Nirej Sekhon (Georgia State University College of Law) has posted Punitive Injunctions (U. Penn. J. L. & Soc. Change, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In theory, courts are only supposed to incarcerate an individual after having provided her...
Sekhon on Punitive Injunctions
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OK - Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling may result in removal of hundreds of names from sex offender registry
Original Article
06/26/2013
By Randy Ellis
Names of convicted sex offenders may be removed from the state's list of registered sex offenders as the result of Tuesday's state Supreme Court ruling.
Hundreds of names of convicted sex offenders may be removed from the state's list of registered sex offenders as the result of an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling handed down Tuesday.
In a split decision, the court ruled state corrections officials have been violating the Oklahoma...
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FL - "Brittany's law" to take effect July 1st
Original Article
06/25/2013
By Brittany Jones
TALLAHASSEE - Sex offenders and predators may have to spend more time in jail before they're released. Florida's new "Brittany's law," requires a judge to determine whether offenders are dangerous prior to releasing them into the community before their first court appearance.
"If this law had been put in place years ago one other murder would've been prevented," said Dritt.
- Keep dreaming! No matter how many laws are on the...
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NY - Former Troy cop's (Patrick Rosney) sex case on hold
Patrick Rosney
Original Article
06/26/2013
By Bob Gardinier
QUEENS - The sentencing of a former Troy police sergeant arrested a year ago in a sting for sending sexual material to a minor over the Internet was postponed again in Queens County Court.
Patrick Rosney, 54, of Rensselaer pleaded guilty in March to felony first-degree attempted dissemination of indecent material to a minor. Officials in the Queens County District Attorney's office said Wednesday's sentencing was postponed...
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NY - Sex offender ban won’t increase safety
Shana Rowan
Original Article
06/26/2013
By Shana Rowan (Blog, USA Fair Inc.)
It was with great disappointment that I read MPNnow.com blogger Jeffrey Arnold’s suggestion that readers contact their state Assembly members in support of a bill that would ban registered sex offenders from volunteering or becoming employed as firefighters. Like the majority of sex offender laws, this proposal is based on misconceptions and will do nothing to improve public safety.
As executive director of...
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"Texas carries out 500th execution with Kimberly McCarthy"
The title of this post is the headline of this new AP article, which gets started this way: Texas marked a solemn moment in criminal justice Wednesday evening, executing its 500th inmate since it resumed carrying out capital punishment in...
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"Second Circuit Suggests That the Plain View Exception Should Be Applied More Narrowly to Digital Searches"
Orin Kerr has this post at The Volokh Conspiracy. In part: [T]he Second Circuit appears to be saying that there is some sort of heightened standard for when an agent is allowed to conduct a search through a computer. Some...
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Sentence is said to be severe
In this drug offense, petitioner was a 21 year old heroin addict. On September 18th, two agents of the Sheriff's Department of Louisiana, accompanied by a paid informant, and encountered petitioner. Aware of petitioner’s addiction, they asked him whether he...
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Injury Crash SB SH3 @86.2 St. Maries
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer
DO NOT REPLY
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Idaho State Police
Regional Communication Center - North
615 W Wilbur Ave
Suite A
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho 83815
Please direct questions to the appropriate District Offices
District 1 (208) 209-8620 Fax (208) 209- 8618
District 2 (208) 799-5150
CASE # C13-1214
--------------------- PRESS RELEASE -----------------------------
DATE: 06/26/2013 TIME: 2:21 pm LOCATION: SB SH3 @86.2 St. Maries
ASSISTING AGENCIES: Benewah County SO , ST. Maries City PD
VEHICLE #1
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DRIVER Stapleton,Kayla D AGE 22
ADDRESS Coeur d'Alene
INJURIES? Yes
HOSPITAL/LOCATION TAKEN Kootenai Medical Center
VEHICLE YEAR 2008 VEHICLE MAKE Subaru VEHICLE MODEL Legacy
WRECKER Benewah Motors
SEATBELTS/HELMET WORN? Yes
VEHICLE #2
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DRIVER Maupin,Frances L AGE 56
ADDRESS Post Falls
INJURIES? Yes
HOSPITAL/LOCATION TAKEN ? Sacred Heart
VEHICLE YEAR 2012 VEHICLE MAKE Ford VEHICLE MODEL Fusion
WRECKER Benewah Motors
SEATBELTS/HELMET WORN? Yes
INCIDENT NARRATIVE: Stapleton was Southbound on State Highway 3 when she crossed left of center, striking Maupin head on. Maupin was traveling North Bound.
DSP INITIALS DRO
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TN - Former DOJ attorney (Karl Gellert) sentenced for sex crime
Original Article
06/26/2013
By Caleb Whitmer
A former Justice Department attorney was sentenced June 21 in U.S. District Court in Nashville for attempting to entice a minor into sexual activity.
Karl Gellert will serve 10 years in prison followed by 20 years of supervised release. Upon release from prison, he will be required to register as a sex offender and go through sex offender treatment.
Beginning in April of 2012, Gellert corresponded online with an undercover agent he...
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Texas Conducts 500th Post-Furman Execution
Texas carried out its eighth execution of 2013; the 500th post-Furman Texas execution since 1982. Texas is responsible for more than 37% of the nation's post-Furman executions. "Texas carries out its 500th execution since 1982," is the AP report on...
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NumbersL 1338, 500, 2, 180
Of course, it's just a number. You know, like 7 or 12 or 365 or 3.14159 or 714 or 56 or 511 or 186,000 or . . . . And maybe you can figure out what those numbers all mean. Because they're just numbers, too, though special ones. Here are some others: 18, 21, 30, 50, 65, 100. That set has a certain resonance because they are a set that says something particular.But others, like these two, well, they derive their meaning from context.1,338500Here's the context. Since executions resumed in this country with the January 1977 killing of Gary Gilmore in Utah, there have been 1,338 of them. Last night it was Brian Davis in Oklahoma. He was number 1,337. This evening, Texas killed Kimberly Lagayle McCarthy. The 13th woman executed in this era, number 1,338 overall. And number 500 killed in Texas. Which is, when you think even briefly about it, a hell of a lot of dead bodies. No other state has killed more than 100 or so. So yeah, it's just a number. But in its roundness, it maybe carries a bit of extra weight. Maybe makes you stop and pause for a moment. Not if you're Rick Perry, of course. But maybe if you're wondering.* * * * *Now, the folks who think it's good that we're clearing up the backlog, killing off those folks who need killin', and generally being altogether responsible about it. Maybe they should pause for a minute and consider Robert Bradley Miller of Oklahoma and Howard Michael Scheinberg of Florida.No, they're not inmates on death row. Never have been though some might suggest.Miller and Scheinberg were prosecutors who tried cases that put people on death row. No news there. Lots of prosecutors have done that. That's how all those folks got on the row, after all. But these two.Let's start with Scheinberg. He was engaged in the trial of Omar Loureiro. On March 27, 2007, the jury returned a guilty verdict. On May 20, they said he should die. Under Florida law, that's just a recommendation that the judge can accept or reject. On August 24, then-Judge Ana Gardiner actually imposed a death sentence. Ho hum. That's what happens. Except --See, from March 23, that's 4 days before the jury came back with the guilty verdict, until August 24, Scheinberg and Gardiner were, how can I put this delicately? Not quite sure. Largely, that's because the Florida Supreme Court, ruling on the disciplinary case The Florida Bar v. Scheinberg is less than forthcoming.I mean, I assume that Scheinberg and Gardiner were, as they don't actually say any more, canoodling, doing the nasty, making the beast with two backs, fucking their eyes out. But I don't know that. What I know is that during that 5 month period, Scheinberg has admitted that he and former Judge Gardiner exchanged 949 cell phone calls and 471 text messages.They weren't about Loureiro's case or any other case. They weren't about bar committees or legal stuff of any sort. They were, as the court says several times, "personal." And secret. Can't forget secret. As in they didn't tell Loureiro's lawyer that while his motions were being ruled on and while the judge was deciding what to do, the judge and the prosecutor were shagging each other comatose at the No Tell Mo-Tel exchanging hundreds and hundreds of text and phone messages. Which could lead to what the court describes as an appearance of impropriety in the case.To which one says, No shit.Cause when the judge and prosecutor are bopping each other every chance they get (enough with the cutesiness of pretending we don't know - either they were fucking like bunnies or getting each other off over the phone or (probably) both; any other explanation is altogether implausible given the court's delicate failure to explain.Loureiro got a new trial. Scheinberg got his ticket yanked for 2 years.* * * * *And then there's Miller. He was the prosecutor in the 1993 cases against Yancy Lyndell Douglas and Paris LaPriest Powell. They were co-defendants, charged and tried, two years apart, for the killing of Shauna Farrow and the wounding of Derrick Smith. Both sent to death row where they lost round of litigation after round of litigation until a federal judge stepped in and reversed the death sentence because of Miller's "'egregious conduct' as prosecutor."Which led to investigation which led to ethics charges which led to the Oklahoma Supreme Court and State ex rel. Oklahoma Bar Association v. Miller. And while they hated to do it, and said, in essence, it was OK to lie and cheat back 20 years ago, so we aren't going to be as harsh as we might bethey just felt constrained. Since despite some verbal gymnastics, the court did find that Millerabused the subpoena process to force witnesses to cooperate;failed to disclose evidence to the defense; andobstructed defense access to evidence.The Bar Association had found more misconduct. And the Bar Association recommended that Miller lose his license for a year and pay something over $61,000 in costs. But he was, after all, a prosecutor. (No, that's not really what the court said. It said this happened a long time ago when ethics standards weren't particularly rigid [you know, because it was OK for prosecutors to lie and cheat and ab use their power and hide evidence in the 1990s], and Miller had never been caught before and he did cooperate.) So 180 days and $12,000 plus. Which is not as much, but not chopped liver, either, as my mother really might have said.And there were the two dissenters. Judge Taylor wrote, and Judge Watt joined in, a short and pithy dissenting opinion.Whether it was "decades ago" or today, no attorney should ever commit the "reprehensible" conduct in death penalty (or any other) litigation as detailed in the Majority Opinion and Trial Panel Report. The actions of the Respondent take us into the dark, unseen, ugly, shocking nightmare vision of a prosecutor who loves victory more than he loves justice. I agree with the recommendation of the Oklahoma Bar Association that the Respondent should be disbarred.* * * * * Which brings me back to 500 and 1,338.Here's what we know. Prosecutors will lie and cheat and hide evidence to get convictions. Especially where the stakes are high - and they're never higher than in death penalty cases. And mostly, nearly always, they get away with it. And it happened in Kimberly McCarthy's case. And nobody much cared.Hidden evidence is tough, because there's no obvious way to find it. Misconduct of other sorts may be easier to find, but the legal question is always, "So what?" Would it have changed the outcome in the case of this monster? That's the way the courts ask it, since they've already concluded that the guy is guilty and doesn't deserve a break.So most of the misconduct is ultimately whitewashed away. And actual discipline of prosecutors for their misconduct is incredibly rare. Which is, of course, why they keep doing it.* * * * *About 25 years ago, a judge asked me if I was more in the "Due Process" or the "finality" side of criminal law. You know, the cranky due process types all want the system to be fair. Getting the right guy? Sure that matters. But we're significantly the worse for it if we have to lie and cheat to do it. The integrity of the system requires that the system act with integrity. Which it all too often doesn't in these cases.Something to think about as we think about those numbers. And as we give some praise to Florida and a (grudging) Oklahoma.So a rare nod to Oklahoma and Florida.
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Kansas City Personal Injury Attorneys Do Far More Than Most People Realize
Most people know that Kansas City personal injury attorneys work to obtain fair compensation for their clients, but that is about all they know about the process. Car and motorcycle accidents, defective products, slip and fall accidents or even nursing home negligence can leave victims with serious injuries. While you know there will be medical [...]
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Kansas City Personal Injury Attorneys Protect Those Injured in Slip-and-Fall Accidents
When you suffer injuries after a slip-and-fall accident caused by property owner negligence, a Kansas City personal injury attorney will protect your legal rights and pursue justice. These types of accidents often result in permanent back injuries, bone fractures, broken hips and even head injuries. Property owners must maintain their properties so that anyone who [...]
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Rachel Jeantel: Court Antics and How Martin Profiled Zimmerman
Rachel Jeantel was a train wreck as a witness. She did not help the state's case. She exposed the manipulations of Team Crump. She was impeached on a few significant matters (see below the fold.) And she admitted multiple lies. It was cringe-worthy...
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Since the GOP was so troubled by ATF's work in Fast & Furious, will they now investigate drug-house stings?
Though perceived and perhaps intended as a political witch-hunt, the investigation by the GOP-led House of Representatives into the Fast & Furious program reveals some of the ugly realities of how our federal government commits crimes in order to try...
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News Roundup
Pardon the brevity of this week’s roundup. I’m at a conference today and my blogging capacity is limited. But there were several important and interesting stories this week: 1. Prosecutors are asking the Governor to end the prison system’s policy of allowing certain well-behaved inmates have home visits as they near the end of their [...]
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ATF uses fake drugs, big bucks to snare suspects
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has locked up more than 1,000 people by enticing them to rob drug stash houses that did not exist, reports USA Today. Read more..
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US judge tosses gun conviction against Buju Banton
A federal judge in Florida has tossed a 2011 gun conviction against Buju Banton after concluding that a juror did independent research into the case during the Jamaican reggae star’s trial. Read more..
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This Week’s Corrupt Cops Stories
A Wisconsin cop and a Washington cop face justice for their pervy behavior, and a New Mexico jail guard and a Georgia cop get in trouble over marijuana. Let’s get to it.. Read more..
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