The title of this post is the headline of this recent commentary from the Dallas Morning News, which gets started this way: Want to end the death penalty in Texas? Quit being a sucker. Stop turning death row inmates into...
"Stop turning death row inmates into tragic celebrities"
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Politico: Panel 'close' to killing NSA programs
Politico: Panel 'close' to killing NSA programs by Darren Samuelsohn:
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Criminal Lawyer Baltimore Maryland
Criminal Defense Lawyer Baltimore, MarylandDo you need a criminal lawyer in Baltimore, Maryland call attorney Randolph Rice, at 410-288-2900 for immediate legal help or click here to email him directly?Baltimore Maryland Criminal LawyerG. Randolph Rice, Jr.410-288-2900RiceLawMd@gmail.comHave you been charged with a crimes, misdemeanor or felony in:Baltimore County, Md.;Baltimore City, Md.;Harford County, Md.;Howard County, Md.;Anne Arundel County, Md.; orOcean City, Maryland.You want to contact a lawyer that handles criminal law cases in Baltimore, Maryland. Contact my office at 410-288-2900 to speak with attorney Randolph Rice.Mr. Rice is a former Assistant State's Attorney in Maryland and a private attorney since 2009. He has handled thousands of criminal law cases in and around Baltimore, Maryland.Let his experience go to work for you in the court room. If you have been charged with any of the following crimes in Maryland, call my office today to schedule a free consultation:Alcohol Violations;Arson & Malicious Burning;1st / 2nd Degree Assault;Bad Check;Bail / Bonds;Burglary (1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th);Carjacking;Controlled Dangerous Substances;Destruction of Property;Disorderly Conduct;Domestic Violence;Drug Crimes;False Statement;Firearms;Forgery;Fraud;Gambling / Gaming Crimes;Harassment;Homicide / Murder;Indecent Exposure;Kidnapping;Malicious Destruction of Property;Manslaughter;Minors / Juvenile Crimes;Murder;Natural Resource Violations;Obstructing and Hindering;Peace / Protective Orders;Prescription Drug Crimes;Rape;Resisting Arrest;Robbery / Armed Robbery;Sexual Offenses;Theft;Trespassing;Weapon Crimes.View Larger MapCall the office today at 410-288-2900 if you have been charged with a crime or facing criminal charges in Baltimore, Maryland.
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OH - Former Minerva police officer (Timothy A. Patterson) arrested on multiple sex charges involving four teenagers
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CO - State attorney (Lucy Martin) fired for alleged sexual relationship with inmate
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The Core Mystery of Quantum Mechanics
You know I love physics. You know I don't understand it, but I do have some questions that need answering. Today's mystery involves quantum mechanics. Here's Richard Feynman's observation:
"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics... Do you not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that."
It makes me feel a little better when a Nobel Prize winning physicist claims that nobody understands quantum mechanics, but surely, his lack of knowledge far exceeds most. With that in mind, let's review the fundamentals.
Matter, at the most basic level, behaves in odd ways. Everything around us is made up of atoms, and those atoms are made of even smaller things, and it is the behavior of those smaller things that describes the field of quantum mechanics. Things like photons and electrons can behave as either a particle, or a wave. Actually, I suppose you could say that an electron may "be" either a particle, or a wave. If the electron is a wave, then it will be found in many different places all at once, and this odd fact has been verified through the famous double-slit experiment.
The double-slit experiment takes one single photon (or electron) and shoots it at two tiny doors, or slits. Behind the two slits is a detector which will display which slit the photon went through. So, if a photon is only a particle, you would expect the detector to show that the photon landed behind only one of the two slits. After all, one "thing" can't fit through both openings. The problem is, when we shoot one photon at the two slits, a pattern emerges on the back wall detector. The pattern detected is one of interference--the kind of interference that can only be caused by that one photon going through both slits at the same time, and thus behaving as a wave. What's even more confusing is the fact that, if you decide to detect which of the two slits the photon will go through, it will indeed only go through one of the slits--and thus a different pattern will be shown on the detector screen. Yes, the photon somehow figured out it was being measured, so it only goes through one slit while being measured (no way to determine which slit, but that's another story).
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Troll Management
When Elie Mystal first told me that Breaking Media, the corporate overlord of Above the Law, was going to try to throw a conference about blogging, I wondered whether he was trying to ask me to give a presentation or sit on a panel, perhaps. Nope. They wanted nothing to do with me, though David […]
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Prison Clamps Down Following Colorado Prison Chief's Murder
The Denver Post
One year
after a parolee killed state prisons director Tom Clements, life behind
bars — and beyond — is far different for Colorado convicts. After
years of declining prison populations — reductions that Clements had
trumpeted — the number of inmates has risen in the past year as a direct
result of his slaying.
Among the factors:
The Colorado Parole Board granted an
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NE CoA botches a curtilage case
Defendant was convicted of 25 counts of having "junked motor vehicles" on his property in the city. From the street, the code enforcement officer saw the vehicles, then he entered the property to record the VINs. The court held that there was probable cause for the entry, and expressly declined to decide open fields, and thus by implication curtilage. [Thus, the court botched it, and hopefully it will be revisited on rehearing or by the state supreme court. Probable cause alone doesn't make an entry on to a person's property right. That's fundamental Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. The cars weren't going anywhere. Either get a warrant or argue open fields. This is just wrong. I can't say Mr. Meints would win, but the court shouldn't have decided this so superficially.] City of Beatrice v. Meints, 21 Neb. App. 805, 2014 Neb. App. LEXIS 66 (March 11, 2014):
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AP: US lags as commercial drones take off around globe
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S.D.W.Va.: Police lie about having SW when they had cotenant consent deprived defendant of opportunity to object; suppressed
Defendant was dealing drugs out of his girlfriend’s house, and she was upset about it. She met with the police, signed a consent to search and gave them the key. They entered but told defendant they had a search warrant. This lie deprived the defendant the meaningful opportunity to object under Randolph. Considering separately the question of exclusion, the court finds it is the proper remedy for this misleading conduct. United States v. Rush, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32632 (S.D. W.Va. March 13, 2014):
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WI - Residents seek fix for sex offender clusters in older neighborhoods
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ME - Man tells police he forced sex offender to overdose
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Joe Straus, ALEC, and electronic privacy
My old pal Forrest Wilder at the Texas Observer reported recently in breathless tones that Texas House Speaker Joe Straus is helping the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) - which he dubbed an "embattled corporate-funded group that pairs lawmakers with special interests to write legislation in secret" - to fundraise in Texas.Forrest worries that, "Straus is generally considered one of the few bulwarks in state government against tea party excesses. Why would he join forces with ALEC?"On the other hand, lawmakers getting together with special interests and writing legislation in secret is hardly a new thing. At least when ALEC backs such legislation it eventually becomes a public strategy and everyone can agree or disagree on the bills themselves as they appear. From my own perhaps-myopic perspective, Grits is rather pleased to see the Speaker's affiliation with ALEC because, during the 83rd session, Straus and his allies on the House Calendars Committee were the principal barrier to getting the lower chamber to vote on electronic-privacy legislation carried by sometimes-Straus critic Rep. Bryan Hughes. But lately, Hughes has been working with ALEC to create model electronic privacy legislation based in part on his Texas bill requiring police to obtain warrants for cell-phone location data as well as legislation that passed (amended to something else, not as an independent bill) requiring warrants for cloud-based email and other content.Hughes' bill had more than one-hundred joint and co-authors, so if it had ever been granted a floor vote it would easily passed. (In fact, the bill was amended on the House floor on a 126-4 vote to a senate bill but the senate author, John Carona, who was ousted in the recent primary, used a parliamentary maneuver to pass a version that didn't include it.) Will a closer affiliation with ALEC help convince Joe Straus to embrace electronic privacy legislation instead of hinder it? I hope so. Certainly I'm not going to spend a lot of time fretting over the Speaker's very pragmatic decision to affiliate with them.
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Garden State DWI-DUI News: Multiple DWIs in the Same Week for Monmouth County Resident
Here in the Garden State, cases involving motorists who have been charged with DWI can be prosecuted in several ways. One of the more common approaches used by municipal prosecutors includes charges of driving under the influence based on a blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08 percent or more. This type of case involves what is known in legal circles as a "per se" charge. As a well-established legal firm, my colleagues and I have nearly 100 years of collective trial law experience, including drunk driving and drug DUI defense of cases base on per se evidence.
In situations of drivers being charged for operating a motor vehicle while impaired based on a BAC measurement of 0.08 percent or above, those per se DWI charges refer to the legal definition, that is, the driver's actions were inherently illegal. The New Jersey legal statutes essentially make driving with any BAC over the 0.08-percent limit an unlawful act. The per se aspect essentially says that the circumstances surrounding how or why the driver became intoxicated is not relevant to the prosecution of the offense.
Because per se DWI charges do not require extrinsic proof of any surrounding circumstances, it is much easier to prosecute a driver based solely on measurement of blood-alcohol content than other more subjective evidence, such as results from a roadside sobriety field test, etc. Drunk driving, from a per se standpoint, is essentially a chargeable offense made so by New Jersey statute. This is not exclusive to New Jersey, as many other states also have laws that make driving with a certain level of alcohol in one's system illegal per se.
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Dealing with DHS (in Iowa) and DCFS (in Illinois)
Each state has its own child protective services agency. In Illinois, that agency is called the Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS). In Iowa, it goes by the name Department of Human Services (DHS). A person who finds themselves facing a DHS or DCFS investigation, no matter how baseless that investigation may be, is […]
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JUVENILES BEING PROSECUTED AND SENTENCED AS ADULTS
In January of 2014 Cass Tech High School quarterback, 17 year old Jayru Campbell, was accused of body slamming a school security guard on school property. Allegedly there exists a video of the incident. The Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney, Kym Worthy, has charged Campbell with Assault with Intent to do Great Bodily Harm Less Than […]
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Broward DUI Defense: Marijuana Impairment a Growing Issue
Colorado, one of just two states in the country to approve the use and sale of marijuana for recreational purposes, also has one of the strictest drugged driving laws in the nation, holding that the presence of 0.5 nanograms of pot in one's system necessitates a DUI.
The state's department of transportation has recently unrolled a series of advertisements aimed at discouraging driving while stoned. The primary message: "Get high, Get a DUI."
Our Fort Lauderdale DUI defense lawyers recognize this approach as a bit misguided. Here in Florida, the drug remains illegal for any purpose, but voters will be given the opportunity in November to decide whether to green light medicinal marijuana, following in the path of 21 other states and the District of Columbia.
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The Futility and Costs of the “War on Drunk Driving”
For the past couple of decades we have seen increasingly severe punishment for misdemeanor drunk driving offenses, often exceeding those imposed for serious felonies. Spurred on by MADD's "War on Drunk Driving", this never-ending flood of politically-popular laws has continued to blindly accept the idea that imposing harsher sentences will eventually eradicate DUI-caused traffic fatalities. With each […]
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Police tech roundup
Here are several items related to policing tech that caught my eye today:Speeding and TweetingCops in Keller, TX are posting on Twitter and Facebook where and when they'll be doing traffic enforcement in hopes that people who know they'll be there will avoid speeding in the first place. Seems like a sensible plan.Police body cams and privacyGrits is generally a fan of police wearing body cams because it generates better evidence in criminal cases and provides a prophylactic against wrongdoing. But there are a handful of legitimate privacy issues cameras bring with them - toilet time, talking to confidential informants, etc. - that are discussed in this article and especially, in much more detail, in the comments. Not insurmountable, but the issues need to be discussed as this tech become more widespread.Utah Lege: Require warrants for location data, content Utah this month passed several notable pieces of electronic privacy legislation, including a bill "to obtain the location, transmitted data, or stored data of an electronic device such as a mobile phone or laptop. The bill requires law enforcement to delete any data they collect that doesn’t pertain to the suspect named in the warrant. It also requires notification to the individual that the location or data was obtained, much like a person is served a copy of a traditional warrant when physical property is searched or seized."The FBI and signals intelligenceDon't just worry about the NSA invading your privacy, worry about the FBI. This article from Foreign Policy delves into the FBI's growing domestic signals intelligence capacity aimed at foreign embassies, but the same tech could be and is used in domestic criminal investigations.The 'spy in your pocket' Dave Lieber at the Dallas Morning News had a column last month about the nexus between government and commercial cell phone tracking. See also recent columns at Wired touting the benefits, or at least relevant benevolence, of the 21st century consumer surveillance society.I spy with my little surveillance cameraCheck out examples of concealed surveillance devices from the Middle East and Guantanamo Bay, the latter of which was used to listen in on conversations between prisoners and their defense counsel.
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More Pages to Explore .....
