Category: Politics

Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Politics, Society

Federal Prosecutors Charge White Man With Hate Crime After “Knockout” Game

conrad-alvin-barrett.jpg.siThe Justice Department has decided to charge Conrad Alvin Barrett, 27, with a hate crime in the “knockout game”-style attack against a black victim in Katy, Texas. The victim was a 79-year-old black man. The prosecution — and heavy punishment — of Barrett is clearly warranted if found guilty of the attack. However, the intervention of the Obama Administration is being questioned and is likely to add to preexisting concerns over the use of hate crimes to federalize state criminal actions and the standard for such prosecutions.

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Bizarre, Criminal law, International, Politics, Society

Indian Police Hijack Hearse Of Gang Rape Victim To Take Body For Forced Cremation

India flagWe have been discussing of the continuing rape epidemic in India, including repeated rapes by police officers in that country or efforts by police to shield rapists. Police in Kolkata reached a new level of abuse in actually hijacking the hearse of a victim who was gang-raped and dumped at at a hospital for nine days with fatal burns. The police then tried to force the family to agree to an immediate cremation.

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Constitutional Law, Courts, Politics, Religion, Society, Supreme Court

Sotomayor Grants Last-Minute Stay In Obamacare Challenge From Catholic-Related Groups

250px-Sonia_Sotomayor_in_SCOTUS_robe220px-New_Year_Ball_Drop_Event_for_2012_at_Times_SquareMany of us stayed up to midnight last night and watched the ball come down in Times Square. If you were still sober enough to notice, the person triggering the dissent was none other than Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. It turns out that that was not the only thing that she was doing on New Year’s Eve. Late Tuesday with only hours to go before January 1st — and the activation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — Sotomayor granted a stay requested by Catholic-affiliated groups to prevent the implementation of part of the ACA to require them to supply contraceptive services to employees in violation of their religious beliefs. The decision follows a refusal of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit to issue a stay. The stay order by Sotomayor was requested from Catholic nuns running the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged in Denver and now joins a stay issued earlier by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

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Courts, Lawyering, Politics

Nevada Commission Finds Judge Guilty In Unethical Relationship With Prosecutor

gavel2Nevada Suspended Family Court Judge Steven Jones has been found guilty of unethical conduct in his romantic relationship with former Deputy District Attorney Lisa Willardson. Willardson appeared before Jones. Jones was also accused of retaliating against two deputy district attorneys who helped expose his relationship but that charge was not proven.

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Academia, Free Speech, Politics, Society

Are You or Have You Ever Been a Member of the ASA? New York Legislators To Move To Ban Funds To Schools Associated With Israeli Boycott

Unknown-2Unknown-1We previously discussed how the American Studies Association joined a growing boycott of Israeli institutions, which is part of an even broader boycott of Israeli goods in many stores. There are good points to be made on both sides, including the absence of such boycotts for Chinese institutions and those of other abusive nations. However, we should all be able to agree that the response of New York legislator Dov Hikind is excessive and absurd. Hikind is showing his support for Israel by pushing legislation to cut off money to colleges involved in American Studies Association. He ignores the fact that the ASA resolution is non-binding and an expression of opposition to Israel’s policies as opposed to an enforceable ban. However, he wants to cut off whole institutions for even a loose association with a group that has condemned Israel. It is precisely the type of unhinged reaction that has distorted the debate over Middle East policies. He is being joined by Jeffrey Klein (right), another Democrat.

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Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, Politics, Religion, Society

India Muslim Party Reportedly Calls For Homosexuals To Be Executed

India flagRainbowFlagWe recently discussed the Indian courts reinstating the criminalization of homosexuality in that country.  Now, the Indian National League, a Muslim political party, has reportedly launched a public campaign calling for all homosexuals to be killed under the nation’s death penalty. The posters appearing around the country also claims that freedom of expression is being abused by gays and lesbians in advocating their cause. This story has appeared on a couple of gay rights sites covering India but has not appeared in the mainstream press.

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Bizarre, Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Justice, Lawyering, Politics, Society, Supreme Court, Uncategorized

Privacy’s Postmortem: Smith v. Maryland And How A Pen Register Became A Threat To Freedom

By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

bigbroWhen the faceless analyzers locked deep inside the NSA finally get around to divining just how privacy died in this country they won’t start with Friday’s decision by Judge William Pauley, III  in  ACLU v. Clapper finding the NSA data mining of American’s communications perfectly constitutional or even go back to the horrible events of September 11, 2001 when fear ran freedom from the playing field. No, the truth is that privacy began to die farther back in an obscure case during the nation’s bicentennial year. As most of us were gathering up our red, white, and blue bunting, buying fireworks, and marveling at the first technological salvo of the commercial computer age known as The Cray-1 , a robbery case in Maryland would form the first cancerous cell in the assault on the body politic’s right to be left free from government snooping.

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Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Free Speech, Justice, Politics, Society, Supreme Court

Hopes For the New Year

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Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty(rafflaw)-Guest Blogger

With the end of 2013 fast approaching, I have begun to wonder what the New Year holds for the country.  It looks like the Affordable Care Act is finally getting its website to function properly and the sign ups are now being counted in the millions.  Wall Street is still booming with the Dow Jones over 16,000, but yet unemployment is still too high and Congress is still trying to push austerity for the middle class and the poor, while doing everything in its power to prevent corporations and the wealthy from paying their fair share of taxes.  The Citizen’s United decision opened the money floodgates and needs to be curbed.  The military budget was spared in the recent Budget Deal, but yet unemployment benefits for millions have not been extended.

The gun lobby continues to prevent reasonable gun control legislation and needless scores of innocents continue to be slaughtered.  Instead of closing the gun show loophole or mandating reasonable and effective universal background checks, Congress did nothing.   Although there has been some recent movement from the Obama Administration to push Congress to allow the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, the facility remains open after 12 years.  With all of the bad news or non-action on many fronts, is it possible to have hope that 2014 will bring better news for all Americans?  Continue reading “Hopes For the New Year” →

Justice, Politics, Society

Federal Cutbacks And A Failed Tax Levy Causes Major Shift In Application Of Criminal Justice in Josephine County Oregon

Submitted by Darren Smith, Guest Blogger

Josephine County OregonA worrisome situation has been created in a rural Josephine County Oregon. Approximately seventy percent of the land area in the county is owned by the federal government which provided millions in revenue from timber subsidies. That source of finding for the county stopped due to a termination of payments by the federal government and in an attempt to fill a budget shortfall of over $7,500,000 the county asked the voters to fund a tax levy. The levy, which was projected to assess $300 on a $200,000 home was defeated in a narrow election. The result of the loss of both revenue sources caused a routing of the sheriff’s office budget, personnel and services.

The effect of this has led to cuts in services and patrol that has effectively led to a major transfer of the traditional roles of county policing from local government to irregular citizen’s patrols and the farming out of what little remains in the sheriff’s office to private contractors and outside agencies. Could situations like this resurrect some of the nineteenth century practices necessary in the West that are no longer compatible with twenty first century American Society?

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Bizarre, Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Society

Video Game Banned In China Due To Cultural Invasion and for National Security Purposes

Submitted by Darren Smith, Guest Blogger

Flag of the Peoples Republic of ChinaThe Chinese Government banned the video game Battlefield 4, developed by Electronic Arts, claiming the video game casts China in a bad light and advocates political issues which make China appear to be a warlike society.

The game play plot takes place in the year 2020 where a military coup occurs in China resulting in a geo-political intrigue that could bring the US into a protracted war.  The US sends troops to Hong Kong to fight against the coup and the PLA.

The Chinese Ministry of Culture went as far as to ban all things related to the game including software, patches, and news reports.  It censored the topic of the game on China’s main social media website weibo.com.  On a link derived, according to ZDNet, from an official Chinese news publication, there was much worry over the video games:

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Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Justice, Media, Military, Politics, Society, Supreme Court, Uncategorized

They Killed Him So Let’s Make a Buck

Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger

JFKRiceUniversityI’ve written before about the fact that the murder of JFK in Dallas was to me the most traumatic national experience in my life and the fact that I think it changed the destiny of our country in a negative fashion. I think that for many around my age this is also true, but it is now fifty years past and the majority of Americans have no real knowledge of it. The trauma of that day and the ensuing events of history have left me with an admittedly irrational repugnance towards the city of Dallas and I feel almost a shudder when I hear of Dealey Plaza, where the murder took place. These feelings are so intense that I doubt that I will ever visit Dallas in my lifetime, much less go to Dealey Plaza. When I got my weekly E Mail from my favorite investigative journalism website WhoWhatWhy.com I took note of an article about the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. The article was a humorous look at the potential for Christmas gifts that might be available at the museum’s gift shop and of course provided a link to the museum’s website, which I then followed. Going to the website and perusing it caused me to muse about the ability in our country to turn even our most solemn national events into commercial enterprises, while we pretend that they provide an educational service. Continue reading “They Killed Him So Let’s Make a Buck” →

Bizarre, Congress, Criminal law, Media, Politics, Society

Obama Task Force Member: Snowden Is A Criminal

Stone, Geof228px-Picture_of_Edward_SnowdenIn a previous column, I criticized the work of the White House Task Force on the NSA surveillance program as stacked with Obama loyalists with a majority of surveillance hawks. Later, one of the five members came out to say that the reforms were not significant and that he believes the program should be actually expanded not limited. Now, the only member without prior positions in the Administration and national security ties, University of Chicago Law School Professor Geoffrey Stone, has declared that the NSA is not a rogue agency and that Edward Snowden is a criminal.

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Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Free Speech, Lawyering, Media, Politics, Religion, Society, Supreme Court

Incoming Utah Attorney General Announces That He Will Appeal Sister Wives Ruling

ad611-sister-wives-season-4Incoming Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes has announced that his office intends to appeal the ruling striking down the criminalization of cohabitation in the Sister Wives case. The decision will ultimately send the case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver, Colorado. However, the trial court has not yet issued a final order due to a couple outstanding issues. Once that order is issued, the Attorney General’s office will have 30 days to file a notice of appeal. In a surprising decision, the Attorney General also indicated that he will no longer have his office defend the Utah ban on same-sex marriage (struck down by Judge Robert Shelby) and possibly the cohabitation law (struck down by Judge Clark Waddoups). That will require the hiring of outside counsel and an outside firm to defend these laws as opposed to the Office of the Attorney General itself.

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Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Politics, Religion, Society

Saudi Court Reportedly Recalls Jailed Blogger to Face Apostasy Charge and Possible Execution

badawiIn July, we discussed the horrific cases of Saudi blogger and activist, Raif Badawi, who was sentenced to 7 years in prison and 600 lashes for “insulting Islam”. Badawi created a popular site called Free Saudi Liberals in 2008 to discuss the role of religion in Saudi Arabia. That was enough to declare him a criminal in the Saudi Kingdom, which denies freedom of religion and freedom of speech as well as the rights of women and political dissidents. Now, there are new concerns over a report that a Saudi judge has ordered Badawi to return to court to face a new charge of apostasy for which he could be executed.

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Academia, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, International, Military, Politics, Religion, Society

The Crown Finally Pardons Alan Turing

_71928576_turingComputer pathbreaker and World War II codebreaker Alan Turing has been finally pardoned. It only took 61 years after his 1952 conviction for homosexuality and his chemical castration for the British government who contributed so mightily to the defeat of the Germans. What is particularly astonishing is not just that “moral people” in the United States and Britain not only did this to their citizens, but did this to a man who was protecting his nation so brilliantly and barred him from continuing work that was so pathbreaking in computer science. In the aftermath of the Sister Wives decision and our discussion of morality laws, Turning is a reminder of the hateful measures meted out in the name of morality or science or both.

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