We previously discussed the terrible case of Sureshbhai Patel who was seriously injured after former Madison (Alabama) police officer Eric Sloan Parker slammed him face first into the ground during a confrontation. Parker is now charged on the state level and facing a civil lawsuit. Now he has been charged with violating Patel’s civil rights. As we have discussed before, the question is whether such federal charges are necessary or warranted. Obviously, while based on the same conduct as the state charges, the charges are different. On the state level, it is assault while on the federal level it is the denial of federal rights. The Supreme Court has rejected double jeopardy attacks on such back-to-back charges, but these cases still raise the same concerns of multiplication of charges.
There is a bizarre criminal case in the making in Alabama where an aunt was having trouble speaking with her 19-year-old niece who had barred her from access to Facebook where she was connecting with strange men. The aunt proceeded to gain access by friending her as a fictional man. To her horror, her niece proceeded to try to get her (in her role as a man named Tre “Topdog” Ellis) to kill her and her family, including the family dog. The aunt went to the police and Marissa Williams is now in jail.
Last week, there was a compelling moment in the meeting of the Nebraska Oil and Gas Commission when a Nebraska farmer stepped forward to discuss the plan to allow 80 truckloads carrying 10,000 barrels per day containing fracking wastewater into Nebraska. Then the farmer offered the Commissioners a simple challenge: you drink it.
We have previously discussed how the social media craze of posting selfies seem to leave any room for . . . well . . . decency. The latest controversy concerns the East Village gas explosion that injured 25 people and collapsed three building — causing extensive physical and property injuries. While emergency personnel were still digging through rubble to try to find survivors, people started to show up to take selfies.
Continue reading “Social Media Sites Lash Out At Disaster Selfies In New York”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
There are some things in this world that are made to be so easy they become aggravatingly complicated, undeniably annoying, and leave us wondering why we bother. So began a devolution as some might call it and I went back to the local option. I cannot see a reason to return.
This is how I abandoned the local option, embraced Corporate American Drugstores, and finally realized what I had lost and how I could regain it.
Continue reading “Why I Fired My Corporate Pharmacy And Went Back To Basics”
By Cara L. Gallagher, weekend contributor
Debate on prison reform presented a rich but dreary landscape this week. Bookending the spectrum were themes of law and its role in total incarcerations, and the practical realities faced by incarcerated men. Justices Breyer and Kennedy appeared before a House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government to discuss the legal disarray of the American prison system. President Obama and David Simon, the writer and creator of (THE BEST SHOW EVER MADE) The Wire, discussed the same topic in a video for the White House YouTube page.
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who displayed a more passionate side than we usually see in Court, said the subject of corrections “was never discussed in law school.” Lawyers, he went on, were and have been more focused on the adjudication of a criminal trial, not the conviction side or sentencing. Frankly, “we didn’t care about the process [after].” Continue reading “On Prisons: the SCOTUS, Obama, and The Wire”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In yet another example of insensitive, zero-tolerance approaches, school faculty members of Wichita East High in Wichita, Kansas reportedly compelled a special needs student athlete having both Down syndrome and autism to remove a varsity letter his mother bought for him. He was given instead a girl’s sweater to wear.
School officials stated he could not wear the varsity letter because he was not a member of the varsity team. Apparently they were forced to act upon this transgression because “one parent complained” and therefore no exception could be made for this student.
Continue reading “Student With Down Syndrome Told By Faculty He Cannot Wear Varsity Letter Jacket”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In what hopefully will become the conclusion of an oppressive years long ordeal, Italy’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, overturned the murder convictions against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.
The news came as somewhat a surprise considering the zeal at which the prosecution fought to ensure the defendants be imprisoned for over two decades. The subsequent court drama and media circuses made it seem an almost foregone conclusion her fate would ultimately rest upon an extradition hearing within the purview of American courts.
Continue reading “Italian High Court Acquits Amanda Knox And Raffaele Sollecito”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In an injustice to both the liberty of a Kurdish man and free speech in general a court in Turkey handed down thirteen year sentence to a defendant accused of removing a Turkish flag at a military base near Diyarbakir, Turkey. The disproportionate sentence followed an outraged Recep Erdogan who declared after the act, “[w]e don’t care if he is a child. Even if a child dares to take down our sacred flag both him and those who send him there will pay a price.”
Continue reading “Court Sentences Man To 13 Years For Removing Turkish Flag”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
The Washington State Patrol found a most interesting man in the HOV Lane. Unfortunately, he was made of cardboard.
A WSP Trooper, working traffic on Interstate 5 near Fife became suspicious of a vehicle traveling in the HOV Lane with a nearly two dimensional passenger.
We have previously discussed the issue of when it is appropriate to punishment people for conduct outside of the work place. We have followed cases where people have been fired after boorish or insulting conduct once their names and employers are made known. (here and YouTube videos and drunken scenes). Recently I spoke at Utah Valley University about the private regulation of speech, particularly in businesses curtailing not just workplace speech but speech outside of the workplace. The latest such scandal involves ESPN reporter Britt McHenry who was given a suspension after a video was posted on YouTube showing her raving at a towing company employee about her wait and lack of skills. People are now demanding that she be fired.
As my children constantly lament, I have long been a fan of country music. Accordingly, I could not resist this tempest in a teapot over at MSNBC where the network has had to apologize for the comments of Ebony.com senior editor Jamilah Lemieux who was mocking the statement of Senator Ted Cruz that he switched from rock to country music after 9/11. Lemieux quipped “nothing says ‘let’s go kill some Muslims’ like country music.” Yikes. Continue reading “MSNBC Guest: “Nothing Says ‘Let’s Go Kill Some Muslims like Country Music””
A video of D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton has gone viral this week of what is being deemed the worse parking job in recent memory. The video shows the non-voting member of the United States House of Representatives taking a rather novel view of the diagonal parking lines of the spot on Capitol Hill.
Continue reading “Video of Parking Disaster by D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton Goes Viral”
While the rest of the country has been trying to find a way to deter the savage game known as “knock out” (where men randomly punch pedestrians to see if they can knock them out), Judge William Mays in Quincy Illinois appears less than steadfast in his approach of the “game.” Mays had Lamar Coulter, 21, in his courtroom and a compelling record of what appeared two knock out crimes. Nevertheless, Mays let Coulter go without prison time — giving him probation instead.
Continue reading “Illinois Judge Rejects Prison Time For Defendant In Alleged Knock Out Attacks”
A French prosecutor has issued a statement that the co-pilot of Germanwings 9525, Andreas Lubitz, 28, locked out the pilot of the plane and then intentionally crashed the plane in the French Alps. The conclusion adds a new horrific detail to an already horrific crash. It was not an accident according to a review of the record from the black box found at the crash site.