There is now a lawsuit filed seeking damages in the beating of Kollin Truss by Baltimore police, as shown vividly by the video below released by this attorney. The video is highly disturbing and shows Officer Vincent E. Cosom striking Truss without any apparent provocation and then followed by other officers.
Continue reading “Baltimore Man Sues Police After Videotape Shows An Unprovoked Attack By Officer”
Saudi Arabia has long been one of the most vocal countries to object to any insult or restriction impacting Islam in other countries. However, it continues to deny the free exercise of religion to non-Muslims. That oppressive record was on full display this week with the report of another series of arrests of Christians who were merely trying to pray. The infamous Morality Police (Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice) raided the prayer meeting and arrested everyone for the crime of praying to another God.
Continue reading “Saudi Police Reportedly Raid and Arrest 28 Christians Praying At Home”
Yesterday, I had a spirited debate with Berkeley Professor and former Bush Administration lawyer John Yoo at Christopher Newport University’s Center for American Studies (CAS). The debate was structured around the question of “Filling in the Gaps: Is Executive Prerogative Constitutional?”
Continue reading “The Yoo-Turley Debate: Two Antithetical Views Of Presidential Power”
This afternoon, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will hold its hearing on whether to accept a new state into the Union: New Columbia. While I was asked if I could testify on S. 132, I will be traveling today to Newport News to Christopher Newport University for a long-planned debate with John Yoo on presidential powers. I have written a long academic publication on the status of the District of Columbia and testified at the prior hearings on allowing for voting representation of District residents. See Jonathan Turley, Too Clever By Half: The Partial Representation of the District of Columbia in the House of Representatives, 76 George Washington University Law Review 305-374 (2008). Since I will not be able to appear, I thought that I would re-run my earlier column on the proposal. Before Congress embraces the path to statehood, it should give the original concerns of the Framers (and some new ones) full consideration. I have long argued that a constitutional amendment is the best way to give residents a vote in Congress. Statehood raises a myriad of difficult issues but regardless of the reform (whether statehood or an amendment simply allowing for a representative in the House of Representatives), this should be a decision that is submitted directly to the American people as a whole. I am troubled (as I was in 2007) by the effort to push this through Congress to avoid such a vote (as well as the cloud of partisan politics that continue to swell around the issue).
Continue reading “The 51st State? New Columbia and the Proposal For America’s First City-State”
This is truly one of the more disturbing and bizarre criminal cases of the year. Kathy Rowe, 53, was shouldering a huge load with a severely disabled daughter and ill husband. She not only worked full time but slept in a chair in her daughter’s room every night. She was such an extraordinary mother that, in 2006, was picked as one of San Diego’s 50 best moms and mother of the year in 2007. She is now looking at jail time for how she decided to get a house that she felt was meant for her family.
As we previously discussed, the criminal charges against former Bush White House lawyer John Michael Farren for the attempted murder of his then-wife Mary Margaret Farren, a former partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. He has now been convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Continue reading “Former Bush Lawyer John Farren Sentenced In Attempted Murder Of His Wife”
Washington state prosecutor Marriya Wright has resigned from her $83,000-a-year job after a photograph of her in a bikini was found in the cell of Matthew Baumrucker, a prisoner who supports a forehead tattoo reading “criminal.” Officials later found that she had texted or called Baumrucker over 1,200 times during a period of a little over one month.
Continue reading “Washington Prosecutor Resigns After Photo In Bikini Found In Prisoner’s Cell”
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw) Weekend Contributor
In light of the recently observed 13th anniversary of the events on 9/11/01, I read an article this week that caught my eye. According to reports, there is a 28 page section of the 9/11 Commission report that has never been released publicly and remains secret to this day. Indeed, Congressmen must go through numerous security reviews before they can read the document in a secure room in Washington, D.C.
What kind of secret and clandestine information can be found in such a guarded document? Since it is top-secret, we can only go by the reviews of people who have read the report. What is found in that report may surprise you in light of its level of secrecy. Continue reading “9/11 and the Saudis and State Secrecy”
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
We previously reported HERE an almost Onion like story of a man charged with impersonating a police officer by driving a black and white colored Maserati painted in a Transformer cartoon livery. The car was painted with white doors on a black body and included on the door a logo and the words Decepticons, Punish and Enslave to suggest the car was the Decepticons character Barricade. The driver was later charged with impersonating a police officer.
The driver’s attorney, provided us with the results of that hearing.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In an unusual and historically unprecedented outcome, Washington’s Supreme Court held the state in contempt for the legislature failing to provide a clear plan in funding public education by the school year 2017-18 pursuant to the McCleary ruling the court handed down in January of 2012.
According to documents the court in McCleary v. State, 173 Wn.2d 477, 269 P.3d 227 (2012) unanimously affirmed a declaratory judgment of the King County Superior Court finding that the state is not meeting its “paramount duty … to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders” under Article IX Section 1 of the state constitution. The court initially deferred to the legislature’s chosen means of discharging its constitutional duty, but retained jurisdiction over the case to monitor the State’s progress in implementing by 2018 the reforms that the legislature had recently adopted. Pursuant to its retention of jurisdiction, the court has called for periodic reports from the State on its progress. Following the State’s first report in 2012, the court issued an order directing the State to lay out its plan “in sufficient detail to allow progress to be measured according to periodic benchmarks between then and 2014.
The legislature failed to meet the courts demands for production of evidence of progress by the legislature and the court then found the state in contempt. The issue has brought up certainly the notion of separation of powers, but the possibility of sanctions has many in the legislature motivated to now act.
On Monday, the Senate will hold a hearing in the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on entering a new state into the Union: New Columbia. I was asked if I could testify on S. 132 since I have written a long academic publication on the status of the District of Columbia and testified at the prior hearings on allowing for voting representation of District residents. See Jonathan Turley, Too Clever By Half: The Partial Representation of the District of Columbia in the House of Representatives, 76 George Washington University Law Review 305-374 (2008). Unfortunately, the hearing was moved to the afternoon on Monday, which made it impossible because I have to be in Newport News on Monday for a long-planned debate with John Yoo on presidential powers. Accordingly, I had to reluctantly decline. I have great respect and sympathy for those trying to secure a vote for the District residents. I have previously suggested different means to accomplish that end. However, before Congress embraces the path to statehood, it should give the original concerns of the Framers (and some new ones) full consideration.
Continue reading “New Columbia: Congress Considers The Creation of America’s First City-State”
Shirley Mae Mason, 46, is certainly not the first shoplifter faced by Walmart but she may be the first to use a Walmart motorized wheelchair for her getaway. The amazing thing is that Mason got two miles before police caught up with her.
It appears that religious statues are causing problems on both sides of the border this week. In Pennsylvania, a teenager is facing two years in jail for sexually mocking a statue of Jesus. Now, in Vancouver, a nude statue of the devil with a rather prominent erection has been removed. Warning: some may find the picture below disturbing [and others may find it intimidating]
Continue reading “City Removes Nude Satan Statue “Erected” In Public Area”
There is an interesting case that in Pennsylvania where an unnamed teen is charged with “desecration” of a statue of Jesus in front of the Love in the Name of Christ, a Christian organization in Everett, Pennsylvania. The charge against the 14-year-old raises significant first amendment questions in the alleged desecration of a venerated object. He could be (unlikely) jailed for two jails for insulting a religious statue, something that contravenes free speech and establishment principles as well as vagueness issues. Warning: some viewers may find the picture below disturbing.
The scandal surrounding former Ravens running back Ray Rice has continued to deepen this week after his release by the Ravens for punching his now-wife in the face in an infamous elevator video. First, a longer version of the video was released. Then, the Associated Press has reported that not only was a league executive shown the video in April (long before what the NFL claimed in the wake of the scandal) but that the video was sent by a law enforcement official.