Long day, spent entirely with sprinkler and air conditioning people. One pipe had a pin leak, the AC unit was really dirty. But what a difference.
[More...]
Denver is in drought status, we can only water the lawn two days a week. ...
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Tuesday Open Thread
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"The Case for Full Restitution for Child Pornography Victims"
The title of this post is the title of this new paper on SSRN co-authored by Paul Cassell, James Marsh and Jeremy Christiansen concerning an issue that has riven the federal circuit courts and seems destined for SCOTUS consideration before...
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James Holmes Wants to Change Plea to Not Guilty (Insanity)
Lawyers for Aurora theater shooting defendant James Holmes notified the Court today Holmes wants to change his plea from Not Guilty to not guilty by reason of insanity.
On March 12, the date set for arraignment, Holmes' lawyers refused to...
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Bernie Madoff's Yacht Can Be Yours For Only $5.5 Million
Those in the market for a superyacht with historic significance need look no further. Bernard Madoff's![]()
superyacht, aptly named 'Bull', is back on the market and can be had for $5.5 million - less than the notorious fraudster himself paid. The 88-foot Arno Leopard, which was built to Madoff's exact specifications, is being sold by an international yacht broker acting for the liquidator for Madoff Securities International, Ltd., which was the title of Madoff's London operations. Madoff had purchased the yacht in April 2007 for approximately $6 million after negotiating a $1 million discount for, ironically, paying in cash for the yacht. The yacht is currently being stored in Gibraltar, after having been moved from France due to a legal dispute between liquidators and a French creditor.
Perhaps owing to the short period of time in which Madoff had possession of the yacht before his scheme imploded, a key selling point lies in the fact that the yacht has barely been used. With less than 500 engine hours, the yacht is being marketed as the best of its kind available. Additionally, with two engines each producing over 2000 horsepower, the yacht is also hailed as "one of the fastest 27M motor yachts ever built."
As for accommodations, the yacht boasts three "sumptuous" cabins, including an owner's stateroom, a VIP cabin, and a guest cabin, as well as quarters for three crew members. According to the yacht broker, the yacht is in "as new" condition, due to Madoff's strict prohibition on guests bringing any food aboard, as well as a penchant for "ordering carpet over carpet." Additionally, the owner's stateroom features towels and bedsheets embroidered with Madoff and his wife, Ruth's initials.
The yacht has been on the market for several years after several potential sales fell through - most recently a contingent of Russian buyers that pulled out of the transaction.
A link to the listing is here.
superyacht, aptly named 'Bull', is back on the market and can be had for $5.5 million - less than the notorious fraudster himself paid. The 88-foot Arno Leopard, which was built to Madoff's exact specifications, is being sold by an international yacht broker acting for the liquidator for Madoff Securities International, Ltd., which was the title of Madoff's London operations. Madoff had purchased the yacht in April 2007 for approximately $6 million after negotiating a $1 million discount for, ironically, paying in cash for the yacht. The yacht is currently being stored in Gibraltar, after having been moved from France due to a legal dispute between liquidators and a French creditor.
Perhaps owing to the short period of time in which Madoff had possession of the yacht before his scheme imploded, a key selling point lies in the fact that the yacht has barely been used. With less than 500 engine hours, the yacht is being marketed as the best of its kind available. Additionally, with two engines each producing over 2000 horsepower, the yacht is also hailed as "one of the fastest 27M motor yachts ever built."
As for accommodations, the yacht boasts three "sumptuous" cabins, including an owner's stateroom, a VIP cabin, and a guest cabin, as well as quarters for three crew members. According to the yacht broker, the yacht is in "as new" condition, due to Madoff's strict prohibition on guests bringing any food aboard, as well as a penchant for "ordering carpet over carpet." Additionally, the owner's stateroom features towels and bedsheets embroidered with Madoff and his wife, Ruth's initials.
The yacht has been on the market for several years after several potential sales fell through - most recently a contingent of Russian buyers that pulled out of the transaction.
A link to the listing is here.
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Wait, Wait ... Don't forget to set your DVR for Constitution USA with Peter Segal
As explained on this PBS webpage, a great new four-part series about the US Constitution is premeiring tonight on many local PBS stations. Here are the basics via a couple links on the official PBS website: Does the Constitution have...
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Gilad & Gat on Prison Nursery Programs
Michal Gilad and Tal Gat have posted The Invisible Victims (Arizona State Law Journal, 2012) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Since the mid-1980’s the U.S. women prison population has increased by more than 430%. More than 66% of incarcerated...
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Convicted of double murder, Miami man lunges, spits at prosecutor
Minutes after a Miami jury convicted Walter Bailey on Tuesday of a vicious double murder, he lunged and spit at one of the prosecutors. Read more..
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Former corrections officer admits stealing South Florida inmate IDs
A former state corrections officer pleaded guilty Tuesday to stealing hundreds of prison inmates’ identities. Read more..
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Cocaine habits: Fake nuns in Colombia hid coke under hats
The nuns’ habits didn’t seem to be habitual garb for three young women so Colombian police asked them to step aside when they arrived on the Caribbean island of San Andres on a flight from Bogota. Read more..
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DOJ Report: Gun Murders Down 39% From 1993-2011
The Department of Justice's latest report on gun violence by the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows a 39% drop in gun murders from 1993 to 2011. Non-fatal gun crimes are down 69%.
In 2011, homicides made up about 2% of all firearm-related...
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SPRINGFIELD HIGH SCHOOL PARTY IS SCENE OF MASSACHUSETTS ASSAULTS WITH DANGEROUS WEAPONS
A few words of alleged wisdom to our younger readers and those who love them.
School is not quite over yet! Parties are for good times spent with friends! Stabbing people in throwing bricks at them do not qualify as fun times!
They qualify as felonies, such as Massachusetts assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and potentially assault with intent to commit murder.
This past weekend, it would appear that these words were forgotten. It took place in Springfield at a high school graduation party.
Things apparently were fine until some uninvited guests decided to attend. Their attendance included the stabbing of two guests as well as hitting the host in the head with a brick.
You may have thought that this would be enough to get someone in trouble under normal circumstances. You would be correct. However, this was not normal circumstances. This house is owned by a retired Springfield police officer. He has vowed that the culprits would be captured.
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More on Penn State & Accountability
I’ve written extensively on the contrasting approaches to accountability between Penn State and Duke. The Penn State trustees, although they remained asleep at the switch for years, at the very least acted aggressively once the Sandusky allegations came to light. In contrast to Duke, which has done everything possible for several years to prevent a full-scale investigation of why the administration and so many “activist” faculty members so badly botched the lacrosse case, Penn State’s trustees gave an outside investigator full access to all university documents, including e-mails, involving the Sandusky cover-up. The resulting Freeh Report, of course, exposed some troubling things about Penn State’s campus culture and past decisionmaking process—but the willingness to commission the report suggested an acceptance of accountability that’s been totally lacking at Duke.The Freeh Report, however, has produced a ferocious backlash on campus and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere in Pennsylvania. A handful of elected PSU trustees, led by Anthony Lubrano, have challenged the report’s validity, raising dark hints of denial of due process. PSU faculty leaders embarrassed themselves by challenging Freeh’s conclusions while failing to produce even one piece of evidence to corroborate their assertions. The state’s governor, Tom Corbett, initially accepted the Freeh Report, but then backtracked and sued the NCAA. (That Corbett, one of the nation’s most unpopular governors, faces re-election next year appears to have figured into his thinking.) And various state legislators criticized the NCAA for not spending the entire fine to which Penn State’s leadership agreed on matters in Pennsylvania. The backlash raises some serious questions as to whether Penn State leaders, and the Pennsylvania politicians that they serve, are abandoning their initial, admirable acceptance of accountability for the Sandusky cover-up. This question has resurfaced in a different form in a bill currently before the Pennsylvania state legislature.The bill seeks to extend the statute of limitations for victims of the Sandusky scandal, so as to allow them to file civil claims against Penn State and Sandusky’s charity organizations. In many states, such measures have generated opposition from the Catholic Church, since they threatened to expand the Church’s legal liability from the sexual abuse scandal. But in past cases, invariably a combination of public outrage, an understanding that many victims of child sexual abuse take years or even decades before coming forward, and a simple desire to do the right thing have led legislatures to extend the time period for filing suits.Extending the statute of limitations beyond 30-year-olds, of course, poses potentially problematic questions for Penn State. In general, the narrative around the Sandusky scandal has focused on events of 1998 (when a local prosecutor elected not to file charges against Sandusky, after an investigation of which the PSU leadership was aware) and 2001 (when then-graduate assistant saw Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in the football building’s showers, told Joe Paterno and then two senior administrators, only to see the PSU leadership decline to report the matter to the police). Given its charge, the Freeh Report focused exclusively on these events and their aftermath. It thus never explored exactly when Sandusky started his pattern of abuse. If, as seems entirely plausible, he was engaging in abuse throughout his time at Penn State, that would mean at least some of his victims might need the law to pass in order to file a claim.What, then, will Pennsylvania legislators do? Both state politicians and the PSU leadership have repeatedly expressed a willingness to treat all of Sandusky’s victims fairly—which would suggest that the bill should sail through to passage. Yet conceding that Sandusky might well have engaged in abuse throughout his Penn State tenure would undermine all but the most fanatic apologists for the Paterno football program; the (preposterous) claim that Paterno was too old or out-of-touch to effectively move against Sandusky would be entirely untenable as an explanation for any inaction by Paterno in the 1980s.Far better, from the perspective of any ultra-Penn State loyalists in the legislature, to not look too far back into the past. But if they abandon accountability by declining to support the current legislation, they’ll effectively contribute, in their own way, to the cover-up that brought down the former PSU administration.
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MA - Close loopholes in sex offender registration
Original Article05/07/2013
A reasonable person would believe that a person convicted of a sex crime would have to register as a sex offender. But that's true for all of them, as a recent case in Massachusetts illustrates.[name withheld] recently pleaded guilty to indecent assault and battery on a person over the age of 14 and received two years of probation. The more serious charge of rape was dropped. The judge granted [name withheld]'s lawyer's request that [name withheld] not have to register as a sex offender.
State laws in Massachusetts and some other states allow some sex offenders who plead guilt or no contest, or who are not sentenced to jail time, to avoid the Sex Offender Registry Board.
It's legal loopholes like these that make victims advocate Laurie Myers' blood boil. She believes giving judges the discretion to let a convicted sex offender avoid the registry flies in the face of the sex-offender law's intent: to inform the public about sex offenders living in their community.
"I've seen this loophole used many times, and it's pretty much a get-out-of-jail-free card for offenders," Myers told us last week. "They got a break with their sentence, because the only way to qualify is to get probation. They didn't serve any jail time, then they're relieved of the obligation to register."
She also believes the Sex Offender Registry Board can do a better job categorizing sex offenders -- Level 1 is less likely to reoffend, Level 2 might reoffend and Level 3 is more than likely to reoffend -- because judges often might have only the specifics of the case before the court, rather than a more complete history of the offender. The board, on the other hand, considers more than 20 factors when classifying a sex offender.
"All of the victims we work with don't want another person to be victimized," Myers said. "The whole registration part of it is almost, to them, as important as the sentence ... or lack thereof."
State legislatures must close these loopholes. Convicted sex offenders don't need an escape clause from a law developed to keep the public informed about potentially dangerous people living next door.© 2006-2013 | Sex Offender Issues
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Wall Street Journal pitch for the Prez to get behind the Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013
Thanks to the suggestions, and insights and energy of Harlan Protass, a criminal-defense lawyer in New York and an adjunct professor at the Cardozo School of Law, some of the ideas first expressed in this recent post concerning the proposed...
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PA - Bucks lawmaker wants broader community notification for registered sex offenders
Frank FarryOriginal Article05/07/2013By Jo Ciavaglia
A Bucks County lawmaker wants the state’s sexual offender community notification law broadened to include where registered sexually violent predators work and receive behavior health treatment.
Rep. Frank Farry, R-142, on Tuesday said he plans to speak with the executive director of the House judiciary staff to look at what options are available to give local communities more ability to regulate where sex offender treatment centers are located.
“Obviously you don’t want it in proximity to residential areas or places where children congregate,” he said, adding he doesn’t have a timeline for introducing a bill.
Farry’s district includes Hulmeville, where residents recently learned about the existence of an outpatient center that treats sex offenders, including sexually violent predators. The center, Resources for Human Development, had been operating for a year without the knowledge of local officials or police or a use and occupancy permit.Megan’s Law gives states the discretion to establish criteria for community disclosure, but they are compelled to make private and personal information on registered sex offenders publicly available.
Pennsylvania has no restrictions on where centers that treat sex offenders or sexually violent predators can be located.
The state’s Megan’s Law website lists the home and employer addresses of all registered sex offenders and sexually violent predators, but community notification is required only where a sexually violent predator or sexually violent delinquent child lives.
At a minimum, Farry said, outpatient centers treating sexual offenders should be required to notify local police and government officials that they are conducting business in a community. He plans to investigate whether other states have enacted broader public notification or distance provisions for sex offender treatment centers.
Pennsylvania has 403 registered sexually violent predators on parole or probation, according to the Megan’s Law website, which is maintained by Pennsylvania State Police. Five are registered as living in Bucks County including one incarcerated at Bucks County prison; Montgomery County has 28 registered SVPs (as they are known), including 17 who are inmates at Graterford prison.
Resources for Human Development is one of four behavioral health providers in Bucks County with state certification to treat individuals deemed sexually violent predators, according to the Pennsylvania Sexual Offenders Assessment Board, which licenses the centers.
Hulmeville council members on Monday said that RHD’s director claims no sexually violent predators are currently in treatment at its Reetz Avenue office. The center treats other individuals with deviant sexual behavior, including convicted sexual offenders.
RHD also provides other human and behavioral services, including programs for recovering substance abusers, the homeless and people with intellectual disabilities. It operates other treatment centers for people with “problematic sexual behaviors and family abuse” in Montgomery County and Philadelphia, and referral sources include probation and parole offices.
The newspaper was unsuccessful Tuesday in reaching Meghan Dade, executive director of the state’s Sexual Offenders Assessment Board.
Pennsylvania defines a sexually violent predator as a sexual offender who has been determined by the court, after evaluation by the Sexual Offenders Assessment Board, to have a mental abnormality or personality disorder that makes the person likely to engage in predatory sexually violent offenses.
Under the law, SVPs, once released from prison, are required to attend monthly outpatient counseling sessions for the rest of their lives in a program approved by the state assessment board.© 2006-2013 | Sex Offender Issues
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Utah Case Demonstrates Difficulty of Exonerating Clients without DNA
An article in Tuesday's City Weekly discusses the extraordinary efforts of the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center to free Debra Brown, whose case is still under appeal. Released in May 2011, Brown was declared innocent under the state's non-DNA factual innocence statute. The Attorney General then sent a message through his Twitter account that he would not appeal the decision. Shortly afterwards, he changed his mind.City Weekly spoke to RMIC president Jensie Anderson about the decision:
Anderson says she wasn't surprised when she heard of the appeal-there's little that warrants surprise in this kind of law, she says. "Disappointed is a better word," she says. But it was more than disappointing for Brown. "It was a really black day," Brown says. "It was like being pronounced cancer-free, and then, bam! You're in third stage again."
Brown was convicted of murdering her boss, 75-year-old Lael Brown, in 1995 and spent 17 years behind bars before her release. RMIC has presented new evidence of alternate suspects and witnesses in their advocacy for Brown's exoneration. The Utah Supreme Court is currently considering the appeal. If it reverses the judge's innocence finding, Brown could be sent back to prison. On the other hand, if it upholds the decision, Brown will be eligible for state compensation and will be one of the very few who has been exonerated under the statute. Utah is one of only two states that even has a factual innocence statute, which allows for a retrial in cases where there is newly discovered material evidence of innocence but no DNA evidence. The City Weekly writes:
As Brown waits for the Utah Supreme Court's decision, she deals with triggers that bring her back to those years in prison. The sound of keys jingling reminds her of prison guards. She bought dark curtains for her bedroom because car lights from the parking lot remind her of a flashlight beam shining in her face. She still has nightmares of going back.
Read the full article.Read more about the case.
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***Correction** Crash US93 @36.5 Twin Falls County
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer
DO NOT REPLY
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IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE
District 4 Patrol 218 West Yakima, Jerome, ID 83338-5904 (208) 324-6000
Fax (208) 324-7897
For Immediate Release: 05/08/13 4:40 p.m.
Please direct questions to the District Office
***Correction***
The crash occurred today, May 8, 2013.
***Update***
On April 8, 2013, at approximately 9:22 a.m., Idaho State Police investigated a three vehicle property damage crash southbound on US93 at milepost 36.5, nine miles north of Hollister, ID.
Zane Palmer, 20, of Mountain Home, ID, was driving a 1991 Kenworth semi pulling a cattle trailer, loaded with cattle. Orville E. Russell, 70, of Prairie, ID, was driving a 2000 Peterbilt semi pulling a cattle trailer. Robert Berrett, 71, of Phoenix, AZ, was driving a 2012 GMC Yukon.
Palmer and Russell were traveling south on US93 near milepost 36.5, a vehicle slowed to make a left turn, Russell slowed down however Palmer crossed into oncoming traffic attempting to drive off the north shoulder to avoid hitting Russell's vehicle. Palmer crossed in front of Berrett. Berrett struck Palmer's cattle trailer, the Kenworth and cattle trailer turned onto its side. A Twin Falls County Deputy dispatched six cattle at the scene. The roadway was blocked for approximately four hours.
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Idaho State Police is currently investigating a crash on US93 near mile post 36.5, in Twin Falls County. The road is currently blocked due to the crash. More information will be released when available.
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PA - Debuts pilot to remotely monitor sex offenders’ computers
Original Article05/08/2013By Alex Wigglesworth
The Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole on Wednesday announced a pilot program to monitor computer usage of sex offenders under court supervision, according to a release from chairman Michael Potteiger.
Through Securus software, parole agents will be able to log into a secure server from any computer and view screenshots of convicts’ emails, as well as review the chat rooms, games, social media sites and websites that have been accessed and keep abreast of the programs that have been installed on offenders’ computers.
“The board is increasing public safety by testing software that will allow parole agents to know when a sex offender may be engaging in inappropriate behavior,” Potteiger said in statement.
“The technology monitors words and phrases, both online and offline, on an offender’s home computer, captures a screen image, creates a log of all websites visited and saves this information on a central server.”
The six-month pilot program out of the board’s Pittsburgh District Office will include 20 to 30 sex offenders.
“The new software is designed to send the board alerts about behavior that may indicate a risk to re-offend,” Potteiger said.
“The software provides for a more effective use of a parole agent’s time through remote access of information that is automatically gathered through electronic means.”© 2006-2013 | Sex Offender Issues
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Illegal Activities Involving Utah Minors
You are probably well aware that there are many illegal activities involving Utah minors that adults are not allowed to do; we’re covering a couple of those crimes today. Illegal Body Piercing and Tattooing of a Minor It is a crime to perform or offer to perform a body piercing or tattooing on a minor: [...]
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3 people rescued and the usual suspects come out of the woodwork
Three girls found 10 years later, and all the usual suspects come out of the woodwork to promote their own agenda? Makes us sick! Mr. Walsh had nothing to do with this recovery, neither did Nancy Disgrace or anybody else, except the man who rescued them.
Let's not forget the fact that Mr. Walsh dated Reve when she was 16 and he was 21.© 2006-2013 | Sex Offender Issues
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