-generated porn, though in this case it is a real girl — only the sexual contact is fake. As the name might suggest, Lynchburg is not the place that one should test such fine points of pornography law.
Three students at the Chapin High School in El Paso, Texas seems to have fallen under the Red Queen of Hearts rule of “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.” Three high school students were disciplined after they were accused of lacing brownies with laxatives — and later confessed under investigation by the school. There is only one problem: the Armstrong Forensic Laboratory Inc. in Arlington found the the brownies contained pure, uncut . . . brownies.
A teenager and his family in Oklahoma is discovering the troubling consequences of our sex offender and statutory rape laws. Ricky (his last name is being withheld at his request) had sex when he was 16 with a girl who allegedly told him that she was 16. She wasn’t and prosecutors charged him with having sex with a 13 year old. He pled guilty and was sentenced to a two years probation — and registry as a sex offender for ten years. While the judge would three years later expunge that record, Oklahoma still insists on registering him as a high-risk sex offender — forcing him to live like a pariah and satisfy the various restrictions put in place for recidivist child molesters.