Whipped Cream Difficulties

I love a good heist. But it has to be a good one; that is, there has to be an element of panache to it, not just a random smash and grab. Something like this:

Los Angeles police detectives sought help from the public Tuesday to identify two armed burglars who stole several million of dollars in jewels after tunneling into a downtown jewelry store.

From a second LAT article about the heist:

Investigators said the burglars dug the tunnel at a key point that avoided structural obstacles, allowing them to get in and out quickly.

I’ve previously mentioned Where the Money Is: True Tales from the Bank Robbery Capital of the World in this space. Chapter four, “The Hole in the Ground Gang” discusses a group of bank robbers who pulled off a series of robberies by digging tunnels from the sewer system under and into bank vaults. That group was never caught, and apparently retired from the business. I wonder, though…

A nearly unanimous Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the First Amendment protects even hurtful speech about public issues and upheld the right of a fringe church to protest near military funerals.

Right decision. Westboro is still a bunch of jackasses.

This decision got a lot of press yesterday. I’m kind of hoping one of my legal readers can explain why:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a shooting victim’s statement to the police at a crime scene can be used in court, even if the victim later dies and cannot testify at a trial.

I’m confused because I’ve always understood “dying words” to be an exception to the hearsay rule. (Wikipedia is not a lawyer. Wikipedia is not your lawyer. Neither am I. Contents may settle in shipping.) What exactly does this decision change?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011 at 1:10 pm and is filed under California Über Alles, Clippings, IANAL, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.