Jo John John, 36, the man at the wheel of the boat which crashed into barges near the Tappan Zee Bridge last summer, killing two, was sentenced in Rockland County Court on September 16, 2014 to two years in jail. John pled guilty earlier this year to vehicular manslaughter in the deaths of 30 year old Mark Lennon, of Pearl River, New York, and 30 year old Lindsey Stewart, of Piermont, NY, which occurred on July 26, 2013. Stewart was to be married one month later to Brian Bond, who was injured in the tragic crash. Mr. John apologized to the Stewart and Lennon families at his sentencing before receiving the two year sentence, which spares him the possibility of serving time in state prison. Blood alcohol results revealed that Mr. John had a BAC (blood alcohol concentration) in excess of 0.15% at the time of the fatal accident, almost two times the legal limit of 0.08%. However, Mr. John, the family members of Mr. Lennon and Ms. Stewart, and other…
Rockland County Boat Operator Sentenced To Two Years In Fatal Crash
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St. Paul Will Pay Police K9 Bite Victim $65,000
The St. Paul police are tasked with taking a bite out of crime, but a bite by one of their K9 units will take $65,000 out of the city budget. The Saint Paul city council is expected to approve a $65,000 settlement on Wednesday to Kongmeng Kue, a resident who was wrongfully bitten by a K9 dog during a search. According to the incident report, police responded to a call about a drunk Asian male in the Payne-Phalen area on the night of May 3, 2012. While the police scanned the area, an unrelated African American male fled the area after dropping a handgun. Police halted their search for the drunk man and attempted to track down the suspect who dropped the gun. A K9 unit joined the search and soon picked up the scent of the inebriated man. Kue, rattled by the shouts of police to reveal himself, hid behind a trashcan. The K9 unit approached the hidden man and bit him on the cheek and neck. The police report states that the officers “quickly determined that this was not our…
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Cruel and Usual Punishment in Jails and Prisons
That's the title of a Los Angeles Times OpEd by by attorney Martin Garbus. The 8th Amendment bans cruel and unusual punishment. Yet it happens every day in prisons across the country. Putting aside capital punishment, which I would argue...
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The Cost Issue in Arizona
KTAR-FM posts, "The real cost of the death penalty in Arizona," by Cooper Rummel. There is audio at the link. In Arizona, 119 inmates call death row home, and the majority of them have been locked up for several decades....
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University of Oregon hired sex offender to talk sexual assault awareness to athletes
9-30-2014 Oregon: KATU’s On Your Side Investigators have learned a convicted sex offender was hired by the University of Oregon to talk to athletes about sexual assault. A contract obtained by KATU says Adam Ritz was paid $4,000 to give the football team alcohol and sexual assault awareness training. Ritz was convicted of sexual battery 10 years ago after a woman who babysat his kids accused
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Penalties for Negligent Childcare
Leaving a Child Unattended in a Car Nevada is notorious for its hot summers. Pair triple digit temperatures with busy parents, and it’s no surprise that a number of children are left unattended in cars each year. Usually this is unintentional, and no lasting harm comes to the child. Nonetheless, the parent may be charged under NRS 202.575 for leaving a child unattended in a car. It’s happened to many parents at some point. While trying to juggle responsibilities, something important sometimes gets overlooked. More than one parent has accidentally locked a child in the car with their keys. A call to a locksmith or the police is usually enough to remedy the situation. Still, some parents may face criminal charges under NRS 202.575. Whether you accidentally left your child unattended or left the car for just a moment with the intention of hurrying back, you can still be charged. Fortunately, the criminal defense firm at the Potter Law Offices can help you craft a…
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Update on DOJ's Decision to Reverse Course on Appellate Waivers
Yesterday, we posted a blog entry concerning an anticipated announcement by Eric Holder involving the Department of Justice's decision to stop requiring appellate waiver provisions in plea agreements in federal court. Although the announcement has not yet been made, a number of individuals with whom we have spoken confirmed that the announcement should indeed be made soon. Importantly, however, those same individuals have mentioned that the Department's decision to alter its current policy on appellate waivers is going to be limited to the removal of ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC) claims only from those waiver provisions. In other words, it is our understanding that the Department will continue to insist on appellate waivers in plea agreements but it will remove the IAC waiver provisions from those agreements. Accordingly, as we understand it, under the anticipated new policy, individuals will not be required to waive current and future IAC claims. …
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You Are Not A Professional Criminal
You should not feel bad. Believe me, you are not the first person to be fooled by police into making a statement or doing something else incriminating. Remember: They are professionals. They are good at what they do. And you are not a professional criminal. Lots of educated, savvy and sophisticated people have fallen for the exact same trick. Some people may in fact talk police out of arresting them. It is hard for me to know because, typically, I only see the people after they have tried and failed to do this. But you should not be fooled by the suggestion that you can avoid criminal charges by writing a letter of apology to the victim. The letter serves only as your signed confession. And you shouldn’t be taken in by assurances that police just want to hear your side of the story before they decide whom to charge. This decision was made a long time ago. By the time you are sitting with the detective in…
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Gina Warren: "Regulating Pot to Save the Polar Bear"
Gina S. Warren of Texas A&M School of Law has posted a very interesting looking new article to SSRN: "Regulating Pot to Save the Polar Bear: Energy and Climate Impacts of the Marijuana Industry." Here is the abstract: It goes by many names -- cannabis, marijuana, pot, chronic, grass, reefer,...
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Ex Post Facto Clause of the United States Constitution...cont
The Court finds that Section10.07(c), which provides that persons who committed felonies that were not sex offenses before SOMTA may be subject to the civil management provisions of SOMTA, does not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause. SOMTA enjoys a strong presumption that they are constitutional. A party challenging a statute must demonstrate that the statute is invalid beyond a reasonable doubt. In the case at bar, the respondent has failed to meet this burden. Section 10.07(c) of Article 10 meets the Supreme Court's two-step inquiry, set forth in Hendricks and Mendoza-Martinez, required to determine whether it is punitive in intent or effect. With respect to the first step, as set forth more fully below, the Court finds that with respect to the provisions at issue, the Legislature's intent was civil in nature. Even though, as noted below, the Criminal Court finds that the Legislature's intent was to establish a statute civil in nature, the court must also…
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News Scan
Murderer Sentenced to Life: A Massachusetts man convicted of murdering three people in 2011 has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Anthony Fay of WWLP News reports that Caius Veiovis was sentenced to three consecutive life terms for the killings, which is the mandatory sentence required under state law. Two other men were also convicted in the murders and are currently serving life terms. Prosecutors May Pursue the Death Penalty for Beheading Suspect: Prosecutors in Oklahoma have announced that they will likely seek the death penalty against 30-year-old Alton Nolen, the man accused of beheading a woman at his former work place last week. Michael Martinez of CNN reports that Nolen, an ex-con, allegedly attacked two women at a food processing plant after learning that he had been fired, Nolen beheaded one woman and was attempting to behead the other when he was shot by a reserve deputy sheriff. Nolen has a lengthy…
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Ohio AG puts onus on Ohio legislature to reboot state's machinery of death
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Inside Look on Freeing the Innocent
Nearly a month after two North Carolina half brothers were declared innocent and ordered released from prison based on DNA evidence that implicated another man, two people who played pivotal roles in overturning their convictions spoke about the case to North Carolina's Public Radio. Henry Lee McCollum, 50, who spent 30 years on death row, and Leon Brown, 46, were convicted of the rape and murder of a young girl and languished behind bars until the North Carolina's Innocence Inquiry Commission started an investigation into their case. Kendra Montgomery-Blinn, the Commission's executive director, and Sharon Stalleto, the chief investigator, reviewed the brothers' case and uncovered evidence that revealed both men were wrongly convicted.Listen to Montgomery-Blinn and Stalleto describe their experience working on the case and read more about it.
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Oklahoma Issues New Execution Protocol & LI Drug Policy
The Oklahoma execution protocol is available in Adobe .pdf format, as is the Department of Corrections' Lethal Injection Drug Policy. Dale Baich, an attorney representing Oklahoma death row inmates issued a statement, "In Response to Today’s Release of Oklahoma Execution...
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Additional Coverage From Ohio
Time posts, "States Try Secrecy to Protect Lethal Injection Drugmakers," by Josh Sanburn. States carrying out lethal injections have had to find new ways to execute inmates in recent years. Many have not only experimented with multiple untested drug combinations...
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Does retaliation explain mentally ill Harris County inmate jailed amidst filth, feces?
Hard to stomach recent reports by KTRK in Houston that "A Harris County jail inmate, jailed on a marijuana charge while on probation and in need of mental health care, was left in his cell for weeks without being let out, living amid heaps of trash, swarms of bugs, and piles of his own feces." The Sheriff told the Houston Chronicle the episode was a one-off. But that doesn't jibe with KTRK's report that, "According to interviews with whistleblowers, many officials in the jail knew about the cell and its condition, including at least three lieutenants, one captain, one major and two chief deputies, including Chief Deputy Fred Brown, who oversees jail operations." A Texas Commission on Jail Standards inspection on Monday did not find the situation replicated.The jail shouldn't be run that way, but the courts and defense counsel in the case may also share some blame: Terry Goodwin was arrested for marijuana possession but remained in…
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Wednesday Open Thread
Our last open thread is full, here's another one, all topics welcome. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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Judge: Texas open records law applies to private prisons
Travis County District Judge Gisela Triana last month ruled that the Texas Public Information Act applies to private prison records, reported the blog Texas Prison Bidness. The case arose out of a lawsuit filed by Prison Legal News. This is a big deal.
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Do Not Vote Republican
It is not true that all politics is local. Voting for a Republican congressperson or senator means you are aiding and abetting a national party that is little more than a collection of far right wing lunatics who don't believe in man-made climate change (much less in mitigating it), the minimum wage (much less in increasing it), recklessness of Wall Street (much less in regulating it), immigration by people of color (much less in reforming it), gun control (much less in legislating it), or a woman's right to her own choice (not only to terminate a pregnancy but to use birth control).The first one -- climate change -- should be enough to disqualify anyone from office. It is the single most critical issue of our time and you can't find one Republican candidate who is not only willing to proffer a solution but who is willing to admit the problem even exists. A recent…
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New CME Rule Governing Disruptive Trading Practices
On August 28, 2014, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago Inc., the New York Mercantile Exchange Inc. and the Commodity Exchange Inc. (collectively, the “Exchanges”) announced that they were going to adopt new Rule 575, called Disruptive Practices Prohibited. Rule 575 was implemented on September 15, 2014. While the new Rule 575 merely codifies the Exchanges’ existing rules, the new rule illustrates exactly what the Exchanges view as constituting disruptive order entry and trading practices. The Exchanges also released Market Regulation Advisory Notice RA 1405-5 (RA1405-5), which provides more guidance on what actions and behaviors will be deemed disruptive order entry and trading practices. Generally, Rule 575 prohibits market participants from spoofing, violating bids or offers, or demonstrating intentional or reckless disregard for the orderly execution of transactions during the closing period. Spoofing refers to…
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