IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE - generated by our News Release ListServer DO NOT REPLY --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IDAHO STATE POLICE NEWS RELEASE District 3 Patrol 700 S. Stratford Dr., Meridian 83642 (208) 846-7550 Fax (208) 846-7520 For Immediate Release: 01/10/2016 11:10 a.m. Please direct questions to the District Office The Idaho State Police would like to advise motorists that are traveling on US95 between Council and Cambridge to keep a look out for elk. They have been reported to be on the highway during the morning and nighttime hours when it is foggy. <JH / SG> -------------
Reported elk on US95 between Council and Cambridge
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Expecting (too?) much crime and punishment talk at Prez Obama's last State of the Union
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Sunday Open Thread
If I were going to write another post today, undoubtedly it would be on El Chapo. Rather than do that, I'll put up a new 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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Sorting out what’s a felony – deciphering North Carolina’s structured sentencing law
The Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) is one of the harshest federal gun laws. If a defendant has three or more violent felonies or serious drug crimes, the penalty for being a felon-in-possesion of a firearm goes from a maximum of ten years’ incarceration to a mandatory minimum of fifteen years and a maximum of life. Camden Barlow entered a guilty plea to being a felon-in-possesion knowing that the government believed that he was an Armed Career Criminal. After he pled, however, he sought at sentencing to first undo his plea by arguing that none of his prior convictions qualified him as a felon under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). He alternatively argued that even if he were a felon-in-possesion, he did not have the requisite three prior convictions for violent felonies required by the ACCA. He lost in the district court on both arguments. The two issues in the case were: (1) What is a felony? and (2) What is a violent felony?. As with many terms of art in federal sentencing,…
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Groton Woman Charged with Assaulting Boyfriend
According to an article in the MetroWest Daily News, a twenty-three year old Groton woman was recently charged with attacking her boyfriend. According to the article, the defendant was traveling in a car with her boyfriend on the Mass Pike. The boyfriend was talking on the phone with another woman and was planning on driving to this other woman’s house. The defendant allegedly became angry about the fact that the boyfriend was speaking with the other woman, grabbed the boyfriend’s cell phone, and threw it in the back seat of the car. The defendant then allegedly slapped her boyfriend in the face and hit him repeatedly. The boyfriend reportedly began hitting the defendant back and bit her left pinky finger. The boyfriend claimed that he struck the defendant in self-defense because he was traveling at approximately 55-60 miles per hour and was concerned he might crash. The boyfriend ultimately pulled over and state police troopers found the couple, both with visible…
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Corrupt Police Office Found Guilty of Distributing Marijuana, Making False Statements, Sentenced to One Month?
Bowling Green State University criminologist Philip M. Stinson is recognized as probably the nation’s best authority on police misconduct. Over a ten-year period, beginning in 2005, Stinson compiled a database of 11,000 cases of misconduct involving nearly 9,000 officers. Police misconduct is systemic in our criminal justice system. Police brutality, planting evidence, manufacturing evidence, perjury on the witness stand, routine siphoning of seized drug money, providing protection for drug dealers, abuse of authority, eliciting sexual favors during traffic stops, excessive force, unauthorized use of lethal force, and a host of other corrupt activities are prevalent, in one form or another, in most police departments across the country. This is especially so with the Little Rock, Arkansas Police Department (LRPD). Little Rock Arkansas’ Dirty Rob is a Dirty Cop Take, for example, the case of Randall Tremayn Robinson, who was known as…
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Noting criminal justice fallout when state judges and prosecutors behave badly
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Fault Lines is the Seinfeld of the Criminal Blogosphere
Ken Womble of Fault Lines won the Simple Justice award for blog entry of 2015 and that is fitting. Scott Greenfield has been complaining about the lack of vibrancy in the criminal blogsphere and Womble is a refreshing... Read More
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Michigan Ignition Interlock Violations are Tough!
In my role as a Michigan driver's license restoration lawyer, I deal with a lot of ignition interlock violations. Some of these cases are for my own past clients, while others are not. What I have noticed most is the increasing number of interlock violation cases that are not only part of my caseload, but that of the Michigan Secretary of State's Administrative Hearing Section, because I have seen that the hearing officers have a lot more of these cases on their schedules, as well. For everything I'm about to say about interlock violations, the bottom line is that the state has gotten really tough on these matters. Chances are, that's cold comfort to many readers, who are likely perusing this article and thinking, "Yeah, well, I wasn't drinking in the first place, so it's just bull$hit that I have to go through this!" Believe, me, I understand. Yet all the understanding in the world won't get your license back. As the saying…
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Winter Weather Brings Uptick in Car Thefts
Nobody likes getting into a cold car early in the morning on their way to work, but leaving your car running and unattended in an attempt to warm it up makes your ride an easy target for thieves. The latest round of cold weather in Minnesota has been associated with an uptick in car thefts, according to local police. There were nine reported car thefts in Minneapolis’ Third Precinct last week, and almost all of the cars were served to thieves on a silver platter. The keys were left in the ignition in seven of the nine thefts, and the unlocked car was left running without the owner present in five of the cases. Minneapolis Police Crime Prevention Specialist John Baumann said Minnesotans are tough, and they should suck it up for a few minutes to avoid becoming an easy target for thieves. “Save yourself a lot of trouble,” said Baumann. “It’s a lot simpler to put up with cold weather and stay in your vehicle.” You Can Get…
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"Guilt, Innocence, and Due Process of Plea Bargaining"
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Will my Charge Appear on My Criminal Record?
This is always one of the first questions people have and rightfully so. Having a conviction appear on your criminal history can create huge issues for employment, travel, and immigration (just to name a few). The answer will depend on the charge and whether or not you are convicted. Let’s walk through it. In New Jersey, there are motor vehicle offenses under Title 39, Disorderly Persons Offenses under Title 2C and indicatable offenses under Title 2C. There are also Municipal Ordinance Offenses that are enacted by each municipality/city. Ordinance violations are not under the State code (not Title 39 or Title 2C). Title 39 offenses appear on your driving record/abstract. Not on your criminal record. This includes DWI and Possession of CDS in a Motor Vehicle. You can’t remove items from your driving record. They stay forever. This is different than criminal. Title 2C convictions appear on your criminal record or CCH. A charge or being charged is not the same as being…
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Florida Woman Arrested for DUI, Allegedly Drove Recklessly with Four Children in Vehicle
On January 9, a Florida woman was arrested in Melbourne, FL after a passerby noticed she was driving at a high rate of speed without headlights, zigzagging through traffic on U.S. 1. The passerby reported the woman’s driving to authorities, who pulled over 33-year-old Jacquelyn Tadrous. Although she was said to be driving recklessly with four children in the vehicle, police also noticed she appeared to be intoxicated, and had open containers of alcohol inside the vehicle. The incident occurred at about 11:30 p.m. according to news reports. The children in the vehicle ranged from two to 16 years of age; Tadrous faces charges including child neglect, violation of probation, and driving under the influence. In addition, police said she was on probation for a July 2015 DUI conviction, and driving on a suspended license. Tadrous, a Rockledge resident, was incarcerated at the Brevard County Jail and held without bond pending her court appearance on Monday, January 11. In the…
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Minor In Possession of Alcohol In Texas
In this day and age, alcohol culture is a part of American life. However, there must be limits, and the law tries to enforce them. Most people agree that minors’ access to alcohol needs to be limited. As such, minor…Read more ›
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Penney on Standards of Suspicion
Steven Penney (University of Alberta - Faculty of Law) has posted Standards of Suspicion (Criminal Law Quarterly, Vol. 63 (2016)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Perhaps the most important way that the law regulates police and other law enforcement...
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The First Mistake was Calling it a Science
There is a sad piece in the Wall Street Journal today about the demise of librarians and university programs in library science, In the Age of Google, Librarians Get Shelved. People trained to run computers do not have the training to gather facts the way librarians do. I count as a loss the presence of libraries with I.T. help desks instead of librarians Not that a good professional investigator is the same as a reference librarian. Part of what we do is to pick up a phone or travel to interview people to get information that is not written down. Still, most of the time the first step is to do a lot of reading of documents, and we ask ourselves some of the same questions a good reference librarian would ask. And while it’s true that Google searching reduces the need for elementary help on different kinds of research, we are firm believers that Google does not replace the connections made by an alert human mind. The main reasons are: Google is a business and…
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2015: The Largest Spike in Murder in More Than 50 Years
The Marshall Project, a liberal but not unhinged group, has a commentary out with this appalling news: The "national spike in murder [in 2015 is] the largest single-year increase since at least 1960."If this does not set off alarms in Congress and in the states, nothing will. But what we see instead of alarm is a snarling complacency, in which the problem is not murder but -- ready now? -- the death penalty. This would be the death penalty the great majority of Americans continue to think is a morally acceptable punishment for (at least) the most aggravated murders.The other aggressively complacent response is that, for all these many prior years when murder and other sorts of violent crime have been decreasing, we've been too tough on criminals -- so now, in the wake of an astonishing murder surge, we should go easier and start emptying out the prisons!This is what passes for "logic" in…
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ACCUSED MURDERER OF TODDLER IS ARRAIGNED IN BOSTON COURT
Michael P. McCarthy, 35 and hereinafter, the “Defendant” went to court today. He is the gent who stands accused of actually killing the toddler known for months as “Baby Doe”. The court was Suffolk Superior Court in Boston. The charge is Murder in the First Degree. This was not the first time the Defendant was in court on this matter. He has been in jail since September 18, 2015. At the time, he was held without bail and the matter was in District Court. Now, the case has been indicted. He is in Superior Court where a conviction on the charge is possible (the charge cannot be prosecuted in District Court) and he faces the sentence of Life without the possibility of parole. The two-year-old Baby Doe (later identified as Bella Bond) is the identified victim in the matter. Her body washed up on the shores of Deer Island on June 25th. Boston.com tells us that, according to the Commonwealth, the Defendant had been living with Rachelle Bond…
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Illinois DUI Drivers Get License Back Faster
If the court convicts you of DUI in Los Angeles three or more times in 12 months, California’s Vehicle Code Section 13351 requires that the DMV suspend your license for three years. Illinois used to have similar license suspension laws for multiple DUI offenders, but a new state law has made it easier for drivers to retain their licenses or to get them back. As of January 1, 2016, Illinois drivers who have lost their licenses for five years or more due to multiple DUI convictions may apply for a restricted driving permit. The Chicago Tribune reports that elected officials, law enforcement professionals and public safety activists “reluctantly” came to the conclusion that giving these individuals limited driving privileges may actually be beneficial for other drivers. The new law also does away with the mandatory 30-day license suspension for those arrested on DUI charges. Has Illinois gone soft on DUI drivers? Not exactly. With the support of organizations…
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New Year’s Eve DUI Accident Injures DC Pedestrians
Last November, a man eventually charged with DUI in Los Angeles killed two people and injured several others when his car hit a minivan and then swerved onto a sidewalk. A similar accident—fortunately non-fatal so far—occurred in the District of Columbia on New Year’s Day. Twenty-five year old Malik Lloyd was apparently trying to turn from northbound 17th Street onto L Street in the early morning hours of January 1. Lloyd’s depth perception must have been off, however, because instead of making the corner he ended up skidding his car across the road, jumping the sidewalk and crashing into a floral planter and utility pole. His car continued down the sidewalk for several more feet, hitting seven people who were standing outside the “Bar Code” nightclub. Emergency crews took the victims to the hospital. Most were released, suffering only minor injuries, but one, the bar’s bouncer, was in critical condition the next day. Lloyd took off…
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