Three men with purported ties to Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah have been arrested for allegedly laundering cocaine money in Miami, Florida, on behalf of Colombian drug cartels. Mohammad Ahmad Ammar, Hassan Mohsen Mansour, and Ghassan Diab are suspected to have illegally moved over $500,000 through Miami banks in a series of complicated financial transactions. Ammar, 31, is believed to be the leader of the group. He was living in Colombia before he was booked into Miami-Dade jail last week on state felony money laundering charges. His two associates also face similar charges in South Florida. Mansour, who reportedly has dual Canadian and Lebanese citizenship, is currently in police custody in France. It is unclear if he will be moved to Florida for the case. The third suspect, Diab, is allegedly related to a high-ranking member of Hezbollah with access to several international bank accounts. He is still at large and is believed to be in Lebanon or Nigeria. The group was…
Alleged Hezbollah Associate Mohammad Ahmad Ammar Arrested in Miami, Florida on Money Laundering Charges
↧
↧
WaPo: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sent feeds that helped police track minorities in Ferguson and Baltimore, report says
WaPo: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sent feeds that helped police track minorities in Ferguson and Baltimore, report says by Craig Timberg and Elizabeth Dwoskin: A powerful surveillance program that police used for tracking racially charged protests in Baltimore and Ferguson, … Continue reading →
↧
Hillary's Defense of a Child Molester
Hillary Clinton, as a young lawyer, accepted a court appointment to represent a man accused of raping a 12 year-old girl. He was eventually convicted, I believe, of a lesser charge of sexual battery on a person less than 14 years of age.The question has arisen whether our view of Hillary should be better or worse because she took this case and how she behaved when she had it. Some (easily the majority of the reactions I've seen) think we should think better. The argument is that it is the best of our legal tradition that even the most despised defendant is entitled to a faithful and energetic ally as he faces the power of the state. The most frequently given example is John Adams' defense of British soldiers accused of brutality in the Boston Massacre.The minority point of view is that Hillary's defense of the child molester was at best a display of callousness; a moral holiday from the consequences to the victim; a choice she did…
↧
The Atlantic: Hackers Can Listen In on Your Skype Calls
The Atlantic: Hackers Can Listen In on Your Skype Calls by Kaveh Waddell: A security researcher found a way to ‘piggyback’ on video chats, and it’s very hard to detect.
↧
D.Neb.: n eviction of the occupants of an apartment lose standing when the landlord takes over
An eviction of the occupants of an apartment lose standing when the landlord takes over. “The Court finds that defendant lacks standing. At the time of the search, the landlord was legally and lawfully in possession of the Arias Apartment. … Continue reading →
↧
↧
Yom Kippur: Day of Atonement and Open Thread
Yom Kippur began at sundown last night. It is the holiest Jewish holiday. A time to fast, pray and repent. Yom Kippur means "Day of Atonement" and refers to the annual Jewish observance of fasting, prayer and repentance. Part of the High... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
↧
The Road to Zero
Earlier this month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported an estimated 10 percent increase in traffic fatalities for the first six months of 2016. NHTSA’s report was based on a statistical projection using data gathered, some of it in real time, from all 50 states. The increase is part of a trend. NHTSA reports that the second quarter of 2016 is “the seventh consecutive quarter with increases in fatalities as compared to corresponding quarters in previous years.” NHTSA said it was too early to identify a cause for the most recent uptick, but that hasn’t prevented safety advocates from working toward a solution. Before we get to potential solutions, let’s consider what happened last year. A decade of improvement was significantly eroded in 2015. NHTSA’s October report was presaged by the overview of 2015 crash data that it published in August. Last year, traffic fatalities nationwide increased by 7.2…
↧
Vote Appelman Law Firm As Best Legal Blog!
We love blogging and helping spread information about criminal law in Minnesota. To date we’ve published 1,124 blogs related to criminal law in Minnesota and legal issues across the United States, including 150 blogs so far in 2016. We don’t hide behind a paywall or publish vague information with hopes that it will get people to call our office for more information, we simply do it because we love helping people. Every day we work to help people, oftentimes at the lowest point in the lives, find a solution that can help get their life back on track. We love helping people, but this month we’re hoping our readers will help us. We were recently nominated by The Expert Institute as having one of the best legal blogs in the country. However, 68 other blogs were also nominated in the criminal law blog category. We would love it if you could help push us to the top of the criminal law charts by voting for our blog. Last year our readers came out in droves and we…
↧
"Why ‘Public Defender’ Has Become An Oxymoron"
From The Philadelphia Citizen, via NACDL's news scan: In Kuren v. Luzerne County, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said: “We recognize for the first time in Pennsylvania a prospective cause of action enabling indigent criminal defendants to prove that the level...
↧
↧
"Every 25 Seconds: The Human Toll of Criminalizing Drug Use in the United States"
↧
Miranda’s limited powers: Blurts, twilight zones, searches, pre-custody, civilian questioning, delays, and cross-exam
“I was never read my Miranda rights,” many of my clients insist. That claim is the beginning, rather than the end, of the inquiry, so I often reply: “Did the police ever question you? If they did, at what part in your police interaction were you questioned?” The U.S. Supreme Court’s birthing of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966) — which requires police to advise arrestees of their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent — was a 1966 5-4 ruling resulting from a court personnel lineup that would not have been possible only three years later when Warren Burger replaced Earl Warren as chief justice. Joining Miranda‘s author Chief Justice Warren were Justices Black (more liberal than successor Lewis Powell, despite Black’s lawyer-period membership in the Ku Klux Klan), Douglas, Brennan (much more liberal than successor David Souter), and Fortas. The first four justices, at the…
↧
PROPOSITION 57
PROPOSITION 57CALIFORNIA PAROLE FOR NON-VIOLENT CRIMINALS AND JUVENILE COURT TRIAL REQUIREMENTS INITIATIVE Proposition 57, also known as the California Parole for Non-violent Criminals and Juvenile Court Trial Requirements, will be on the November 8, 2016 ballot in California as a combined initiated constitutional amendment and state statute. –What is Proposition 57? Proposition 57 proposes to: 1) Allow parole consideration for persons convicted of nonviolent felonies, upon completion of prison term for their primary offense as defined. 2) Authorizes Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to award sentence credits for rehabilitation, good behavior, or educational achievements. 3) Requires Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to adopt regulations to implement new parole and sentence credit provisions and certify they enhance public safety. 4) Provides juvenile court judges shall make determination, upon prosecutor motion, whether juvenile age 14 and…
↧
What is the Path to Freedom Online? It’s Complicated
Yochai Benkler, Degrees of Freedom, Dimensions of Power, Daedelus (2016). Niva Elkin-Koren In recent years, the internet has strengthened the ability of state and corporate actors to control the behavior of end users and developers. How can freedom be preserved in this new era? Yochai Benkler’s recent piece, Degrees of Freedom, Dimensions of Power, is a sharp analysis of the processes that led to this development, which offers guidelines for what can be done to preserve the democratic and creative promise of the internet. For over two decades the internet was synonymous with freedom, promising a democratic alternative to dysfunctional governments and unjust markets. As a “disruptive technology,” it was believed to be capable of dismantling existing powers, displacing established hierarchies, and shifting power from governments and corporations to end users. These high hopes for participatory democracy and new economic structures have been largely displaced…
↧
↧
Sentencing Whiteboard: Active Sentences for Aggravated Level One DWI
Today’s post is a return to the Sentencing Whiteboard, this time to explain active sentences for aggravated level one DWI. As Shea and I have discussed in earlier posts (here, here, and here, among others), they are different from other DWI sentences. No parole. No good time. Not cut in half. The video explains why, and describes how typical aggravated level one sentences are administered by the county jails through the Statewide Misdemeanant Confinement Program. As you’ll see, sentences for this most serious level of misdemeanor impaired driving are in many cases longer than a felony habitual DWI. I hope you’ll take a look. It’s been a while since I posted a whiteboard-style video. As a reminder, other titles in the series are linked below. How Class F–I Felonies Are Served How Class B1–E Felonies Are Served How Consecutive Felonies Are Served How Active Sentences for DWI Are Served Advanced Supervised Release…
↧
The Anti-Toxic Masculinity President
While it’s impossible for any relatively sentient person not to realize that one candidate lacks even the most basic knowledge of civics necessary to run a government, it’s similarly hard to ignore that his opponent openly proclaims herself to be a supporter of women, children and minorities. She said so in the debate, and there’s no reason to doubt her on this. Expressio unius est exclusio alterius. That would be fine, if that’s what you support in your enlightened self-interest. Maybe some guy in Kentucky who is unable to feed his family takes issue with this, but then, maybe the sad feelings of women who are exhausted by enduring men saying hello to them on the street matters more to you. You’re allowed to decide what values matter most to you. But there is a flip side to this that is being promoted in the backpages of section one of the New York Times that should also be factored into the calculus. It’s not merely a matter of helping…
↧
Tampa Code Section 14-62 - Civil Violation Citation for Marijuana and Paraphernalia
Map of Marijuana Citations IssuedDuring the First 30 Days On March 28, 2016, the Senior Assistant City Attorney of the Tampa Police Department issued Legal Bulletin #2016-08 dated March 28, 2016. The legal bulletin addressed the new civil citation process for marijuana violations within the City of Tampa. These civil violation citations for marijuana and paraphernalia are issued under Tampa Code Section 14-62.According to the bulletin, it appears the goal of the program is to give the subject an incentive to “modify his illegal behavior based on the threat of further fines.” The ordinance itself states that the purpose of the program is help a person in possession of marijuana or marijuana paraphernalia to avoid “criminal penalties and [a] potentially life-long criminal record… disproportionate to the severity of the offense.” Read more our next blog article to learn more about why subjects identified as Black are given…
↧
Assault By Twitter In The First Degree
Not the cries of Jessica Valenti of death threats to her children, after she’s done with her personal authentic engagement for the morning because she has, you know, fans who need her to know what they’re supposed to hate. And not because Newsweek reporter Kurt Eichenwald has done anything to deserve appreciation for his flagrant intellectual dishonesty. Rather, can the mechanics of an internet medium serve as means of committing assault? Maybe. It depends. Having been deluged by the cries of those who want to elevate hateful words into the equivalent of a good beating, the type that breaks an eye socket or two, rational people are inclined to shrug off claims that social media has the potential to be used as means of assault. what happened to Eichenwald raises a very different problem: The question arises in the recent discussion by journalist Kurt Eichenwald of the Twitter threats he has received from Trump supporters. After Newsweek published his story…
↧
↧
Recent Statistics on Civil Violation Citations for Marijuana in Tampa
Earlier this year, the City Council in Tampa recently passed a city ordinance, Tampa Code Section 14-62, that attempted to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. The problem is that officers with Tampa Police Department are not issuing the citations in all cases. Our last blog article explains why TPD officers are still taking people to jail and sometimes seizing their vehicle so they can collect the $500 civil penalty (with an additional $450 being paid for towing and storage). Read more about how marijuana citations are issued under Tampa Code Section 14-62.In fact, the citations are being issued less than half the time and the rest of the time the person is being arrested. During that six month period, 409 citations were issued but 529 people were arrested for marijuana.People identified as black were cited and arrested more often than those identified as white. During that period 243 black people were arrested and only 160 white people were…
↧
Names in the News, Volume 1
First: Fellow blogger (who also has some other job) Jonathan Turley has been named as Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson’s top pick for the Supreme Court of the United States. While I am not ditching my day job just yet, I am honored by Governor Johnson’s consideration. If nothing else, it got my students to stand up as I entered the class. I had assumed that the class was recognizing the achievement of my Chicago Cubs in clinching of a spot in the National League Championship, but this is even better. Poor taste in sports teams aside, this may be my one shot (a long one, granted) of ever becoming a Supreme Court clerk and becoming filthy rich afterward by selling Turley’s secrets to the highest bidder. Seriously, isn’t it about time we had a blawgger on the Supreme Court? Go Gary Johnson! Second: The winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature is Bob Dylan, once appreciated only by the terminally cool. He doesn’t dig poetry,…
↧
Eichensehr on Public-Private Cybersecurity
Kristen Eichensehr (University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - School of Law) has posted Public-Private Cybersecurity (95 Texas Law Review __ (2017 Forthcoming)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Calls for public-private partnerships to address U.S. cybersecurity failures have become...
↧
