8-4-2013 Massachusetts:
A newly adopted law established this month to release information on moderate-risk sex offenders online is on hold until the state can determine whether it's fair and...
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SJC to review new sex-convict notification legislation
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Sheriff: White supremacists' kill claims 'bluster'
8-4-2013 South Carolina:
Claims made by a white supremacist couple facing murder charges that they were involved with several different killings and other crimes across South Carolina have not...
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The court sentenced the woman to a prison term of three to nine years on her conviction of grand larceny
A woman filed an appeal from the decision convicting her of the crimes of grand larceny in the second degree and in the fourth degree, forgery in the second degree and identity theft in the third degree. The woman’s husband...
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The Supreme Court ruled that it was an abuse of discretion to impose a minimum 4 year term of imprisonment
It was in the afternoon of July 17, 1973, the female complainant in this case entered the elevator at the first floor of her apartment building. She had a cast on her broken foot and was using crutches. The 30-year...
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Somali Pirates Get Life, Holdout Jurors Reject Death
A federal jury in Virginia has rejected the Government's request for the death penalty in the case of the three remaining Somali pirates charged with killing Americans on their sailboat 40 miles off the coast of Somalia.
Under federal law,...
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IN: Defendant ticketed for expired tag couldn't have backpack searched when he was released
Defendant was ticketed for an expired tag on his car. He’d been handcuffed and his backpack was in the police car. He was unhandcuffed and was free to go, but not until the backpack was searched for weapons for officer safety. The car was inventoried, but nothing criminal was found. The backpack had a little marijuana and paraphernalia in it. The officer smelled marijuana on the defendant. There was no indication of a weapon or cause for the search other than “procedure,” and that’s not enough. Miller v. State, 2013 Ind. App. LEXIS 360 (July 30, 2013):
[...] Read more!
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Ohio Inmate Kills Himself Days Before Execution
Billy Slagle has been on death row since his murder conviction in 1988. He was 18 at the time of the crime. His execution date was set for Tuesday. This morning, he was found hanged in his cell. He was in solitary confinement.
Cuyahoga County...
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It Will Be Our House
You buy an axe. The axe consists of two parts, a handle and a blade. After six months, the blade breaks and you replace it with another one. After another six months, the handle breaks and you replace it with another handle. The question they ask in your Philosophy 101 class in college is this: [...]
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CO - Man wrongly convicted of rape, murder expected to get $1.2 million settlement from Colorado
Original Article
08/04/2013
GRAND JUNCTION - A Mesa County man who inspired a new law compensating the wrongly convicted is nearing a monetary settlement with the state.
The Daily Sentinel reports that Colorado seeks to pay [name withheld] about $1.2 million. The 52-year-old was convicted of a 1994 rape and murder but was cleared by DNA evidence 17 years later. After his release, [name withheld] was living in poverty.
[name withheld]'s case inspired a new law granting exonerated...
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Open Your Eyes and Act
Paul Virilio offers up this observation taken from an unknown science-fiction story: There are eyes everywhere. No blind spot left. What shall we dream of when everything becomes visible? We’ll dream of being blind. Maybe. What I dream of is a day that, unfortunately, I know will almost certainly never come. At least, not in […]
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INDIA - Child abuse law can’t have retrospective effect
Wikipedia
Original Article
08/04/2013
By Sunil Baghel
Man accused of sexual abuse of his kids gets anticipatory bail as alleged offence was committed before the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act came into force in November 2012.
Refusing to give retrospective effect to the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 (PDF), the Bombay High Court has granted anticipatory bail to a man accused by his wife of touching his kids inappropriately.
Granting the man...
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42-Year Sentence For Mastermind of $200 Million Ponzi Scheme
A California man that orchestrated a Ponzi scheme that took in more than $200 million from victims has been sentenced to a 42-year prison term. Shasta County Superior Court Judge Bradley Boeckman handed down the sentence to James Koenig, 60, after a jury convicted Koenig of thirty-five criminal charges back in May 2013. The scheme is one of the largest in California history, with estimated total losses to victims in excess of $90 million.
Koenig ran Asset & Real Estate Investment Company ("AREI") along with fifty affiliated companies, telling potential investors that it specialized in senior housing centers. Beginning in 1997, AREI controlled more than twenty senior housing and residential assisted-living centers, pitching the centers as secure and profitable vehicles for tax-sheltered property exchanges. After purchasing an assisted living facility, Koenig would then sell ownership shares in the property to investors. Eventually, more than 1,000 victims would invest hundreds of millions of dollars with Koenig.
However, rather than reinvesting funds back into the centers, Koenig ran a massive Ponzi scheme that used investor funds to pay returns to existing investors, as well as financing a luxury lifestyle for himself and two co-conspirators. This included the purchase of an 80-acre castle estate, a Lear jet, luxury homes and fancy cars.
While investigators charged that AREI was insolvent no later than May 2007, Koenig continued to bring in new investors based on promises of false profitability. After an investigation, criminal authorities arrested Koenig in 2009 and charged him with 77 criminal charges - 40 counts of securities fraud and 37 counts of residential burglary based on Koenig's entry into investor homes to induce them to invest in his scheme.
According to authorities, Koenig failed to disclose to investors that he had a previous 1986 conviction stemming from his role in a gold-selling scam. He served two years in federal prison and was ordered to pay over $5 million in restitution to defrauded investors.
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The Officer responded that he saw the defendant in the house on May 7, 1992
A Suffolk Cocaine Possession Lawyer said that this is an appeal by the defendant from a judgment of Supreme Court, Suffolk County, rendered October 22, 1987, convicting him of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fourth degree and...
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DEA's Special Operations Division in Media Crosshairs
I'm delighted to see the media get on the case of the DEA Special Operations division.
A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database...
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Hackers now stashing child pornography on business websites
Hackers Pirate Flag
Original Article
So is the FBI, based on these stories.
08/05/2013
By Arturo Garcia
A new study from an online watchdog group shows a surge in complaints that hackers are manipulating both adult and regular business sites to spread viruses and images of children being sexually assaulted.
According to the BBC, the group, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), has tracked 227 reports of use of “orphan folders” to hide the offending material in the past six...
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Broward Man Exonerated - 13 Years After Death
In April 1985, a horrific crime was committed.
An 8-year-old girl was found unconscious in her Fort Lauderdale home. She had been raped, beaten, suffered an attempted strangling and was left for dead. She died nine days later of head injuries. ![handcuffs.jpg]()
Our Broward felony defense lawyers know this case was doubly tragic because we now know that the man who was arrested, tried and served 15 years on death row before dying of pancreatic cancer in 2000 - was innocent of the crime. He died in prison, labeled a child rapist and murderer.
From the beginning, the defendant had vehemently denied the charges and insisted on his innocence. Very few people, aside from his lawyers and a few close family members, believed him.
In the end, it was DNA evidence that exonerated him.
This case shows how sometimes police and prosecutors zero in on a single suspect and then spend all their efforts proving the theory that this individual is the guilty party. In many cases, disregarding evidence that might point to an even more likely suspect.
Sure, advanced technology and forensic sciences are available today that weren't back then. However, there is ample evidence that sometimes even forensic science isn't full-proof.
Sadly, the defendant in this case was a man whose own mother had been raped and murdered in Davie when he was still a teenager. As he sat on the witness stand during the penalty phase of his trial, he wept before jurors, imploring them to believe in his innocence. He told them, "My momma was killed like this... How do you think I feel about a rapist, and beyond that, a baby?"
Allegations have since surfaced that two detectives in the case railroaded this man, whom they had identified early on in the case and refused to ease their stance, to the exclusion of evidence that might have freed him.
In a recent civil lawsuit won by the now-deceased defendant's last surviving relative, it was revealed that the detectives pressured several witnesses to testify against the defendant. The case was weak.
The more likely individual was a man who reportedly raped and killed several women in the area. He was the cousin of the victim's mother. Photo sketches of the suspect also bore a striking resemblance to him - not the defendant.
There was evidence that a photo lineup, in which a witness identified this other man, was not turned over to defense attorneys until many years later. It was only turned over after several witnesses came forward to say they had been pressured by police to testify against the defendant.
One of the surviving sister's civil attorneys, after securing a $340,000 settlement from the county in the case, called for a U.S. Department of Justice investigation to be launched into Broward County's rape and murder convictions. Those in the 1970s and 1980s have later been found on numerous occasions to be riddled with errors.
Not only were innocent men deprived of years of their freedom, their reputations forever scarred, those who actually committed these crimes continued to prey upon new victims.
A spokeswoman for the sheriff's office called the case at hand an "isolated remnant" of an era during which criminal investigations were less scientific. We reject this characterization. In fact, it was sloppy police work - something that undoubtedly still exists today.
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Our Broward felony defense lawyers know this case was doubly tragic because we now know that the man who was arrested, tried and served 15 years on death row before dying of pancreatic cancer in 2000 - was innocent of the crime. He died in prison, labeled a child rapist and murderer.
From the beginning, the defendant had vehemently denied the charges and insisted on his innocence. Very few people, aside from his lawyers and a few close family members, believed him.
In the end, it was DNA evidence that exonerated him.
This case shows how sometimes police and prosecutors zero in on a single suspect and then spend all their efforts proving the theory that this individual is the guilty party. In many cases, disregarding evidence that might point to an even more likely suspect.
Sure, advanced technology and forensic sciences are available today that weren't back then. However, there is ample evidence that sometimes even forensic science isn't full-proof.
Sadly, the defendant in this case was a man whose own mother had been raped and murdered in Davie when he was still a teenager. As he sat on the witness stand during the penalty phase of his trial, he wept before jurors, imploring them to believe in his innocence. He told them, "My momma was killed like this... How do you think I feel about a rapist, and beyond that, a baby?"
Allegations have since surfaced that two detectives in the case railroaded this man, whom they had identified early on in the case and refused to ease their stance, to the exclusion of evidence that might have freed him.
In a recent civil lawsuit won by the now-deceased defendant's last surviving relative, it was revealed that the detectives pressured several witnesses to testify against the defendant. The case was weak.
The more likely individual was a man who reportedly raped and killed several women in the area. He was the cousin of the victim's mother. Photo sketches of the suspect also bore a striking resemblance to him - not the defendant.
There was evidence that a photo lineup, in which a witness identified this other man, was not turned over to defense attorneys until many years later. It was only turned over after several witnesses came forward to say they had been pressured by police to testify against the defendant.
One of the surviving sister's civil attorneys, after securing a $340,000 settlement from the county in the case, called for a U.S. Department of Justice investigation to be launched into Broward County's rape and murder convictions. Those in the 1970s and 1980s have later been found on numerous occasions to be riddled with errors.
Not only were innocent men deprived of years of their freedom, their reputations forever scarred, those who actually committed these crimes continued to prey upon new victims.
A spokeswoman for the sheriff's office called the case at hand an "isolated remnant" of an era during which criminal investigations were less scientific. We reject this characterization. In fact, it was sloppy police work - something that undoubtedly still exists today.
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Veteran's Court in Phoenix
In a recent, and very encouraging development, the city of Phoenix municipal court has started a Veteran's Court program. That is a program that is available only to veterans. To qualify, one must have served in United States military. It does not matter if the service was in the reserves or active duty, the type of discharge does not matter, combat duty is not required, and to qualify no deployment is required.
In other words, so long as anyone was in the military and received any sort of discharge, presumably even other than honorable or even dishonorable discharge, they are qualified for Veteran's Court. So what is the benefit of Veteran's Court?
In the context of a DUI case, a veteran who is facing DUI charges can have the charges reduced to the minimum 28-1381(A)(1) regardless of the blood alcohol content alleged. For example, even if someone is facing a super-extreme DUI charge, which means a minimum sentence of 45 days in jail, that veteran can have the charge reduced to the minimum DUI charge. Even better, even though there is a statutory requirement for at least one day in jail for even a first time DUI conviction, that veteran can avoid jail completely so long as he is compliant with all court ordered treatment.
For example, imagine a non-veteran convicted in the city of Phoenix with a BAC above .20. He would have to do 45 days in jail, which usually means 9 days in the county jail and another 5 days home arrest. But a veteran would not any jail time so long as he complied with the treatment the court ordered. Keep in mind, however, that treatment could be onerous in its own right: it could very well include inpatient treatment for months.
The idea behind Veteran's Court is that our veterans should not suffer criminal sentences as a result of their service. And while the category of "veteran" may seem broad, it is better to make the net wide and include as many veterans as possible.
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//blawgsearch75.rssing.com/chan-6519914/article3398-live.html
Saesee v. McDonald, No. 10-15895 (8-5-13)(Noonan with O'Scannlain and N. Smith). Petitioner's counsel, in a state murder case, gave an opening statement where he said that he was "counting" on a witness to corroborate what another witness would say. This just wasn't just any witness: it was the girlfriend, who was the alibi witness, and the corroborating witness would be the girlfriend's grandfather, who was "mad as hell" because teh granddaughter was subpoenaed. Well, at trial, the defense rested without calling the grandfather (the granddaughter did testify). Was this "promise" to the jury for corroboration IAC? Surprisingly, in an issue of first impression, the 9th holds, well, not here. The 9th recognizes that counsel's promises to the jury about witnesses appearing can be IAC when they are not fulfilled. here, though, the 9th said it really wasn't a promise, but more of a "hope." Counsel hoped that the witness would corroborate. A fine distinction, but one the state court made, and under AEDPA, it must be given deference.
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Monday Open Thread
Here's an open thread for all topics except Zimmerman.
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Fla. Prosecutor Gets 2 Years’ Suspension for Improper Contacts With Judge
Florida judges acknowledge that “justice requires the appearance of justice.” And given some of the controversial verdicts coming out of the Sunshine State — Casey Anthony and George Zimmerman come to mind — it seems more important than ever for the Florida judiciary to protect its institutional integrity. That might explain why the Florida Supreme Court [...]
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