"Does the Death Penalty Require Death Row? The Harm of Legislative Silence"
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Texas Bill Mandates Parent Notify Other Parent of a Relationship With a Domestic Abuser
4-6-15 Texas: A parent appointed as a conservator of a child by court order has a duty to disclose to the other conservator of the child if they are living with a registered sex offender. H.B. 1470, filed by Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston) would require similar disclosure for a parent who is living with someone who has committed family violence, or becomes charged with family violence. Texas
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Former Key West Cop Gets Molestation Charges Dropped
A former Key West police officer who was recently accused of sexually abusing a minor will not be prosecuted on two charges of child molestation and one of lewd exhibition. Assistant State Attorney Val Winter, who had been prosecuting the case against the 42-year-old man, said that the charges were dropped because the girl’s parents believe discontinuing the case “is in the child’s best interests.” The abuse allegedly started when the girl was 10 and continued until she was 13. The man, who was a resource officer at Key West High School, turned himself in to the Monroe County Detention Center on Stock Island a year ago. He was released that same day after posting 10 percent of his bond, which was initially set at $100,000, and turning in his passport. According to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement arrest affidavit, the man allegedly intentionally forced the girl to touch his genitals in her bed at night. He was also accused of touching her breasts…
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Monday Open Thread
Jury Closing Arguments are in Tsarnaev today. I'll be in court most of the day. This is an open thread, all topics welcome. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
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How FedEx is Fighting Drug Charges Brought by the DOJ
Big-time marijuana dealers, international cocaine importers and sophisticated networks of interstate heroin pushers -- these are the types of people and organizations who tend to be caught in the tentacles of the Department of Justice (DOJ) when it comes to criminal drug charges. Now, as our Plantation and West Palm Beach drug crime defense lawyers know, you can add FedEx -- the international delivery and courier service -- to that list. That's right: FedEx is currently defending itself against 15 criminal counts enumerated in a 2014 indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. While the DOJ is arguing that FedEx violated federal drug crimes for transporting such illegal substances, the international courier service is arguing that it's protected against such charges as a company that "carries goods for the public."
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Man Jailed for Swindling Thousands in Fake Mortgage Assistance Scheme
Mortgage Fraud Blog. Anthony Carta, 53, Detroit, Michigan, was sentenced to 30 to 99 years in prison for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from more than 100 victims who believed he was going to help them with mortgage loans through his Southfield, Michigan, entity Freedom By Faith Ministries. As previously reported by Mortgage Fraud Blog, the defendant pleaded guilty on March 9, 2015, to charges contained in the indictment involving a criminal enterprise and false pretenses Oakland County Circuit Court. Carta was ordered to pay $400,000 in restitution to the victims. Freedom By Faith Ministries was ordered to pay $674,001 in restitution.The post Man Jailed for Swindling Thousands in Fake Mortgage Assistance Scheme appeared first on Mortgage Fraud Blog.
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Young & Munsch on Knowledge and Assertion of Rights
Kathryne M. Young and Christin L. Munsch (Stanford University - Bill Lane Center for the American West and University of Connecticut) have posted Fact and Fiction in Constitutional Criminal Procedure (South Carolina Law Review, Vol. 66, No. 445, 2014) on...
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Real Estate Business and Principals Sued for Illegal Flipping Scam
Mortgage Fraud Blog. Tri-State Holdings-32, LLC, and principals Brandon Miller and Tony Caldwell, are the subject of a lawsuit for allegedly running a scam house-flipping business. The suit alleges that the defendants quickly flipped homes and sought new buyers to purchase homes it had already sold to other consumers who had stopped paying. Existing homeowners often found that deeds had not been recorded in their name, offering no protection from the house being resold out from under them. According to the lawsuit, Tri-State sold Kansas City-area homes purchased at delinquent tax auctions, offering to renovate the homes, resolve the back taxes, and transfer them to new owners for an up-front payment of $500, plus additional payments of $399 per month. The average price of the homes the company offered for sale was in the $30,000-$40,000 range. At least 22 consumers who purchased homes from Tri-State but whose promised renovations went uncompleted. In some cases, back taxes were…
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What would it mean for DEA and DOJ to "defeat the Washington machine and unleash the American dream”?
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Do I Need To Appear In The Miamisburg Municipal Court?
For anyone facing a DUI charge in the Miamisburg Municipal Court your first appearance in court will be a mandatory appearance unless you hire an attorney prior to the date. The first appearance (called an arraignment) on a DUI charge requires an appearance. Traffic offenses which are NOT waiverable and therefore DO require a court appearance are as follows: Any felony/ indictable offense Operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs of abuse Leaving the scene/ personal injury or death resulting Allowing a minor to drive (no O.L) Driving while under suspension or revocation All school zone/ bus violations A third or more moving violations within twelve (12) months Eluding or fleeing an officer Drag racing All driver's license violations/ suspensions Physical control of a motor vehicle Charles M. Rowland provides a 24 hour number to help you out if you face a DUI charge in the Miamisburg Municipal Court. You can call (937) 776-2671 or visit…
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Cottone on Ignorance of the Law in the Regulatory Age
Michael Anthony Cottone has posted Rethinking Presumed Knowledge of the Law in the Regulatory Age (Tennessee Law Review, Vol. 82, No. 137, 2015) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In this article, I will examine the doctrine of ignorantia legis,...
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In The Back?
The question isn’t whether 17-year-old Justus Howell was up to no good. Buying a gun from some guy on the street is, without question, not the sort of thing that is likely to be ignored. But even kids who are up to no good shouldn’t end up dead from two bullets in the back. Zion police have said Justus Howell, 17, of Waukegan, was shot Saturday afternoon by an officer responding to a call about an altercation. On Monday, the Lake County Coroner’s Office issued a statement saying an autopsy showed one bullet struck Howell old in the left back, penetrating his heart, spleen and liver, and the second bullet struck him on the right side of his back. Tests to determine whether drugs were in the victim’s system are pending. Unless there is a drug that causes bullets fired at a person’s front to end up entering through his back, it’s pretty much certain that drug testing isn’t relevant to the material question of why police shot a…
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When does the Miranda right apply?
Your Constitutional Rights The Miranda warning is a verbal warning that all police officers must give a suspect before s/he is about to be taken into custody, and applies the whole time s/he is in custody. Custody means a formal arrest or the deprivation of freedom where a reasonable person does not feel like s/he can leave. It is the result of the famous 1996 Supreme Court case of Miranda v. Arizona, and has become part of established criminal procedure law to ensure that every American’s Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination is not violated. In that specific case, Defendant Ernesto Miranda was arrested by the Phoenix Police Department on March 13, 1963, on suspect of kidnapping and rape. After two hours of police interrogation, he signed a confession, and was subsequently convicted. Miranda’s lawyer appealed his conviction on the grounds his confession was never fully voluntary and should have been excluded from his…
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Drugs, "thugs," and other things we're taught to fear | Gabriel Sayegh |...
In case you missed this last year.. Throwback Tuesday
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2015 City Council Forum
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Columbus lawyer Todd A. Long wins major drug trafficking case
Our client, a 34-year old mother of one, ironically with the name of “Hope,” was found NOT GUILTY of complicity to commit trafficking in heroin by a jury in Lancaster (Fairfield County) Ohio. Hope was accused of being the supplier and alleged “ringleader” of a drug trafficking ring operating across Columbus and nearby parts of central Ohio. She was found and arrested by SWAT in a drug house with marked bills used in a drug transaction. Two undercover informants identified her as the supplier of drugs for the alleged drug ring. After a 3-day jury trial, the jury deliberated less than 3 hours before finding Hope NOT GUILTY of the drug trafficking charge. She was not charged with any other criminal offenses. The post Columbus lawyer Todd A. Long wins major drug trafficking case appeared first on Columbus Criminal Defense Attorneys | Ohio DUI Lawyers | Koenig & Long.
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Rand Paul Launches
Janet Hook of the WSJ has this story on Rand Paul's campaign launch and this video noting his differences from his father, who made several longshot bids for the White House.Hook describes Paul as having a "libertarian-leaning brand of conservatism." My impression is that he is a straight libertarian who agrees with conservatives only when those two very different paths happen to reach the same endpoint. (See Jonathan Haidt for a more complete explanation of conservative v. libertarian mindsets.)The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a feature on Paul's stands on issues. The one relevant to this blog is:CRIMINAL JUSTICEThis is an issue that largely sets Paul apart from the rest of the Republican field. He wants to restore voting rights to nonviolent convicted felons, eliminate mandatory minimum sentences, end the federal sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine and make it easier for people to expunge their criminal records. He…
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Boston Marathon Bomber Case Close to Ending
April 6, 2015 marks the closing arguments in the Boston Bomber case being played out in Federal court in Boston. The Federal criminal trial of Mr. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the sole survivor of the pair that is accused of planning, preparing and detonating an anti-personnel destructive device at the finish line at the 2013 Boston Marathon, is at its finish this week. Survivors and family members heard the Assistant United States Attorney, Mr. Chkravarty, make his closing arguments. His remarks described a deliberate and well planned attack in retaliation for the perceived harm the two men endured as a result of the U.S. led military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The second man, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed during his escape. Some of the Assistant United State’s Attorneys closing remarks are as follows: “The evidence here speaks for itself,” he said Immediately after that he showed to the jury several still images and a video of the victims before the bomb was…
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Injury Crash off Exit 168 in Jerome
IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: 4/07/2015 8:40 a.m. Please direct questions to the District Office The Idaho State Police is currently investigating an injury crash eastbound Interstate 84 at exit 168 on the off ramp in Jerome. The off ramp is blocked and it is advised that motorists find an alternate route. More information will be released once it becomes available. KL/HG -------------
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Massachusetts’ Expanded Parental Leave Law Provides Equal Parental Leave to Men and Women and Increases Protections for Employees Who Take Leave
Massachusetts’ expanded parental leave law, An Act Relative to Parental Leave, goes into effect today. The revised statute makes several significant changes to state law. First, it removes any doubt about whether men are entitled to leave. The amended law is gender neutral: men and women who work for employers with six or more employees are entitled to the same parental leave. Employees who have completed an initial probationary period – as set by the employer, but not to exceed three months – are entitled to 8 weeks unpaid parental leave. An employee who intends to take leave under the statute must provide 2 weeks’ notice of his or her anticipated departure date and intention to return, or provide such notice as soon as practicable if the reason for delay in providing notice is beyond the employee’s control. An employee who takes leave under the statute must be reinstated to the same position or a similar…
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